Search results for: public/private partnerships
5776 The Effect of User Comments on Traffic Application Usage
Authors: I. Gokasar, G. Bakioglu
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With the unprecedented rates of technological improvements, people start to solve their problems with the help of technological tools. According to application stores and websites in which people evaluate and comment on the traffic apps, there are more than 100 traffic applications which have different features with respect to their purpose of usage ranging from the features of traffic apps for public transit modes to the features of traffic apps for private cars. This study focuses on the top 30 traffic applications which were chosen with respect to their download counts. All data about the traffic applications were obtained from related websites. The purpose of this study is to analyze traffic applications in terms of their categorical attributes with the help of developing a regression model. The analysis results suggest that negative interpretations (e.g., being deficient) does not lead to lower star ratings of the applications. However, those negative interpretations result in a smaller increase in star rate. In addition, women use higher star rates than men for the evaluation of traffic applications.Keywords: traffic app, real–time information, traffic congestion, regression analysis, dummy variables
Procedia PDF Downloads 4165775 Local Politics in Taiwan: The Comparison among Magistrates’ Administrative Satisfaction
Authors: Edward Hwang
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The efficiency of public policies depends on customer's satisfaction, and the change directions of public policies hinge on customer's assessment; i.e., the performance of public policies in governments is decided by the citizen's administrative satisfaction! The governments in all levels must heave their efficiency and effectiveness of public services to meet the people's substantially multiple needs in order to make citizens trust the governmental operation styles. To pursue the societal equality and justice, governments should treat people equally and provide more services for the disadvantages. The recent Dapu protest event involves Miaoli county Magistrate Liu cheng-hung who arbitrarily demolished houses and destroyed farmlands, and it shifts his popularity into disaffection. Liu case tells us that the political events are lethal to politicians; it cut almost 20% satisfaction degree for Magistrate Liu and hurt KMT support levels nationally. In terms of administrative satisfaction levels, political factors do matter, especially for the derogated events.Keywords: local politics, administrative satisfaction, Taiwan, customer satisfaction
Procedia PDF Downloads 4455774 The Effect of Configuration Space and Visual Perception in Public Space Usage at Villa Bukit Tidar Housing in Malang City
Authors: Aisyiyah Fauziah Rahmah
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Generally, an urban city has a rapid growth, it has frequent a variety of problems, especially of convenience in public space usage. The density of population in urban areas and the high activity is also indicated as a cause of urban resident lifestyle for the worse in social relationships and allow for the stress. Streets and green space (parks) are the only public space in a residential area which is used as a place to build social activity, to meet and interact with the other housing dweller. The high level of activity and social interaction that occurs will affect the spatial arrangement. It can be effected the space structures in housing more complex. Ease in access to public space is the reason many dweller prefer doing social activities there. Hillier in Carmona et al (2003) explains that the pattern and intensity of movement of individuals is influenced by the configuration of space, even the space structure can be regarded as the single most influential determinant of movements in the space. Whyte in Zhang and Lawson (2009) also suggest some factors such as seats, trees, water and legibility of space encourage people to stay in public outdoor space. Furthermore this activities can attract more activities. Villa Bukit Tidar is a housing in Lowokwaru District which highest number of people in Malang City, so social activity is also high there. It has natural and recreational concept and provided with view of Malang City from heights. This potential is able to attract the people who live there to stay in public outdoor space and doing activities there. From this study we can find whether the ease of access to public space and visual satisfaction of Villa Bukit Tidar housing affect the usage of public space. This study was carried out by observing the streets pattern and plot pattern to know the configuration space of Villa Bukit Tidar housing through values of connectivity and integrity by resulting from space sintax analysis. Distributing questionnaires also carried out to determine the level of satisfaction and importance perception of visual condition in the public space in Villa Bukit Tidar housing through Important Performance Analysis (IPA). Results of this research indicated that the public spaces in Villa Bukit Tidar housing who has high connectivity and integrity is considered to be visually satisfied and it has a higher public space usage than has low connectivity and integrity are considered to be visually dissatisfied.Keywords: configuration space, visual perception, social activities, public space usage
Procedia PDF Downloads 4815773 Short-Term Effects of Extreme Temperatures on Cause Specific Cardiovascular Admissions in Beijing, China
Authors: Deginet Aklilu, Tianqi Wang, Endwoke Amsalu, Wei Feng, Zhiwei Li, Xia Li, Lixin Tao, Yanxia Luo, Moning Guo, Xiangtong Liu, Xiuhua Guo
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Extreme temperature-related cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have become a growing public health concern. However, the impact of temperature on the cause of specific CVDs has not been well studied in the study area. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of temperature on cause-specific cardiovascular hospital admissions in Beijing, China. We obtained data from 172 large general hospitals from the Beijing Public Health Information Center Cardiovascular Case Database and China. Meteorological Administration covering 16 districts in Beijing from 2013 to 2017. We used a time-stratified case crossover design with a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) to derive the impact of temperature on CVD in hospitals back to 27 days on CVD admissions. The temperature data were stratified as cold (extreme and moderate ) and hot (moderate and extreme ). Within five years (January 2013-December 2017), a total of 460,938 (male 54.9% and female 45.1%) CVD admission cases were reported. The exposure-response relationship for hospitalization was described by a "J" shape for the total and cause-specific. An increase in the six-day moving average temperature from moderate hot (30.2 °C) to extreme hot (36.9 °C) resulted in a significant increase in CVD admissions of 16.1%(95% CI = 12.8%-28.9%). However, the effect of cold temperature exposure on CVD admissions over a lag time of 0-27 days was found to be non significant, with a relative risk of 0.45 (95% CI = 0.378-0.55) for extreme cold (-8.5 °C)and 0.53 (95% CI = 0.47-0.60) for moderate cold (-5.6 °C). The results of this study indicate that exposure to extremely high temperatures is highly associated with an increase in cause-specific CVD admissions. These finding may guide to create and raise awareness of the general population, government and private sectors regarding on the effects of current weather conditions on CVD.Keywords: admission, Beijing, cardiovascular diseases, distributed lag non linear model, temperature
Procedia PDF Downloads 505772 Revolutionizing Autonomous Trucking Logistics with Customer Relationship Management Cloud
Authors: Sharda Kumari, Saiman Shetty
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Autonomous trucking is just one of the numerous significant shifts impacting fleet management services. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has defined six levels of vehicle automation that have been adopted internationally, including by the United States Department of Transportation. On public highways in the United States, organizations are testing driverless vehicles with at least Level 4 automation which indicates that a human is present in the vehicle and can disable automation, which is usually done while the trucks are not engaged in highway driving. However, completely driverless vehicles are presently being tested in the state of California. While autonomous trucking can increase safety, decrease trucking costs, provide solutions to trucker shortages, and improve efficiencies, logistics, too, requires advancements to keep up with trucking innovations. Given that artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automated procedures enable people to do their duties in other sectors with fewer resources, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can be applied to the autonomous trucking business to provide the same level of efficiency. In a society witnessing significant digital disruptions, fleet management is likewise being transformed by technology. Utilizing strategic alliances to enhance core services is an effective technique for capitalizing on innovations and delivering enhanced services. Utilizing analytics on CRM systems improves cost control of fuel strategy, fleet maintenance, driver behavior, route planning, road safety compliance, and capacity utilization. Integration of autonomous trucks with automated fleet management, yard/terminal management, and customer service is possible, thus having significant power to redraw the lines between the public and private spheres in autonomous trucking logistics.Keywords: autonomous vehicles, customer relationship management, customer experience, autonomous trucking, digital transformation
Procedia PDF Downloads 975771 Organizational Socialization Levels in Nurses
Authors: Manar Aslan, Ayfer Karaaslan, Serap Selçuk
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The research was conducted in order to determine the organizational socialization levels of nurses working in hospitals in the form of a descriptive study. The research population was composed of nurses employed in public and private sector hospitals in the province of Konya with 0-3 years of professional experience in the hospitals (N=1200); and the sample was composed of 495 nurses that accepted to take part in the study voluntarily. Organizational Socialization Scale which was developed by Haueter, Macan and Winter (2003) and whose validity-reliability in Turkish was analyzed by Ataman (2012) was used. Statistical evaluation of data was conducted in SPSS.16 software. The results of the study revealed that the total score taken by nurses at the organizational socialization scale was 262.95; and this was close to the maximum score. Particularly the departmental socialization sub-dimension proved to be higher in comparison to the other two dimensions (organization socialization and task socialization). Statistically meaningful differences were found in the levels of organization socialization in relation to the status of organizational orientation training, level of education and age group.Keywords: nurses, newcomers, organizational socialization, total score
Procedia PDF Downloads 3375770 Women Inclusiveness in Government Leaderships and Public Relations
Authors: Larissa Kamdjong
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The purpose of this research is to introduce inclusive leadership as a distinct theoretical framework to understand its meaning and functions in advancing gender equality and empowerment in public relations leadership. By proposing women inclusive leadership theoretical model, we explored the roles of inclusive leadership in fostering an organization’s diverse climate and facilitating its practice of participative leadership in empowering women in public relations to reach their full potential in leadership advancement. Moreover, our results confirmed both direct and indirect impacts inclusive leadership could have on women’s perceptions of continued career growth opportunities. Our findings provide theoretical implications and practical solutions to address women’s leadership challenges through an inclusive leadership lens.Keywords: inclusiveness, empowerment, leadership, career opportunities
Procedia PDF Downloads 335769 The Role of ICTS in Improving the Quality of Public Spaces in Large Cities of the Third World
Authors: Ayat Ayman Abdelaziz Ibrahim Amayem, Hassan Abdel-Salam, Zeyad El-Sayad
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Nowadays, ICTs have spread extensively in everyday life in an unprecedented way. A great attention is paid to the ICTs while ignoring the social aspect. With the immersive invasion of internet as well as smart phones’ applications and digital social networking, people become more socially connected through virtual spaces instead of meeting in physical public spaces. Thus, this paper aims to find the ways of implementing ICTs in public spaces to regain their status as attractive places for people, incite meetings in real life and create sustainable lively city centers. One selected example of urban space in the city center of Alexandria is selected for the study. Alexandria represents a large metropolitan city subjected to rapid transformation. Improving the quality of its public spaces will have great effects on the whole well-being of the city. The major roles that ICTs can play in the public space are: culture and art, education, planning and design, games and entertainment, and information and communication. Based on this classification various examples and proposals of ICTs interventions in public spaces are presented and analyzed to encourage good old fashioned social interaction by creating the New Social Public Place of this Digital Era. The paper will adopt methods such as questionnaire for evaluating the people’s willingness to accept the idea of using ICTs in public spaces, their needs and their proposals for an attractive place; the technique of observation to understand the people behavior and their movement through the space and finally will present an experimental design proposal for the selected urban space. Accordingly, this study will help to find design principles that can be adopted in the design of future public spaces to meet the needs of the digital era’s users with the new concepts of social life respecting the rules of place-making.Keywords: Alexandria sustainable city center, digital place-making, ICTs, social interaction, social networking, urban places
Procedia PDF Downloads 4145768 Lessons Learned from Implementation of Remote Pregnant and Newborn Care Service for Vulnerable Women and Children During COVID-19 and Political Crisis in Myanmar
Authors: Wint Wint Thu, Htet Ko Ko Win, Myat Mon San, Zaw Lin Tun, Nandar Than Aye, Khin Nyein Myat, Hayman Nyo Oo, Nay Aung Lin, Kusum Thapa, Kyaw Htet Aung
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Background: In Myanmar, the intense political instability happened to start in Feb-2021, while the COVID-19 pandemic waves are also threatening the public health system, which subsequently led to severe health sector crisis, including difficulties in accessing maternal and newborn health care for vulnerable women and children. The Remote Pregnant and Newborn Care (RPNC) uses a telehealth approach United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Essential Health Project. Implementation: The Remote Pregnant and Newborn Care (RPNC) service has adapted to the MNCH needs of vulnerable pregnant women and was implemented to mitigate the risk of limited access to essential quality MNH care in Yangon, Myanmar, under women, and the project trained 13 service providers on a telehealth care package for pregnancy and newborn developed Jhpiego to ensure understanding of evidence-based MNCH care practices. The phone numbers of the pregnant women were gathered through the preexisting and functioning community volunteers, who reach the most vulnerable pregnant women in the project's targeted area. A total of 212 pregnant women have been reached by service providers for RPNC during the implementation period. The trained service providers offer quality antenatal and postnatal care, including newborn care, via telephone calls. It includes 24/7 incoming calls and time-allotted outgoing calls to the pregnant women during antenatal and postnatal periods, including the newborn care. The required data were collected daily in time with the calls, and the quality of the medical services is made assured with the track of the calls, ensuring data privacy and patient confidentiality. Lessons learned: The key lessons are 1) cost-effectiveness: RPNC service could reduce out of pocket expenditure of pregnant women as it only costs 1.6 United States dollars (USD) per one telehealth call while it costs 8 to 10 USD per one time in-person care service at private service providers, including transportation cost, 2) network of care: telehealth call could not replace the in-person antenatal and postnatal care services, and integration of telehealth calls with in-person care by local healthcare providers with the support of the community is crucial for accessibility to essential MNH services by poor and vulnerable women, and 3) sharing information on health access points: most of the women seem to have financial barriers in accessing private health facilities while public health system collapse and telehealthcare could provide information on low-cost facilities and connect women to relevant health facilities. These key lessons are important for future efforts regarding the implementation of remote pregnancy and newborn care in Myanmar, especially during the political crisis and COVID-19 pandemic situation.Keywords: telehealth, accessibility, maternal care, newborn care
Procedia PDF Downloads 855767 Humanity in Public Policy: The Polemic of Death Penalty Policy in Indonesia
Authors: Alvian R. E. Purnomo, K. Noni Srijati, Hernawan Adi
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Government regulation is a result of agreement on the struggle of ideas, interests, and ideologies among elites in state institution. The polemic about death penalty policy in Indonesia is still becoming an interesting discussion and also a complex issue. There are pros/ cons of whether the policy is humane or not. Indonesia becomes the concern of the world’s community because the policy of death penalty applied is considered not reflecting the values of Indonesian culture including tolerance, mutual cooperation, and love. This paper examines them using literature study on how public policy theories respond to humanity issues and how Indonesian government should take steps to the issue of the death penalty that has become polemic until now.Keywords: government regulation, public policy, death penalty policy, humanity
Procedia PDF Downloads 2985766 Job Satisfaction Levels of Nurses Working in Public Hospitals
Authors: S. Kurt, B. C. Demirbag
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Meeting employees’ expectations from an organization physically and mentally is a result of one’s assessing his or her work and its environment as well as his feeling about them. It was to determine the job satisfaction levels of the nurses in public hospitals. This descriptive study was carried out with 404 nurses (60%) accepting to take part in the study voluntarily and working in the same hospital for at least three months from 673 nurses working in hospitals depending on The Secretaryship of Public Hospital Association in Rize. The study aimed to reach the whole population by not taking samples. The data were collected by the personal information form (16 questions) prepared by the researcher, and the job satisfaction scale (36 articles) between June 1st and August 30th, 2014. According to scale, mean scores of nurses’ job satisfaction were 3.23±0.51. In addition, it was determined that the factors such as nurses’s age, marital status, childbearing, place of duty, position in workplace, being liked of job, education status, work experience, weekly working hours, maturing in professional practice, unit worked, hospital worked and colleagues affected the job satisfaction levels of nurses (p <0.05). In conclusion; the nurses’ general job satisfaction levels were moderate level.Keywords: hospitals, job satisfaction level, nurses, public hospitals
Procedia PDF Downloads 3505765 Computer Assisted Learning in a Less Resource Region
Authors: Hamidullah Sokout, Samiullah Paracha, Abdul Rashid Ahmadi
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Passing the entrance exam to a university is a major step in one's life. University entrance exam commonly known as Kankor is the nationwide entrance exam in Afghanistan. This examination is prerequisite for all public and private higher education institutions at undergraduate level. It is usually taken by students who are graduated from high schools. In this paper, we reflect the major educational school graduates issues and propose ICT-based test preparation environment, known as ‘Online Kankor Exam Prep System’ to give students the tools to help them pass the university entrance exam on the first try. The system is based on Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), which introduced an essential package of educational technology for learners that features: (i) exam-focused questions and content; (ii) self-assessment environment; and (iii) test preparation strategies in order to help students to acquire the necessary skills in their carrier and keep them up-to-date with instruction.Keywords: web-based test prep systems, learner-centered design, e-learning, intelligent tutoring system
Procedia PDF Downloads 3585764 A Flexible Real-Time Eco-Drive Strategy for Electric Minibus
Authors: Felice De Luca, Vincenzo Galdi, Piera Stella, Vito Calderaro, Adriano Campagna, Antonio Piccolo
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Sustainable mobility has become one of the major issues of recent years. The challenge in reducing polluting emissions as much as possible has led to the production and diffusion of vehicles with internal combustion engines that are less polluting and to the adoption of green energy vectors, such as vehicles powered by natural gas or LPG and, more recently, with hybrid and electric ones. While on the one hand, the spread of electric vehicles for private use is becoming a reality, albeit rather slowly, not the same is happening for vehicles used for public transport, especially those that operate in the congested areas of the cities. Even if the first electric buses are increasingly being offered on the market, it remains central to the problem of autonomy for battery fed vehicles with high daily routes and little time available for recharging. In fact, at present, solid-state batteries are still too large in size, heavy, and unable to guarantee the required autonomy. Therefore, in order to maximize the energy management on the vehicle, the optimization of driving profiles offer a faster and cheaper contribution to improve vehicle autonomy. In this paper, following the authors’ precedent works on electric vehicles in public transport and energy management strategies in the electric mobility area, an eco-driving strategy for electric bus is presented and validated. Particularly, the characteristics of the prototype bus are described, and a general-purpose eco-drive methodology is briefly presented. The model is firstly simulated in MATLAB™ and then implemented on a mobile device installed on-board of a prototype bus developed by the authors in a previous research project. The solution implemented furnishes the bus-driver suggestions on the guide style to adopt. The result of the test in a real case will be shown to highlight the effectiveness of the solution proposed in terms of energy saving.Keywords: eco-drive, electric bus, energy management, prototype
Procedia PDF Downloads 1305763 Public Perceptions of Solar Energy in South-West Nigeria
Authors: Kugbeme Isumonah
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The Nigerian State has continued to battle huge power supply challenges. Erratic supply, low voltage, and billing issues characterize its power sector. Solar power is increasingly being advocated for as a potential to Nigeria’s energy crisis. This study investigates how the Nigerian public perceives solar power. It employs the use of an open-ended online survey eliciting responses from participants resident in two of South-West Nigeria’s largest cities (Lagos and Ibadan). The study found that general attitudes towards solar power are positive, and the energy source is viewed with great optimism within the context of solutions to Nigeria’s energy issues. It also found no significant variation in public perceptions of solar power along demographic lines. Further, it found that finance represents the biggest barrier to broader solar power adoption. The results of this study provide evidence for policy formulation geared towards addressing finance difficulties that currently impede expansion of solar power use in Nigeria.Keywords: public perceptions, solar energy, Nigeria, attitudes
Procedia PDF Downloads 965762 Successful Public-Private Partnership Through the Impact of Environmental Education: A Case Study on Transforming Community Confrict into Harmony in the Dongpian Community
Authors: Men An Pan, Ho Hsiung Huang, Jui Chuan Lin, Tsui Hsun Wu, Hsing Yuan Yen
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Pingtung County, located in the southernmost region of Taiwan, has the largest number of pig farms in the country. In the past, livestock operators in Dongpian Village discharged their wastewater into the nearby water bodies, causing water pollution in the local rivers and polluting the air with the stench of the pig excrement. These resulted in many complaints from the local residents. In response to a long time fighting back of the community against the livestock farms due to the confrict, the County Government's Environmental Protection Bureau (PTEPB) examined potential wayouts in addition to heavy fines to the perpetrators. Through helping the livestock farms to upgrade their pollution prevention equipment, promoting the reuse of biogas residue and slurry from the pig excrement, and environmental education, the confrict was successfully resolved. The properly treated wastewater from the livestock farms has been freely provided to the neighboring farmlands via pipelines and tankers. Thus, extensive cultivation of bananas, papaya, red dragon fruit, Inca nut, and cocoa has resulted in 34% resource utilization of biogas residue as a fertilizer. This has encouraged farmers to reduce chemical fertilizers and use microbial materials like photosynthetic bacteria after banning herbicides while lowering the cost of wastewater treatment in livestock farms and alleviating environmental pollution simultaneously. That is, the livestock farms fully demonstrate the determination to fulfill their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Due to the success, Eight farms jointly established a social enterprise - "Dongpian Gemstone Village Co., Ltd." to promote organic farming through a "shared farm." The company appropriates 5% of its total revenue back to the community through caregiving services for the elderly and a fund for young local farmers. The community adopted the Satoyama Initiative in accordance with the Conference of the CBD COP10. Through the positive impact of environmental education, the community seeks to realize the coexistence between society and nature while maintaining and developing socio-economic activities (including agriculture) with respect for nature and building a harmonic relationship between humans and nature. By way of sustainable management of resources and ensuring biodiversity, the community is transforming into a socio-ecological production landscape. Apart from nature conservation and watercourse ecology, preserving local culture is also a key focus of the environmental education. To mitigate the impact of global warming and climate change, the community and the government have worked together to develop a disaster prevention and relief system, strive to establish a low-carbon emitting homeland, and become a model for resilient communities. By the power of environmental education, this community has turned its residents’ hearts and minds into concrete action, fulfilled social responsibility, and moved towards realizing the UN SDGs. Even though it is not the only community to integrate government agencies, research institutions, and NGOs for environmental education, it is a prime example of a low-carbon sustainable community that achieves more than 9 SDGs, including responsible consumption and production, climate change action, and diverse partnerships. The community is also leveraging environmental education to become a net-zero carbon community targeted by COP26.Keywords: environmental education, biogas residue, biogas slurry, CSR, SDGs, climate change, net-zero carbon emissions
Procedia PDF Downloads 1345761 The Analysis of Regulation on Sustainability in the Financial Sector in Lithuania
Authors: Dalia Kubiliūtė
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Lithuania is known as a trusted location for global business institutions, and it attracts investors with it’s competitive environment for financial service providers. Along with the aspiration to offer a strong results-oriented and innovations-driven environment for financial service providers, Lithuanian regulatory authorities consistently implement the European Union's high regulatory standards for financial activities, including sustainability-related disclosures. Since European Union directed its policy towards transition to a climate-neutral, green, competitive, and inclusive economy, additional regulatory requirements for financial market participants are adopted: disclosure of sustainable activities, transparency, prevention of greenwashing, etc. The financial sector is one of the key factors influencing the implementation of sustainability objectives in European Union policies and mitigating the negative effects of climate change –public funds are not enough to make a significant impact on sustainable investments, therefore directing public and private capital to green projects may help to finance the necessary changes. The topic of the study is original and has not yet been widely analyzed in Lithuanian legal discourse. There are used quantitative and qualitative methodologies, logical, systematic, and critical analysis principles; hence the aim of this study is to reveal the problem of the implementation of the regulation on sustainability in the Lithuanian financial sector. Additional regulatory requirements could cause serious changes in financial business operations: additional funds, employees, and time have to be dedicated in order for the companies could implement these regulations. Lack of knowledge and data on how to implement new regulatory requirements towards sustainable reporting causes a lot of uncertainty for financial market participants. And for some companies, it might even be an essential point in terms of business continuity. It is considered that the supervisory authorities should find a balance between financial market needs and legal regulation.Keywords: financial, legal, regulatory, sustainability
Procedia PDF Downloads 925760 Public Policy for Quality School Lunch Development in Thailand
Authors: W. Kongnoo, J. Loysongkroa, S. Chotivichien, N. Viriyautsahakul, N. Saiwongse
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Obesity, stunting and wasting problems among Thai school-aged children are increasing due to inappropriate food consumption behavior and poor environments for desirable nutritional behavior. Because of a low school lunch budget of only 0.40 USD per person per day, food quality is not up to nutritional standards. Therefore, the Health Department with the Education Ministry and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation have developed a quality school lunch project during 2009–2013. The program objectives were development and management of public policy to increase school lunch budget. The methods used a healthy public policy motivation process and movement in 241 local administrative organizations and 538 schools. The problem and solution research was organized to study school food and nutrition management, create a best practice policy mobilization model and hold a public hearing to motivate an increase of school meal funding. The results showed that local public policy has been motivated during 2009-2011 to increase school meal budget using local budgets. School children with best food consumption behavior and exercise increased from 13.2% in 2009 to 51.6% in 2013 and stunting decreased from 6.0% in 2009 to 4.7% in 2013. As the result of national policy motivation (2012-2013), the cabinet meeting on October 22, 2013 has approved an increase of school lunch budget from 0.40 USD to 0.62 USD per person per day. Thus, 5,800,469 school children nationwide have benefited from the budget increase.Keywords: public policy, quality school lunch, Thailand, obesity
Procedia PDF Downloads 3395759 Ethical Challenges for Journalists in Times of Fake News and Hate Speech: A Survey with German Journalists
Authors: Laura C. Solzbacher, Caja Thimm
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Journalists worldwide have been confronted with a variety of ethical challenges over the last years. Because of massive changes in media technology and the public sphere, especially online journalism has trouble to uphold the fundamental values of journalism. In particular, the increasing amount of fake news and hate speech puts journalists under more and more pressure. In order to understand better how journalists judge this development and how they adapt in their daily work, a survey with journalists in Germany was carried out. 303 professional journalists participated in an online questionnaire. Results show that 65% underline that economic pressure grows and nearly the same number describe a change in the role of journalists in society. Furthermore, 61% agree that they put more time into research to secure their work against accusations of fabricating fake news. Interestingly, over 60% see a change in the role of journalists in society. The majority (85%) confirms that print journalism has to give way for online platforms and that the influence of social media for journalism grows (75%). Half of the surveyed advocate for more personalized public activism on part of journalists, such as appearance in talk shows and public talks. The results of the study will be discussed in light of the ongoing debate on ethical standards as a condition for a sustainable and trustworthy digital public sphere.Keywords: ethics, fake news, journalism, public sphere
Procedia PDF Downloads 2615758 Robust and Dedicated Hybrid Cloud Approach for Secure Authorized Deduplication
Authors: Aishwarya Shekhar, Himanshu Sharma
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Data deduplication is one of important data compression techniques for eliminating duplicate copies of repeating data, and has been widely used in cloud storage to reduce the amount of storage space and save bandwidth. In this process, duplicate data is expunged, leaving only one copy means single instance of the data to be accumulated. Though, indexing of each and every data is still maintained. Data deduplication is an approach for minimizing the part of storage space an organization required to retain its data. In most of the company, the storage systems carry identical copies of numerous pieces of data. Deduplication terminates these additional copies by saving just one copy of the data and exchanging the other copies with pointers that assist back to the primary copy. To ignore this duplication of the data and to preserve the confidentiality in the cloud here we are applying the concept of hybrid nature of cloud. A hybrid cloud is a fusion of minimally one public and private cloud. As a proof of concept, we implement a java code which provides security as well as removes all types of duplicated data from the cloud.Keywords: confidentiality, deduplication, data compression, hybridity of cloud
Procedia PDF Downloads 3725757 CFD Simulations to Study the Cooling Effects of Different Greening Modifications
Authors: An-Shik Yang, Chih-Yung Wen, Chiang-Ho Cheng, Yu-Hsuan Juan
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The objective of this study is to conduct computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations for evaluating the cooling efficacy from vegetation implanted in a public park in the Taipei, Taiwan. To probe the impacts of park renewal by means of adding three pavilions and supplementary green areas on urban microclimates, the simulated results have revealed that the park having a higher percentage of green coverage ratio (GCR) tended to experience a better cooling effect. These findings can be used to explore the effects of different greening modifications on urban environments for achieving an effective thermal comfort in urban public spaces.Keywords: CFD simulations, Green Coverage Ratio, Urban heat island, Urban Public Park
Procedia PDF Downloads 4785756 Ambivalence in Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Units of a Public Hospital in South Africa
Authors: Sanele E. Nene L., Lia M. Hewitt
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Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) has a high value in healthcare, various applications have been developed for the efficiency of clinical operations, such as appointment/surgery scheduling, diagnostic image analysis, prognosis, prediction and management of specific ailments. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore, describe, contrast, evaluate, and develop the various leadership strategies as a conceptual framework, applied by public health Operational Managers (OMs) to embrace AI benefits, with the aim to improve the healthcare system in a public hospital. Design and Method: A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive and contextual research design was followed and a descriptive phenomenological approach. Five phases were followed to conduct this study. Phenomenological individual interviews and focus groups were used to collect data and a phenomenological thematic data analysis method was used. Findings and conclusion: Three themes surfaced as the experiences of AI by the OMs; Positive experiences related to AI, Management and leadership processes in AI facilitation, and Challenges related to AI.Keywords: ambivalence, embracing, Artificial intelligence, public hospital
Procedia PDF Downloads 685755 Participatory Democracy to the Contemporary Problems of Polish Social Policy
Authors: Agnieszka Szczudlińska-Kanoś
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Nowadays the participation of citizens in public life increasingly effect on management at all levels of public authority. Today, however, democratic systems in many countries, also in Poland, based on the first - on the institutions of representative democracy, which is mainly on elections, party activity, on the other hand - on the basic instruments of direct democracy, which, in particular, we can include a referendum or initiative of citizenship - although these are often rather complementary. Other forms of participatory democracy, such as deliberative democracy, participatory budgeting, public consultation in practice in many countries are still rare. Appropriate use of the potential invested in participatory democracy can bring enormous and multilateral benefits. On the one hand, local and regional communities taking an active part in public life express their needs, point out problems and thus affect the decisions of public authorities. Authorities using knowledge acquired from the citizens also implement the policy tailored to their needs, thus obtaining support in the next election. The purpose of this study is to show how the Polish citizens affect to resolve issues of social policy pursued at different levels of government. This problem is very important because today the observed changes seen in virtually all fields of life create new social problems, which nowadays are no longer only the problems of the region, the country but they are international, global issues. From such this perspective we should talk about them, discuss, try to solve at all levels. Article will be useful not only theorists involved in the management of the public, local government, or social but also practitioners - local government acting as their functions at different levels of government. Conclusions drawn from the publication will also be useful to politicians and those directly affecting for: functioning social security systems, the scope and quality of public services and the overall shape of the contemporary social policy in different countries.Keywords: social policy, local government, social participation, social services
Procedia PDF Downloads 2735754 Monetary Policy and Assets Prices in Nigeria: Testing for the Direction of Relationship
Authors: Jameelah Omolara Yaqub
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One of the main reasons for the existence of central bank is that it is believed that central banks have some influence on private sector decisions which will enable the Central Bank to achieve some of its objectives especially that of stable price and economic growth. By the assumption of the New Keynesian theory that prices are fully flexible in the short run, the central bank can temporarily influence real interest rate and, therefore, have an effect on real output in addition to nominal prices. There is, therefore, the need for the Central Bank to monitor, respond to, and influence private sector decisions appropriately. This thus shows that the Central Bank and the private sector will both affect and be affected by each other implying considerable interdependence between the sectors. The interdependence may be simultaneous or not depending on the level of information, readily available and how sensitive prices are to agents’ expectations about the future. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to determine whether the interdependence between asset prices and monetary policy are simultaneous or not and how important is this relationship. Studies on the effects of monetary policy have largely used VAR models to identify the interdependence but most have found small effects of interaction. Some earlier studies have ignored the possibility of simultaneous interdependence while those that have allowed for simultaneous interdependence used data from developed economies only. This study, therefore, extends the literature by using data from a developing economy where information might not be readily available to influence agents’ expectation. In this study, the direction of relationship among variables of interest will be tested by carrying out the Granger causality test. Thereafter, the interaction between asset prices and monetary policy in Nigeria will be tested. Asset prices will be represented by the NSE index as well as real estate prices while monetary policy will be represented by money supply and the MPR respectively. The VAR model will be used to analyse the relationship between the variables in order to take account of potential simultaneity of interdependence. The study will cover the period between 1980 and 2014 due to data availability. It is believed that the outcome of the research will guide monetary policymakers especially the CBN to effectively influence the private sector decisions and thereby achieve its objectives of price stability and economic growth.Keywords: asset prices, granger causality, monetary policy rate, Nigeria
Procedia PDF Downloads 2075753 The Importance of Patenting and Technology Exports as Indicators of Economic Development
Authors: Hugo Rodríguez
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The patenting of inventions is the result of an organized effort to achieve technological improvement and its consequent positive impact on the population's standard of living. Technology exports, either of high-tech goods or of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services, represent the level of acceptance that world markets have of that technology acquired or developed by a country, either in public or private settings. A quantitative measure of the above variables is expected to have a positive and relevant impact on the level of economic development of the countries, measured on this first occasion through their level of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And in that sense, it not only explains the performance of an economy but the difference between nations. We present an econometric model where we seek to explain the difference between the GDP levels of 178 countries through their different performance in the outputs of the technological production process. We take the variables of Patenting, ICT Exports and High Technology Exports as results of the innovation process. This model achieves an explanatory power for four annual cuts (2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015) equivalent to an adjusted r2 of 0.91, 0.87, 0.91 and 0.96, respectively.Keywords: Development, exports, patents, technology
Procedia PDF Downloads 1025752 (Mis) Communication across the Borders: Politics, Media, and Public Opinion in Turkey
Authors: Banu Baybars Hawks
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To date, academic attention in social sciences remains inadequate with regard to research and analysis of public opinion in Turkey. Most of the existing research has assessed the public opinion during political election periods. Therefore, it is of great interest to find out what the public thinks about current issues in Turkey, and how to interpret the results to be able to reveal whether they may have any reflections on social, political, and cultural structure of the country. Accordingly, the current study seeks to fill the gap in the social sciences literature in English regarding Turkey’s social and political stand which may be perceived to be very different by other nations. Without timely feedback from public surveys, various programs for improving different services and institutions functioning in the country might not achieve their expected goal, nor can decisions about which programs to implement be made rationally. Additionally, the information gathered may not only yield important insights into public’s opinion regarding current agenda in Turkey, but also into the correlates shaping public policies. Agenda-setting studies including agenda-building, agenda melding, reversed agenda-setting and information diffusion studies will be used to explain the roles of factors and actors in the formation of public opinion in Turkey. Knowing the importance of public agenda in the agenda setting and building process, this paper aims to reveal the social and political tendencies of the Turkish public. For that purpose, a survey will be carried out in December of 2014 to determine the social and political trends in Turkey for that same year. The subjects for the study, which utilize a questionairre in one-on-one interviews, will include 1,000 individuals aged 18 years and older from 26 cities representing general population. A stratified random sampling frame will be used. The topics covered by the survey include: The most important current problem in Turkey; the Economy; Terror; Approaches to the Kurdish Issue; Evaluations of the Government and Opposition Parties; Evaluations of Institutional Efficiency; Foreign Policy; the Judicial System/Constitution; Democracy and the Media; and, Social Relations/Life in Turkey. Since the beginning of the 21st century, Turkey has been undergoing a rapid transformation. The reflections of the changes can be seen in all areas from economics to politics. It is my hope that findings of this study may shed light on the important aspects of institutions, variables setting the agenda, and formation process of public opinion in Turkey.Keywords: public opinion, media, agenda setting, information diffusion, government, freedom, Turkey
Procedia PDF Downloads 4575751 CFD Simulations to Examine Natural Ventilation of a Work Area in a Public Building
Authors: An-Shik Yang, Chiang-Ho Cheng, Jen-Hao Wu, Yu-Hsuan Juan
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Natural ventilation has played an important role for many low energy-building designs. It has been also noticed as a essential subject to persistently bring the fresh cool air from the outside into a building. This study carried out the computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based simulations to examine the natural ventilation development of a work area in a public building. The simulated results can be useful to better understand the indoor microclimate and the interaction of wind with buildings. Besides, this CFD simulation procedure can serve as an effective analysis tool to characterize the airing performance, and thereby optimize the building ventilation for strengthening the architects, planners and other decision makers on improving the natural ventilation design of public buildings.Keywords: CFD simulations, natural ventilation, microclimate, wind environment
Procedia PDF Downloads 5645750 Conditionality in the European Union as a New Instrument to Guarantee the Principle of Separation of Powers
Authors: Ana Neves
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The European Union’s multi-level constitutionalism is grounded in an intricate network of vertical and horizontal legal relationships among different levels and types of public authorities. In a very significant way since the 2008 crisis, evolving institutional arrangements and institutional dynamics in the European Union have been progressively impacting Member States and the terms under which national public authorities are organised, interact and exercise their powers. This impact occurs in both macro and micro dimensions. Several examples are relevant here, such as the involvement of national Parliaments in the activities of the European Union, the enhanced integration of public administrations, the side effects of the Council framework decision on the European Arrest Warrant, the European Union Justice Scoreboard, the protection of whistle-blowers regulation, the enhanced cooperation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the regime for the protection of the Union budget and the European Rule of Law Mechanism. A common trend or denominator underlies the deepening of institutional interdependence and the increased interactions between the European Union, Member States, and public authorities at different levels. This seems to be conditionality as a general principle. The European multi-level constitutionalism must be considered in the light of this conditionality principle, which does not “imply a relationship of command and obedience”. Nevertheless, it might be more effective or be a very compelling principle. It is as if the extension of the shared rule is being accompanied by a contrapuntal dialogue. The different public authorities at various levels are being called to rethink and readjust themselves within a broader and more plural framework concerning understanding the limitation of power.Keywords: european union -, multi-level hierarchy, conditionality, separation of powers
Procedia PDF Downloads 1005749 Effects of the Quality Construction of Public Construction in Taiwan to Implementation Three Levels Quality Management Institution
Authors: Hsin-Hung Lai, Wei Lo
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Whether it is in virtue or vice for a construction quality of public construction project, it is one of the important indicators for national economic development and overall construction, the impact on the quality of national life is very deep. In recent years, a number of scandal of public construction project occurred, the requirements of the government agencies and the public require the quality of construction of public construction project are getting stricter than ever, the three-level public construction project construction quality of quality control system implemented by the government has a profound impact. This study mainly aggregated the evolution of ISO 9000 quality control system, the difference between the practice of implementing management of construction quality by many countries and three-level quality control of our country, so we explored and found that almost all projects of enhancing construction quality are dominated by civil organizations in foreign countries, whereas, it is induced by the national power in our country and develop our three-level quality control system and audit mechanism based on IOS system and implement the works by legislation, we also explored its enhancement and relevance with construction quality of public construction project that are intervened by such system and national power, and it really presents the effectiveness of construction quality been enhanced by the audited result. The three-level quality control system of our country to promote the policy of public construction project is almost same with the quality control system of many developed countries; however our country mainly implements such system on public construction project only, we promote the three-level quality control system is for enhancing the quality of public construction project, for establishing effective quality management system, so as to urge, correct and prevent the defects of quality management by manufacturers, whereas, those developed countries is comprehensively promoting (both public construction project and civil construction) such system. Therefore, this study is to explore the scope for public construction project only; the most important is the quality recognition by the executor, either good quality or deterioration is not a single event, there is a certain procedure extends from the demand and feasibility analysis, design, tendering, contracting, construction performance, inspection, continuous improvement, completion and acceptance, transferring and meeting the needs of the users, all of mentioned above have a causal relationship and it is a systemic problems. So the best construction quality would be manufactured and managed by reasonable cost if it is by extensive thinking and be preventive. We aggregated the implemented results in the past 10 years (2005 to 2015), the audited results of both in central units and local ones were slightly increased in A-grade while those listed in B-grade were decreased, although the levels were not evidently upgraded, yet, such result presents that the construction quality of concept of manufacturers are improving, and the construction quality has been established in the design stage, thus it is relatively beneficial to the enhancement of construction quality of overall public construction project.Keywords: ISO 9000, three-level quality control system, audit and review mechanism for construction implementation, quality of construction implementation
Procedia PDF Downloads 3325748 Spatial Planning of Community Green Infrastructure Based on Public Health Considerations: A Case Study of Kunhou Community
Authors: Shengdan Yang
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The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has made public health issues to be re-examined. The value of green space configuration is an important measure of community health quality. By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the structure and function of community green space can be better evaluated. This study selects Wuhan Kunhou Community as the site and proposes to analyze the daily health service function of the community's green infrastructure. Through GIS-based spatial analysis, case study, and field investigation, this study evaluates the accessibility of green infrastructure and discusses the ideal green space form based on health indicators. The findings show that Kunhou Community lacks access to green infrastructure and public space for daily activities. The research findings provide a bridge between public health indicators and community space planning and propose design suggestions for green infrastructure planning.Keywords: accessibility, community health, GIS, green infrastructure
Procedia PDF Downloads 985747 Audience Engagement in UNHCR Social Media Stories of Displaced People: Emotion and Reason in a Global Public Debate
Authors: Soraya Tharani
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Social media has changed how public opinion is shaped by enabling more diversified and inclusive participation of audiences. New online forums provide spaces in which governments, NGOs and other organizations can create content and receive feedback. These forums are sites where debate can constitute public opinion. Studies of audience engagement can give an understanding of how different voices from the civil society participate in debates and how discussions can reinforce or bring into question established societal beliefs. The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, produces audio-visual stories about displaced people for global audiences on social media platforms. The availability of many views in these forums can give insight into how dialogues regarding transnational issues are formed. The public sphere, as defined by Habermas, is a discursive arena where reasoned debate can take place. Habermas’ concept is combined with theories on celebrity advocacy, and discussions about the role and effect celebrities have in raising public awareness for humanitarian issues. The personal and public lives of celebrities often create emotional engagement from their fans and other audiences. In this study, quantitative and qualitative methods have been used on YouTube comments for uncovering how emotion and reason are constituted in a global public debate on celebrity endorsed UNHCR stories of displaced people. The study shows that engagement intensity is not equally distributed between comment threads; comments presented as facts or emotional claims are often supported by recourse to intertextuality, and specific linguistic strategies are used to put forward emotional and reasoned claims regarding individual and group identities. The findings from this research aim to contribute to an understanding of audience engagement on issues of human survival and solidarity in a global social media public sphere.Keywords: emotions, engagement, global public sphere, linguistic strategies, reason, refugees, social media, UNHCR
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