Search results for: business environment and entrepreneurial development

Authors: Amina Jibrin Ahmed

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The environment is mankind's natural habitat. Industrial activities over time have taken their toll on it in the form of deterioration and degradation. The petroleum industry is particularly notorious for its negative impact on its host environments. The realization that this poses a threat to sustainability led to the increased awareness and subsequent recognition of the importance of environmental disclosure in financial statements. This paper examines the laws and regulations put in place by the Nigerian Government to mitigate this impact, and the level of compliance by Shell Nigeria, the pioneer and largest oil company in the country. Based on the disclosure made, this paper finds there is indeed a high level of compliance by that company, and voluntary disclosure moreover.

Keywords: environmental accounting, legitimacy theory, environmental impact assessment, environmental disclosure, host communities

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Authors: Phatthanan Chaiyabut

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The purposes of this research were to identify the perception of customers towards Krung Thai Bank’s image and to understand the customer attitude towards Krung Thai Bank’s image in Bangkok, Thailand. This research utilized quantitative approach and used questionnaire as data collection tool. A sample size of 420 respondents was selected by simple random sampling. The findings revealed that the majority of respondents received information, news, and feeds concerning the bank through televisions the most. This information channel had significantly influenced on the customers and their decisions to utilize the bank’s products and services. From the information concerning the attitudes towards overall image of the bank, it was found that the majority respondents rated the bank’s image at the good level. The top three average attitudes included the bank’s images in supports government's monetary policies, being renowned and stable, and contributing in economical amendments and developments, with the mean average of 4.01, 3.96 and 3.81 respectively. The attitudes toward the images included a business leader in banking, marketing, and competitions. Offering prompt services, and provided appropriate servicing time were rated moderate with the attitudes of 3.36 and 3.30 respectively.

Keywords: attitude, image, Krung Thai Bank, perception

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Authors: Jarot Mahendra

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The primary objective of this paper is to provide a view in the interpretation of the revitalization of heritage buildings. This objective is achieved by analyzing the concept of interpretation that is oriented in the perspective of law, urban spatial planning, and stakeholder perspective, and then develops the theoretical framework of interpretation in the cultural resources management through issues of identity, heritage as a process, and authenticity in heritage. The revitalization of heritage buildings with the interpretation of these three issues is that interpretation can be used as a communication process to express the meaning and relation of heritage to the community so as to avoid the conflict that will arise and develop as a result of different perspectives of stakeholders. Using case studies in Indonesia, this study focuses on the revitalization of heritage sites in the National Gallery of Indonesia (GNI). GNI is a cultural institution that uses several historical buildings that have been designated as heritage and have not been designated as a heritage according to the regulations applicable in Indonesia, in carrying out its function as the center of Indonesian art development and art museums. The revitalization of heritage buildings is taken as a step to meet space needs in running the current GNI function. In the revitalization master plan, there are physical interventions on the building of heritage and the removal of some historic buildings which will then be built new buildings at that location. The research matrix was used to map out the main elements of the study (the concept of GNI revitalization, heritage as identity, heritage as a process, and authenticity in the heritage). Expert interviews and document studies are the main tools used in collecting data. Qualitative data is then analyzed through content analysis and template analysis. This study identifies the significance of historic buildings (heritage buildings and buildings not defined as heritage) as an important value of history, architecture, education, and culture. The significance becomes the basis for revisiting the revitalization master plan which is then reviewed according to applicable regulations and the spatial layout of Jakarta. The interpretation that is built is (1) GNI is one of the elements of the embodiment of the National Cultural Center in the context of the region, where there are National Monument, National Museum and National Library in the same area, so the heritage not only gives identity to the past culture but the culture of current community; (2) The heritage should be seen as a dynamic cultural process towards the cultural change of community, where heritage must develop along with the urban development, so that the heritage buildings can remain alive and side by side with modern buildings but still observe the principles of preservation of heritage; (3) The authenticity of heritage should be able to balance the cultural heritage conservation approach with urban development, where authenticity can serve as a 'Value Transmitter' so that authenticity can be used to evaluate, preserve and manage heritage buildings by considering tangible and intangible aspects.

Keywords: authenticity, culture process, identity, interpretation, revitalization

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Authors: Sabrina S. W. Chan, Emily Schwartzman, Nicholas O. Rule

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Past literature showed mixed findings on how smiling affects a person’s chance of getting hired. On one hand, smiling suggests enthusiasm, cooperativeness, and enthusiasm, which can elicit positive impressions. On the other hand, smiling can suggest weaker professionalism or a filler to hide nervousness, which can lower a candidate’s perceived competence. Emotion expressions can also be perceived differently depending on the person’s gender and can activate certain gender stereotypes. Women especially face a double bind with respect to hiring decisions and smiling. Because women are socially expected to smile more, those who do not smile will be considered stereotype incongruent. This becomes a noisy signal to employers and may lower their chance of being hired. However, women’s smiling as a formality may also be an obstacle. They are more likely to put on fake smiles; but if they do, they are also likely to be perceived as inauthentic and over-expressive. This paper sought to investigate how smiling affects hiring decisions, and whether this relationship is moderated by gender. In Study 1, participants were shown a series of smiling and emotionally neutral face images, incorporated into fabricated LinkedIn profiles. Participants were asked to rate how hireable they thought that candidate was. Results showed that participants rated smiling candidates as more hireable than nonsmiling candidates, and that there was no difference in gender. Moreover, individuals who did not study business were more biased in their perceptions than those who did. Since results showed a trending favoritism over female targets, in suspect of desirability bias, a second study was conducted to collect implicit measures behind the decision-making process. In Study 2, a mouse-tracking design was adopted to explore whether participants’ implicit attitudes were different from their explicit responses on hiring. Participants asked to respond whether they would offer an interview to a candidate. Findings from Study 1 was replicated in that smiling candidates received more offers than neutral-faced candidates. Results also showed that female candidates received significantly more offers than male candidates but was associated with higher attractiveness ratings. There were no significant findings in reaction time or change of decisions. However, stronger hesitation was detected for responses made towards neutral targets when participants perceived the given position as masculine, implying a conscious attempt of making situational judgments (e.g., considering candidate’s personality and job fit) to override automatic processing (evaluations based on attractiveness). Future studies would look at how these findings differ for positions which are stereotypically masculine (e.g., surgeons) and stereotypically feminine (e.g., kindergarten teachers). Current findings have strong implications for developing bias-free hiring policies in workplace, especially for organizations who maintain online/hybrid working arrangements in the post-pandemic era. This also bridges the literature gap between face perception and gender discrimination, highlighting how engendered facial cues can affect individual’s career development and organization’s success in diversity and inclusion.

Keywords: engendered facial cues, face perception, gender stereotypes, hiring decisions, smiling, workplace discrimination

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Authors: Azizah Ismail, Zainab Khalifah, Abbas Mardani

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Sustainable community-based tourism through homestay programme is a growing niche market that has impacted destinations in many countries including Malaysia. With demand predicted to continue increasing, the importance of the homestay product will grow in the tourism industry. This research examines the sustainability criteria for homestay programme in Malaysia covering economic, socio-cultural and environmental dimensions. This research applied a two-stage methodology for data analysis. Specifically, the researcher implements a hybrid method which combines two multi-criteria decision making approaches. In the first stage of the methodology, the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique is applied. Then, Analytical Network Process (ANP) is employed for the achievement of the objective of the current research. After factors identification and problem formulation, DEMATEL is used to detect complex relationships and to build a Network Relation Map (NRM). Then ANP is used to prioritize and find the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria of the decision model. The research verifies the framework of multi-criteria for sustainable community-based tourism from the perspective of stakeholders. The result also provides a different perspective on the importance of sustainable criteria from the view of multi-stakeholders. Practically, this research gives the framework model and helps stakeholders to improve and innovate the homestay programme and also promote community-based tourism.

Keywords: community-based tourism, homestay programme, sustainable tourism criteria, sustainable tourism development

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Authors: Guldana Zhigerbayeva, Ming Yang

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Transportation of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) is inevitable in the process industries. The statistics show a significant number of accidents has occurred during the transportation of HAZMAT. This makes risk management of HAZMAT transportation an important topic. The tree-based methods including fault-trees, event-trees and cause-consequence analysis, and Bayesian network, have been applied to risk management of HAZMAT transportation. However, there is limited work on the development of a systematic approach. The existing approaches fail to build up the linkages between the regulatory requirements and the safety measures development. The analysis of historical data from the past accidents’ report databases would limit our focus on the specific incidents and their specific causes. Thus, we may overlook some essential elements in risk management, including regulatory compliance, field expert opinions, and suggestions. A systematic approach is needed to translate the regulatory requirements of HAZMAT transportation into specified safety measures (both technical and administrative) to support the risk management process. This study aims to first adapt the House of Quality (HoQ) to House of Safety (HoS) and proposes a new approach- Safety Function Deployment (SFD). The results of SFD will be used in a multi-criteria decision-support system to develop find an optimal route for HazMats transportation. The proposed approach will be demonstrated through a hypothetical transportation case in Kazakhstan.

Keywords: hazardous materials, risk assessment, risk management, quality function deployment

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Authors: Mohammad K. Abedin, Mohammad Shahjahan, Zeenat Sultana, Tawfique Jahan, Jesmin Akter

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To strengthen social and behavior change communication (SBCC) capacity of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) of the Government of Bangladesh, BCCP/BKMI developed two eLearning courses providing opportunities for professional development of SBCC Program Managers who have no access to training or refreshers training. The two eLearning courses – Message and Material Development (MMD) and Monitoring and Evaluation (MandE) of SBCC programs – went online in September 2015, where all users could register their participation so results could be monitored. Methodology: To assess the uses of these courses a randomly selected sample was collected to run a pre and post-test analyses and a phone survey were conducted. Systematic random sampling was used to select a sample of 75 MandE and 25 MMD course participants from a sampling frame of 179 and 51 respectively. Results: As of September 2016, more than 179 learners have completed the MandE course, and 49 learners have completed the MMD course. The users of these courses are program managers, university faculty members, and students. Encouraging results were revealed from the analysis of pre and post-test scores and a phone survey three months after course completion. Test scores suggested a substantial increase in knowledge. The pre-test scores findings suggested that about 19% learners scored high on the MandE. The post-test scores finding indicated a high score (92%) of the sample across 4 modules of MandE. For MMD course in pre-test scoring, 30% of the learners scored high, and 100% scored high at the post-test. It was found that all the learners in the phone survey have discussed the courses. Most of the sharing occurred with colleagues and friends, usually through face to face (70%) interaction. The learners reported that they did recommend the two courses to concerned people. About 67% MandE and 76% MMD learners stated that the concepts that they had to learn during the course were put into practice in their work settings. The respondents for both MandE and MMD courses have provided a valuable set of suggestions that would further strengthen the courses. Conclusions: The study showed that the initiative offered ample opportunities to build capacity in various ways in which the eLearning courses were used. It also highlighted the importance of scaling up these efforts to further strengthen the outcomes.

Keywords: e-learning course, message & material development, monitoring & evaluation, social and behavior change communication

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Authors: Oluwlola Felicia Kikelomo

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This study examined the influence of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETF) intervention projects and resource utilization in universities in South Western State of Nigeria. The study was a descriptive design of the correlation type. Purposive sampling technique was used to select six out of 14 beneficiary universities in the States. Instruments used to collect data were TETF Intervention Projects Checklist (TETFIPC), Educational Facilities Checklists (EFC) and Resources Utilization Checklists (RUC). The research questions raised were answered using percentage and utilization rates, while Pearson product-moment correlation statistic was used to test the hypotheses formulated to guide the study 0.05 level of significance. Findings of the study indicated that building construction had the highest TETF allocation (64.5%), while staff development opportunities had the least (1.1%) in the sampled universities. Significant and positive relationship existed between time and space utilization rates and student academic performance in the universities (r (1,800) = 0.63 and r (1,800) = 0.59, p ≤ 0.05 respectively). Based, on these findings, it was recommended that there should be periodic evaluation of completed TETF projects and utilization to ensure that TETF funds are properly used for the approved projects; and that TETF should improve on the provision of educational facilities to universities for staff and students’ use through increase in education tax from 2% to 4% with collaboration with the world bank and other funding agencies as being practiced in other countries of the world such as Norway, Spain, and United Kingdom.

Keywords: tertiary education trust fund, intervention, education, human development

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Authors: Calvin Chiu, Samar Saade Needham

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The factors associated with the development of major depressive disorder (MDD) have been an ongoing area of concern within the field of psychopathology. Among parents, the rise in stress factors for individuals receiving less social support contributes to an increase in MDD cases. Understanding the causal aspects of MDD through the interworking of stress development within social support disparities provides critical insights into preventive measures for depressive symptoms. The present study seeks to assess the impact of social support on stress formation within MDD. Such that single parents lacking social support prompt an increase in stress formation, which proliferates the progression of MDD. Participants in this study were 450 ethnic minority mothers and fathers experiencing health inequities during pregnancy and early childhood. Perceived stress, social support, and depression are assessed by multi-item questionnaires that produce score ranges for general findings. Results indicated that lower social support scores resulted in higher depression scores, and higher perceived stress scores produced higher depression scores. Furthermore, single parents reported higher depression scores. These findings overlap with studies on paternal depression and suggest that MDD is a product of stress accumulation due to declining social support systems. Future studies may specify effective social support systems for decreasing stress accumulation in MDD formation in preventive strategies.

Keywords: major depressive disorder, stress formation, cognitive-behavioral outcomes, deficit-based behaviors

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Authors: Skyler Kim

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An early diagnosis of leukemia has always been a challenge to doctors and hematologists. On a worldwide basis, it was reported that there were approximately 350,000 new cases in 2012, and diagnosing leukemia was time-consuming and inefficient because of an endemic shortage of flow cytometry equipment in current clinical practice. As the number of medical diagnosis tools increased and a large volume of high-quality data was produced, there was an urgent need for more advanced data analysis methods. One of these methods was the AI approach. This approach has become a major trend in recent years, and several research groups have been working on developing these diagnostic models. However, designing and implementing a leukemia diagnostic system in real clinical environments based on a deep learning approach with larger sets remains complex. Leukemia is a major hematological malignancy that results in mortality and morbidity throughout different ages. We decided to select acute lymphocytic leukemia to develop our diagnostic system since acute lymphocytic leukemia is the most common type of leukemia, accounting for 74% of all children diagnosed with leukemia. The results from this development work can be applied to all other types of leukemia. To develop our model, the Kaggle dataset was used, which consists of 15135 total images, 8491 of these are images of abnormal cells, and 5398 images are normal. In this paper, we design and implement a leukemia diagnostic system in a real clinical environment based on deep learning approaches with larger sets. The proposed diagnostic system has the function of detecting and classifying leukemia. Different from other AI approaches, we explore hybrid architectures to improve the current performance. First, we developed two independent convolutional neural network models: VGG19 and ResNet50. Then, using both VGG19 and ResNet50, we developed a hybrid deep learning architecture employing transfer learning techniques to extract features from each input image. In our approach, fusing the features from specific abstraction layers can be deemed as auxiliary features and lead to further improvement of the classification accuracy. In this approach, features extracted from the lower levels are combined into higher dimension feature maps to help improve the discriminative capability of intermediate features and also overcome the problem of network gradient vanishing or exploding. By comparing VGG19 and ResNet50 and the proposed hybrid model, we concluded that the hybrid model had a significant advantage in accuracy. The detailed results of each model’s performance and their pros and cons will be presented in the conference.

Keywords: acute lymphoblastic leukemia, hybrid model, leukemia diagnostic system, machine learning

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Authors: May Thant Zin, Josephine Borja, Hirofumi Hinode, Winarto Kurniawan

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Nanotechnology has multiple and enormous advantages for all application. Therefore, this research is carried out to synthesize and characterize bimetallic iron with copper nano-particles. After synthesizing nano zero valent iron by reduction of ferric chloride by sodium borohydride under nitrogen purging environment, bimetallic iron with copper nanoparticles are synthesized by varying different loads of copper chloride. Due to different standard potential (E0) values of copper and iron, copper is coupled with iron at (Cu to Fe ratio of 1:5, 1:6.7, 1:10, 1:20). It is found that the resulted bimetallic Fe/Cu nanoparticles are composing phases of iron and copper. According to the diffraction patterns indicating the state of chemical combination of the bimetallic nanoparticles, the particles are well-combined and crystalline sizes are less than 1000 Ao (or 100 nm). Specifically, particle sizes of synthesized bimetallic Fe/Cu nanoparticles are ranging from 44.583 nm to 85.149 nm.

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Authors: Gloria Toledo, Andrea Lizasoain, Leonardo Mena

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Immigration has largely increased in Chile in the last 20 years. About 6.6% of our population is foreign, from which 14.3% is Haitian. Haitians are between 15 and 29 years old and have come to Chile escaping from a social crisis. They believe that education and work will help them do better in life. Therefore, rates of Haitian students in the Chilean school system have also increased: there were 3,121 Haitian students enrolled in 2017. This is a challenge for the public school, which takes in young people who must face schooling, social immersion and learning of a second language simultaneously. The linguistic barrier affects both students’ and teachers’ adaptation process, which has an impact on the students’ academic performance and consequent acquisition of Spanish. In order to explore students’ academic performance and interlanguage development, we examined how L1 teachers assess Haitian high school students’ written production in Spanish. With this purpose, teachers were asked to use a specially designed grid to assess correction, accommodation, lexical and analytical complexity, organization and fluency of both Haitian and Chilean students. Parallelly, texts were approached from an error analysis perspective. Results from grids and error analysis were then compared. On the one hand, it has been found that teachers give very little feedback to students apart from scores and grades, which does not contribute to the development of the second language. On the other hand, error analysis has yielded that Haitian students are in a dynamic process of the acquisition of Spanish, which could be enhanced if L1 teacher were aware of the process of interlanguage developmen.

Keywords: assessment, error analysis, grid, immigration, Spanish aquisition, writing

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Authors: Saurav Sharma, Deepshikha Sharma, Pratibha Sharma

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This paper includes fast fashion verses sustainable fashion or slow fashion Indian based consumers. The expression ‘Fast fashion’ is generally referred to low-cost clothing collections that considered first hand copy of luxury brands, sometime interchangeably used with ‘mass fashion’. Whereas slow fashion or limited fashion which are consider to be more organic or eco-friendly. "Sustainable fashion is ethical fashion and here the consumer is just not design conscious but also social-environment conscious". Paper will deal with desire of young Indian consumer towards such luxury brands present in India, and their understanding of sustainable fashion, how to maintain the equilibrium between never newer fashion, style, and fashion sustainability.

Keywords: fast fashion, sustainable fashion, sustainability, India

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Authors: Saidia Houari

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The game of football is one of the global sports activities that have witnessed a remarkable development in recent years in the physical, technical, rhetorical and psychological aspects, so the modern play in different teams and international teams quickly and forcefully in the exact technical performance, and this is due to the interest of international coaches. The good training of the players during the youth stage at the level of various aspects to develop all the techniques that have a great effectiveness in competitions according to scientific methods studied. The muscle strength plays a very important role achieving the performance player during the game and it is clear the need for the player in many situations, especially when jumping to hit the ball head or the goal on the goal or long passes of different types and in the performance of various skills by force and speed appropriate to the possession of the ball or the control of the court of the court while overcoming the body weight during the game it is known that the stronger the muscles of the athlete and the reduced joints injuries, and the strength increases energy saving such as Latin phosphate and glycogen, and develop the player for a game football volitional qualities of the most important of courage, determination And self-confidence. There are also some skill movements that can not be performed without a certain level of strength, so the development of power may affect the effectiveness of the long-term training system.

Keywords: trainning program, maximum force and expolosive force, lowers limbs, under 17 years

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Authors: Li Wang

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The explosive of technology advances has opened up many avenues of career options for engineering graduates. Hence, how relevant their learning at university is very much dependent on their actual jobs. Bridging the gap between education and industrial practice is important, but it also becomes evident how both engineering education and industrial training can be leveraged at the same time and balance between what students should grasp at university and what they can be continuously trained at the working environment. Through a case study of developing a commercial product, this paper presents the required level of depth of technical knowledge and skills for some typical engineering jobs (for mechanical/materials engineering). It highlights the necessary collaboration for industry, university, and accreditation bodies to work together to nurture the next generation of engineers.

Keywords: leverage, collaboration, career, industry, engineering education

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Authors: Brittany E. Coff, Tommy K. K. Ngai, Laura A. S. MacDonald

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Many organizations in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector provide education and training in order to increase the effectiveness of their WASH interventions. A key challenge for these organizations is measuring how well their education and training activities contribute to WASH improvements. It is crucial for implementers to understand the returns of their education and training activities so that they can improve and make better progress toward the desired outcomes. This paper presents information on CAWST’s development and piloting of the evaluation methodology. The Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST) has developed a methodology for evaluating education and training activities, so that organizations can understand the effectiveness of their WASH activities and improve accordingly. CAWST developed this methodology through a series of research partnerships, followed by staged field pilots in Nepal, Peru, Ethiopia and Haiti. During the research partnerships, CAWST collaborated with universities in the UK and Canada to: review a range of available evaluation frameworks, investigate existing practices for evaluating education activities, and develop a draft methodology for evaluating education programs. The draft methodology was then piloted in three separate studies to evaluate CAWST’s, and CAWST’s partner’s, WASH education programs. Each of the pilot studies evaluated education programs in different locations, with different objectives, and at different times within the project cycles. The evaluations in Nepal and Peru were conducted in 2013 and investigated the outcomes and impacts of CAWST’s WASH education services in those countries over the past 5-10 years. In 2014, the methodology was applied to complete a rigorous evaluation of a 3-day WASH Awareness training program in Ethiopia, one year after the training had occurred. In 2015, the methodology was applied in Haiti to complete a rapid assessment of a Community Health Promotion program, which informed the development of an improved training program. After each pilot evaluation, the methodology was reviewed and improvements were made. A key concept within the methodology is that in order for training activities to lead to improved WASH practices at the community level, it is not enough for participants to acquire new knowledge and skills; they must also apply the new skills and influence the behavior of others following the training. The steps of the methodology include: development of a Theory of Change for the education program, application of the Kirkpatrick model to develop indicators, development of data collection tools, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, and use of the findings for improvement. The methodology was applied in different ways for each pilot and was found to be practical to apply and adapt to meet the needs of each case. It was useful in gathering specific information on the outcomes of the education and training activities, and in developing recommendations for program improvement. Based on the results of the pilot studies, CAWST is developing a set of support materials to enable other WASH implementers to apply the methodology. By using this methodology, more WASH organizations will be able to understand the outcomes and impacts of their training activities, leading to higher quality education programs and improved WASH outcomes.

Keywords: education and training, capacity building, evaluation, water and sanitation

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Authors: Erkan Talay, Mustafa Yigit Yagci

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For the systems like sliding door, designers should predict not only strength but also dynamic behavior of the system and this prediction usually becomes more critical if design has radical changes refer to previous designs. Also, sometimes physical tests could cost more than expected, especially for rail geometry changes, since this geometry affects design of the body. The aim of the study is to observe and understand the dynamics of the sliding door in virtual environment. For this, multibody dynamic model of the sliding door was built and then affects of various parameters like rail geometry, roller diameters, or center of mass detected. Also, a design of experiment study was performed to observe interactions of these parameters.

Keywords: design of experiment, minimum closing effort, multibody simulation, sliding door

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Authors: Davoud Ansari Kejal, Meysam Sabour

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For long, there has been a belief that a reader can easily comprehend a text if he is strong enough in vocabulary and grammatical knowledge but there was no account for the ability of understanding different subjects based on readers’ understanding of the surrounding world which is called world background knowledge. This paper attempts to investigate the reading comprehension process applying the schema theory as an influential factor in comprehending texts, in order to prove the important role of background knowledge in reading comprehension. Based on the discussion, some teaching methods are suggested for employing world background knowledge for an elaborated teaching of reading comprehension in an active learning environment in EFL classes.

Keywords: background knowledge, reading comprehension, schema theory, ELT classes

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Authors: Rohit Khankhoje

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The rapid evolution of software development practices has given rise to an increasing demand for efficient and effective test automation. The paper titled "Mastering Test Automation: Bridging Gaps for Seamless QA" delves into the crucial aspects of test automation, addressing the obstacles faced by organizations in achieving flawless quality assurance. The paper highlights the importance of bridging knowledge gaps within organizations, emphasizing the necessity for management to acquire a deeper comprehension of test automation scenarios, coverage, report trends, and the importance of communication. To tackle these challenges, this paper introduces innovative solutions, including the development of an automation framework that seamlessly integrates with test cases and reporting tools like TestRail and Jira. This integration facilitates the automatic recording of bugs in Jira, enhancing bug reporting and communication between manual QA and automation teams as well as TestRail have all newly added automated testcases as soon as it is part of the automation suite. The paper demonstrates how this framework empowers management by providing clear insights into ongoing automation activities, bug origins, trend analysis, and test case specifics. "Mastering Test Automation" serves as a comprehensive guide for organizations aiming to enhance their quality assurance processes through effective test automation. It not only identifies the common pitfalls and challenges but also offers practical solutions to bridge the gaps, resulting in a more streamlined and efficient QA process.

Keywords: automation framework, API integration, test automation, test management tools

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Authors: Marzena Trojanczyk, Mariusz Jaworski, Ewa Dmoch Gajzlerska

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Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between the level of quality of life and willingness to take treatment in patients with eating disorders as anorexia, bulimia and compulsive bingeing. Material and methods: The subjects consisted of 99 women with eating disorders: anorexia, n = 33; bulimia, n = 35; compulsive overeating, n = 31 and 35 women in the control group. The study used an original questionnaire to assess the overall quality of life, as well as selected areas of the physical, mental, social and spiritual satisfaction. The subjects were also asked about the level of motivation for treatment, and the importance of the disease in the lives of patients. Statistical analyses were performed using the statistical program SPSS 18.0. Results: Women with eating disorders in particular groups did not differ with respect to each other in the aspect of overall quality of life, satisfaction with the development of the spiritual, social functioning and mental health. The severity level of the disease in the lives of patients showed a negative correlation with social functioning in women with anorexia nervosa. In the case of patients with compulsive bingeing a positive relationship between the level of importance of the disease and the satisfaction of spiritual development is reported. Conclusions: Concerning the inferior quality of life, there is no relationship between a willingness to take treatment and the importance of the disease in the lives of patients with anorexia, bulimia and compulsive bingeing.

Keywords: anorexia, bulimia, compulsive overeating, quality of life

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Authors: Seung Yeon Son

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In today’s rapidly changing and increasingly complex environment, organizations have relied on their members’ positive attitude toward their employers. In particular, employees’ organizational commitment (primarily, the effective component) has been recognized as an essential component of organizational functioning and success. Hence, identifying the determinants of effective commitment is one of the most important research issues. This study tested the influence of leader-member exchange (LMX) and exchange ideology on employee’s effective commitment. In addition, the interactive effect of LMX and exchange ideology was examined. Data from 198 members of the Korean military supports each of the hypotheses. Lastly, implications for research and directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: affective commitment, exchange ideology, leader-member exchange, commitment

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Authors: Tereza Bartosikova

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This paper describes the values of a specific type of industrial heritage-aluminum factories. It is an especially endangered kind of industrial heritage with only a little attention paid. The paper aims to highlight the uniqueness of these grounds and to specify several options for revitalizations. The research is based on complex aluminum factories mapping in Europe from archives and bibliographic sources and on site. There is analyzed gained information that could offer a new view on the aluminum grounds. Primarily, the data are described according to the works in Žiar nad Hronom, Slovakia. More than a half aluminum grounds have ended up the production, although they can go on further. They are closely connected with some areas identity and their presence has left striking footsteps in the environment. By saving them, the historical continuity, cultural identity of population and also the economic stability of region would be supported.

Keywords: aluminum, industrial heritage, regeneration, values

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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

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Authors: Faroudja Mohellebi, Fayrouz Khalida Kies, Moncef Rezzik El Marhoun, Feriel Yahiat

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The purpose of this study is to valorize an agro-food waste (orange peels) by its use as an adsorbent in the treatment of water loaded with pharmaceutical micropollutant present in aquatic environments, oxytetracycline. The tests, carried out in batch mode, made it possible to study the influence on the sorptive capacity of calcined orange peels of several parameters: the contact time, the initial concentration of oxytetracycline, the adsorbent dose, and the initial pH of the solution. The pseudo-second-order model is best adapted to represent the adsorption kinetics. The Langmuir model describes the adsorption isotherm of oxytetracycline. The adsorption is favored in a basic environment.

Keywords: adsorption, emerging pollutants, oxytetracycline, water treatment

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Authors: R. Tamborrino, F. Rinaudo

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Digital technologies offer possibilities to effectively convert historical archives into instruments of knowledge able to provide a guide for the interpretation of historical phenomena. Digital conversion and management of those documents allow the possibility to add other sources in a unique and coherent model that permits the intersection of different data able to open new interpretations and understandings. Urban history uses, among other sources, the inventories that register human activities in a specific space (e.g. cadastres, censuses, etc.). The geographic localisation of that information inside cartographic supports allows for the comprehension and visualisation of specific relationships between different historical realities registering both the urban space and the peoples living there. These links that merge the different nature of data and documentation through a new organisation of the information can suggest a new interpretation of other related events. In all these kinds of analysis, the use of GIS platforms today represents the most appropriate answer. The design of the related databases is the key to realise the ad-hoc instrument to facilitate the analysis and the intersection of data of different origins. Moreover, GIS has become the digital platform where it is possible to add other kinds of data visualisation. This research deals with the industrial development of Turin at the beginning of the 20th century. A census of factories realized just prior to WWI provides the opportunity to test the potentialities of GIS platforms for the analysis of urban landscape modifications during the first industrial development of the town. The inventory includes data about location, activities, and people. GIS is shaped in a creative way linking different sources and digital systems aiming to create a new type of platform conceived as an interface integrating different kinds of data visualisation. The data processing allows linking this information to an urban space, and also visualising the growth of the city at that time. The sources, related to the urban landscape development in that period, are of a different nature. The emerging necessity to build, enlarge, modify and join different buildings to boost the industrial activities, according to their fast development, is recorded by different official permissions delivered by the municipality and now stored in the Historical Archive of the Municipality of Turin. Those documents, which are reports and drawings, contain numerous data on the buildings themselves, including the block where the plot is located, the district, and the people involved such as the owner, the investor, and the engineer or architect designing the industrial building. All these collected data offer the possibility to firstly re-build the process of change of the urban landscape by using GIS and 3D modelling technologies thanks to the access to the drawings (2D plans, sections and elevations) that show the previous and the planned situation. Furthermore, they access information for different queries of the linked dataset that could be useful for different research and targets such as economics, biographical, architectural, or demographical. By superimposing a layer of the present city, the past meets to the present-industrial heritage, and people meet urban history.

Keywords: digital urban history, census, digitalisation, GIS, modelling, digital humanities

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Authors: Artsiom Zinchanka

Abstract:

The world faces now one of the largest migration crisis and the European Union meets challenges in accepting the flow of migrants that could not be handled finally at this step. This crisis is complicated with many factors, such as military conflict in the Middle East; absence of the appropriate conditions in the refugees’ camps; but also with the complicity of the migration flow consisting of the Sub-Saharan migrants. This type of migrants leave their homelands for many reasons including poverty, not appropriate level of social and economic conditions, absence of infrastructure and access to the education and medical care. In practice, when the restrictive approach directed to limit the flow of illicit migration and to send illicit migrants back to their homelands is not always working, the approach directed to the root causes of the migration crisis can be more effective in settling the crisis. The Cotonou Agreement and the following treaties concluded between the European Union, and Sub-Saharan states show that the European Union considers the development of human rights and appropriate social and economic conditions in the Sub-Saharan states as one of the most important factors addressing the migration crisis. The preventive approach as the efforts of the European Union to develop appropriate social and economic conditions in Sub-Saharan states is considered in this article, as well as its evolution and current condition. This article also considers pros and cons of this approach and the obstacles that this approach faces. The research methods include review of literature and documents, analytical and descriptive methods.

Keywords: migration crisis, preventive approach, Sub-Saharan States, the European Union

Procedia PDF Downloads 121

Authors: Reena Aggarwal

Abstract:

The use of textile chemicals in the various pre and post-textile manufacturing processes has made the textile industry conscious of its negative contribution to environmental pollution. Popular environmentally friendly fibers such as recycled polyester and organic cotton have been now increasingly used by fabrics and apparel manufacturers. However, after these textiles or the finished apparel are manufactured, they have to be dyed in the same chemical dyes that are harmful and toxic to the environment. Dyeing is a major area of concern for the environment as well as for people who have chemical sensitivities as it may cause nausea, breathing difficulties, seizures, etc. Ayurvastra or herbal medical textiles are one step ahead of the organic lifestyle, which supports the core concept of holistic well-being and also eliminates the impact of harmful chemicals and pesticides. There is a wide range of herbs that can be used not only for dyeing but also for providing medicinal properties to the textiles like antibacterial, antifungal, antiseptic, antidepressant and for treating insomnia, skin diseases, etc. The concept of herbal dyeing of fabric is to manifest herbal essence in every aspect of clothing, i.e., from production to end-use, additionally to eliminate the impact of harmful chemical dyes and chemicals which are known to result in problems like skin rashes, headache, trouble concentrating, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, dizziness, difficulty breathing, irregular heartbeat and seizures. Herbal dyeing or finishing on textiles will give an extra edge to the textiles as it adds an extra function to the fabric. The herbal extracts can be applied to the textiles by a simple process like the pad dry cure method and mainly acts on the human body through the skin for aiding in the treatment of disease or managing the medical condition through its herbal properties. This paper, therefore, delves into producing Ayurvastra, which is a perfect amalgamation of cloth and wellness. The aim of the paper is to design and create herbal disposable and non-disposable medical textile products acting mainly topically (through the skin) for providing medicinal properties/managing medical conditions. Keeping that in mind, a range of antifungal socks and antibacterial napkins treated with turmeric and aloe vera were developed, which are recommended for the treatment of fungal and bacterial infections, respectively. Both Herbal Antifungal socks and Antibacterial napkins have proved to be efficient enough in managing and treating fungal and bacterial infections of the skin, respectively.

Keywords: ayurvastra, ayurveda, herbal, pandemic, sustainable

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Authors: Márcia Aparecida Teixeira

Abstract:

Sports, in particular football, boosts considerably the financial market of a certain locality, be it city or even a country. The financial transactions involving this medium stand out from other existing businesses, such as small industries. Strategically, social networks are inserted in this sporting environment, in order to promote and attract new fans of this modality. The present study analyzes the use of social networks in Sports Marketing with a focus on football. For the object of this study, it was chosen a specific club, the Club Atlético Mineiro, a Brazilian club of great national notoriety. The social networks on focus will be: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It will be analyzed the content and frequency of the posts, reception of the target public in relation to the content made available and its feedback.

Keywords: social network, sport, strategy, marketing

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Authors: Saima Yaqoob

Abstract:

Due to advancement in technologies and cutting cost competition, especially in manufacturing business, organizations are now becoming more focused toward achieving exceptional quality standards with low manufacturing cost. In this concern, many process improvement strategies are becoming popular in the way of increasing productivity and output. Lean manufacturing principles are among one of them, increasingly used for improving productivity by reducing wastages. Many success factors are involved in lean implementation. But, the role of senior management is most important in developing the lean culture in an organization. Purpose of this study is to investigate the perception of executive level management related to the successful implementation of lean practices and its comparison with the existing practices in the organization. In order to collect data, survey questionnaire comprised of eight statements rendering the critical success factors were sent to the top management of fifty (50) automotive manufacturing companies of Karachi. After analyzing their feedbacks, the trend of lean manufacturing principles and the commitment of senior management toward its implementation was identified in the manufacturing industries of Karachi, Pakistan.

Keywords: lean manufacturing, process improvement, senior management, perception, involvement, waste reduction

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Authors: Masahiko Suzuki, Takashi Kato , Masahiro Kobayashi

Abstract:

In our company, the monitoring system for signal equipment has already implemented. So, we can know the state of signal equipment, sitting in the control room or the maintenance center. But this system was installed over 20 years ago, so it cannot stand the needs such as 'more stable operation', 'broadband data transfer', 'easy construction and easy maintenance'. To satisfy these needs, we studied the monitoring system using radio communication as a new method which can realize the operation in the terrible environment along railroads. In these studies, we have developed the terminals and repeaters based on the ZigBee protocol and have implemented the application using two different radio bands simultaneously. At last, we got the good results from the fundamental examinations using the developed equipment.

Keywords: monitoring, radio communication, 2 bands, ZigBee

Procedia PDF Downloads 580