Search results for: Tθ measures

Authors: Sandip Mitra

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Studies on Governance and Accountability has often stressed the need to release Data in public domain to increase transparency ,which otherwise act as an evidence of performance. However, inefficient handling, lack of capacity and the dynamics of transfers (especially fund transfers) are important issues which need appropriate attention. E-Governance alone can not serve as a measure of transparency as long as a comprehensive planning is instituted. Studies on Governance and public exposure has often triggered public opinion in favour or against any government. The root of the problem (especially in local governments) lies in the management of the governance. The participation of the people in the local government functioning, the networks within and outside the locality, synergy with various layers of Government are crucial in understanding the activities of any government. Unfortunately, data on such issues are not released in the public domain .If they are at all released , the extraction of information is often hindered for complicated designs. A Study has been undertaken with a few local Governments in India. The data has been analysed to substantiate the views.

Keywords: accountability, e-governance, transparency, local government

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Authors: Onyia Comfort Ngozi, Iketaku Ifeoma Roseline

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Inspite of the laudable goals and objectives in education, Nigerian women, still face a lot of challenges that hinder the personal and national development. There are unbalances between males and females at all levels of the science education sector in Nigeria. Educate a woman, and you educate a nation, and if you educate a man, you educate an individual. It is on this note that the paper focuses on bridging the gender gap as it concerns science education in Nigeria. Suggestions were made as measures of bridging the gender gap in Nigerian education sector. The researchers concluded that achieving gender equality will promote greater equality in employment, help postpone early marriages, reduce infant mortality rates and improve health and education for a future generation. Thus, the paper recommended that government should involve women in policy making to take care of any gender issue and bias that may be included either consciously or not, during formulation stage.

Keywords: education, gender, science education, women, equality

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Authors: Butta Singh

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This paper presents a chaotic map based approach for secured embedding of patient’s confidential data in electrocardiogram (ECG) signal. The chaotic map generates predefined locations through the use of selective control parameters. The sample value difference method effectually hides the confidential data in ECG sample pairs at these predefined locations. Evaluation of proposed method on all 48 records of MIT-BIH arrhythmia ECG database demonstrates that the embedding does not alter the diagnostic features of cover ECG. The secret data imperceptibility in stego-ECG is evident through various statistical and clinical performance measures. Statistical metrics comprise of Percentage Root Mean Square Difference (PRD) and Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR). Further, a comparative analysis between proposed method and existing approaches was also performed. The results clearly demonstrated the superiority of proposed method.

Keywords: chaotic maps, ECG steganography, data embedding, electrocardiogram

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Authors: Islam Elsayed Hussein

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The aim of this paper is to discover the impact of students’ attitude towards social media and the skills required to adopt social media as a university e-learning (2.0) platform. In addition, it measures the effect of social media adoption on interactive learning effectiveness. The population of this study was students at Faculty of tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University. A questionnaire was used as a research instrument to collect data from respondents, which had been selected randomly. Data had been analyzed using quantitative data analysis method. Findings showed that the students have a positive attitude towards adopting social networking in the learning process and they have also good skills for effective use of social networking tools. In addition, adopting social media is effectively affecting the interactive learning environment.

Keywords: attitude, skills, e-learning 2.0, interactive learning, Egypt

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Authors: Zareen Shahid

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Rapid increase in population has resulted in uncontrolled and unplanned growth of metropolitan cities in Pakistan. Pakistan is facing unprecedented challenges of acute housing shortages, unhealthy living conditions and a non-existent or dilapidated infrastructure across the country. The government of Pakistan has also failed to devise a comprehensive and long-term strategy to cope with the problem of housing and better infrastructure development and management that has resulted in congestion, overcrowding and deterioration of environment in cities. On the other hand public has developed intense faith upon Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore. This research paper is about to observe the difference in residential estate development and services provided by DHA Lahore. This paper attempts to identify the factors which are contributing towards the success of DHA and recommend measures for improvement in public sector for betterment.

Keywords: residential estate, development and management, defence housing authority

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Authors: Sawsan Eissa, Momen Gharib, Omnia Kabbany

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A flushing numerical study has been performed for intended artificial islands on the Persian Gulf coast in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The island masterplan was tested for flushing using the DELFT 3D hydrodynamic model, and it was found that its residence time exceeds the acceptable PIANC flushing Criteria. Therefore, a number of mitigation measures were applied and tested one by one using the flushing model. Namely, changing the location of the entrance opening, dredging, removing part of the mangrove existing in the near vicinity to create a channel, removing the mangrove altogether, using culverts of different numbers and locations, and pumping at selected points. The pumping option gave the best solution, but it was disregarded due to high capital and running costs. Therefore, it opted for a combination of other solutions, including removing mangroves, introducing culverts, and adjusting island boundaries and types of protection.

Keywords: hydrodynamics, flushing, delft 3d, Persian Gulf, artificial islands.

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Authors: Jatin Kumar Choudhary, Naren Rayala, Abbas Eslami Kiasari, Fahimeh Jafari

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The Great Britain has one of the safest road networks in the world. However, the consequences of any death or serious injury are devastating for loved ones, as well as for those who help the severely injured. This paper aims to analyse the Great Britain's road safety situation and show the response measures for areas where the total damage caused by accidents can be significantly and quickly reduced. In this paper, we do an exploratory data analysis using STATS19 data. For the past 30 years, the UK has had a good record in reducing fatalities. The UK ranked third based on the number of road deaths per million inhabitants. There were around 165,000 accidents reported in the Great Britain in 2009 and it has been decreasing every year until 2019 which is under 120,000. The government continues to scale back road deaths empowering responsible road users by identifying and prosecuting the parameters that make the roads less safe.

Keywords: road safety, data analysis, openstreetmap, feature expanding.

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Authors: Hideaki Endo, Mika Goto

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The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected railway businesses. The number of railway passengers decreased due to the decline in the number of commuters and business travelers to avoid crowded trains and a sharp drop in inbound tourists visiting Japan. This has affected not only railway businesses but also related businesses, including hotels, leisure businesses, and retail businesses at station buildings. In 2021, the companies were divided into profitable and loss-making companies. This division suggests that railway companies, particularly loss-making companies, needed to decrease operational inefficiency. To measure the impact of COVID-19 and discuss the sustainable management strategies of railway companies, we examine the cost inefficiency of Japanese listed railway companies by applying stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to their operational and financial data. First, we employ the stochastic frontier cost function approach to measure inefficiency. The cost frontier function is formulated as a Cobb–Douglas type, and we estimated parameters and variables for inefficiency. This study uses panel data comprising 26 Japanese-listed railway companies from 2005 to 2020. This period includes several events deteriorating the business environment, such as the financial crisis from 2007 to 2008 and the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, and we compare those impacts with those of the COVID-19 pandemic after 2020. Second, we identify the characteristics of the best-practice railway companies and examine the drivers of cost inefficiencies. Third, we analyze the factors influencing cost inefficiency by comparing the profiles of the top 10 railway companies and others before and during the pandemic. Finally, we examine the relationship between cost inefficiency and the implementation of efficiency measures for each railway company. We obtained the following four findings. First, most Japanese railway companies showed the lowest cost inefficiency (most efficient) in 2014 and the highest in 2020 (least efficient) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The second worst occurred in 2009 when it was affected by the financial crisis. However, we did not observe a significant impact of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. This is because no railway company was influenced by the earthquake in this operating area, except for JR-EAST. Second, the best-practice railway companies are KEIO and TOKYU. The main reason for their good performance is that both operate in and near the Tokyo metropolitan area, which is densely populated. Third, we found that non-best-practice companies had a larger decrease in passenger kilometers than best-practice companies. This indicates that passengers made fewer long-distance trips because they refrained from inter-prefectural travel during the pandemic. Finally, we found that companies that implement more efficiency improvement measures had higher cost efficiency and they effectively used their customer databases through proactive DX investments in marketing and asset management.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, stochastic frontier analysis, railway sector, cost efficiency

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Authors: C. Cafaro, P. Ceci, L. De Giorgi

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The aim of this paper is to give an assessment of environmental effects of IPPC permit conditions of installations that are in the specific territory with a high concentration of industrial activities. The IPPC permit is the permit that each operator should hold to operate the installation as stated by the directive 2010/75/UE on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control), known as IED (Industrial Emissions Directive). The IPPC permit includes all the measures necessary to achieve a high level of protection of the environment as a whole, also defining the monitoring requirements as measurement methodology, frequency, and evaluation procedure. The emissions monitoring of a specific plant may also give indications of the contribution of these emissions on the air quality of a definite area. So, it is clear that the IPPC permits are important tools both to improve the environmental framework and to achieve the air quality standards, assisting in assessing the possible industrial sources contributions to air pollution.

Keywords: IPPC, IED, emissions, permits, air quality, large combustion plants

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Authors: Mehdi Boukri, Mohammed Naboussi Farsi, Mounir Naili, Omar Amellal, Mohamed Belazougui, Ahmed Mebarki, Nabila Guessoum, Brahim Mezazigh, Mounir Ait-Belkacem, Nacim Yousfi, Mohamed Bouaoud, Ikram Boukal, Aboubakr Fettar, Asma Souki

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The seismic risk to which the urban centres are more and more exposed became a world concern. A co-operation on an international scale is necessary for an exchange of information and experiments for the prevention and the installation of action plans in the countries prone to this phenomenon. For that, the 1990s was designated as 'International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR)' by the United Nations, whose interest was to promote the capacity to resist the various natural, industrial and environmental disasters. Within this framework, it was launched in 1996, the RADIUS project (Risk Assessment Tools for Diagnosis of Urban Areas Against Seismic Disaster), whose the main objective is to mitigate seismic risk in developing countries, through the development of a simple and fast methodological and operational approach, allowing to evaluate the vulnerability as well as the socio-economic losses, by probable earthquake scenarios in the exposed urban areas. In this paper, we will present the adaptation and application of this methodology to the Algerian context for the seismic risk evaluation in urban areas potentially exposed to earthquakes. This application consists to perform an earthquake scenario in the urban centre of Constantine city, located at the North-East of Algeria, which will allow the building seismic damage estimation of this city. For that, an inventory of 30706 building units was carried out by the National Earthquake Engineering Research Centre (CGS). These buildings were digitized in a data base which comprises their technical information by using a Geographical Information system (GIS), and then they were classified according to the RADIUS methodology. The study area was subdivided into 228 meshes of 500m on side and Ten (10) sectors of which each one contains a group of meshes. The results of this earthquake scenario highlights that the ratio of likely damage is about 23%. This severe damage results from the high concentration of old buildings and unfavourable soil conditions. This simulation of the probable seismic damage of the building and the GIS damage maps generated provide a predictive evaluation of the damage which can occur by a potential earthquake near to Constantine city. These theoretical forecasts are important for decision makers in order to take the adequate preventive measures and to develop suitable strategies, prevention and emergency management plans to reduce these losses. They can also help to take the adequate emergency measures in the most impacted areas in the early hours and days after an earthquake occurrence.

Keywords: seismic risk, mitigation, RADIUS, urban areas, Algeria, earthquake scenario, Constantine

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Authors: Halkiopoulos Constantinos, Koutsopoulou Ioanna, Gkintoni Evgenia, Antonopoulou Hera

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Immunization appears to be an essential part of health care service in times of pandemics such as covid-19 and aims not only to protect the health of the population but also the health and sustainability of the economies of the countries affected. It is reported that more than 3.44 billion doses have been administered so far, which accounts for 45 doses for 100 people. Vaccination programs in various countries have been promoted and accepted by people differently and therefore they proceeded in different ways and speed; most countries directing them towards people with vulnerable chronic or recent health statuses. Large scale restriction measures or lockdown, personal protection measures such as masks and gloves and a decrease in leisure and sports activities were also implemented around the world as part of the protection health strategies against the covid-19 pandemic. This research aims to present an analysis based on variations on people’s attitudes towards vaccination based on demographic, social and epidemiological characteristics, and health status on the one hand and perception of health, health satisfaction, pain, and quality of life on the other hand. 1500 Greek e-consumers participated in the research, mainly through social media who took part in an online-based survey voluntarily. The questionnaires included demographic, social and medical characteristics of the participants, and questions asking people’s willingness to be vaccinated and their opinion on whether there should be a vaccine against covid-19. Other stressor factors were also reported in the questionnaires and participants’ loss of someone close due to covid-19, or staying at home quarantine due to being infected from covid-19. WHOQUOL-BREF and GLOBAL PSYCHOTRAUMA SCREEN- GPS were used with kind permission from WHO and from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies in this study. Attitudes towards vaccination varied significantly related to aging, level of education, health status and consumer behavior. Health professionals’ attitudes also varied in relation to age, level of education, profession, health status and consumer needs. Vaccines have been the most common technological aid of human civilization so far in the fight against viruses. The results of this study can be used for health managers and digital marketers of pharmaceutical companies and also other staff involved in vaccination programs and for designing health policy immunization strategies during pandemics in order to achieve positive attitudes towards vaccination and larger populations being vaccinated in shorter periods of time after the break out of pandemic. Health staff needs to be trained, aided and supervised to go through with vaccination programs and to be protected through vaccination programs themselves. Feedback in each country’s vaccination program, short backs, deficiencies and delays should be addressed and worked out.

Keywords: consumer behavior, cognitive models, vaccination policy, pandemic, Covid-19, Greece

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Authors: Namrata Mishra

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Health of a person plays a vital role in the collective health of his community and hence the well-being of the society as a whole. But, in today’s fast paced technology driven world, health issues are increasingly being associated with human behaviors – their lifestyle. Social networks have tremendous impact on the health behavior of individuals. Many researchers have used social network analysis to understand human behavior that implicates their social and economic environments. It would be interesting to use a similar analysis to understand human behaviors that have health implications. This paper focuses on concepts of those behavioural analyses that have health implications using social networks analysis and provides possible algorithmic approaches. The results of these approaches can be used by the governing authorities for rolling out health plans, benefits and take preventive measures, while the pharmaceutical companies can target specific markets, helping health insurance companies to better model their insurance plans.

Keywords: breadth first search, directed graph, health behaviors, social network analysis

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Authors: Ahmed Amin Mousa, Gehan Azam

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The current study presents an electronic test to measure teaching skills. This test is a part of the admission system of the Faculty of Education for Early Childhood, Cairo University. The test has been prepared to evaluate university students who apply for admission the Faculty. It measures some social and physiological skills which are important for successful teachers, such as emotional adjustment and problem solving; moreover, the extent of their love for children and their capability to interact with them. The test has been approved by 13 experts. Finally, it has been introduced to 1,100 students during the admission system of the academic year 2016/2017. The results showed that most of the applicants have an auditory learning style. In addition, 97% of them have the minimum requirement skills for teaching children.

Keywords: electronic test, performance, early childhood, skills, teacher student

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Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh

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Earthquakes pose significant risks to human life and infrastructure, highlighting the importance of effective earthquake mitigation strategies. Traditional earthquake modelling and mitigation efforts have largely focused on the primary fault segments and their slip behaviour. However, earthquakes can exhibit complex rupture dynamics, including out-of-sequence thrust (OOST) events, which occur on secondary or subsidiary faults. This abstract examines the impact of OOST dynamics on earthquake mitigation strategies and their implications for hazard assessment and disaster planning. OOST events challenge conventional seismic hazard assessments by introducing additional fault segments and potential rupture scenarios that were previously unrecognized or underestimated. Consequently, these events may increase the overall seismic hazard in affected regions. The study reviews recent case studies and research findings that illustrate the occurrence and characteristics of OOST events. It explores the factors contributing to OOST dynamics, such as stress interactions between fault segments, fault geometry, and mechanical properties of fault materials. Moreover, it investigates the potential triggers and precursory signals associated with OOST events to enhance early warning systems and emergency response preparedness. The abstract also highlights the significance of incorporating OOST dynamics into seismic hazard assessment methodologies. It discusses the challenges associated with accurately modelling OOST events, including the need for improved understanding of fault interactions, stress transfer mechanisms, and rupture propagation patterns. Additionally, the abstract explores the potential for advanced geophysical techniques, such as high-resolution imaging and seismic monitoring networks, to detect and characterize OOST events. Furthermore, the abstract emphasizes the practical implications of OOST dynamics for earthquake mitigation strategies and urban planning. It addresses the need for revising building codes, land-use regulations, and infrastructure designs to account for the increased seismic hazard associated with OOST events. It also underscores the importance of public awareness campaigns to educate communities about the potential risks and safety measures specific to OOST-induced earthquakes. This sheds light on the impact of out-of-sequence thrust dynamics in earthquake mitigation. By recognizing and understanding OOST events, researchers, engineers, and policymakers can improve hazard assessment methodologies, enhance early warning systems, and implement effective mitigation measures. By integrating knowledge of OOST dynamics into urban planning and infrastructure development, societies can strive for greater resilience in the face of earthquakes, ultimately minimizing the potential for loss of life and infrastructure damage.

Keywords: earthquake mitigation, out-of-sequence thrust, seismic, satellite imagery

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Authors: Eva Štěpánková

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Environmental management implementation is presently one of the ways of organization success and value improvement. Increasing an organization motivation to environmental measures introduction is caused primarily by the rising pressure of the society that generates various incentives to endeavor for the environmental performance improvement. The aim of the paper is to identify and characterize the key incentives and expectations leading organizations to the environmental management implementation. The author focuses on five businesses of different size and field, operating in the Czech Republic. The qualitative approach and grounded theory procedure are used in research. The results point out that the significant incentives for environmental management implementation represent primarily demands of customers, the opportunity to declare the environmental commitment and image improvement. The researched enterprises less commonly expect the economical contribution, competitive advantage increase or export rate improvement. The results show that marketing contributions are primarily expected from the environmental management implementation.

Keywords: environmental management, environmental management system, ISO 14001, Czech Republic

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Authors: Maruska Vizek, Josip Glaurdic, Marina Tkalec, Goran Vuksic

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We empirically explore whether and how taxation affects bilateral real exchange rates in the euro area – relative unit labor costs and relative consumer price indices. We find that employers’ social security contributions and the value added tax changes have the expected effects put forward in the fiscal devaluation literature and simulations. Increases in employers’ contributions appreciate the relative unit labor costs in the short- and the long-run, while value added tax hike appreciates the relative consumer prices. Somewhat surprisingly, for personal income tax increases, we find a short-run depreciating impact on the relative unit labor costs, while increases in employees’ contributions depreciate both measures of real exchange rates in the short-run.

Keywords: sovereign bonds, European Union, developing countries, political determinants

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Authors: Vicx Farm

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This paper examines the critical role of energy efficiency management and renewable energy in fostering sustainable agricultural practices in Nigeria. With the growing concerns over energy security, environmental degradation, and climate change, there is an urgent need to transition towards more sustainable energy sources and practices in the agricultural sector. Nigeria, being a significant player in the global agricultural market, stands to benefit immensely from integrating energy efficiency measures and renewable energy solutions into its agricultural activities. This paper discusses the current energy challenges facing Nigerian agriculture, explores the potential benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy adoption, and proposes strategies for effective implementation. The paper concludes with recommendations for policymakers, stakeholders, and practitioners to accelerate the adoption of energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies in Nigerian agriculture, thereby promoting sustainable development and resilience in the sector.

Keywords: energy, agriculture, sustainability, power

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Authors: Mirjana Dokmanovic

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The main topic of this paper is the analysis of the presence of gender stereotypes in the media content in the Republic of Serbia with respect to the state commitments to eliminate discrimination against women. The research methodology included the analysis of the media content of six daily newspapers and two magazines on the date of 28 December 2015 and the analysis of the reality TV show programs in 2015 from gender perspective. The methods of the research has also included a desk research and a qualitative analysis of the available data, statistics, policy papers, studies, and reports produced by the government, the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Regulatory Body for Electronic Media, the Press Council, the associations of media professionals, the independent human rights bodies, and civil society organizations (CSOs). As a State Signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Republic of Serbia has adopted numerous measures in this field, including the Law on Equality between Sexes and the national gender equality strategies. Special attention has been paid to eliminating gender stereotypes and prejudices in the media content and portraying of women. This practice has been forbidden by the Law on Electronic Media, the Law on Public Information and Media, the Law on Public Service Broadcasting and the Bylaw on the Protection of Human Rights in the Provision of Media Services. Despite these commitments, there has not been achieved progress regarding eliminating gender stereotypes in the media content. The research indicates that the media perpetuate traditional gender roles and patriarchal patterns. Female politicians, entrepreneurs, academics, scientists, and engineers have been very rarely portrayed in the media. On the other side, women are in their focus as celebrities, singers, and actresses. Women are underrepresented in the pages related to politics and economy, while they are mostly present in the cover stories related to show-business, health care, family and household matters. Women are three times more than men identified on the basis of their family status, as mothers, wives, daughters, etc. Hate speech, misogyny, and violence against women are often present in the reality TV shows. The abuse of women and their bodies in advertising is still widely present. The cases of domestic violence are still presented with sensationalism, although there has been achieved progress in portraying victims of domestic violence with respect and dignity. The issues related to gender equality and the position of the vulnerable groups of women, such as Roma women or rural women, are not visible in the media. This research, as well as warnings of women’s CSOs and independent human rights bodies, indicates the necessity to implement legal and policy measures in this field consistently and with due diligence. The aim of the paper is to contribute eliminating gender stereotypes in the media content and advancing gender equality.

Keywords: discrimination against women, gender roles, gender stereotypes, media, misogyny, portraying women in the media, prejudices against women, Republic of Serbia

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Authors: Adriano Pinargote, Josue Mosquera, Eduardo Montero, Dalton Noboa, Jenny Venegas, Genesis Vasquez Escuela

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In the framework of Pre University learning of the Polytechnic School of the Litoral, Guayaquil, Ecuador, the methodology of Active Learning (Flipped Classroom) has been implemented for applicants who wish to obtain a quota within the university. To complement the Active Learning cycle, it has been proposed that the respective students influence the qualification of their work groups, for which a web platform has been created that allows them to evaluate the performance of their peers through a digital coevaluation that measures through statistical methods, the group and individual performance score that can reflect in numbers a weighting score corresponding to the grade of each student. Their feedback provided by the group help to improve the performance of the activities carried out in classes because the note reflects the commitment with their classmates shown in the class, within this analysis we will determine if this implementation directly influences the performance of the grades obtained by the student.

Keywords: active learning, coevaluation, flipped classroom, pre university

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Authors: Nitin Joseph

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Objectives: This study was done to assess emotional intelligence levels and to find out its association with socio demographic variables and perceived stress among medical students. Material and Methods: This study was done among first and second year medical students. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Results: Emotional intelligence scores was found to significantly increase with age of the participants (F=2.377, P < 0.05). Perceived stress was found to be significantly more among first year (t=1.997, P=0.05). Perceived stress was found to significantly decrease with increasing emotional intelligence scores (r = – 0.226, P < 0.001). Conclusion: First year students were found to be more vulnerable to stress than their seniors probably due to lesser emotional intelligence. As both these parameters are related, ample measures to improve emotional intelligence needs to be supported in the training curriculum of beginners so as to make them more stress free during early student life.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, medical students, perceived stress, socio demographic variables

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Authors: T. A. Khan, A. B. Khan, M. Babar, T. A. Taj, Imran Ijaz Imran

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Smart Meter is a key element in the evolving concept of Smart Grid, which plays an important role in interaction between the consumer and the supplier. In general, the smart meter is an intelligent digital energy meter that measures the consumption of electrical energy and provides other additional services as compared to the conventional energy meters. One of the important element that makes a meter smart and different is its communication module. Smart meters usually have two way and real-time communication between the consumer and the supplier through which its transfer data and information. In this paper, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is recommended as communication platform because of its high data-rate and presents the physical layer, which could be easily incorporated in existing Smart Meters. The physical layer is simulated in MATLAB Simulink and the results are provided.

Keywords: Ultra Wide Band (UWB), Smart Meter, MATLAB, transfer data

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Authors: Bryan Low

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In the coming decades, the global maritime industry will face a most formidable environmental challenge -achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. To meet this target, the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) has worked to establish green shipping and digital corridors with ports of several other countries around the world where ships will use low-carbon alternative fuels such as ammonia for power generation. While this paradigm shift to the bunkering of greener fuels is encouraging, fuels like ammonia will also introduce a new and unique type of environmental risk in the unlikely scenario of a spill. While numerous modelling studies have been conducted for oil spills and their associated environmental impact on coastal and marine ecosystems, ammonia spills are comparatively less well understood. For example, there is a knowledge gap regarding how the complex hydrodynamic conditions of the Singapore Straits may influence the dispersion of a hypothetical ammonia plume, which has different physical and chemical properties compared to an oil slick. Chemically, ammonia can be absorbed by phytoplankton, thus altering the balance of the marine nitrogen cycle. Biologically, ammonia generally serves the role of a nutrient in coastal ecosystems at lower concentrations. However, at higher concentrations, it has been found to be toxic to many local species. It may also have the potential to trigger eutrophication and harmful algal blooms (HABs) in coastal waters, depending on local hydrodynamic conditions. Thus, the key objective of this research paper is to support the development of a model-based forecasting system that can predict ammonia plume behaviour in coastal waters, given prevailing hydrodynamic conditions and their environmental impact. This will be essential as ammonia bunkering becomes more commonplace in Singapore’s ports and around the world. Specifically, this system must be able to assess the HAB-triggering potential of an ammonia plume, as well as its lethal and sub-lethal toxic effects on local species. This will allow the relevant authorities to better plan risk mitigation measures or choose a time window with the ideal hydrodynamic conditions to conduct ammonia bunkering operations with minimal risk. In this paper, we present the first part of such a forecasting system: a jointly coupled hydrodynamic-water quality model that can capture how advection-diffusion processes driven by ocean currents influence plume behaviour and how the plume interacts with the marine nitrogen cycle. The model is then applied to various ammonia spill scenarios where the results are discussed in the context of current ammonia toxicity guidelines, impact on local ecosystems, and mitigation measures for future bunkering operations conducted in the Singapore Straits.

Keywords: ammonia bunkering, forecasting, harmful algal blooms, hydrodynamics, marine nitrogen cycle, oceanography, water quality modeling

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Authors: Yu-Chi Liao, Nai-Wen Guo, Chun‑Hung Lee, Yung-Chin Lu, Cheng-Hung Ko

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Objective: The incidence of behavioral addictions, especially substance use disorders (SUDs), is gradually be taken seriously with various physical health problems. Mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) is a treatment option for promoting long-term health behavior change in recent years. MBRP is a structured protocol that integrates formal meditation practices with the cognitive-behavioral approach of relapse prevention treatment by teaching participants not to engage in reappraisal or savoring techniques. However, considering SUDs as a complex brain disease, questionnaires and symptom evaluation are not sufficient to evaluate the effect of MBRP. Neurophysiological biomarkers such as quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG) may improve accurately represent the curative effects. This study attempted to find out the neurophysiological indicator of MBRP in various severity SUD involuntary clients. Participants and Methods: Thirteen participants (all males) completed 8-week mindfulness-based treatment provided by trained, licensed clinical psychologists. The behavioral data were from the Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) and Negative Mood Regulation Scale (NMR) before and afterMBRP treatment. The QEEG data were simultaneously recorded with executive attention tasks, called comprehensive nonverbal attention test(CNAT). The two-way repeated-measures (treatment * severity) ANOVA and independent t-test were used for statistical analysis. Results: Thirteen participants regrouped into high substance dependence (HS) and low substance dependence (LS) by SDS cut-off. The HS group showed more SDS total score and lower gamma wave in the Go/No Go task of CNAT at pretest. Both groups showed the main effect that they had a lower frontal theta/beta ratio (TBR) during the simple reaction time task of CNAT. The main effect showed that the delay errors of CNAT were lower after MBRP. There was no other difference in CNAT between groups. However, after MBRP, compared to LS, the HS group have resonant progress in improving SDS and NMR scores. The neurophysiological index, the frontal TBR of the HS during the Go/No Go task of CNATdecreased than that of the LS group. Otherwise, the LS group’s gamma wave was a significant reduction on the Go/No Go task of CNAT. Conclusion: The QEEG data supports the MBRP can restore the prefrontal function of involuntary addicts and lower their errors in executive attention tasks. However, the improvement of MBRPfor the addict with high addiction severity is significantly more than that with low severity, including QEEG’s indicators and negative emotion regulation. Future directions include investigating the reasons for differences in efficacy among different severity of the addiction.

Keywords: mindfulness, involuntary clients, QEEG, emotion regulation

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Authors: Tugbay Inan

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Competitive balance is known to have an important effect in determining the result of football matches. The degree of competitiveness is referred as competitive balance in football. Sports economics are the extent to which overall league attendances will be raised by measures, such as media effect, home advantage, revenue sharing, which aim to improve competitive balance. The purpose of present study was to measure the competitive balance in the football league of Turkey. In this study, by using long term competitive balance analysis, some facing problems and precautions were discussed through the seasons (1987-2014) in Turkish Football Super League (TSL). Within the practice of this study, The way that competitive balance level followed was determined in the history of super league (27 years). Based on this purpose, C5 Competitive Balance Index (C5CBI) and a Herfindahl index of competitive balance (HICB) were used. Finally, it is seen that in Super League, competitive balance factor took place time to time, however in total, a view apart from competitive balance is obviously seen.

Keywords: competitive balance, turkish football, c5 competitive balance index, Herfindahl-Hirschman Index

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Authors: Anam Alam, Rahim Jamaluddin Kanji

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With the rapid growth of event in everywhere, event extraction has now become an important matter to retrieve the information from the unstructured data. One of the challenging problems is to extract the event from it. An event is an observable occurrence of interaction among entities. The paper investigates the effectiveness of event extraction capabilities of three software tools that are Wandora, Nitro and SPSS. We performed standard text mining techniques of these tools on the data sets of (i) Afghan War Diaries (AWD collection), (ii) MUC4 and (iii) WebKB. Information retrieval measures such as precision and recall which are computed under extensive set of experiments for Event Extraction. The experimental study analyzes the difference between events extracted by the software and human. This approach helps to construct an algorithm that will be applied for different machine learning methods.

Keywords: event extraction, Wandora, nitro, SPSS, event analysis, extraction method, AFG, Afghan War Diaries, MUC4, 4 universities, dataset, algorithm, precision, recall, evaluation

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Authors: Benjamin Legros, Jan Fransoo, Oualid Jouini

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This study aims to evaluate street-turn strategies for empty container repositioning in the hinterland. Containers arrive over time at the (importer) consignee, while the demand for containers arises from the (exporter) shipper. A match can be operated between an empty container from the consignee and the load from the shipper. Therefore, we model the system as a double-ended queue with non-zero matching time and a limited number of resources in order to optimize the reposition- ing decisions. We determine the performance measures when the consignee operates using a fixed withholding threshold policy. We show that the matching time mainly plays a role in the matching proportion, while under a certain duration, it only marginally impacts the consignee’s inventory policy and cost per container. Also, the withholding level is mainly determined by the shipper’s production rate.

Keywords: container, double-ended queue, inventory, Markov decision process, non-zero matching time, street-turn

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Authors: Ripudaman S. Minhas, Pardeep K. Benipal, Aisha K. Yousafzai

Abstract:

Background: Children of refugee or asylum-seeking background have multiple, complex needs (e.g. trauma, mental health concerns, separation, relocation, poverty, etc.) that places them at an increased risk for developing learning problems. Families encounter challenges accessing support during resettlement, preventing children from achieving their full developmental potential. There are very few studies in literature that examine the unique parenting challenges refugee families’ face. Providing appropriate support services and educational resources that address these distinctive concerns of refugee parents, will alleviate these challenges allowing for a better developmental outcome for children. Objective: To identify the characteristics of effective parenting interventions that address the unique needs of refugee families. Methods: English-language articles published from 1997 onwards were included if they described or evaluated programmes or interventions for parents of refugee or asylum-seeking background, globally. Data were extracted and analyzed according to Arksey and O’Malley’s descriptive analysis model for scoping reviews. Results: Seven studies met criteria and were included, primarily studying families settled in high-income countries. Refugee parents identified parenting to be a major concern, citing they experienced: alienation/unwelcoming services, language barriers, and lack of familiarity with school and early years services. Services that focused on building the resilience of parents, parent education, or provided services in the family’s native language, and offered families safe spaces to promote parent-child interactions were most successful. Home-visit and family-centered programs showed particular success, minimizing barriers such as transportation and inflexible work schedules, while allowing caregivers to receive feedback from facilitators. The vast majority of studies evaluated programs implementing existing curricula and frameworks. Interventions were designed in a prescriptive manner, without direct participation by family members and not directly addressing accessibility barriers. The studies also did not employ evaluation measures of parenting practices or the caregiving environment, or child development outcomes, primarily focusing on parental perceptions. Conclusion: There is scarce literature describing parenting interventions for refugee families. Successful interventions focused on building parenting resilience and capacity in their native language. To date, there are no studies that employ a participatory approach to program design to tailor content or accessibility, and few that employ parenting, developmental, behavioural, or environmental outcome measures.

Keywords: asylum-seekers, developmental pediatrics, parenting interventions, refugee families

Procedia PDF Downloads 143

Authors: A. Kavya Sri, K. Sai Vineela, R. Vanitha, S. Rohith

Abstract:

Large pieces of ice that break from the glaciers are known as icebergs. The threat that icebergs pose to navigation, production of offshore oil and gas services, and underwater pipelines makes their detection crucial. In this project, an automated iceberg tracking method using deep learning techniques and satellite images of icebergs is to be developed. With a temporal resolution of 12 days and a spatial resolution of 20 m, Sentinel-1 (SAR) images can be used to track iceberg drift over the Southern Ocean. In contrast to multispectral images, SAR images are used for analysis in meteorological conditions. This project develops a web-based graphical user interface to detect and track icebergs using sentinel-1 images. To track the movement of the icebergs by using temporal images based on their latitude and longitude values and by comparing the center and area of all detected icebergs. Testing the accuracy is done by precision and recall measures.

Keywords: synthetic aperture radar (SAR), icebergs, deep learning, spatial resolution, temporal resolution

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Authors: Ammar Alrefaei

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic changed human life. The vast majority of the COVID effect was on the healthcare sector, but its impact on the global economy cannot be denied. In the field of environment, the pandemic may have a more significant impact on the environment than all environmental activity and policies of recent years. The pandemic consequences for the environment may be far more unpredictable than one might assume. In view of this, it is imperative for legislators from different states to be prepared to apply adequate measures to counteract such consequences. This article aimed to examine the obstacles to implementing effective environmental policies after the COVID-19 pandemic using different examples from different countries. Also, how adopting new initiatives, such as the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative, can help policymakers and legislators adopt new laws and policies. In addition, this paper reviewed the developing dangers to environmental protection after the pandemic and analyzed the major challenges to instrument active environmental policies during COVID-19 and in the world after COVID.

Keywords: environmental policy, environment law, green initiative, COVID 19

Procedia PDF Downloads 89

Authors: Fabrizio Ascione, Martina Borrelli, Rosa Francesca De Masi, Silvia Ruggiero, Giuseppe Peter Vanoli

Abstract:

The Directive 2010/31/EC 'Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 may 2010 on the energy performance of buildings' moved the targets of the previous version toward more ambitious targets, for instance by establishing that, by 31 December 2020, all new buildings should demand nearly zero-energy. Moreover, the demonstrative role of public buildings is strongly affirmed so that also the target nearly zero-energy buildings is anticipated, in January 2019. On the other hand, given the very low turn-over rate of buildings (in Europe, it ranges between 1-3%/yearly), each policy that does not consider the renovation of the existing building stock cannot be effective in the short and medium periods. According to this proposal, the study provides a novel, holistic approach to design the refurbishment of educational buildings in colder cities of Mediterranean regions enabling stakeholders to understand the uncertainty to use numerical modelling and the real environmental and economic impacts of adopting some energy efficiency technologies. The case study is a university building of Molise region in the centre of Italy. The proposed approach is based on the application of the cost-optimal methodology as it is shown in the Delegate Regulation 244/2012 and Guidelines of the European Commission, for evaluating the cost-optimal level of energy performance with a macroeconomic approach. This means that the refurbishment scenario should correspond to the configuration that leads to lowest global cost during the estimated economic life-cycle, taking into account not only the investment cost but also the operational costs, linked to energy consumption and polluting emissions. The definition of the reference building has been supported by various in-situ surveys, investigations, evaluations of the indoor comfort. Data collection can be divided into five categories: 1) geometrical features; 2) building envelope audit; 3) technical system and equipment characterization; 4) building use and thermal zones definition; 5) energy building data. For each category, the required measures have been indicated with some suggestions for the identifications of spatial distribution and timing of the measurements. With reference to the case study, the collected data, together with a comparison with energy bills, allowed a proper calibration of a numerical model suitable for the hourly energy simulation by means of EnergyPlus. Around 30 measures/packages of energy, efficiency measure has been taken into account both on the envelope than regarding plant systems. Starting from results, two-point will be examined exhaustively: (i) the importance to use validated models to simulate the present performance of building under investigation; (ii) the environmental benefits and the economic implications of a deep energy refurbishment of the educational building in cold climates.

Keywords: energy simulation, modelling calibration, cost-optimal retrofit, university building

Procedia PDF Downloads 161