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Authors: Bagweneza Vedaste, Rugema Joselyne, Twagirayezu Innocent, Nikuze Bellancille, Nyirazigama Alice, Ishimwe Bazakare Marie Laetitia, Kaberuka Gerard, Mukeshimana Madeleine

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Background: Teen pregnancies have dramatically increased across the country in the past few years. Teen mothers usually face difficulties accessing the reproductive health (RH) services due to different reasons that include fear of getting discriminated or seen by other people. Some teen mothers do not also know their rights regarding the RH services, and they sometimes get discriminated. Little is known in Rwanda regarding how these teen mothers access the RH services compared to the general population, and views of teen mothers on their rights to access these services have not been clearly documented in the country. Specific Aims: To explore baseline information about SRH services among teen mothers; to explore factors that contribute to the use of SRH services among teen mothers; to identify strategies to increase awareness on SRHR (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) among teen mothers in targeted area; and to explore views of teen mothers on rights for SRH services. Research design/Methodology: The qualitative exploratory descriptive research will be used among the teen mothers in five selected health centers of Rwamagana district. The study will use the qualitative descriptive study design. Setting: The study will be conducted in five selected health centers of Rwamagana district, which has been chosen due to a higher number of adolescent pregnancies in Eastern Province according to the DHS 2019-2020. Participants: The participants in this study will be teenage mothers who conceived after turning 11 but have delivered before turning 19. As the upper age for teenage is 19 years, this means that the researchers anticipated that those conceiving at 19 years may deliver in their twenties, which was the upper age limit in this study. Data collection measures: A semi-structured interview guide will be used to gather information from the respondents in focus group discussions. Significance: The findings of this study will provide a picture regarding the access of teen mothers to SRHS and their rights to SRH services. They will increase their awareness regarding SRH services and rights. Finally, the findings may help to address barriers faced by teen mothers to reach, pay and utilize SRHS.

Keywords: sexual and reproductive health services, inclusiveness, qualitative study, adolescent mothers

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Authors: Jara Kaye S. Villanueva, M. Rosario Concepcion O. Ang

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For the past few years, Philippines has depended most of its energy source on oil, coal, and fossil fuel. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the dominance of coal in the energy mix will continue until the year 2020. The expanding energy needs in the country have led to increasing efforts to promote and develop renewable energy. This research is a part of the government initiative in preparation for renewable energy development and expansion in the country. The Philippine Renewable Energy Resource Mapping from Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) Surveys is a three-year government project which aims to assess and quantify the renewable energy potential of the country and to put them into usable maps. This study focuses on the site suitability analysis of the four renewable energy sources – biomass (coconut, corn, rice, and sugarcane), hydro, solar, and wind energy. The site assessment is a key component in determining and assessing the most suitable locations for the construction of renewable energy power plants. This method maximizes the use of both the technical methods in resource assessment, as well as taking into account the environmental, social, and accessibility aspect in identifying potential sites by utilizing and integrating two different methods: the Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) method and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. For the MCDA, Analytical Hierarchy Processing (AHP) is employed to determine the parameters needed for the suitability analysis. To structure these site suitability parameters, various experts from different fields were consulted – scientists, policy makers, environmentalists, and industrialists. The need to have a well-represented group of people to consult with is relevant to avoid bias in the output parameter of hierarchy levels and weight matrices. AHP pairwise matrix computation is utilized to derive weights per level out of the expert’s gathered feedback. Whereas from the threshold values derived from related literature, international studies, and government laws, the output values were then consulted with energy specialists from the DOE. Geospatial analysis using GIS tools translate this decision support outputs into visual maps. Particularly, this study uses Euclidean distance to compute for the distance values of each parameter, Fuzzy Membership algorithm which normalizes the output from the Euclidean Distance, and the Weighted Overlay tool for the aggregation of the layers. Using the Natural Breaks algorithm, the suitability ratings of each of the map are classified into 5 discrete categories of suitability index: (1) not suitable (2) least suitable, (3) suitable, (4) moderately suitable, and (5) highly suitable. In this method, the classes are grouped based on the best groups similar values wherein each subdivision are set from the rest based on the big difference in boundary values. Results show that in the entire Philippine area of responsibility, biomass has the highest suitability rating with rice as the most suitable at 75.76% suitability percentage, whereas wind has the least suitability percentage with score 10.28%. Solar and Hydro fall in the middle of the two, with suitability values 28.77% and 21.27%.

Keywords: site suitability, biomass energy, hydro energy, solar energy, wind energy, GIS

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Authors: Alma Mendoza-Ponce, Rogelio Corona-Núñez, Florian Kraxner

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Mexico is a megadiverse country and it has nearly halved its natural vegetation in the last century due to agricultural and livestock expansion. Impacts of land use cover change and climate change are unevenly distributed and spatial prioritization to minimize the affectations on biodiversity is crucial. Global and national efforts for prioritizing biodiversity conservation show that ~33% to 45% of Mexico should be protected. The width of these targets makes difficult to lead resources. We use a framework based on vulnerability and irreplaceability to prioritize conservation efforts in Mexico. Vulnerability considered exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity under two scenarios (business as usual, BAU based, on the SSP2 and RCP 4.5 and a Green scenario, based on the SSP1 and the RCP 2.6). Exposure to land use is the magnitude of change from natural vegetation to anthropogenic covers while exposure to climate change is the difference between current and future values for both scenarios. Sensitivity was considered as the number of endemic species of terrestrial vertebrates which are critically endangered and endangered. Adaptive capacity is used as the ration between the percentage of converted area (natural to anthropogenic) and the percentage of protected area at municipality level. The results suggest that by 2050, between 11.6 and 13.9% of Mexico show vulnerability ≥ 50%, and by 2070, between 12.0 and 14.8%, in the Green and BAU scenario, respectively. From an ecosystem perspective cloud forests, followed by tropical dry forests, natural grasslands and temperate forests will be the most vulnerable (≥ 50%). Amphibians are the most threatened vertebrates; 62% of the endemic amphibians are critically endangered or endangered while 39%, 12% and 9% of the mammals, birds, and reptiles, respectively. However, the distribution of these amphibians counts for only 3.3% of the country, while mammals, birds, and reptiles in these categories represent 10%, 16% and 29% of Mexico. There are 5 municipalities out of the 2,457 that Mexico has that represent 31% of the most vulnerable areas (70%).These municipalities account for 0.05% of Mexico. This multiscale approach can be used to address resources to conservation targets as ecosystems, municipalities or species considering land use cover change, climate change and biodiversity uniqueness.

Keywords: biodiversity, climate change, land use change, Mexico, vulnerability

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Authors: Hazem J. Smadi

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Performance of a supply chain is directly related to a distribution network that entails the location of storing materials or products and how products are delivered to the end customer through different stages in the supply chain. This study analyses the current distribution network used for delivering gas cylinders to end customer in Jordan. Evaluation of current distribution has been conducted across customer service components. A modification on the current distribution network in terms of central warehousing in each city in the country improves the response time and customer experience. 

Keywords: distribution network, gas cylinder, Jordan, supply chain

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Authors: Mehri Sadat Alavinasab Ashgezari, Gholam Reza Nabi Bidhendi, Fatemeh Sadat Alavinasab Ashkezari

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Atmospheric aerosol loading (AAL) from anthropogenic sources is an evidence in industrial development. The accelerated trends in material consumption at the global scale in recent years demonstrate consumption paradigms sensible to the planetary boundaries (PB). This paper is a statistical approach on recognizing the path of climate-relevant bulk materials production (CBMP) of steel, cement and plastics to AAL via an updated and validated spatiotemporal distribution. The methodology of statistical analysis used the most updated regional or global databases or instrumental technologies. This corresponded to a selection of processes and areas capable for tracking AAL within the last decade, analyzing the most validated data while leading to explore the behavior functions or models. The results also represented a correlation within socio economic metabolism idea between the materials specified as macronutrients of society and AAL as a PB with an unknown threshold. The selected country contributors of China, India, US and the sample country of Iran show comparable cumulative AAL values vs to the bulk materials domestic extraction and production rate in the study period of 2012 to 2022. Generally, there is a tendency towards gradual descend in the worldwide and regional aerosol concentration after 2015. As of our evaluation, a considerable share of human role, equivalent 20% from CBMP, is for the main anthropogenic species of aerosols, including sulfate, black carbon and organic particulate matters too. This study, in an innovative approach, also explores the potential role of AAL control mechanisms from the economy sectors where ordered and smoothing loading trends are accredited through the disordered phenomena of CBMP and aerosol precursor emissions. The equilibrium states envisioned is an approval to the well-established theory of Spin Glasses applicable in physical system like the Earth and here to AAL.

Keywords: atmospheric aeroso loading, material flows, climate bulk materials, industrial ecology

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Authors: Rachel Koshy, Nazrila Hairizan Bt. Nasir, Samsiah Bt. Awang, Kamaliah Bt. Mohamad Noh

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Malaysia collaborated as a ‘trailblazer’ country with PHCPI (Primary Health Care Performance Initiative) to populate the Primary Health Care (PHC) Vital Signs Profile (VSP) for the country. The PHC VSP provides an innovative snapshot of the primary health care system's performance. Four domains were assessed: system financing, system capacity, system performance, and system equity, and completed in 2019. There were two phases using a mixed method study design. The first phase involved a quantitative study, utilising existing secondary data from national and international sources. In the case of unavailability of data for any indicators, comparable alternative indicators were used. The second phase was a mixed quantitative-qualitative approach to measure the functional capacity based on governance and leadership, population health needs, inputs, population health management, and facility organisation and management. PHC spending constituted 35% of overall health spending in Malaysia, with a per capita PHC spending of $152. The capacity domain was strong in the three subdomains of governance and leadership, information system, and funds management. The two subdomains of drugs & supplies and facility organisation & management had low scores, but the lowest score was in empanelment of the population under the population health management. The PHC system performed with an access index of 98%, quality index of 84%, and service coverage of 62%. In the equity domain, there was little fluctuation in the coverage of reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health services by mother’s level of education and under-five child mortality between urban and rural areas. The public sector was stronger in the capacity domain as compared to the private sector. This is due to the different financing, organisational structures, and service delivery mechanism. The VSP has identified areas for improvement in the effort to provide high-quality PHC for the population. The gaps in PHC can be addressed through the system approach and the positioning of public and private primary health care delivery systems.

Keywords: primary health care, health system, system domains, vital signs profile

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Authors: Seyed Sadegh Naseralavi, Najmeh Bemani

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The design in most counties should be inevitably carried out by their native code such as Iran. Since the Iranian concrete code does not exist in structural design software, most engineers in this country analyze the structures using commercial software but design the structural members manually. This point motivated us to make a communication between Iranian code and some other well-known ones to create facility for the engineers. Finally, this paper proposes the so-called interpretation charts which help specify the position of Iranian code in comparison of some worldwide ones.

Keywords: beam, concrete code, strength, interpretation charts

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Authors: Nyong Princely Awazi, Gadinga Walter Forje, Barnabas Neba Nfornkah, Ndzifon Jude Kimengsi

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Ecotourism is documented as a sustainable measure of bridging conservation goals and livelihood sustenance around protected areas, due to its ability of not just providing alternative livelihood, but also in providing the necessary resources that can help finance conservation initiatives. In Cameroon, all ecotourism activities around national parks are aimed at generating revenue through the conservation service while providing sustainable livelihood options to the local population. There exists an information lacuna regarding the contribution of ecotourism finances to conservation efforts in the country. This study was aimed at establishing the contribution of ecotourism finances to conservation initiatives in and around the Campo Ma’an National Park (CMNP). Data were collected through the administering of 120 structured questionnaires to ecotourism actors and 15 key/expert interviews with tourism and conservation actors in the Campo Ma’an landscape. Chi-square test, Spearman’s rank correlation and regressions were used for data analysis. The study revealed that the main sources of ecotourism financing to the park service are through entrance fees, cameras and vehicle fees paid by tourists as well as ecotourism project financing through NGOs. Calculations from the tourism register of the park showed that the park was able to raise as much as 1,576,000 FCFA (US$ 3,152) annually. It was further established that ecotourism revenue has not greatly supported conservation, with 54% of respondents perceiving ecotourism not contributing to biodiversity conservation. Chi Square test results highlighted poor ecotourism governance, low level of ecotourism development, corruption from park management staff, obsolete nature of the current finance law on the management of protected area revenue as key factors hindering ecotourism financing in conservation. For ecotourism financing to contribute to biodiversity conservation in the CMNP and in Cameroon’s protected areas, the government needs to revise the finance law on the management of revenue generated from protected areas, improve park governance to fight corruption and enhance transparency, invest in the development and marketing of the Campo Ma’an national park as a tourism destination in the country.

Keywords: Cameroon, Campo Ma’an National Park, conservation, ecotourism, ecotourism financing

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Authors: Samaneh Poormohammadi, Farid Golkar, Vahideh Khatibi Sarabi

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Climate change and consecutive droughts have increased the importance of using rainwater harvesting methods. One of the methods of rainwater harvesting and, in other words, the management of atmospheric water resources is the use of weather modification technologies. Weather modification (also known as weather control) is the act of intentionally manipulating or altering the weather. The most common form of weather modification is cloud seeding, which increases rain or snow, usually for the purpose of increasing the local water supply. Cloud seeding operations in Iran have been married since 1999 in central Iran with the aim of harvesting rainwater and reducing the effects of drought. In this research, we analyze the results of cloud seeding operations in the Simindashtplain in northern Iran. Rainwater harvesting with the help of cloud seeding technology has been evaluated through its effects on surface water and underground water. For this purpose, two different methods have been used to estimate runoff. The first method is the US Soil Conservation Service (SCS) curve number method. Another method, known as the reasoning method, has also been used. In order to determine the infiltration rate of underground water, the balance reports of the comprehensive water plan of the country have been used. In this regard, the study areas located in the target area of each province have been extracted by drawing maps of the influence coefficients of each area in the GIS software. It should be mentioned that the infiltration coefficients were taken from the balance sheet reports of the country's comprehensive water plan. Then, based on the area of each study area, the weighted average of the infiltration coefficient of the study areas located in the target area of each province is considered as the infiltration coefficient of that province. Results show that the amount of water extracted from the rain with the help of cloud seeding projects in Simindasht is as follows: an increase in runoff 63.9 million cubic meters (with SCS equation) or 51.2 million cubic meters (with logical equation) and an increase in ground water resources: 40.5 million cubic meters.

Keywords: rainwater harvesting, ground water, atmospheric water resources, weather modification, cloud seeding

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Authors: Aly Audu Fada

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The mono-economic structure of Nigerian economy has made it depend on oil for so many years. Apart from the negative effect of its exploitation, relying solely on oil as the major source of revenue for peddling the ship of development is myopic. The crumbling oil price in the world market is one proof of the dangers of this over-dependence. This paper highlights the consequences of the oil-driven economy and explores the various opportunities that are accessible in tourism through a contextual analysis. It is recommended that those at the helm of affairs should initiate collaboration between the public and private sectors to explore and harness the rich tourism resources naturally dispersed across the country to achieve the objectives of economic transformation agenda of the Federal Government.

Keywords: diversifying, economic, tourism, oil

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Authors: Tasneem Chopra

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The 1968 Summer Olympics will forever be remembered for the silent protest against racism exhibited by American athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos. Also standing on the medal podium was Australian Peter Norman, whose silent solidarity as a white sportsman completes the powerful, evocative image of that night in Mexico City. In the 50 years since Norman’s stance of solidarity with his American counterparts, Australian sports has traveled a wide arc of racism narratives, with athletes still experiencing episodes of bigotry, both on the pitch and elsewhere. Aboriginal athletes, like tennis champion Yvonne Goolagong, have endured the plaudits of appreciation for their achievements on both the national and international stage, while simultaneously being subject to both prejudice and even questions as to their right to represent their country as full, acceptable citizens. Racism in Australia is directed toward Australian athletes of colour as well as foreign sportspeople who visit the country. The complex, mutating nature of racism in Australia is also informed by the culture of silence, where fellow athletes stand mute in light of their colleagues’ experience with bigotry. This paper analyses the phenomenon of sports racism in Australia over the past fifty years, culminating in the most recent showdown between Heretier Lumumba, former Collingwood football player, and his public allegations of racism experienced by team mates over his 10 year career. It shall examine the treatment and mistreatment of athletes because of their race and will further assess how such public perceptions both shape Australian culture or are themselves a manifestation of preexisting pathologies of bigotry. Further, it will examine the efficacy of anti-racism initiatives in responding to this hate. This paper will analyse the growing influence of corporate and media entities in crafting the economics of Australian sports and assess the role of such factors in creating the narrative of racism in the nation, both as a sociological reality as well as a marker of national identity. Finally, this paper will examine the political, social and economic forces that contribute to the culture of silence in Australian society in defying racism.

Keywords: aboriginal, Australia, corporations, silence

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Authors: Eyup Dogan

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The number of research articles analyzing the integration properties of energy variables has rapidly increased in the energy literature for about a decade. The stochastic behaviors of energy variables are worth knowing due to several reasons. For instance, national policies to conserve or promote energy consumption, which should be taken as shocks to energy consumption, will have transitory effects in energy consumption if energy consumption is found to be stationary in one country. Furthermore, it is also important to know the order of integration to employ an appropriate econometric model. Despite being an important subject for applied energy (economics) and having a huge volume of studies, several known limitations still exist with the existing literature. For example, many of the studies use aggregate energy consumption and national level data. In addition, a huge part of the literature is either multi-country studies or solely focusing on the U.S. This is the first study in the literature that considers a form of energy consumption by sectors at sub-national level. This research study aims at investigating unit root properties of electricity consumption for 12 regions of Turkey by four sectors in addition to total electricity consumption for the purpose of filling the mentioned limits in the literature. In this regard, we analyze stationarity properties of 60 cases . Because the use of multiple unit root tests make the results robust and consistent, we apply Dickey-Fuller unit root test based on Generalized Least Squares regression (DFGLS), Phillips-Perron unit root test (PP) and Zivot-Andrews unit root test with one endogenous structural break (ZA). The main finding of this study is that electricity consumption is trend stationary in 7 cases according to DFGLS and PP, whereas it is stationary process in 12 cases when we take into account the structural change by applying ZA. Thus, shocks to electricity consumption have transitory effects in those cases; namely, agriculture in region 1, region 4 and region 7, industrial in region 5, region 8, region 9, region 10 and region 11, business in region 4, region 7 and region 9, total electricity consumption in region 11. Regarding policy implications, policies to decrease or stimulate the use of electricity have a long-run impact on electricity consumption in 80% of cases in Turkey given that 48 cases are non-stationary process. On the other hand, the past behavior of electricity consumption can be used to predict the future behavior of that in 12 cases only.

Keywords: unit root, electricity consumption, sectoral data, subnational data

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Authors: Elachouri Mostafa, Fakchich Jamila, Lazaar Jamila, Elmadmad Mohammed, Marhom Mostafa

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Of course, there has been a great growth in scientific information about medicinal plants in recent decades, but in many ways this has proved poor compensation, because such information is accessible, in practice, only to a very few people and anyway, rather little of it is relevant to problems of management and utilization, as encountered in the field. Active compounds are used in most traditional medicines and play an important role in advancing sustainable rural livelihoods through their conservation, cultivation, propagation, marketing and commercialization. Medicinal herbs are great resources for various pharmaceutical compounds and urgent measures are required to protect these plant species from their natural destruction and disappearance. Indeed, there is a real danger of indigenous Arab medicinal practices and knowledge disappearing altogether, further weakening traditional Arab culture and creating more insecurity, as well as forsaking a resource of inestimable economic and health care importance. As scientific approach, the ethnopharmacological investigation remains the principal way to improve, evaluate, and increase the odds of finding of biologically active compounds derived from medicinal plants. As developing country, belonging to the Mediterranean basin, Morocco country is endowed with resources of medicinal and aromatic plants. These plants have been used over the millennia for human welfare, even today. Besides, Morocco has a large plant biodiversity, in fact, its medicinal flora account more than 4200 species growing on various bioclimatic zones from subhumide to arid and Saharan. Nevertheless, the human and animal pressure resulting from the increase of rural population needs has led to degradation of this patrimony. In this paper, we focus our attention on ethnopharmacological studies carried out in Morocco. The goal of this work is to clarify the importance of herbs as platform for drugs discovery and further development, to highlight the importance of ethnopharmacological study as approach on discovery of natural products in the health care field, and to discuss the limit of ethnopharmacological investigation of drug discovery in Morocco.

Keywords: Morocco, medicinal plants, ethnopharmacology, natural products, drug-discovery

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Authors: Constâncio Augusto Machanguana

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The world over, resettling communities, for whatever purpose (mining, dams, forestry and wildlife management, roads, or facilitating services delivery), often leads to tensions between those resettled, the investors, and the local and national governments involved in the process. Causes include unclear government legislation and regulations, confusing Corporate Social Responsibility policies and guidelines, and other social-economic policies leading to unrealistic expectations among those being resettled, causing frustrations within the community, shifting them to any imminent conflict against the investors (company). The exploitation of heavy mineral sands along Mozambique’s long coastline and hinterland has not been providing a benefit for the affected communities. A case in point is the exploration, since 2018, of heavy sands in Chibuto District in the Southern Province of Gaza. A likely contributing factor is the standard type of socio-economic surveys and community involvement processes that could smooth the relationship among the parties. This research aims to investigate alternative processes to plan, initiate and guide resettlement processes in such a way that tensions and conflicts are avoided. Based on the process already finished, compared to similar cases along with the country, mixed methods to collect primary data were adopted: three focus groups of 125 people, representing 324 resettled householders; five semi-structured interviews with relevant stakeholders such as the local government, NGO’s and local leaders to understand their role in all stages of the process. The preliminary results show that the community has limited or no understanding of the potential impacts of these large-scale explorations, and the apparent harmony between the parties (community and company) may hide the dissatisfaction of those resettled. So, rather than focusing on negative mining impacts, the research contributes to science by identifying the best resettlement approach that can be replicated in other contexts along with the country in the actual context of the new discovery of mineral resources.

Keywords: conflict mitigation, resettlement, mining, Mozambique

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Authors: Fawad Hussain, Saleh Abdullah Saleh, Mohammad Basir B Saud, Mohd Azwardi Md. Isa

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It is very important for a developing nation to develop their infrastursture on the prime priority because their infrastursture particularly their roads and transporation functions as a blood in the system. Almost 1.1 billion populations share the travel and transportation industry in India. On the other hand, the Pakistan transportation industry is also extensive and elevating about 170 million users of transportation. Indian and Pakistani specifically within bus industry have good interconnectivity within and between the urban and rural areas as well as connectivity between the two countries, which is dramatically helping the economic alleviation of both countries. Due to high economic instability, unemployment and poverty rate are among the reasons why both the governments are very committed and seriously taken further action to help boost their economy. They believe that any form of transportation development would play a vital role in the development of land, infrastructure which could indirectly support many other industries’ development, such as tourism, freighting and shipping businesses, just to mention a few. However, it seems that their previous transportation planning in the due course has failed to meet the fast growing demand. As with the spin of time, both the countries are looking forward for a reasonable, safe and economical long term solutions, which is from time to time keep appreciating and reacting according to other key economic drivers. Content analysis method and case study approach is used in this paper and secondary data from the bureau of statistic is used for case analysis. The paper centered on the mobility concerns of the lower and middle income people in India and Pakistan. The paper is aimed to highlight the weaknesses, opportunities and limitations resulting from low priority industry for government, which is making the either country's public suffer. The paper has concluded that the main issue is identified as the slow, inappropriate and unfavorable decisions which are not in favor of long term country’s economic development and public welfare as well as interest. The paper also recommends to future market sense public and private transportation, which has failed to meet the public expectations.

Keywords: bus transportation industries, transportation demand, government parallel initiatives, road and traffic congestions

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Authors: Renato Dias Baptista

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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the elements of the cultural dimension in the internationalization process of Brazilian companies in Bolivia. This paper is based on research on two major Brazilian transnational companies which have plants in Bolivia. To achieve the objectives, the interconnective characteristics of culture in the process of productive internationalization were analyzed aiming to highlight it as a guiding element opposite the premises of the Brazilian leadership in the integration and development of the continent. The analysis aims to give relevance to the culture of a country and its relations with internationalization.

Keywords: culture, transnational, internationalization, Bolivia, Brazil

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Authors: Yuri B. Cesarino, Vinícius R. Domingues, Darym J. F. Campos

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Developing countries have some restrains towards the adoption of new technologies and construction methods. Some nations, such as Brazil, still use conventional construction methodologies, knowing its lesser cost-effectiveness. This research has been conducted to demonstrate how industrialized construction methods should be implemented in Brazil, especially in times of need. Using the common sense among different authors with different perspectives, it is clear that the second method is more suitable for construction development because of its great advantages. However, it is unlikely for this process to be adopted in the country as a result of several social-economic restraints. Nonetheless, Brazilian engineers have a major challenge ahead of them, and it will take more than creativity to solve such an issue.

Keywords: Brazilian engineers, construction methods, industrialized construction, infrastructure

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Authors: Panagiota Katsikouli, William Hamilton Byrne, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, Tijs Slaats

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An individual who demonstrates a well-founded fear of persecution or faces real risk of being subjected to torture is eligible for asylum. In Danish law, the exact legal thresholds reflect those established by international conventions, notably the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1950 European Convention for Human Rights. These international treaties, however, remain largely silent when it comes to how states should assess asylum claims. As a result, national authorities are typically left to determine an individual’s legal eligibility on a narrow basis consisting of an oral testimony, which may itself be hampered by several factors, including imprecise language interpretation, insecurity or lacking trust towards the authorities among applicants. The leaky ground, on which authorities must assess their subjective perceptions of asylum applicants' credibility, questions whether, in all cases, adjudicators make the correct decision. Moreover, the subjective element in these assessments raises questions on whether individual asylum cases could be afflicted by implicit biases or stereotyping amongst adjudicators. In fact, recent studies have uncovered significant correlations between decision outcomes and the experience and gender of the assigned judge, as well as correlations between asylum outcomes and entirely external events such as weather and political elections. In this study, we analyze a publicly available dataset containing approximately 8,000 summaries of asylum cases, initially rejected, and re-tried by the Refugee Appeals Board (RAB) in Denmark. First, we look for variations in the recognition rates, with regards to a number of applicants’ features: their country of origin/nationality, their identified gender, their identified religion, their ethnicity, whether torture was mentioned in their case and if so, whether it was supported or not, and the year the applicant entered Denmark. In order to extract those features from the text summaries, as well as the final decision of the RAB, we applied natural language processing and regular expressions, adjusting for the Danish language. We observed interesting variations in recognition rates related to the applicants’ country of origin, ethnicity, year of entry and the support or not of torture claims, whenever those were made in the case. The appearance (or not) of significant variations in the recognition rates, does not necessarily imply (or not) bias in the decision-making progress. None of the considered features, with the exception maybe of the torture claims, should be decisive factors for an asylum seeker’s fate. We therefore investigate whether the decision can be predicted on the basis of these features, and consequently, whether biases are likely to exist in the decisionmaking progress. We employed a number of machine learning classifiers, and found that when using the applicant’s country of origin, religion, ethnicity and year of entry with a random forest classifier, or a decision tree, the prediction accuracy is as high as 82% and 85% respectively. tentially predictive properties with regards to the outcome of an asylum case. Our analysis and findings call for further investigation on the predictability of the outcome, on a larger dataset of 17,000 cases, which is undergoing.

Keywords: asylum adjudications, automated decision-making, machine learning, text mining

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Authors: Carmen Nechita

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This research explores the world of Syrian refugee women living in Dresden and their efforts to reconstruct their lives in the state of Saxony in Germany. The focus is on the initial period of adjustment and understanding how refugee women use culture, family ties, and tradition to contest and rebuild new relationships with the host country. Faced with a new status as “the refugee”, women have to re-imagine their ethno-cultural identity in order to cope with life in Diaspora. In order to understand the coping mechanism and the displacement effects on Syrian women, interviews with twelve refugee women were conducted. Traumatic experiences of loss and oppression are at the core of their confessions. While gender violence, abuse and patriarchal framework shape their narratives, this research argues that there is a need to look at this from a cultural perspective and try to distance ourselves from the western paradigm. The way Syrian women refute and rebuild their national and ethno-cultural identity in order to negotiate for themselves new space within German borders is explored. Two discourses are bridged: one of multiculturalism and one of tradition in order to explain how Syrian women experience western notions of family, womanhood and spousal dynamics. The process is painful, traumatic and marked by feelings of low self-worth, but in the end, new codes emerge and these women come out more empowered. The paper includes the migration experience and explores the ways in which Syrian refugee women tend to tell their complex stories, and how they reconstruct their identity in a new territory while faced with a different culture that discriminates against them. During the research, four distinct phases in the acculturation period were identified: “the survival”, “the honeymoon period”, “the isolation period” and “the anger period”. Each phase is analyzed in order to understand what triggers them, how women migrate from one phase to another and what can be done to make the process easier. This paper contributes to the field of refugee studies by offering a thorough understanding of the initial phases of the acculturation process in the case of Syrian refugee women. The study examines the fleeing and settlement experience in order to understand the complex ways that refugee women cope with the traumatic experience of settlement in another country and in a different culture. *Almanya: The Arabic word for Germany.

Keywords: displacement, migration, refugee women, Syria

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Authors: Tom Farrelly, Yvoonne Kavanagh, Tony Murphy

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In the last 20 years, Ireland has enjoyed an upsurge in the number of international students coming to avail of its well-regarded Higher Education system. While welcome, the influx of international students has posed a number of cultural, social and academic challenges for the Irish HE sector, both at institutional and individual lecturer level. Notwithstanding the challenge to the Irish HE sector, the difficulties that incoming students face needs to be acknowledged and addressed. For students who have never left their home country before the transition can be daunting even if they have not learned the customs and ways of the new country. In 2013, Ireland’s National Forum for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education invited submissions from interested parties to design and implement digital supports aimed at assisting students transitioning into or exiting higher education. Five colleges—the Institute of Technology, Tralee; University College Cork, Institute of Technology, Carlow; Cork Institute of Technology and Waterford Institute of Technology—collectively known as the Southern Cluster, were granted funding to research and develop digital objects to support international students' transition into the Irish higher education system. One of the key fundamentals of this project was its strong commitment to incorporating the student voice to help inform the design of the digital objects. The primary research method used to ascertain student views was the circulation of an online questionnaire using SurveyMonkey to existing international students in each of the five participant colleges. The questionnaire sought to examine the experiences and opinions of the students in relation to three main aspects of their living and studying in Ireland (hence the name of the project LiveAndLearnInIreland) (1) the academic environment (2) the social aspects of living in Ireland and (3) the practical aspects of living in Ireland. The response to the survey (n=573), revealed a number of sometimes surprising issues and themes for the digital objects to address. The research, therefore, offers insight into the types of concerns that any college, whether in Ireland or further afield, needs to take into consideration, if it is to genuinely assist what can be a difficult transition for the international student. That said, while there are a number of themes that emerged that have international implications there are other themes that have a particular resonance for the Irish HE sector.

Keywords: international, transition, support, inclusion

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Authors: Gülbuğ Erol, Caner Çakı

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In Europe, it is seen that the immigrant population has increased in recent years. The rapid increase in the immigrant population has led to that some extreme right-wing parties increased their harsh discourse against the immigrants in Europe. In particular, it is seen that some right-wing parties in some European countries have demanded that the immigrant population could be controlled in the countries they are in, and even those immigrants should be removed from their countries. In this process, it is seen that these parties have effectively used social media platforms in the propaganda activities carried out for immigrants in recent years. In particular, the social media has great advantages in that these parties can address to the entire population in the country, apart from the limited masses that political parties address. How these political parties benefit from these advantages has great importance for the political parties to demonstrate their influence in political arena. In this study, it was tried to investigate how and why the extreme right-wing parties in Europe have used social media in their propaganda activities towards immigrant populations in Europe. For this purpose, the political parties of the three German-speaking countries in Europe were elected; Die Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) from Germany, Die Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) from Austria, Die Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) from Switzerland. As social media platform, only their Facebook accounts were analyzed in this study. Accounts The political parties selected were examined with content analysis, and that social media was effectively used by extreme right-wing parties for propaganda purposes towards immigrants in Europe revealed.In this process, it is seen that these parties have effectively used social media platforms in the propaganda activities carried out for immigrants in recent years. In particular, the social media has great advantages in that these parties can address to the entire population in the country, apart from the limited masses that political parties address. How these political parties benefit from these advantages has great importance for the political parties to demonstrate their influence in political arena. In Europe, it is seen that the immigrant population has increased in recent years. The rapid increase in the immigrant population has led to that some extreme right-wing parties increased their harsh discourse against the immigrants in Europe. In particular, it is seen that some right-wing parties in some European countries have demanded that the immigrant population should be controlled in the countries they are in, and even those immigrants should be removed from their countries. In this process, it is seen that these parties have effectively used social media platforms in the propaganda activities carried out for immigrants in recent years. In particular, the social media has great advantages in that these parties can address to the entire population in the country, apart from the limited masses that political parties address. How these political parties benefit from these advantages has great importance for the political parties to demonstrate their influence in political arena. In this study, it was tried to investigate how and why the extreme right-wing parties in Europe have used social media in their propaganda activities towards immigrant populations in Europe. For this purpose, the political parties of the three German-speaking countries in Europe were elected; Die Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD) from Germany, Die Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) from Austria, Die Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) from Switzerland. As social media platform, only their Facebook accounts were analyzed in this study. Accounts The political parties selected were examined with content analysis and that social media was effectively used by extreme right-wing parties for propaganda purposes towards immigrants in Europe revealed.

Keywords: content analysis, political parties, propaganda, social media

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Authors: István János Molnár

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Hungary has a legal system that is primarily based on statutory legislation, which means that statutes are the main source of law. However, in a surprising move, the Hungarian Parliament introduced a "limited" precedent system on 1 April 2020. This reform requires Hungarian courts to consider not only statutes but also the interpretation of those statutes in decisions made by the highest court in the country, the Curia. While judge-made customary law is not completely unfamiliar in Hungarian legal practice, the introduction of this new system presents several theoretical and practical challenges that may take time to resolve.

Keywords: civil procedure, hungary, judicial practice, precedent system, sources of law

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Authors: A. M. Andriano, M. Lombardi, A. Lopolito, M. Prosperi, A. Stasi, E. Iannuzzi

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In according to the scientific debate on the definition of Social Innovation (SI), the present paper identifies SI as new ideas (products, services, and models) that simultaneously meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. This concept offers important tools to unravel the difficult condition for the agricultural sector in marginalized areas, characterized by the abandonment of activities, low level of farmer education, and low generational renewal, hampering new territorial strategies addressed at and integrated and sustainable development. Models of SI in agriculture, starting from bottom up approach or from the community, are considered to represent the driving force of an ecological and digital revolution. A system based on SI may be able to grasp and satisfy individual and social needs and to promote new forms of entrepreneurship. In this context, Vazapp ('Go Hoeing') is an emerging SI model in southern Italy that promotes solutions for satisfying needs of farmers and facilitates their relationships (creation of network). The Vazapp’s initiative, considered in this study, is the Contadinners ('Farmer’s dinners'), a dinner held at farmer’s house where stakeholders living in the surrounding area know each other and are able to build a network for possible future professional collaborations. The aim of the paper is to identify the evolution of farmers’ relationships, both quantitatively and qualitatively, because of the Contadinner’s initiative organized by Vazapp. To this end, the study adopts the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology by using UCINET (Version 6.667) software to analyze the relational structure. Data collection was realized through a questionnaire distributed to 387 participants in the twenty 'Contadinners', held from February 2016 to June 2018. The response rate to the survey was about 50% of farmers. The elaboration data was focused on different aspects, such as: a) the measurement of relational reciprocity among the farmers using the symmetrize method of answers; b) the measurement of the answer reliability using the dichotomize method; c) the description of evolution of social capital using the cohesion method; d) the clustering of the Contadinners' participants in followers and not-followers of Vazapp to evaluate its impact on the local social capital. The results concern the effectiveness of this initiative in generating trustworthy relationships within the rural area of southern Italy, typically affected by individualism and mistrust. The number of relationships represents the quantitative indicator to define the dimension of the network development; while the typologies of relationships (from simple friendship to formal collaborations, for branding new cooperation initiatives) represents the qualitative indicator that offers a diversified perspective of the network impact. From the analysis carried out, Vazapp’s initiative represents surely a virtuous SI model to catalyze the relationships within the rural areas and to develop entrepreneurship based on the real needs of the community.

Keywords:

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Authors: Muhammad Tahir Hassan, Stas Burek, Muhammad Asif, Mohamed Emad

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Industrial sector in Pakistan accounts for 25% of total energy consumption in the country. The performance of this sector has been severely affected due to the adverse effect of current energy crises in the country. Energy conservation potentials of Pakistan’s industrial sectors through energy management can save wasted energy which would ultimately leads to economic and environmental benefits. However due to lack of financial incentives of energy efficiency and absence of energy benchmarking within same industrial sectors are some of the main challenges in the implementation of energy management. In Pakistan, this area has not been adequately explored, and there is a lack of focus on the need for industrial energy efficiency and proper management. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the current energy management performance of Pakistani industrial sector and empirical investigation of the existence of various barriers to industrial energy efficiency. Data was collected from the respondents of 192 small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s) of Pakistan i.e. foundries, textile, plastic industries, light engineering, auto and spare parts and ceramic manufacturers and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. Current energy management performance of manufacturing SME’s in Pakistan has been evaluated by employing two significant indicators, ‘Energy Management Matrix’ and ‘pay-off criteria’, with modified approach. Using the energy management matrix, energy management profiles of overall industry and the individual sectors have been drawn to assess the energy management performance and identify the weak and strong areas as well. Results reveal that, energy management practices in overall surveyed industries are at very low level. Energy management profiles drawn against each sector suggest that performance of textile sector is better among all the surveyed manufacturing SME’s. The empirical barriers to industrial energy efficiency have also been ranked according to the overall responses. The results further reveal that there is a significant relationship exists among the industrial size, sector type and nature of barriers to industrial energy efficiency for the manufacturing SME’s in Pakistan. The findings of this study may help the industries and policy makers in Pakistan to formulate a sustainable energy policy to support industrial energy efficiency keeping in view the actual existing energy efficiency scenario in the industrial sector.

Keywords: barriers, energy conservation, energy management profile, environment, manufacturing SME's of Pakistan

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Authors: Süleyman Hakan Yilmaz, Yasemin Gülsen Yilmaz

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The Gezi Park protests of 2013 have significantly changed the Turkish agenda and its effects have been felt historically. The protests, which rapidly spread throughout the country, were triggered by the proposal to recreate the Ottoman Army Barracks to function as a shopping mall on Gezi Park located in Istanbul’s Taksim neighbourhood despite the oppositions of several NGOs and when trees were cut in the park for this purpose. Once the news that construction vehicles entered the park on May 27 spread on social media, activists moved into the park to stop the demolition, against whom the police used disproportioned force. With this police intervention and the then prime-minister Tayyip Erdoğan's insistent statements about the construction plans, the protests turned into anti-government demonstrations, which then spread to the rest of the country, mainly in big cities like Ankara and Izmir. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ June 23rd reports, 2.5 million people joined the demonstrations in 79 provinces, that is all of them, except for the provinces of Bayburt and Bingöl, while even more people shared their opinions via social networks. As a result of these events, 8 civilians and 2 security personnel lost their lives, namely police chief Mustafa Sarı, police officer Ahmet Küçükdağ, citizens Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, Abdullah Cömert, Ethem Sarısülük, Ali İsmail Korkmaz, Ahmet Atakan, Berkin Elvan, Burak Can Karamanoğlu, Mehmet İstif, and Elif Çermik, and 8163 more were injured. Besides being a turning point in Turkish history, the Gezi Park protests also had broad repercussions in both in Turkish and in global media, which focused on Turkey throughout the events. Our study conducts content analysis of three Turkish reporting newspapers with varying ideological standpoints, Hürriyet, Cumhuriyet ve Yeni Şafak, in order to reveal their basic approach to columns casting in context of the Gezi Park protests. Columns content relating to the Gezi protests were treated and analysed for this purpose. The aim of this study is to understand the social effects of the Gezi Park protests through media samples with varying political attitudes towards news casting.

Keywords: Gezi Park, media, news casting, columns

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Authors: Yiquan Liao, Quanhong Jiang

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Since terahertz was observed by German scientists, we have obtained terahertz through different generation technologies of broadband and narrowband. Then, with the development of semiconductor and other technologies, the imaging technology of terahertz has become increasingly perfect. From the earliest application of nondestructive testing in aviation to the present application of information transmission and human safety detection, the role of terahertz will shine in various fields. The weapons produced by terahertz were epoch-making, which is a crushing deterrent against technologically backward countries. At the same time, terahertz technology in the fields of imaging, medical and livelihood, communication and communication are for the well-being of the country and the people.

Keywords: terahertz, imaging, communication, medical treatment

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Authors: Alfonso Unceta, Javier Castro-Spila

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This paper offers a conceptual and empirical exploration between the organizational performance and the impact of social innovation. The paper contributes on the social innovation field in three domains: a) It provides analytical and empirical evidence linking organizational performance to the impact of social innovation; b) it provides a first outline of impact assessment of social innovation when it is developed by a diversity of heterogeneous actors (systemic social innovation); c) it provides a first outline for the development of innovation policies to support social innovations according to a typology of organizations and a typology of impact.

Keywords: absorptive capacity, social innovation impact, organizational performance, RESINDEX, Basque Country

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Authors: Igor A. Bessmertny, Bidru C. Enkomaryam

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Active involving patients and communities in health decisions can improve both people’s health and the healthcare system. Adopting artificial intelligence can lead to more accurate and complete patient record management. This review aims to identify the current state of researches conducted using artificial intelligence techniques to improve patient engagement and wellbeing, medical domains used in patient engagement context, and lastly, to assess opportunities and challenges for patient engagement in the wellness process. A search of peer-reviewed publications, reviews, conceptual analyses, white papers, author’s manuscripts and theses was undertaken. English language literature published in 2013– 2022 period and publications, report and guidelines of World Health Organization (WHO) were also assessed. About 281 papers were retrieved. Duplicate papers in the databases were removed. After application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 41 papers were included to the analysis. Patient counseling in preventing adverse drug events, in doctor-patient risk communication, surgical, drug development, mental healthcare, hypertension & diabetes, metabolic syndrome and non-communicable chronic diseases are implementation areas in healthcare where patient engagement can be implemented using artificial intelligence, particularly machine learning and deep learning techniques and tools. The five groups of factors that potentially affecting patient engagement in safety are related to: patient, health conditions, health care professionals, tasks and health care setting. Active involvement of patients and families can help accelerate the implementation of healthcare safety initiatives. In sub-Saharan Africa, using digital technologies like artificial intelligence in patient engagement context is low due to poor level of technological development and deployment. The opportunities and challenges available to implement patient engagement strategies vary greatly from country to country and from region to region. Thus, further investigation will be focused on methods and tools using the potential of artificial intelligence to support more simplified care that might be improve communication with patients and train health care professionals.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, patient engagement, machine learning, patient involvement

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Authors: Zainab Abdulkarim

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Literature is the study of life, a source of knowledge. It involves the truth about many things in life. Most of these creative artistes most especially the poets are representatives of the voices of the people. These set of artistes have been the critics to all involved in the development of their nation. This paper will examine how Nigerian Poets goes further not just by writing but by showing the different ways the country has been convoluted. This paper intends to show the power and ability literature has in representation. The power is to represent the important values of life. There is no doubt that literature asserts truth. Through the various poems examined in this paper, Nigerian Poets have proved to portray the realities of the nation.

Keywords: literature, poets, reality, representation

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Authors: Misbah Shaheen, Anam Qureshi

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In this work we will discuss the challenges faced by tourism industry in Pakistan. Tourism plays vital role in the socio-economic growth of a country. The countries of world, with less tourism opportunities are lagging behind from other nations of the world. Pakistan is one of those countries which rich in historical places, natural beauty, and uniqueness in handmade items and also of green forests. Present study will discuss the challenges being faced by tourism industry with special focus on hotel industry and law and order situation.

Keywords: Pakistan, tourism, handmade items, hotel industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 393