Search results for: international demands

Authors: Natalie Preville, Carlos Joel Mejia-Olivares

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In the UK, since the early 1950s when the NHS was founded, international staff in the NHS have played an important role. Currently, they represent 16% of the workforce within the NHS in the UK. Furthermore, to address the shortfalls in nursing staff, international recruitment programs have been essential to reduce the gaps in the UK nursing workforce over the last two decades. The NHS Long Term Plan (2019) aims to have a significant reduction of nursing vacancies to 5% by 2028. However, in 2021 and 2022, Workforce Race Equality Standards (WRES) reports stated that there is inequitable Career Progression (CP) among Internationally Recruited (IR) nurses as compared to British counterparts. In addition, there is sufficient literature exploring the motives and lived experiences of IR nurses, which underpins the findings. Therefore, the overall aim of this report is to conduct a scoping project to understand the experiences of the IR nurses who joined the NHS in the South East of England within the last 5 years. Methodology- This document is based on the data from a survey developed by Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust using Microsoft forms and consisted of 23 questions divided into four themes, staff background, career experience, career progression and future career plans within Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust. The descriptive analysis provided the initial analysis of the quantitative data. As a result, 44 responses were collected and evaluated by utilising Microsoft excel. Key findings: Career experiences; 72% of respondents felt that their current role was a good fit, and in a subsequent question, the main reason cited was having “relevant skills”. This indicates that, for the most part, the prior experience of IR nurses is a large factor in their placement, which is viewed positively; the next step is to effectively apply similar relevance in aligning prior experience with career progression opportunities. Moreover, 67% of respondents feel valued by the department/team, which is a great reflection of the values of the Trust being demonstrated towards IR Nurses. However, further studies may be necessary to explore the reasons why the remaining 33% may not feel valued; this can include having a better understanding of cultural perceptions of value. Perceived Barriers: Although 37% of respondents had been promoted since commencing employment with the Trust, the data indicates that there is still room for CP opportunities, as it is the leading barrier reported by the respondents. Secondly, the growing mix of cultures within the nursing workforce gives the appearance of inclusion. However, this is not the experience of some IR nurses. Conclusion statemen: Survey results indicate that this NHS Trust has an excellent foundation to integrate international nurses into their workforce with scope for career progression in a reasonable timeframe. However, it would be recommendable to include fast-tracking career promotions by recognizing previous studies and professional experience. Further exploration of staff career experiences and goals may provide additional useful data for future planning.

Keywords: career progression, International nurses, perceived barriers, staff survey

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Authors: Ebrahim Rahmani, Siyamak Moazeni

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According to the Iraq's first constitutional law (approved 2005), Iraq is an independent with sovereignty and its governmental structure is parliamentary democratic republic and federal. Even in reforms in 2009, this article of law did not changed at all. But considering the existence of this emphasis and clarity which is mentioned in the law, different and sometimes contradictory interpretations and positions are expressed about federalism in the way that we can say, considering the importance of the matter, federalism is a focus point to create and expansion of the cold war among leaders of different groups of the country. Iraq's today political and security position has granted the suitable opportunity to Iraq's Kurdistan in appearing of the recent security crisis to increase its share from the central political power or to achieve to its independent dream. The federalism the weakest point of Iraq's territorial integrity in a way that if different groups do not come to a consensus about it and do not think about a mechanism which is accepted by all of them, this can effect on and Iraq's political stability and security. Iraq's Kurdistan follows the option of disintegration and separation under the shadow of political and security changes, even with existence of some Iraqi groups' hopes regarding the improvement of situation after parliament election and also considering Masoud Barezani's power will for separation from Iraq as well as regarding special international changes and disintegration of Karime from Ukraine and ISIS crises; concerns have been created among regional and international powers and interior players. In this article, a paradox due constitutional law about federalism, Iraq's central government view and its politicians to the matter and the regional effect of this action on region's geopolitics are reviewed as well.

Keywords: constitutional law, federalism, decomposition, Iraq's Kurdistan

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Authors: Aziz Ikhlef

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Most of multi-slices Computed Tomography (CT) scanners are built with detectors composed of scintillator - photodiodes arrays. The photodiodes arrays are mainly based on front-illuminated technology for detectors under 64 slices and on back-illuminated photodiode for systems of 64 slices or more. The designs based on back-illuminated photodiodes were being investigated for CT machines to overcome the challenge of the higher number of runs and connection required in front-illuminated diodes. In backlit diodes, the electronic noise has already been improved because of the reduction of the load capacitance due to the routing reduction. This is translated by a better image quality in low signal application, improving low dose imaging in large patient population. With the fast development of multi-detector-rows CT (MDCT) scanners and the increasing number of examinations, the clinical community has raised significant concerns on radiation dose received by the patient in both medical and regulatory community. In order to reduce individual exposure and in response to the recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) which suggests that all exposures should be kept as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA), every manufacturer is trying to implement strategies and solutions to optimize dose efficiency and image quality based on x-ray emission and scanning parameters. The added demands on the CT detector performance also comes from the increased utilization of spectral CT or dual-energy CT in which projection data of two different tube potentials are collected. One of the approaches utilizes a technology called fast-kVp switching in which the tube voltage is switched between 80 kVp and 140 kVp in fraction of a millisecond. To reduce the cross-contamination of signals, the scintillator based detector temporal response has to be extremely fast to minimize the residual signal from previous samples. In addition, this paper will present an overview of detector technologies and image chain improvement which have been investigated in the last few years to improve the signal-noise ratio and the dose efficiency CT scanners in regular examinations and in energy discrimination techniques. Several parameters of the image chain in general and in the detector technology contribute in the optimization of the final image quality. We will go through the properties of the post-patient collimation to improve the scatter-to-primary ratio, the scintillator material properties such as light output, afterglow, primary speed, crosstalk to improve the spectral imaging, the photodiode design characteristics and the data acquisition system (DAS) to optimize for crosstalk, noise and temporal/spatial resolution.

Keywords: computed tomography, X-ray detector, medical imaging, image quality, artifacts

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Authors: Ahmed Al Khamisi

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The Disaster Preparedness Standard (DPS) is one of the elements that is evaluated by the Accreditation Canada International (ACI). ACI emphasizes to train and educate all staff, including service providers and senior leaders, on emergency and disaster preparedness upon the orientation and annually thereafter. Lack of awareness and deficit of knowledge among the healthcare providers about DPS have been noticed in a tertiary hospital where ACI standards were implemented. Therefore, this paper aims to introduce a video-based e-learning (VB-EL) module that explains the hospital’s disaster plan in a simple language which will be easily accessible to all healthcare providers through the hospital’s website. The healthcare disaster preparedness coordinator in the targeted hospital will be responsible to ensure that VB-EL is ready by 25 April 2019. This module will be developed based on the Kirkpatrick evaluation method. In fact, VB-EL combines different data forms such as images, motion, sounds, text in a complementary fashion which will suit diverse learning styles and individual learning pace of healthcare providers. Moreover, the module can be adjusted easily than other tools to control the information that healthcare providers receive. It will enable healthcare providers to stop, rewind, fast-forward, and replay content as many times as needed. Some anticipated limitations in the development of this module include challenges of preparing VB-EL content and resistance from healthcare providers.

Keywords: Accreditation Canada International, Disaster Preparedness Standard, Kirkpatrick evaluation method, video-based e-learning

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Authors: Kanokwan Tangchitnusorn, Patcharawalai Wongboonsin

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Following the ‘Golden Age of Welfare’ which enabled post-war prosperity to European citizens in 1950s, the world has witnessed the increasing mobility across borders of older citizens of First World countries. Then, in 1990s, the international retirement migration (IRM) of older persons has become a prominent trend, in which, it requires the integration of several fields of knowledge to explain, i.e. migration studies, tourism studies, as well as, social gerontology. However, while the studies of the IRM to developed destinations in Europe (e.g. Spain, Malta, Portugal, Italy), and the IRM to developing countries like Mexico, Panama, and Morocco have been largely studied in recent decades due to their massive migration volume, the study of the IRM to remoter destinations has been far more relatively sparse and incomplete. Developing countries in Southeast Asia have noticed the increasing number of retired expats, particularly to Thailand, where the number of foreigners applying for retirement visa increased from 10,709 in 2005 to 60,046 in 2014. Additionally, it was evident that the majority of Thailand’s retirement visa applicants were Westerners, i.e. citizens of the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and the Nordic countries, respectively. As such trend just becoming popular in Thailand in recent decades, little is known about the IRM populations, their well-being, and their future migration plans. This study aimed to examine the subjective wellbeing or the self-evaluations of own well-being among Western retirees in Thailand, as well as, their future migration plans as whether they planned to stay here for life or otherwise. The author employed a mixed method to obtain both quantitative and qualitative data during October 2015 – May 2016, including 330 self-administered questionnaires (246 online and 84 hard-copied responses), and 21 in-depth interviews of the Western residents in Nan (2), Pattaya (4), and Chiang Mai (15). As derived from the integration of previous subjective well-being measurements (i.e. Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI), Global AgeWatch Index, and OECD guideline on measuring subjective wellbeing), this study would measure the subjective well-being of Western retirees in Thailand in 7 dimensions, including standard of living, health status, personal relationships, social connections, environmental quality, personal security and local infrastructure.

Keywords: international retirement migration, ageing, mobility, wellbeing, Western, Thailand

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Authors: Junjun Chen, Yingxiu Li

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The occupational well-being of school principals has played a vital role in the pursuit of individual and school wellness and success. However, principals’ well-being worldwide is under increasing threat because of the challenging and complex nature of their work and growing demands for school standardisation and accountability. Pressure is particularly acute in the post-pandemicfuture as principals attempt to deal with the impact of the pandemic on top of more regular demands. This is particularly true in Hong Kong, as school principals are increasingly wedged between unparalleled political, social, and academic responsibilities. Recognizing the semantic breadth of well-being, scholars have not determined a single, mutually agreeable definition but agreed that the concept of well-being has multiple dimensions across various disciplines. The multidimensional approach promises more precise assessments of the relationships between well-being and other concepts than the ‘affect-only’ approach or other single domains for capturing the essence of principal well-being. The multiple-dimension well-being concept is adopted in this project to understand principal well-being in this study. This study aimed to understand the situation of principal well-being and its influential drivers with a sample of 670 principals from Hong Kong and Mainland China. An online survey was sent to the participants after the breakout of COVID-19 by the researchers. All participants were well informed about the purposes and procedure of the project and the confidentiality of the data prior to filling in the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling performed with Mplus were employed to deal with the dataset. The data analysis procedure involved the following three steps. First, the descriptive statistics (e.g., mean and standard deviation) were calculated. Second, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to trim principal well-being measurement performed with maximum likelihood estimation. Third, structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed to test the influential factors of principal well-being. The results of this study indicated that the overall of principal well-being were above the average mean score. The highest ranking in this study given by the principals was to their psychological and social well-being (M = 5.21). This was followed by spiritual (M = 5.14; SD = .77), cognitive (M = 5.14; SD = .77), emotional (M = 4.96; SD = .79), and physical well-being (M = 3.15; SD = .73). Participants ranked their physical well-being the lowest. Moreover, professional autonomy, supervisor and collegial support, school physical conditions, professional networking, and social media have showed a significant impact on principal well-being. The findings of this study will potentially enhance not only principal well-being, but also the functioning of an individual principal and a school without sacrificing principal well-being for quality education in the process. This will eventually move one step forward for a new future - a wellness society advocated by OECD. Importantly, well-being is an inside job that begins with choosing to have wellness, whilst supports to become a wellness principal are also imperative.

Keywords: well-being, school principals, quantitative, influential factors

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Authors: Ayşe Duygu Kaçar

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Industrial regions and buildings that have stopped their primary functions are in the interest of the discipline of architecture in the last decades. The renewal of these spaces of production for different functions is a common aspect for contemporary world countries. Totally different functions can be added to the existing as well, which can help improving the social, cultural and aesthetic character of these beings and sustaining their uniqueness. Therefore, these sites linking the past and future can be used as museums, exhibition centers, art ateliers, city parks, recreational centers, botanic gardens, sculpture parks, theatres, etc. in order to continue their place in the collective memory of the cities. The present paper depicts a way of shedding light on the Cotton Textile Industry (İplik ve Dokuma Fabrikası A.Ş), a local industrial site in Antalya, the most popular tourism center of Turkey, as a part of International Architecture Biennale, 2011 and on Lohberg coal mine, a local industrial site in the Ruhr region of Germany. As a transparent, fragile, temporary and economical material, the string was used as a design element in both experiential architecture works with architecture students and the outcomes will be discussed and presented through the theme 'rejecting / reversing architecture'.

Keywords: industrial sites, the Cotton Textile Industry Antalya, Lohberg coal mine, architectural design, identity

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Authors: Md Nur Uddin

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The Rohingya people are one of the world's most oppressed and persecuted refugee populations, having been stateless for over six generations and still are. In recent years, more than half-million Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar (Burma) for neighboring nations. This article discusses the Status and Rights of Rohingya Migrants in Bangladesh, with a focus on the living conditions of this vulnerable population. A lot of information has been studied about Rohingya refugees states that violence in Rakhine state has sent an estimated 615,500 Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar since August 25, 2017. In Cox's Bazar, a total of 33,131 Rohingya refugees are housed in two registered camps, with an additional 854,024 living in informal settlements nearby. The living conditions of Rohingya refugees in overcrowded camps remain dismal. Mental health is bad, cleanliness is poor, malnutrition is common, and physical and sexual abuse is endemic. A coordinated diplomatic effort involving Bangladesh and Myanmar, as well as international mediators such as the Organization of Islamic Countries and the United Nations, is essential to adequately resolve this complex matter. Bangladeshi officials must ensure the safety of the Rohingyas in the camps and use available humanitarian aid to give the refugees basic amenities such as food, shelter, sanitation, and medical treatment. UNHCR officials should keep an eye on the actual repatriation process to ensure that refugees who have expressed a desire to stay in Bangladesh are not deported against their choice.

Keywords: international refugee laws, united nations, Rohingya, stateless, humanitarian

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Authors: Mirjana Dokmanovic

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The paper will introduce main findings of the research of the responses of the Central European and South Eastern European (CEE/SEE) countries to the global economic and financial crisis in 2008 from human rights and gender perspectives. The research methodology included desk research and qualitative analysis of the available data, studies, statistics, and reports produced by the governments, the UN agencies, international financial institutions (IFIs) and international network of civil society organizations. The main conclusion of the study is that the governments in the region missed to assess the impacts of their anti-crisis policies both ex ante and ex post from the standpoint of human rights and gender equality. Majority of the countries have focused their efforts solely on prompting up the banking and financial sectors, and construction business sectors. The tremendous debt which the states have accumulated for the rescue of banks and industries lead to further cuts in social expenses and reduction of public services. Decreasing state support to health care and social protection and declining family incomes made social services unaffordable for many families. Thus, the economic and financial crisis stirred up the care crisis that was absorbed by women’s intensifying unpaid work within a family and household to manage household survival strategy. On the other hand, increased burden of the care work weakened the position of women in the labour market and their opportunities to find a job. The study indicates that the artificial separation of the real economy and the sphere of social reproduction still persist. This has created additional burden of unpaid work of women within a family. The aim of this paper is to introduce the lessons learnt for future: (a) human rights may not be derogated in the times of crisis; (b) the obligation of states to mitigate negative impacts of economic policies to population, particularly to vulnerable groups, must be prioritized; (c) IFIs and business sector must be liable as duty bearers with respect to human rights commitments.

Keywords: CEE/SEE region, global financial and economic crisis, international financial institutions, human rights commitments, principle of non-derogability of human rights

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Authors: Francesca Giliberto

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Heritage and culture, in general, plays a central role in addressing the complexity and broad variety of global development challenges, ranging from environmental degradation and refugee and humanitarian crisis to extreme poverty, food insecurity, persisting inequalities, and unsustainable urbanisation, just to mention some examples. Nevertheless, the potential of harnessing heritage to address global challenges has remained largely under-represented and underestimated in the most recent international development agenda adopted by the United Nations in 2015 (2030 Agenda). Among the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets established, only target 11.4 explicitly mentions heritage, stating that efforts should be strengthened “to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage in order to make our cities safe, resilient, and sustainable”. However, this global target continues to reflect a rather limited approach to heritage for development. This paper will provide a critical reflection on the contribution that using (tangible and intangible) heritage in international research can make to tackling global challenges and supporting the achievement of all the SDGs. It will present key findings and insights from the heritage strand of PRAXIS, a research project from the University of Leeds, which focuses on Arts and Humanities research across 300+ projects funded through the Global Challenges Research Fund and Newton Fund. In particular, this paper will shed light on successful practices and lessons learned from 87 research projects funded through the Global Challenges Research Fund and Newton Fund portfolios in 49 countries eligible for Official Development Assistance (ODA) between 2014 and 2021. Research data were collected through a desk assessment of project data available on UKRI Gateway to Research, online surveys, and qualitative interviews with research principal investigators and partners. The findings of this research provide evidence of how heritage and heritage research can foster innovative, interdisciplinary, inclusive, and transformative sustainable development and the achievement of the SDGs in ODA countries and beyond. This paper also highlights current challenges and research gaps that still need to be overcome to rethink current approaches and transform our development models to be more integrated, human-centred, and sustainable.

Keywords: global challenges, heritage, international research, sustainable development

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Authors: Epaminondas G. Kyriakidis, Theodosis D. Dimitrakos, Constantinos C. Karamatsoukis

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The vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a well-known problem in Operations Research and has been widely studied during the last fifty-five years. The context of the VRP is that of delivering or collecting products to or from customers who are scattered in a geographical area and have placed orders for these products. A vehicle or a fleet of vehicles start their routes from a depot and visit the customers in order to satisfy their demands. Special attention has been given to the capacitated VRP in which the vehicles have limited carrying capacity for the goods that are delivered or collected. In the present work, we present a specific capacitated stochastic vehicle routing problem which has many realistic applications. We develop and analyze a mathematical model for a specific vehicle routing problem in which a vehicle starts its route from a depot and visits N customers according to a particular sequence in order to collect from them two similar but not identical products. We name these products, product 1 and product 2. Each customer possesses items either of product 1 or product 2 with known probabilities. The number of the items of product 1 or product 2 that each customer possesses is a discrete random variable with known distribution. The actual quantity and the actual type of product that each customer possesses are revealed only when the vehicle arrives at the customer’s site. It is assumed that the vehicle has two compartments. We name these compartments, compartment 1 and compartment 2. It is assumed that compartment 1 is suitable for loading product 1 and compartment 2 is suitable for loading product 2. However, it is permitted to load items of product 1 into compartment 2 and items of product 2 into compartment 1. These actions cause costs that are due to extra labor. The vehicle is allowed during its route to return to the depot to unload the items of both products. The travel costs between consecutive customers and the travel costs between the customers and the depot are known. The objective is to find the optimal routing strategy, i.e. the routing strategy that minimizes the total expected cost among all possible strategies for servicing all customers. It is possible to develop a suitable dynamic programming algorithm for the determination of the optimal routing strategy. It is also possible to prove that the optimal routing strategy has a specific threshold-type strategy. Specifically, it is shown that for each customer the optimal actions are characterized by some critical integers. This structural result enables us to design a special-purpose dynamic programming algorithm that operates only over these strategies having this structural property. Extensive numerical results provide strong evidence that the special-purpose dynamic programming algorithm is considerably more efficient than the initial dynamic programming algorithm. Furthermore, if we consider the same problem without the assumption that the customers are ordered, numerical experiments indicate that the optimal routing strategy can be computed if N is smaller or equal to eight.

Keywords: dynamic programming, similar products, stochastic demands, stochastic preferences, vehicle routing problem

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Authors: J. Zhang, K. Agyapong-Kodua

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Digital factory based on visual design and simulation has emerged as a mainstream to reduce digital development life cycle. Some basic industrial systems are being integrated via semantic modelling, and products (P) matching process (P)-resource (R) requirements are designed to fulfill current customer demands. Nevertheless, product design is still limited to fixed product models and known knowledge of product engineers. Therefore, this paper presents a rapid reconfiguration method based on semantic technologies with PPR ontologies to reuse known and unknown knowledge. In order to avoid the influence of big data, our system uses a cloud manufactory and distributed database to improve the efficiency of querying meeting PPR requirements.

Keywords: semantic technologies, factory system, digital factory, cloud manufactory

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Authors: Muhammad Umair Shahid, Abdul Rehman, Mudassir Mukhtar, Muhammad Nauman

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The smart antenna is the prominent technology that has become known in recent years to meet the growing demands of wireless communications. In an overcrowded atmosphere, its application is growing gradually. A methodical evaluation of the performance of Fixed Beamforming algorithms for smart antennas such as Multiple Sidelobe Canceller (MSC), Maximum Signal-to-interference ratio (MSIR) and minimum variance (MVDR) has been comprehensively presented in this paper. Simulation results show that beamforming is helpful in providing optimized response towards desired directions. MVDR beamformer provides the most optimal solution.

Keywords: fixed weight beamforming, array pattern, signal to interference ratio, power efficiency, element spacing, array elements, optimum weight vector

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Authors: Jie Zhang, Chaomin Zhang

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Based on the network theory, this paper selects three Emerging-Market Multinationals Enterprises (EMNEs) as the research object and takes the typical overseas market opportunities constructed by them as the analysis unit to research the internal mechanism of overseas market opportunity construction of the EMNEs. The results show that: (1) EMNEs overseas market opportunity construction is a complex process, through the continuous interaction between enterprises and entities in the internal and external networks to achieve opportunity prototype, opportunity creation, and opportunity optimization in overseas markets. (2) Governments, foreign institutions and industry associations in the institutional network and competitors, partners, and customers in the commercial networks are the important entities in the construction of overseas market opportunities. Through the interaction of entity perception, relationship construction, and utilization, enterprises can obtain the necessary information, resources, and political asylum in the process of opportunity construction. (3) Organizations, project teams, and organizational sub-units within the enterprise are important internal entities for the construction of overseas market opportunities. Through the connection between different entities, they can achieve the circulation of resources within the organization and promote the opportunity construction of overseas markets. The research conclusions expand the relevant research on international opportunities and have inspiring and guiding significance for the expansion of EMNEs overseas markets.

Keywords: international (overseas) opportunities, opportunity construction, network entities, interaction, resource circulation

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Authors: Hasrat Arjjumend, Sabiha Alam

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The Nagoya Protocol is landmark international legislation governing access to genetic resources and benefit sharing from utilization of genetic resource and traditional knowledge. The field implications of the international law have been assessed by surveying academic/ research institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs) and concerned individuals, who gave their opinions on whether the provider parties (usually developing countries) would ensure effective participation of Indigenous people and local communities (ILCs) in establishing the mechanisms to inform the potential users of traditional knowledge (TK) about their obligations under art. 12.2 of Nagoya Protocol. First of all, involvement and participation of ILCs in suggested clearing-house mechanisms of the Parties are seldom witnessed. Secondly, as respondents expressed, it is doubtful that developing countries would ensure effective participation of ILCs in establishing the mechanisms to inform the potential users of TK about their obligations. Yet, as most of ILCs speak and understand local or indigenous languages, whether the Nagoya Protocol provides or not, it is a felt need that the Parties should disclose information in a language understandable to ILCs. Alternative opinions indicate that if TK held by ILCs is disclosed, the value is gone. Therefore, it should be protected by the domestic law first and should be disclosed then.

Keywords: genetic resources, indigenous people, language, Nagoya protocol, participation, traditional knowledge

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Authors: Jesika A. Walker, Mohammed Aswad, Guy Lacroix, Denis Cousineau

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There is a fundamental disconnect between the experience of time passing and the chronometric units by which time is quantified. Specifically, there appears to be no relationship between the passage of time judgments (PoTJs) and verbal duration estimates at short durations (e.g., < 2000 milliseconds). When a duration is longer than several minutes, however, evidence suggests that a slower feeling of time passing is predictive of overestimation. Might the length of a task moderate the relation between PoTJs and duration estimates? Similarly, the estimation paradigm (prospective vs. retrospective) and the mental effort demanded of a task (task demand) have both been found to influence duration estimates. However, only a handful of experiments have investigated these effects for tasks of long durations, and the results have been mixed. Thus, might the length of a task also moderate the effects of the estimation paradigm and task demand on duration estimates? To investigate these questions, 273 participants performed either an easy or difficult visual and memory search task for either eight or 58 minutes, under prospective or retrospective instructions. Afterward, participants provided a duration estimate in minutes, followed by a PoTJ on a Likert scale (1 = very slow, 7 = very fast). A 2 (prospective vs. retrospective) × 2 (eight minutes vs. 58 minutes) × 2 (high vs. low difficulty) between-subjects ANOVA revealed a two-way interaction between task demand and task duration on PoTJs, p = .02. Specifically, time felt faster in the more challenging task, but only in the eight-minute condition, p < .01. Duration estimates were transformed into RATIOs (estimate/actual duration) to standardize estimates across durations. An ANOVA revealed a two-way interaction between estimation paradigm and task duration, p = .03. Specifically, participants overestimated the task more if they were given prospective instructions, but only in the eight-minute task. Surprisingly, there was no effect of task difficulty on duration estimates. Thus, the demands of a task may influence ‘feeling of time’ and ‘estimation time’ differently, contributing to the existing theory that these two forms of time judgement rely on separate underlying cognitive mechanisms. Finally, a significant main effect of task duration was found for both PoTJs and duration estimates (ps < .001). Participants underestimated the 58-minute task (m = 42.5 minutes) and overestimated the eight-minute task (m = 10.7 minutes). Yet, they reported the 58-minute task as passing significantly slower on a Likert scale (m = 2.5) compared to the eight-minute task (m = 4.1). In fact, a significant correlation was found between PoTJ and duration estimation (r = .27, p <.001). This experiment thus provides evidence for a compensatory effect at longer durations, in which people underestimate a ‘slow feeling condition and overestimate a ‘fast feeling condition. The results are discussed in relation to heuristics that might alter the relationship between these two variables when conditions range from several minutes up to almost an hour.

Keywords: duration estimates, long durations, passage of time judgements, task demands

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Authors: Saeid Rabiei Majd, Motahareh Alvandi, Bahareh Asefi

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Extraction of maximum natural resources is one of the common policies of governments, especially petroleum resources that have high economic and strategic value. The incentive to access and maintain profitable oil markets for governments or international oil companies, causing neglects them to pay attention to environmental principles and sustainable development, which in turn drives up environmental and climate change. Significant damage to the environment can cause severe damage to citizens and indigenous people, such as the compulsory evacuation of their zone due to contamination of water and air resources, destruction of animals and plants. Hawizeh Marshes is a common aquatic and environmental ecosystem along the Iran-Iraq border that also has oil resources. This marsh has been very rich in animal, vegetative, and oil resources. Since 1990, the political motives, the strategic importance of oil extraction, and the disregard for the environmental rights of the Iraqi and Iranian governments in the region have caused 90% of the marshes and forced migration of indigenous people. In this paper, we examine the environmental degradation factors resulting from the adoption of policies and practices of governments in this region based on the principles of environmental rights and sustainable development. Revision of the implementation of the government’s policies and natural resource utilization systems can prevent the spread of climate change, which is a serious international challenge today.

Keywords: climate change, indigenous rights, petroleum operation, sustainable development principles, sovereignty on resources

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Authors: William Wong Xiu Shun, Yoonjin Hyun, Mingyu Kim, Seongi Choi, Namgyu Kim

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Recently, the demand of extracting the R&D keywords from the issues and using them in retrieving R&D information is increasing rapidly. But it is hard to identify the related issues or to distinguish them. Although the similarity between the issues cannot be identified, but with the R&D lexicon, the issues that always shared the same R&D keywords can be determined. In details, the R&D keywords that associated with particular issue is implied the key technology elements that needed to solve the problem of the particular issue. Furthermore, the related issues that sharing the same R&D keywords can be showed in a more systematic way through the issue clustering constructed from the perspective of R&D. Thus, sharing of the R&D result and reusable of the R&D technology can be facilitated. Indirectly, the redundancy of investment on the same R&D can be reduce as the R&D information can be shared between those corresponding issues and reusability of the related R&D can be improved. Therefore, a methodology of constructing an issue clustering from the perspective of common R&D keywords is proposed to satisfy the demands mentioned.

Keywords: clustering, social network analysis, text mining, topic analysis

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Authors: Latif Yanar, Muammer Kaçan

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Decision support systems are getting more important in many fields of science and technology and used effectively especially when the problems to be solved are complicated with many criteria. In this kind of problems one of the main challenges for the decision makers are that sometimes they cannot produce a countable data for evaluating the criteria but the knowledge and sense of experts. In recent years, fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic based decision models gaining more place in literature. In this study, a decision support model to determine a country to build naval base is proposed and the application of the model is performed, considering Turkish Navy by the evaluations of Turkish Navy officers and academicians of international relations departments of various Universities located in Istanbul. The results achieved from the evaluations made by the experts in our model are calculated by a decision support tool named DESTEC 1.0, which is developed by the authors using C Sharp programming language. The tool gives advices to the decision maker using Analytic Hierarchy Process, Analytic Network Process, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Analytic Network Process all at once. The calculated results for five foreign countries are shown in the conclusion.

Keywords: decision support system, analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, analytic network process, fuzzy analytic network process, naval base, country selection, international relations

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Authors: Neha Pranav Kolhe, Harithapriya Vijaye, Arushi Kamle

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The economic growth engines are urban regions. As the economy expands, so does the need for peace and quiet, and noise pollution is one of the important social and environmental issue. Health and wellbeing are at risk from environmental noise pollution. Because of urbanisation, population growth, and the consequent rise in the usage of increasingly potent, diverse, and highly mobile sources of noise, it is now more severe and pervasive than ever before, and it will only become worse. Additionally, it will expand as long as there is an increase in air, train, and highway traffic, which continue to be the main contributors of noise pollution. The current study will be conducted in two zones of class I city of central India (population range: 1 million–4 million). Total 56 measuring points were chosen to assess noise pollution. The first objective evaluates the noise pollution in various urban habitats determined as formal and informal settlement. It identifies the comparison of noise pollution within the settlements using T- Test analysis. The second objective assess the noise pollution in silent zones (as stated in Central Pollution Control Board) in a hierarchical way. It also assesses the noise pollution in the settlements and compares with prescribed permissible limits using class I sound level equipment. As appropriate indices, equivalent noise level on the (A) frequency weighting network, minimum sound pressure level and maximum sound pressure level were computed. The survey is conducted for a period of 1 week. Arc GIS is used to plot and map the temporal and spatial variability in urban settings. It is discovered that noise levels at most stations, particularly at heavily trafficked crossroads and subway stations, were significantly different and higher than acceptable limits and squares. The study highlights the vulnerable areas that should be considered while city planning. The study demands area level planning while preparing a development plan. It also demands attention to noise pollution from the perspective of residential and silent zones. The city planning in urban areas neglects the noise pollution assessment at city level. This contributes to that, irrespective of noise pollution guidelines, the ground reality is far away from its applicability. The result produces incompatible land use on a neighbourhood scale with respect to noise pollution. The study's final results will be useful to policymakers, architects and administrators in developing countries. This will be useful for noise pollution in urban habitat governance by efficient decision making and policy formulation to increase the profitability of these systems.

Keywords: noise pollution, formal settlements, informal settlements, built environment, silent zone, residential area

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Authors: Guneet Inder Jit Kaur, Kuldeep Singh, Sunil G. Purohit

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Being a collective phrase for Martial arts that originated from China, Wushu is a form of self-defense and an international (Olympic) sport. Having emerged as a competitive sport, the competitions are generally in two disciplines in Wushu, namely ‘taolu,’ which refers to the forms, and ‘sanda’, which refers to the sparring. Indeed, the competition at the elite level is challenging more mentally than physically. Being masters of their games, excellence at that level is immensely defined by the mental strength characterized by perseverance and passion (grit) along with the psychological wellbeing. Thus, research attempting to understand this relationship is important. The present study was aimed to investigate the relationship between grit and psychological wellbeing among elite Wushu players. The sample of the present study comprised of 35 elite wushu players from India. Out of the 35 players, 16 were females (45.7%), and 19 were males (54.3%), and all had represented at the National and International level. 14 players were from the event of Taolu, and 21 players were from the event of Sanda. The questionnaires used were the short grit scale (Duckworth & Quinn, 2009) and the flourishing scale for psychological wellbeing (Diener et. al., 2009). The statistics included Descriptive (Mean, Standard deviation) and Inferential analysis (correlation). The results highlighted the relationship between the two variables. The insights gained from this study indeed seem immensely helpful in adding to the research of the psychological profile of Elite wushu players and has implications for psychological interventions and mental training for the players.

Keywords: wushu, elite athletes, grit, psychological wellbeing, excellence

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Authors: Dianne Lyneth Alavado

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At the turn of the millennium, development paradigms in the international scene revolved around one goal: elimination of global poverty without comprising human rights. One measure which achieved high endorsement and visibility in the world of work is the Decent Work Agenda (DWA) championed by the United Nation’s (UN) specialized agency for work, the International Labour Organization (ILO). The DWA has been thoroughly promoted and recommended as an ingredient of development planning and a poverty reduction strategy, particularly in developing countries such as the Philippines. The global imperative of economic growth is measurable not only in the numbers raked in by countries in terms of expanding economy but also by the development and realization of the full capacities of their people. Decent work (DW), as an outcome and not just a development approach, promises poverty eradication by means of providing both quantity and quality work that is accompanied by rights, representation, and protection. As a party to these international pacts, the Philippines is expected to heed the call towards a world free from poverty through well-endorsed measures such as the DWA with the aid of multilateral and donor organizations such as the ILO. This study aims to assess the capacity and readiness of the Philippines to achieve the goals of the DWA. This is a qualitative research using the sociological and juridical lens in the desk analysis of existing Philippine laws, policies, and programs vis-à-vis decent work indicators set forth by the ILO. Interview with experts on the Philippine labor situation is conducted for further validation. The paper identifies gaps within the Philippine legal system and its collection of laws, acts, presidential decrees, department orders and other policy instruments aimed towards achieving the goals of the DWA. Among the major findings of this paper are: the predisposition of Philippine labor laws towards the formal sector; the need for alternative solutions for the informal sector veering away from the usual dole-outs and livelihood projects; the needs for evaluation of policies and programs that are usually self-evaluated; the minimal reach of the labour inspectorate which ensures decent work; and the lack of substantial penalty for non-compliance with labor laws. The paper concludes with policy implications and recommendations towards addressing the potholes on the road to Decent Work.

Keywords: decent work agenda, labor laws, millennium development goals, poverty eradication, sustainable development goal

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Authors: Peter Winzer, Erik Massarczyk

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Experts, enterprises and operators expect that the bandwidth request will increase up to rates of 100 to 1,000 Mbps within several years. Therefore the most important question is, which technology shall satisfy the future consumer broadband demands. Currently the consensus is, that the fiber technology has the best technical characteristics to achieve such the high bandwidth rates. But fiber technology is so far very cost-intensive and resource consuming. To avoid these investments, operators are concentrating to upgrade the existing copper and hybrid fiber coax infrastructures. This work presents a comparison of the copper and fiber technologies including an overview about the current German broadband market. Both technologies are reviewed in the terms of demand, willingness to pay and economic efficiency in connection with the technical characteristics.

Keywords: broadband customer demand, fiber development, g.fast, vectoring, willingness to pay for broadband services

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Authors: Malek Makki

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The main purpose of this research study is to assist non-profit organizations (NPOs) to better segment a group of least developing countries and to optimally target the most needier areas, so that the provided aids make positive and lasting differences. We applied international marketing and strategy approaches to segment a sub-group of candidates among a group of 151 countries identified by the UN-G77 list, and furthermore, we point out the areas of priorities. We use reliable and well known criteria on the basis of economics, geography, demography and behavioral. These criteria can be objectively estimated and updated so that a follow-up can be performed to measure the outcomes of any program. We selected 12 socio-economic criteria that complement each other: GDP per capita, GDP growth, industry value added, export per capita, fragile state index, corruption perceived index, environment protection index, ease of doing business index, global competitiveness index, Internet use, public spending on education, and employment rate. A weight was attributed to each variable to highlight the relative importance of each criterion within the country. Care was taken to collect the most recent available data from trusted well-known international organizations (IMF, WB, WEF, and WTO). Construct of equivalence was carried out to compare the same variables across countries. The combination of all these weighted estimated criteria provides us with a global index that represents the level of development per country. An absolute index that combines wars and risks was introduced to exclude or include a country on the basis of conflicts and a collapsing state. The final step applied to the included countries consists of a benchmarking method to select the segment of countries and the percentile of each criterion. The results of this study allowed us to exclude 16 countries for risks and security. We also excluded four countries because they lack reliable and complete data. The other countries were classified per percentile thru their global index, and we identified the needier and the areas where aids are highly required to help any NPO to prioritize the area of implementation. This new concept is based on defined, actionable, accessible and accurate variables by which NPO can implement their program and it can be extended to profit companies to perform their corporate social responsibility acts.

Keywords: developing countries, international marketing, non-profit organization, segmentation

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Authors: Aleburu Rufus Edeki

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The activities of Boko Haram terrorist group have become worrisome in Nigeria. Boko Haram killed innocent civilians, destroyed schools, churches, military barracks, police stations, and other government establishments. The federal government of Nigerian Military engaged in counter-insurgency to curtail the activities of Boko Haram militant. The engagement of the military led to mass killing across the Northeast region. The reported cases of mass-killing led to petition written to the International Criminal Court by the civil society organization as a result of denial by the military authorities of their involvement. The investigation carried out by the International Criminal Court awash by denial of military involvement in war crimes. As a result of this denial, the ICC called for further investigation of war crimes by the military. This study was carried out among fifty-eight participants. In-depth interviews were conducted among the following participants: civilians 41; human rights commission 5 and civil society 12. This study revealed that professional ethics is associated with denial of military involvement in mass killing in the region. This study also revealed that denial is associated with personality. It was also found that social attributes such as trauma, shame, ostracism, criticism, and punishment are found with denial. It is therefore concluded in this study that protection is needed for war actors, so that situation of denial is minimal in post-conflict truth findings.

Keywords: Boko Haram, crime, insurgence, war

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Authors: Jake Tempo, Stephen Brough

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Introduction and Objectives: Urine cytology has a role in the diagnosis of urothelial cancer when used alongside cystoscopy and imaging, according to the European Association of Urology guidelines. It also has a role in the surveillance post-treatment of urothelial carcinoma. Collecting and analysing urine cytology is costly and time-consuming. We investigated the use of urine cytology in an Australian regional hospital to determine whether clinicians are following international guidelines. Materials and Methods: We analysed all urine cytology requests performed in an Australian regional hospital between 1st January 2017 and 31st December 2018. We reviewed the indication for urine cytology and the patients’ case notes to determine whether urine cytology changed management. Results: During the two-year study period, 153 patients had urine cytology analysed for a variety of indications. In no cases did cytology change the outcome of patient management significantly. In total, 69 of 153 (41%) urine cytology requests were not supported by urological society guidelines. Fifty requests were for haematuria, and twenty requests were for urothelial cancer surveillance. Seven were analysed for follow-up from previous urological investigations. Nine samples were sent for ureteric obstruction of unknown origin. Conclusion: Urine cytology, even when positive, did not significantly change management for the investigation of potential urothelial cancer, and therefore, its use as a diagnostic tool for this purpose should be reconsidered. Many cytology tests are expensive, unnecessary, and not supported by urological society guidelines.

Keywords: cytology, bladder cancer, urine, urothelial carcinoma

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Authors: Rameez Ahmad, Aqib Mehmood, Imran Khan

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Self-directed car (SDC) that can drive itself from one fact to another without support from a driver. Certain trust that self-directed car obligate the probable to transform the transportation manufacturing while essentially removing coincidences, and cleaning up the environment. This study realizes the effects that SDC (also called a self-driving, driver or robotic) vehicle travel demands and ride scheme is likely to have. Without the typical obstacles that allows detection of a audio vision based hardware and software construction (It (SDC) and cost benefits, the vehicle technologies, Gold (Generic Obstacle and Lane Detection) to a knowledge-based system to predict their potential and consider the shape, color, or balance) and an organized environment with colored lane patterns, lane position ban. Discovery the problematic consequence of (SDC) on GT (grand trunk road) road and brand the car further effectual.

Keywords: SDC, gold, GT, knowledge-based system

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Authors: Toake Endoh

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Cross-border migration of people is a critical driver for sustainable economic development in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, the region is susceptible to mega-scale natural disasters, such as tsunami, earthquakes, and typhoons. When migrants are stranded in a foreign country by a disaster, who should be responsible for their safety and security? What legal or moral foundation is there to advocate for the protection and assistance of “migrants at risk (M@R)”? How can the states practice “good governance” in their response to displacement of the foreign migrants? This paper inquires how to protect foreign migrants displaced by a natural disaster under international law and proposes protective actions to be taken by of migrant-receiver governments. First, the paper discusses the theoretical foundation for protection of M@R and argues that the nation-states are charged of responsibility to protect at-risk foreigners as “internally displaced persons” in the light of the United Nations’ Guiding Principles of Internal Displacement (1998). Second, through the case study of the Kobe Earthquake in Japan (1995), the Tsunami in Thailand (2004), and the Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. (2005), the paper evaluates how effectively (or poorly) institutions and state actors addressed the specific vulnerability felt by M@R in these crises.

Keywords: internal displaced persons, natural disaster, international migration, responsibility to protect

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Authors: Vijayalaxmi Khopade

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The Prima facie caste system is intrinsic to Indian society. It is an ancient system of intense social stratification based upon birth and enjoying religious sanction. The uppermost strata and privileges are ascribed and enjoyed by brahmins (priestly class), while the lowest strata are occupied by Dalits who are not ascribed with any privileges. The caste system is inherently hierarchical, patriarchal, and systematic and thrives solely on exploitation justified through means of the Brahminical system of hegemony based singularly on birth. The caste system has extended its tentacles to other religions like Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam in South Asia. Term Dalit is colloquially used to categorize persons belonging to lower strata in the caste hierarchy. However, this category is heterogenous and highly stratified, following practices like untouchability and exclusion amongst themselves. The modern Indian legal system acknowledges the existence of Caste and its perils. Therefore, by virtue of the Indian Constitution, provisions for affirmative action for the protection and development of Dalits are made. Courts in India have liberally interpreted laws to benefit Dalits. However, the modern system of governance is not immune from Caste based biases. These biases are reflected in the implementation of governance, including the dispensation of justice. The economic reforms of the 1990s gave a huge boost to the Indian diaspora. Persons of Indian origin are now seen making great strides in almost every sector and enjoying positions of power globally. As one peels off the layer of ethnic Indian origin, a deep seated layer of Caste and Caste based patriarchy is clearly visible. Indian diaspora enjoying positions of power essentially belongs to upper castes and carry Caste based biases with them. These castes have long enjoyed the benefits of education; therefore, they were the first ones to benefit from LPG (Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization) model adopted in the 1990s. Dalits, however, had little formal education until recently. The western legal system, to the best of our knowledge, does not recognize Caste and, therefore, cannot afford protection for Dalits, wherein discrimination and exploitation take place solely on the basis of Caste. Therefore, Dalits are left with no legal remedy outside domestic jurisdiction. Countries like the UK have made an attempt to include Caste in their Equality Bill 2010. This has met with tough resistance from Upper caste Hindus who shy away from recognizing their caste privileges and, therefore, the existence of Caste. In this paper, an attempt for comparative analysis is made between various legal protections accorded to Dalits in India vis-à-vis international human rights as protected by the United Nations under its declaration of Universal Human rights. An attempt has been made to mark a distinction between race and Caste and to establish a position of women in Caste based hierarchy. The paper also makes an argument for the inclusion of atrocities committed against Dalits as a violation of international human rights, their protection by the United Nations, and the trial of their violations by International Courts. The paper puts into perspective the need for an external agency like the United Nations and International courts to interfere in rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution, even with the existence of a modern legal system in a sovereign democratic country.

Keywords: atrocity, caste, diaspora, legal framework

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Authors: Jen-Te Pai, Jao-Heng Liu, Shin-En Pai

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The impact of climate change has intensified in recent years, causing Taiwan to face higher frequency and serious natural disasters. Therefore, it is imperative for industrial parks manufacturers to promote adaptation policies in response to climate change. On the other hand, with the rise of the international anti-terrorism situation, once a terrorist attack occurs, it will attract domestic and international media attention, especially the strategic and economic status of the science park. Thus, it is necessary to formulate adaptation and mitigation strategies under climate change and social economic disasters. After reviewed the literature about climate change, urban disaster prevention, vulnerability assessment, and risk communication, the study selected 62 industrial parks compiled by the Industrial Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Taiwan as the research object. This study explored the vulnerability and disaster prevention and disaster relief functional assessment of these industrial parks facing of natural and socio-economic disasters. Furthermore, this study explored planned adaptation of industrial parks management section and autonomous adaptation of corporate institutions in the park. The conclusion of this study is that Taiwan industrial parks with a higher vulnerability to natural and socio-economic disasters should employ positive adaptive behaviours.

Keywords: adaptive behaviours, analytic network process, vulnerability, industrial parks

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