Search results for: online community

Authors: Wang Yongdong, Yeneayehu Fenetahun, You Yuan, Ogbue Chukwuka, Yahaya Ibrahim, Xu Xinwen

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This paper explores an innovative Ethiopian approach to combatting desertification, focusing on the semi-arid savanna grasslands in Southern Ethiopia. The study investigates the multifaceted strategies employed by Ethiopian communities, governmental bodies, and non-governmental organizations to address desertification challenges in the region. Through an analysis of legislative frameworks, community engagement, afforestation programs, and sustainable land management techniques, this research highlights the efficacy of Ethiopia's strategy in reducing the effects of desertification. The results emphasize how crucial it is to build effective measures for halting desertification in fragile ecosystems by utilizing local knowledge, community involvement, and adaptive governance. In addition, this study also addresses how the Ethiopian approach may be applied to other areas with comparable environmental problems. In summary, this research adds significant perspectives to the worldwide conversation about desertification and provides useful guidance for sustainable land use.

Keywords: adaptive governance, community engagement, desertification, policy frameworks

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Authors: Danielle Preziuso, Kamila Kazimierczuk, Annalise Stein, Bethel Tarekegne

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Coastal communities experience a variety of distinct socioeconomic, technical, and environmental vulnerabilities, all of which accrue heightened risk with increasingly frequent and severe climate change impacts. Marine renewable energy (MRE) offers a potential solution for mitigating coastal community vulnerabilities, especially water-energy dependencies while delivering promising co-benefits such as increased resilience and more sustainable energy outcomes. This paper explores coastal community vulnerabilities and service dependencies based on the local drivers that create them, with attention to climate change impacts and how they catalyze water-energy unmet needs in these communities. We examine the vulnerabilities through the lens of coastal Tribal communities (i.e., the Makah Tribe, the Kenaitze Tribe, Quinault Nation), as indigenous communities often face compounded impacts of technical, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities due to their underlying socio-demographic inequalities. We offer an environmental and energy justice indicators framework to understand how these vulnerabilities disproportionately manifest and impact the most vulnerable community members, and we subsequently utilize the framework to inform a weighted decision matrix tool that compares the viability of MRE-based alternative energy futures in addressing these vulnerabilities. The framework and complementary tool highlight opportunities for future MRE research and pilot demonstrations that directly respond to the vulnerabilities of coastal communities.

Keywords: coastal communities, decision matrix, energy equity, energy vulnerability, marine energy, service dependency

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Authors: Suzanne Phibbs, Christine Kenney, Robyn Richardson

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The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction called for the inclusion of indigenous people in the design and implementation of all hazard policies, plans, and standards. Ensuring that indigenous knowledge practices were included alongside scientific knowledge about disaster risk was also a key priority. Indigenous communities have specific knowledge about climate and natural hazard risk that has been developed over an extended period of time. However, research within indigenous communities can be fraught with issues such as power imbalances between the researcher and researched, the privileging of researcher agendas over community aspirations, as well as appropriation and/or inappropriate use of indigenous knowledge. This paper documents the process of working alongside a Māori community to develop a successful community-led research project. Research Design: This case study documents the development of a qualitative community-led participatory project. The community research project utilizes a kaupapa Māori research methodology which draws upon Māori research principles and concepts in order to generate knowledge about Māori resilience. The research addresses a significant gap in the disaster research literature relating to indigenous knowledge about collective hazard mitigation practices as well as resilience in rurally isolated indigenous communities. The research was designed in partnership with the Ngāti Raukawa Northern Marae Collective as well as Ngā Wairiki Ngāti Apa (a group of Māori sub-tribes who are located in the same region) and will be conducted by Māori researchers utilizing Māori values and cultural practices. The research project aims and objectives, for example, are based on themes that were identified as important to the Māori community research partners. The research methodology and methods were also negotiated with and approved by the community. Kaumātua (Māori elders) provided cultural and ethical guidance over the proposed research process and will continue to provide oversight over the conduct of the research. Purposive participant recruitment will be facilitated with support from local Māori community research partners, utilizing collective marae networks and snowballing methods. It is envisaged that Māori participants’ knowledge, experiences and views will be explored using face-to-face communication research methods such as workshops, focus groups and/or semi-structured interviews. Interviews or focus groups may be held in English and/or Te Reo (Māori language) to enhance knowledge capture. Analysis, knowledge dissemination, and co-authorship of publications will be negotiated with the Māori community research partners. Māori knowledge shared during the research will constitute participants’ intellectual property. New knowledge, theory, frameworks, and practices developed by the research will be co-owned by Māori, the researchers, and the host academic institution. Conclusion: An emphasis on indigenous knowledge systems within the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction risks the appropriation and misuse of indigenous experiences of disaster risk identification, mitigation, and response. The research protocol underpinning this project provides an exemplar of collaborative partnership in the development and implementation of an indigenous project that has relevance to policymakers, academic researchers, other regions with indigenous communities and/or local disaster risk reduction knowledge practices.

Keywords: community resilience, indigenous disaster risk reduction, Maori, research methods

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Authors: Elnaz Alimi, Keriakoula Andriopoulos, Sam Boyer, Weronika Zuczek

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Occupational therapists can use coaching strategies to guide parents in providing therapy for their children with developmental disabilities. Evidence from various fields has shown increased parental self-efficacy and positive child outcomes as benefits of home and community-based parent coaching models. A literature review was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of parent coaching interventions delivered in home and community settings for children with developmental disabilities ages 0-12, on a variety of parent and child outcomes. CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO, PubMed, OTseeker were used as databases. The inclusion criteria consisted of: children with developmental disabilities ages 0-12 and their parents, parent coaching models conducted in the home and community, and parent and child outcomes. Studies were excluded if they were in a language other than English and published before 2000. Results showed that parent coaching interventions led to more positive therapy outcomes in child behaviors and symptoms related to their diagnosis or disorder. Additionally, coaching strategies had positive effects on parental satisfaction with therapy, parental self-efficacy, and family dynamics. Findings revealed decreased parental stress and improved parent-child relationships. Further research on parent coaching could involve studying the feasibility of coaching within occupational therapy specifically, incorporating cultural elements into coaching, qualitative studies on parental satisfaction with coaching, and measuring the quality of life outcomes for the whole family.

Keywords: coaching model, developmental disabilities, occupational therapy, pediatrics

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Authors: Mohammed Al-Shalabi, Alaa Obeidat

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In any food stores, some items will be expired or destroyed because the demand on these items is infrequent, so we need a system that can help the decision maker to make an offer on such items to improve the demand on the items by putting them with some other frequent item and decrease the price to avoid losses. The system generates hundreds or thousands of patterns (offers) for each low demand item, then it uses the association rules (support, confidence) to find the interesting patterns (the best offer to achieve the lowest losses). In this paper, we propose a data mining method for determining the best offer by merging the data mining techniques with the e-commerce strategy. The task is to build a model to predict the best offer. The goal is to maximize the profits of a store and avoid the loss of products. The idea in this paper is the using of the association rules in marketing with a combination with e-commerce.

Keywords: data mining, association rules, confidence, online stores

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Authors: Preecha Phongpeng

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The objectives of this research are to assess the prevalence of travel businesses websites in Thailand, investigate and evaluate the quality of travel business websites in Thailand. The sample size includes 323 websites from the population of 1,458 websites. The study covers 4 types of travel business websites including: 78 general travel agents, 30 online reservation travel agents, 205 hotels, 7 airlines, and 3 car-rental companies with nation-wide operation. The findings indicated that e-tourism in Thailand is at its growth stage, with only 13% of travel businesses having websites, 28% of them providing e-mail and the quality of travel business websites in Thailand was at the average level. Seven common problems were found in websites: lack of travel essential information, insufficient transportation information, lack of navigation tools, lack of link pages to other organizations, lack of safety features, unclear online booking functions, and lack of special features also as well.

Keywords: traveling business, website evaluation, e-commerce, e-tourism

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Authors: Ammar Ouahab, Meriem Houichi , Sanna Mihoubi

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Background: Nigella sativa is an annual flowering plant, belongs to the Ranunculaceae family. It has many pharmacological activities such as anti-inflammatory; anti-bacterial; anti-hepatotoxic activities etc. Materials: In order to predict the pharmacological activity of Nigella Sativa’s compounds, some web based servers were used, namely, PubChem, Molinspiration, ADMET-SAR, PASS online and PharMapper. In addition to that, AutoDOCK was used to investigate the different molecular interactions between the selected compounds and their target proteins. Results: All compounds displayed a stable interaction with their targets and satisfactory binding energies, which means that they are active on their targets. Conclusion: Nigella sativa is an effective medicinal plant that has several ethno-medical uses; the latter uses are proven herein via an in-silico study of their pharmacological activities.

Keywords: Nigella sativa, AutoDOCK, PubChem, Molinspiration, ADMET-SAR, PharMapper, PASS online server, docking

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Authors: Jiantao Weng, Yujie Zhao

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With the improvement of living quality and demand for nighttime activities in China, the current situation of outdoor lighting environment at night needs to be assessed. Lighting environment at night plays an important role to guarantee night safety. Two typical residential communities in Hangzhou were selected. A comprehensive test method of outdoor lighting environment at night was established. The road, fitness area, landscape, playground and entrance were included. Field measurements and questionnaires were conducted in these two residential communities. The characteristics of residents’ habits and the subjective evaluation on different aspects of outdoor lighting environment at night were collected via questionnaire. A safety evaluation system on the outdoor lighting environment at night in the residential community was established. The results show that there is a big difference in illumination in different areas. The lighting uniformities of roads cannot meet the requirement of lighting standard in China. Residents pay more attention to the lighting environment of the fitness area and road than others. This study can provide guidance for the design and management of outdoor lighting environment at night.

Keywords: residential community, lighting environment, night, field measurement

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Authors: Adeep Hande, Shubham Agarwal

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This paper presents a study on identifying sexism in online texts using various state-of-the-art deep learning models based on BERT. We experimented with different feature sets and model architectures and evaluated their performance using precision, recall, F1 score, and accuracy metrics. We also explored the use of pseudolabeling technique to improve model performance. Our experiments show that the best-performing models were based on BERT, and their multilingual model achieved an F1 score of 0.83. Furthermore, the use of pseudolabeling significantly improved the performance of the BERT-based models, with the best results achieved using the pseudolabeling technique. Our findings suggest that BERT-based models with pseudolabeling hold great promise for identifying sexism in online texts with high accuracy.

Keywords: large language models, semi-supervised learning, sexism detection, data sparsity

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Authors: JooYoung Lee, Rasheed Hussain

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Understanding the relationships among communities of users is the key to blueprint the evolution of human society. Majority of people are equipped with GPS devices, such as smart phones and smart cars, which can trace their whereabouts. In this paper, we discover communities of device users based on real locations in a given time frame. We, then, study the associations of discovered communities, referred to as temporal communities, and generate temporal and probabilistic association rules. The rules describe how strong communities are associated. By studying the generated rules, we can automatically extract underlying hierarchies of communities and permanent communities such as work places.

Keywords: association rules, community detection, evolution of communities, spatiotemporal

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Authors: Harini Aiyer, Kalyani Premkumar

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Health professionals are the key players who can help achieve the goals of population health equity. Social accountability (SA) of health professionals emphasizes their role in addressing issues of equity in the population they serve. Therefore, health professional education must focus on instilling SA in health professionals. There is limited literature offering a longitudinal perspective of how students sustain the practice of SA in later life. This project aims to identify the drivers of social accountability among physicians. This study employed an exploratory mixed methods design (QUAL-> Quant) to explore alumni perceptions and experiences. The qualitative data, collected via 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, provided an understanding of the perceptions of the alumni regarding the influence of their undergraduate learning environment on their SA. This was followed by a quantitative portion -a questionnaire designed from the themes identified from the qualitative data. Emerging themes from the study highlighted community-centered education and a focus on social and preventative medicine in both curricular and non-curricular facilitators of SA among physicians. Curricular components included opportunities to engage with the community, such as roadside clinics, community-orientation programs, and postings at a secondary hospital. Other facilitators that emerged were the faculty leading by example, a subsidized fee structure, and a system that prepared students for practice in rural and remote areas. The study offers a fresh perspective and dimension on how SA is addressed by medical schools. The findings may be adapted by medical schools to understand how their own SA initiatives have been sustained among physicians over the long run.

Keywords: community-based work, global health, health education, medical education, providing health in remote areas, social accountability

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Authors: Sreto Boljevic

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Heating systems based on geothermal energy sources are becoming increasingly popular among commercial/community buildings as management of these buildings looks for a more efficient and environmentally friendly way to manage the heating system. The thermal energy supply of most European commercial/community buildings at present is provided mainly by energy extracted from natural gas. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve climate change targets set by the EU, restructuring in the area of thermal energy supply is essential. At present, heating and cooling account for approx... 50% of the EU primary energy supply. Due to its physical characteristics, thermal energy cannot be distributed or exchange over long distances, contrary to electricity and gas energy carriers. Compared to electricity and the gas sectors, heating remains a generally black box, with large unknowns to a researcher and policymaker. Ain literature number of documents address policies for promoting renewable energy technology to facilitate heating for residential/community/commercial buildings and assess the balance between heat supply and heat savings. Ground source heat pump (GSHP) technology has been an extremely attractive alternative to traditional electric and fossil fuel space heating equipment used to supply thermal energy for residential/community/commercial buildings. The main purpose of this paper is to create an algorithm using an analytical approach that could enable a feasibility study regarding the implementation of GSHP technology in community building with existing fossil-fueled heating systems. The main results obtained by the algorithm will enable building management and GSHP system designers to define the optimal size of the system regarding technical, environmental, and economic impacts of the system implementation, including payback period time. In addition, an algorithm is created to be utilized for a feasibility study for many different types of buildings. The algorithm is tested on a building that was built in 1930 and is used as a church located in Cork city. The heating of the building is currently provided by a 105kW gas boiler.

Keywords: GSHP, greenhouse gas emission, low-enthalpy, renewable energy

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Authors: Oluwayemisi Femi-Pius, Kazeem Arogundade, Eberechukwu Eke, Jimmy Eko

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Introduction: Globally, community involvement in improving their own health has been widely adopted as a strategy in Sub-Saharan Africa principally to ensure equitable access to essential health care as well as improve the uptake of maternal and newborn health services especially in poor-resource settings. Method: The Saving Mother Giving Life (SMGL) Initiative implemented by Pathfinder International with funding support from USAID conducted a Health Facility Assessment (HFA) and found out that maternal mortality ratio in Cross River State was 812 per 100,000 live birth and perinatal mortality was 160 per 1000 live birth. To reduce maternal and perinatal mortality, Pathfinder International mobilized, selected and trained community members as community volunteers, traditional birth attendants, and emergency transport service volunteer drivers mainly to address the delay in decision making and reaching the health facility among pregnant women. Results: The results showed that maternal mortality ratio in Cross River State decrease by 25% from 812 per 100,000 live birth at baseline to 206 per 100,000 live birth at June 2018 and perinatal mortality reduced by 35% from 160 per 100,000 at baseline to 58 per 1000 live birth at June 2018. Data also show that ANC visit increased from 7,451 to 11,344; institutional delivery increased from 8,931 at baseline to 10,784 in June 2018. There was also a remarkable uptake of post-partum family planning from 0 at baseline to 233 in June 2018. Conclusion: There is clear evidence that community involvement yields positive maternal outcomes and is pivotal for sustaining most health interventions.

Keywords: maternal mortality, Nigeria, pathfinder international, perinatal mortality, saving mother giving life

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Authors: Lo Kai Chung

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Fathers in the family of disabled children play a crucial role in fostering child development. Previous studies addressing emotions of father involvement in rearing children with special needs have been rare. With reference to the cultural orientation and masculine idea of Chinese fathers, shame and guilt are probable causal emotions that affect fathers’ psycho-behavioral reactions and, thus, father involvement. Based on the findings of our earlier qualitative studies, the current study aims to develop and validate a multi-item scale of guilt or shame and explore their relations with and fatherhood in families with children with special needs. A model is proposed to understand the roles that shame and guilt play in affecting fathers’ involvement in their family system. The severity and type of the child’s special needs are regarded as independent variables affecting the father’s emotional responses – shame and guilt. It is hypothesized that shame and guilt, under the influence of masculinity, lead to avoidance and compensation, respectively, which subsequently decrease and increase father involvement with children with special needs. A cross-sectional online questionnaire survey of fathers with children with special needs recruited by convenience sampling was conducted. Potential participants were reached by bulk emails, related groups on the Internet and education/social services providers. Totally 537 valid sets of online questionnaires were collected from fathers of children with special needs. EFA on the items pool of shame and guilt was performed, resulting in an x-item single-factor solution and y-item single-factor solution, respectively. Further path model analysis revealed that shame and guilt, under the influence of masculinity, showed differential avoidance and compensation responses and resulted in a decrease and increase in father involvement with special needs children. Demographic and key confounding variables were controlled in the analysis. The shame and guilt scales developed show good psychometric properties. Furthermore, they showed significant differential impacts, under the influence of masculinity, on avoidance and compensation behaviours, consequently resulting in a decrease/increase in father involvement in the expected directions. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications. At the community and policy level, the findings inform the design of strategies for strengthening the role of men in families with special needs children.

Keywords: emotions, father involvement, guilt, shame, special needs

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Authors: J. Thiele

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Teachers working at vocational Colleges are often confronted with the problem, that many students graduated from different schools and therefore each had a different education. Especially in mathematics many students lack fundamentals or had different priorities at their previous schools. Furthermore, these vocational Colleges have to provide Graduations for many different working-fields, with different core themes. The Colleges are interested in measuring the different Education levels of their students and providing assistance for those who need to catch up. The Project mathe-meistern was initiated to remedy this problem at vocational Colleges. For this purpose, online-tests were developed. The aim of these tests is to evaluate basic mathematical abilities of the students. The tests are online Multiple-Choice-Tests with a total of 65 Items. They are accessed online with a unique Transaction-Number (TAN) for each participant. The content is divided in several Categories (Arithmetic, Algebra, Fractions, Geometry, etc.). After each test, the student gets a personalized summary depicting their strengths and weaknesses in mathematical Basics. Teachers can visit a special website to examine the results of their classes or single students. In total 5830 students did participate so far. For standardization and optimization purposes the tests are being evaluated, using the classic and probabilistic Test-Theory regarding Objectivity, Reliability and Validity, annually since 2015. This Paper is about the Optimization process considering the Rasch-scaling and Standardization of the tests. Additionally, current results using standardized tests will be discussed. To achieve this Competence levels and Types of errors of students attending vocational Colleges in Nordrheinwestfalen, Germany, were determined, using descriptive Data and Distractorevaluations.

Keywords: diagnostical tests in mathematics, distractor devaluation, test-optimization, test-theory

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Authors: Sacha Joseph-Mathews, Leili Javadpour

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In the tourism industry, hoteliers spend millions annually on marketing and positioning efforts for their respective hotels, all in an effort to create a specific image in the minds of the consumer. Yet despite extensive efforts to seduce potential hotel guests with sophisticated advertising messages generated by hotel entities, consumers continue to mistrust corporate branding, preferring instead to place their trust in the reviews of their consumer peers. In today’s complex and cluttered marketplace, online reviews can serve as a mediator for consumers who do not have actual knowledge and experiences with the brand, but are in the process of deciding whether or not to engage in a consumption exercise. Traditionally, consumers have used online reviews as a source of comfort and confirmation of a product/service’s positioning. But today, very few customers make any purchase decisions without first researching existing user reviews, making reviews more of a necessity, rather than a luxury in the purchase decision process. The influence of user generated content (UGC) is amplified in the tourism industry; as more than a third of potential hotel guests will not book a room without first reading a review. As corporate branding becomes less relevant and online reviews become more important, how much of the consumer’s stay expectations are being dictated by existing UGC? Moreover, as hotel guest experience a hotel through the lens of an existing review, how much of their stay and in turn their review, would have been influenced by those reviews that they read? Ultimately, there is the potential for UGC to dictate what potential guests will be most critical about, and or most focused on during their stay. If UGC is a stronger influencer in the purchase decision process than corporate branding, doesn’t it have the potential to dictate, the entire stay experience by influencing the expectations of the guest prior to them arriving on the property? For example, if a hotel is an eco-destination and they focus their branding on their website around sustainability and the retreat nature of the hotel. Yet, guest reviews constantly discuss how dissatisfactory the service and food was with no mention of nature or sustainability, will future reviews then focus primarily on the food? Using text analysis software to examine over 25,000 online reviews, we explore the extent to which new reviews are influenced by wording used in previous reviews for a hotel property, versus content generated by corporate positioning. Additionally, we investigate how distinct hotel related UGC is across different types of tourism destinations. Our findings suggest that UGC can have a greater impact on future reviews, than corporate branding and there is more cohesiveness across UGC of different types of hotel properties than anticipated. A model of User Generated Content Influence is presented and the managerial impact of the power of online reviews to trump corporate branding and shape future user experiences is discussed.

Keywords: user generated content, UGC, corporate branding, online reviews, hotels and tourism

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Authors: Yen-Jong Chen, Jei-An Su

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Public use facilities provide the basic infrastructure supporting the needs of urban sustainable development. These facilities include roads (streets), parking areas, green spaces, public schools, and city parks. However, how to acquire land with the proper location and size still remains uncertain in a capitalist economy where land is largely privately owned, such as in cities in Taiwan. The issue concerning the proper acquisition of reserved land for local public facilities (RLPF) policies has been continuously debated by the Taiwanese government for more than 30 years. Lately, the government has been re-evaluating projects connected with existing RLPF policies from the viewpoints of the needs of local residents, including the living environments of older adults. This challenging task includes addressing the requests of official bureau administrators, citizens whose property rights and current use status are affected, and other stakeholders, along with the means of development. To simplify the decision to acquire or release public land, we selected only public facilities that are needed for living in the local community, including parks, green spaces, plaza squares, and land for kindergartens, schools, and local stadiums. This study categorized these spaces as the community’s “leisure public facilities” (LPF). By constructing an accessibility index of the services of such multi-function facilities, we computed and produced a GIS map of spatial buffer zones for each LPF. Through these procedures, the service needs provided by each LPF were clearly identified. We then used spatial buffer zone envelope mapping to evaluate these service areas. The results obtained can help decide which RLPF should be acquired or released so that community services can be maximized under a limited budget.

Keywords: urban public facilities, community demand, accessibility, spatial buffer zone, Taiwan

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Authors: Daisyree S. Arrieta

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The purpose of this study was to assess the mediation process applied on community-based disputes in the selected barangays of Batangas City, namely: Barangay Sta. Rita Karsada, Barangay Bolbok, and Barangay Alangilan. The researcher initially speculated that the required procedures under Republic Act No. 7160 were not religiously followed and satisfied by the Lupong Tagapamayapa members in most of the barangays in the subject locality and this prompted the researcher to conduct an investigation about this research topic. In this study, the subject barangays and their Lupon members still resorted to mediation processes to amicably settle conflicts among community members. It can also be appreciated among the Lupon Tagapamayapa members that they are aware of the purpose and processes required in the mediation of cases brought before them. However, the manner in which they conduct this mediation processes seems to be dependent on the general characteristics of their respective barangays and of the people situated therein. It also very noticeable that the strategies applied by the Lupon members on these cases depend on the ways and means the parties in dispute may arrive into agreements and conciliations. It is concluded by the researcher that the Lupong Tagapamayapa members in Barangay Sta. Rita Karsada, Barangay Bolbok, and Barangay Alangilan are aware and are applying the objectives and procedures of mediation. Also, the success and failure of the mediation processes applied by the Lupong Tagapamayapa members of the subject barangays on community-based disputes brought before them are generally attributed on the attitude and perspective of the parties in dispute towards the entire process of mediation and not on the capacity or capability of the Lupon members to subject them into amicable settlements. In view of the above, the researcher humbly recommends the following: (1) that the composition of the Lupong Tagapamayapa should include individuals from various sectors of the barangay; (2) that the Lupong Tagapamayapa members should undergo various trainings that may enhance their capability to mediate any type of community-based disputes at the expense of the barangay fund or budget; (3) that the Punong Barangay and the Sangguniang Pambarangay, in their own discretion, should allocate budget that will consistently provide regular honoraria for the Lupong Tagapamayapa members; (4) that the Punong Barangay and the Sangguniang Pambarangay should provide an ideal venue for the hearing of community-based disputes; (5) that the City/ Municipal Governments should allocate necessary financial assistance to the barangays under their jurisdiction in honing eligible Lupong Tagapamayapa members; and (6) that the Punong Barangay and other officials should initiate series of information campaigns for their constituents to be informed on the objectives, advantages, and procedures of mediation.

Keywords: amicable settlement, community-based disputes, dispute resolution, mediation

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Authors: Ashir Ahmed

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Generally, radicalization happens when a person's thinking and behaviour become significantly different from how most of the members of their society and community view social issues and participate politically. Radicalization often leads to violent extremism that refers to the beliefs and actions of people who support or use violence to achieve ideological, religious or political goals. Studies on radicalization negate the common myths that someone must be in a group to be radicalised or anyone who experiences radical thoughts is a violent extremist. Moreover, it is erroneous to suggest that radicalisation is always linked to religion. Generally, the common motives of radicalization include ideological, issue-based, ethno-nationalist or separatist underpinning. Moreover, there are number of factors that further augments the chances of someone being radicalised and may choose the path of violent extremism and possibly terrorism. Since there are numbers of factors (and sometimes quite different) contributing in radicalization and violent extremism, it is highly unlikely to devise a single solution that could produce effective outcomes to deal with radicalization, violent extremism and terrorism. The pathway to deradicalization, like the pathway to radicalisation, is different for everyone. Considering the need of having customized deradicalization resolution, this study proposes a multi-tier framework, called ‘pyramid of deradicalization’ that first help identifying the stage at which an individual could be on the radicalization pathway and then propose a customize strategy to deal with the respective stage. The first tier (tier 1) addresses broader community and proposes a ‘universal approach’ aiming to offer community-based design and delivery of educational programs to raise awareness and provide general information on possible factors leading to radicalization and their remedies. The second tier focuses on the members of community who are more vulnerable and are disengaged from the rest of the community. This tier proposes a ‘targeted approach’ targeting the vulnerable members of the community through early intervention such as providing anonymous help lines where people feel confident and comfortable in seeking help without fearing the disclosure of their identity. The third tier aims to focus on people having clear evidence of moving toward extremism or getting radicalized. The people falls in this tier are believed to be supported through ‘interventionist approach’. The interventionist approach advocates the community engagement and community-policing, introducing deradicalization programmes to the targeted individuals and looking after their physical and mental health issues. The fourth and the last tier suggests the strategies to deal with people who are actively breaking the law. ‘Enforcement approach’ suggests various approaches such as strong law enforcement, fairness and accuracy in reporting radicalization events, unbiased treatment by law based on gender, race, nationality or religion and strengthen the family connections.It is anticipated that the operationalization of the proposed framework (‘pyramid of deradicalization’) would help in categorising people considering their tendency to become radicalized and then offer an appropriate strategy to make them valuable and peaceful members of the community.

Keywords: deradicalization, framework, terrorism, violent extremism

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Authors: Ahmad. A. Kardan, Amir Narimani, Foozhan Ataiefard

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Recommender Systems have been developed to provide contents and services compatible to users based on their behaviors and interests. Due to information overload in online discussion forums and users diverse interests, recommending relative topics and threads is considered to be helpful for improving the ease of forum usage. In order to lead learners to find relevant information in educational forums, recommendations are even more needed. We present a hybrid thread recommender system for MOOC forums by applying social network analysis and association rule mining techniques. Initial results indicate that the proposed recommender system performs comparatively well with regard to limited available data from users' previous posts in the forum.

Keywords: association rule mining, hybrid recommender system, massive open online courses, MOOCs, social network analysis

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Authors: Adriane Orenha-Ottaiano

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Collocations are conventionalized, recurrent and arbitrary lexical combinations. Due to the fact that they are highly specific for a particular language and may be contextually restricted, collocations pose a problem to EFL/ESL learners with regard to production or encoding. Taking that into account, the compilation of monolingual and bilingual collocations dictionaries for the referred audience is highly crucial and significant. Thus, the aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of the compilation of an Online Corpus-based Bilingual Collocations Dictionary, in the English-Portuguese and Portuguese-English directions. On a first phase, with the use of WordSmith Tools, the collocations were extracted from a Translation Learner Corpus (TLC), a parallel corpus made up of university students’ translations in the Portuguese-English direction, with approximately 100,000 words. In a second stage, based on the keywords analyzed from the TLC, more collocational patterns were extracted using the Sketch Engine. In order to include more collocations as well as to ensure dictionary users will have access to more frequent and recurrent collocations, we also use the frequency list from The Corpus of Contemporary American English, with the purpose of extracting more patterns. The dictionary focuses on all types of collocations (verbal, noun, adjectival and adverbial collocations), in order to help the referred audience use them more accurately and productively – so far the dictionary has more than 330 entries, and more than 3,500 collocations extracted. The idea of having the proposed dictionary in online format may allow to incorporate more qualitatively and quantitatively collocational information. Besides, more examples may be included, different from conventional printed collocations dictionaries. Being the first bilingual collocations dictionary in the aforementioned directions, it is hoped to achieve the challenge of meeting learners’ collocational needs as the collocations have been selected according to learners’ difficulties regarding the use of collocations.

Keywords: Corpus-Based Collocations Dictionary, Collocations , Bilingual Collocations Dictionary, Collocational Patterns

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Authors: Pratiwi Retnaningdyah, Sofie Dewayani

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Foreign domestic workers are arguably one of the most exploited and subordinated groups of women in the labor division under global capitalism. However, foreign domestic workers (FDWs) actively engage in activities to negotiate the prevailing structures of power in the transnational labor market. This paper seeks to understand the significance of Indonesian Domestic Workers (IDWs) cultural representations in relation to the themes of literacy and space. In particular, this paper addresses the issue of how IDWs in Hong Kong make use of the practice of suitcase libraries to make meaning of space within material limits. The term ‘suitcase libraries’ is used to refer to a literacy practice of book borrowing at outdoor public spaces in Hong Kong during IDWs’ days off. The books are displayed in open suitcases and mats, with IDWs both as administrators and consumers engaged in the practice. This paper argues that suitcase libraries can be considered representing Thirdspace in the form of a vernacular, grassroots literacy practice that creates a productive space of resistance and community empowerment. Employing participant observation and a textual analysis of IDWs’ literacy narratives, the study traced IDWs’ literacy trajectories to the period of IDWs’ permanent return to Indonesia. Through extended engagement in community literacy practices in their hometowns, former IDWs develop their literacy capital and break the stereotypes of uneducated and passive maids and change them into literate figures. In the context of literacy movement that has gained momentum in Indonesia recently, the practice of IDWs’ suitcase libraries is also useful as a reference point to further investigate how community literacy sponsors in Indonesia also create Thirdspace and develop literacy capital through community libraries (TBM, Taman Baca Masyarakat).

Keywords: identity, Indonesian domestic workers, literacy narratives, Thirdspace

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Authors: Peter Brink

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Much of the research examining sexuality in long-term care focus on individual experiences, specifically their past, present, and future lived experiences. We know little about long-term care home policies, how they relate to the LGBT community, or how accommodating long-term care homes are to the LGBT+ community. In many ways, residents who identify as LGBT+ have been invisible in long-term care homes. Up until the not-to-distant past, homosexuality was illegal, and discrimination was acceptable. Canada’s LGBT population has also suffered because of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. For these and other reasons, members of the LGBT community might resist entering long-term care or attempt to keep their sexuality secret. The goal of any long-term care home is to be a welcoming place, to display signs of inclusion, and to help residents and staff feel that they are embraced. From the perspective of the long-term care home, it is possible that many of these facilities do not necessarily see the need to mention gender identity or sexual orientation in their welcoming materials. However, from the perspective of the invisible minority, it may be important that these homes be more than just welcoming. This study examined the role of institutional policies in long-term care for residents who identify as LGBT.

Keywords: long-term care, LGBT, HIV/AIDS, policy

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Authors: David Ofosu-Hamilton, John K. E. Edumadze

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Universities have come to recognize the role Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills plays in the daily activities of tertiary students. The ability to use ICT – essentially, computers and their diverse applications – are important resources that influence an individual’s economic and social participation and human capital development. Our society now increasingly relies on the Internet, and the Cloud as a means to communicate and disseminate information. The educated individual should, therefore, be able to use ICT to create and share knowledge that will improve society. It is, therefore, important that universities require incoming students to demonstrate a level of computer proficiency or trained to do so at a minimal cost by deploying advanced educational technologies. The training and standardized assessment of all in-coming first-year students of the University of Cape Coast in Information Technology Skills (ITS) have become a necessity as students’ most often than not highly overestimate their digital skill and digital ignorance is costly to any economy. The one-semester course is targeted at fresh students and aimed at enhancing the productivity and software skills of students. In this respect, emphasis is placed on skills that will enable students to be proficient in using Microsoft Office and Google Apps for Education for their academic work and future professional work whiles using emerging digital multimedia technologies in a safe, ethical, responsible, and legal manner. The course is delivered in blended mode - online and self-paced (student centered) using Alison’s free cloud-based tutorial (Moodle) of Microsoft Office videos. Online support is provided via discussion forums on the University’s Moodle platform and tutor-directed and assisted at the ICT Centre and Google E-learning laboratory. All students are required to register for the ITS course during either the first or second semester of the first year and must participate and complete it within a semester. Assessment focuses on Alison online assessment on Microsoft Office, Alison online assessment on ALISON ABC IT, Peer assessment on e-portfolio created using Google Apps/Office 365 and an End of Semester’s online assessment at the ICT Centre whenever the student was ready in the cause of the semester. This paper, therefore, focuses on the digital culture approach of hybrid teaching, learning and paperless examinations and the possible adoption by other courses or programs at the University of Cape Coast.

Keywords: assessment, blended, cloud, paperless

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Authors: Mengjiao Fan, Thomson W. L. Wong

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It is unavoidable that older adults may have to deal with aging-related motor problems. Aging is highly likely to affect motor learning and control as well. For example, older adults may suffer from poor motor function and quality of life due to age-related eye changes. These adverse changes in vision results in impairment of movement automaticity. Reaching is a fundamental component of various complex movements, which is therefore beneficial to explore the changes and adaptation in visuomotor behaviors. The current study aims to explore how aging affects visuomotor behaviors by comparing motor performance and gaze behaviors between two age groups (i.e., young and older adults). Visuomotor behaviors in reaching under providing or blocking online visual feedback (simulated visual deficiency) conditions were investigated in 60 healthy young adults (Mean age=24.49 years, SD=2.12) and 37 older adults (Mean age=70.07 years, SD=2.37) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Participants in each group were randomly allocated into two subgroups. Subgroup 1 was provided with online visual feedback of the hand-controlled mouse cursor. However, in subgroup 2, visual feedback was blocked to simulate visual deficiency. The experimental task required participants to complete 20 times of reaching to a target by controlling the mouse cursor on the computer screen. Among all the 20 trials, start position was upright in the center of the screen and target appeared at a randomly selected position by the tailor-made computer program. Primary outcomes of motor performance and gaze behaviours data were recorded by the EyeLink II (SR Research, Canada). The results suggested that aging seems to affect the performance of reaching tasks significantly in both visual feedback conditions. In both age groups, blocking online visual feedback of the cursor in reaching resulted in longer hand movement time (p < .001), longer reaching distance away from the target center (p<.001) and poorer reaching motor accuracy (p < .001). Concerning gaze behaviors, blocking online visual feedback increased the first fixation duration time in young adults (p<.001) but decreased it in older adults (p < .001). Besides, under the condition of providing online visual feedback of the cursor, older adults conducted a longer fixation dwell time on target throughout reaching than the young adults (p < .001) although the effect was not significant under blocking online visual feedback condition (p=.215). Therefore, the results suggested that different levels of visual feedback during movement execution can affect gaze behaviors differently in older and young adults. Differential effects by aging on visuomotor behaviors appear on two visual feedback patterns (i.e., blocking or providing online visual feedback of hand-controlled cursor in reaching). Several specific gaze behaviors among the older adults were found, which imply that blocking of visual feedback may act as a stimulus to seduce extra perceptive load in movement execution and age-related visual degeneration might further deteriorate the situation. It indeed provides us with insight for the future development of potential rehabilitative training method (e.g., well-designed errorless training) in enhancing visuomotor adaptation for our aging population in the context of improving their movement automaticity by facilitating their compensation of visual degeneration.

Keywords: aging effect, movement automaticity, reaching, visuomotor behaviors, visual degeneration

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Authors: Hidehiro Endo, Taizo Shigemichi

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Introduction & Objectives: In 2008, the revised course of study for elementary schools was published by MEXT, and from the beginning of the academic year of 2011-2012, foreign language activities (English lessons) became mandatory for 5th and 6th graders in Japanese elementary schools. Foreign language activities are currently offered once a week for approximately 50 minutes by elementary school teachers, assistant language teachers who are native speakers of English, volunteers, among others, with the purpose of helping children become accustomed to functional English. However, the new policy has disclosed a myriad of issues in conducting foreign language activities since the majority of the current elementary school teachers has neither English teaching experience nor English proficiency. Nevertheless, converting foreign language activities into English, as a subject in Japanese elementary schools (for 5th and 6th graders) from 2020 is what MEXT currently envisages with the purpose of reforming English education in Japan. According to their new proposal, foreign language activities will be mandatory for 3rd and 4th graders from 2020. Consequently, gaining better access to English learning opportunities becomes one of the primary concerns even in early childhood education. Thus, in this project, we aim to explore some nursery schools’ attempts at providing toddlers with online English lessons via Skype. The main purpose of this project is to look deeply into what roles online English lessons in the nursery schools play in guiding nursery school children to enjoy learning the English language as well as to acquire English communication skills. Research Methods: Setting; The main research site is a nursery school located in the northern part of Japan. The nursery school has been offering a 20-minute online English lesson via Skype twice a week to 7 toddlers since September 2015. The teacher of the online English lessons is a male person who lives in the Philippines. Fieldwork & Data; We have just begun collecting data by attending the Skype English lessons. Direct observations are the principal components of the fieldwork. By closely observing how the toddlers respond to what the teacher does via Skype, we examine what components stimulate the toddlers to pay attention to the English lessons. Preliminary Findings & Expected Outcomes: Although both data collection and analysis are ongoing, we found that the online English teacher remembers the first name of each toddler and calls them by their first name via Skype, a technique that is crucial in motivating the toddlers to actively participate in the lessons. In addition, when the teacher asks the toddlers the name of a plastic object such as grapes in English, the toddlers tend to respond to the teacher in Japanese. Accordingly, the effective use of Japanese in teaching English for nursery school children need to be further examined. The anticipated results of this project are an increased recognition of the significance of creating English language learning opportunities for nursery school children and a significant contribution to the field of early childhood education.

Keywords: teaching children, English education, early childhood education, nursery school

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Authors: Roxana D. Maiorescu-Murphy

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In the US, corporations have recently embraced political stances in an attempt to respond to the external pressure exerted by activist groups. To date, research in this area remains in its infancy, and few studies have been conducted on the way stakeholder groups respond to corporate political advocacy in general and in the immediacy of such a corporate announcement in particular. The current study aims to fill in this research void. In addition, the study contributes to an emerging trajectory in the field of crisis management by focusing on the delineation between crises (unexpected events related to products and services) and scandals (crises that spur moral outrage). The present study looked at online reactions in the aftermath of Elon Musk’s endorsement of the Republican party on Twitter. Two data sets were collected from Twitter following two political endorsements made by Elon Musk on May 18, 2022, and June 15, 2022, respectively. The total sample of analysis stemming from the data two sets consisted of N=1,374 user comments written as a response to Musk’s initial tweets. Given the paucity of studies in the preceding research areas, the analysis employed a case study methodology, used in circumstances in which the phenomena to be studied had not been researched before. According to the case study methodology, which answers the questions of how and why a phenomenon occurs, this study responded to the research questions of how online users perceived Tesla and why they did so. The data were analyzed in NVivo by the use of the grounded theory methodology, which implied multiple exposures to the text and the undertaking of an inductive-deductive approach. Through multiple exposures to the data, the researcher ascertained the common themes and subthemes in the online discussion. Each theme and subtheme were later defined and labeled. Additional exposures to the text ensured that these were exhaustive. The results revealed that the CEO’s political endorsements triggered moral outrage, leading to Tesla’s facing a scandal as opposed to a crisis. The moral outrage revolved around the stakeholders’ predominant rejection of a perceived intrusion of an influential figure on a domain reserved for voters. As expected, Musk’s political endorsements led to polarizing opinions, and those who opposed his views engaged in online activism aimed to boycott the Tesla brand. These findings reveal that the moral outrage that characterizes a scandal requires communication practices that differ from those that practitioners currently borrow from the field of crisis management. Specifically, because scandals flourish in online settings, practitioners should regularly monitor stakeholder perceptions and address them in real-time. While promptness is essential when managing crises, it becomes crucial to respond immediately as a scandal is flourishing online. Finally, attempts should be made to distance a brand, its products, and its CEO from the latter’s political views.

Keywords: crisis management, communication management, Tesla, corporate political activism, Elon Musk

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Authors: Lucas Berrini

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Academic libraries have always struggled with engaging with students and faculty. Striking the balance between what the community needs and what the library can afford has also been a point of contention for libraries. As academia begins to return to a new normal after COVID, library staff are rethinking how remind patrons that the library is open and ready for business. NC Wesleyan, a small liberal arts school in eastern North Carolina, decided to be proactive and reach out to the academic community. After shutting down in 2020 for COVID, the campus library saw a marked decrease in in-person attendance. For a small school whose operational budget was tied directly to tuition payments, it was imperative for the library to remind faculty and staff that they were open for business. At the beginning of the Summer 2022 term and continuing into the fall, the reference team created a marketing plan using email, physical meetings, and virtual events targeted at students and faculty as well as community members who utilized the facilities prior to COVID. The email blasts were gentle reminders that the building was open and available for use The target audiences were the community at large. Several of the emails contained reminders of previous events in the library that were student centered. The next phase of the email campaign centers on reminding the community about the libraries physical and electronic resources, including the makerspace lab. Language will indicate that student voices are needed, and a QR code is included for students to leave feedback as to what they want to see in the library. The final phase of the email blasts were faculty focused and invited them to connect with library reference staff for an in-person consultation on their research needs. While this phase is ongoing, the response has been positive, and staff are compiling data in hopes of working with administration to implement some of the requested services and materials. These email blasts will be followed up by in-person meetings with faculty and students who responded to the QR codes. This research is ongoing. This type of targeted outreach is new for Wesleyan. It is the hope of the library that by the end of Fall 2022, there will be a plan in place to address the needs and concerns of the students and faculty. Furthermore, the staff hopes to create a new sense of community for the students and staff of the university.

Keywords: academic, education, libraries, outreach

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Authors: Abigail Qian Zhou

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In today's China, the well-educated middle class, with stable jobs and above-average income, are the driving force behind its Internet society. Through the analysis of data from the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey and 50 interviewees, this study investigates the current situation of this group’s specific internet usage. The findings of this study demonstrate that daily life among the members of this socioeconomic group is closely tied to the Internet. For Chinese middle class, the Internet is used to socialize and entertain self and others. It is also used to search for and share information as well as to build their identities. The empirical results of this study will provide a reference, supported by factual data, for enterprises seeking to target the Chinese middle class through online marketing efforts.

Keywords: middle class, Internet use, network behaviour, online marketing, China

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Authors: Ellie Abdi

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This paper is a review of a recently published book (April 2018) by Dr. Ellie Abdi. The book divides into two sections of 1) leadership in school organization and 2) pragmatic research in physical education professional development. The first part of the book explores school organizational development in terms of 1) communication development, 2) community development, and 3) decision making development. It concludes to acknowledge that decision making is the heart of educational management. This is while communication and community are essential to the development of the school organization. The role of a leader in a professional learning community (PLC) is acknowledged with the organizational development plan and moves onto 5 overall objectives of a professional development plan. It clarifies that professional learning community (PLC) benefits both students and professionals in education. Furthermore, professional development needs to be involved in opportunities to value diversity and foundations of learning, in addition to search for veteran teachers who offer a rich combination of experience and perspective. School educational platform in terms of teacher training in physical education is discussed in the second part. The book reviews that well-designed programs are powerful and constructive ways to identify the strength and weaknesses of teachers. Post-positivism, constructivism, advocacy/participatory, and pragmatism in teacher education are also disclosed. The book specifically unfolds pragmatic research in professional development of physical education. It provides researchers, doctoral, and masters level students with defined examples. In summary, the book shows how appropriate it is when many different traditions are displayed in a pragmatic way, following the stages of research from development to dissemination.

Keywords: leadership, physical education, pragmatic, professional development

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