Search results for: performance management in the public sector

Authors: Çisem Gündüz Arabacı

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Deliberation has been seen one of the most important components of democratic ideals especially since liberal democratic attributions have been under fire. Deliberative democracy advocates that people should participate in collective decision-making processes by other mechanisms rather than conventional ones in order to reach legitimate decisions. Deliberative democratic theory makes emphasis on deliberative communication between people and encourages them not to merely express their political opinions (through surveys and referendum) but to form those opinions through public debates. This paper focuses on deliberative democratic visions of Gezi Park Public Forums by taking deliberative democracy as theoretical basis and examining Gezi Park Public Forums in the light of core elements of deliberative democracy. Gezi Movement started on 28 May 2013 in İstanbul as a reaction to local government's revision plans for Taksim Gezi Park, spread throughout the country and created new zones in public sphere which are called Public Park Forums. During the summer of 2013, especially in İstanbul but also in other cities, people gathered in public parks, discussed and took collective decisions concerning actions which they will take. It is worth to mention that since 3 and half years some Public Park Forums are still continuing their meetings regularly in city of İzmir. This paper analyzes four 'Public Park Forums' in İzmir which are called Bornova Public Forum; Karşıyaka Public Forum, Foça Public Forum and Güzelyalı Public Forum. These Forums are under investigation in terms of their understanding of democracy and the values that support that understanding. Participant observation and in-depth interview methods are being used as research methods. Core element of deliberative democracy are being collected under three main category: common interest versus private interest, membership, rational argument and these values are being questioning within one of each Forum in order to draw an overall picture and also make comparison between them. Discourse analysis is being used in order to examine empirical data and paper aims to reveal how participants of public forums perceive deliberative democratic values and whether they give weight to these values.

Keywords: deliberative democracy, Gezi Park movement, public forums, social movement

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Authors: Xiujuan Qiao

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Cities worldwide are increasingly adopting sustainable stormwater solutions such as using green infrastructure to mitigate challenges related to stormwater, e.g., pluvial flooding, and stormwater pollution. Barriers caused by governance factors have been identified as the main reason for the slow pace of sustainable stormwater management implementation. In this study, we examined governance factors influencing local implementation in four case cities: Lund and Malmö, Sweden, and Xi’xian New Area and Zhenjiang, China. Based on systems thinking of interrelations between previously identified influencing governance factors in sustainable stormwater management (SSM), we developed a causal loop diagram (SSM-CLD) and used it to analyze 23 semi-structured interviews with local government officers in the four case cities. Based on the results, we created one SSM-CLD for each country and analyzed the main differences between these four SSM-CLDs. The results revealed that differences in governance structures can lead to differences in the influencing governance factors. In top-down political systems, e.g., China, the role of national policy in setting local leaders’ priorities is significant for SSM implementation. In political systems with more power devolved to local governments, e.g., Sweden, public awareness and local government politicians’ priorities are important for SSM implementation. Acquiring funding for long-term maintenance was identified as a challenge in all four cities studied. These results are relevant for policymakers, local government departments, consultancy companies, and researchers seeking a better understanding of how governance factors influence sustainable stormwater management.

Keywords: sustainable stormwater management, causal loop diagram, governance structures, local government priorities, public awareness, maintenance

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Authors: Shraddha Palikhe, Sunkuk Kim

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The construction industry is the most labor intensive in Nepal. It is obvious that construction is a major sector and any productivity enhancement activity in this sector will have a positive impact in the overall improvement of the national economy. Previous studies have stated that Nepal has poor labor productivity among other south Asian countries. Though considerable research has been done on productivity factors in other countries, no study has addressed labor productivity issues in Nepal. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to identify and hierarchy the influence factors for poor labor productivity. In this study, a questionnaire approach is chosen as a method of the survey from thirty experts involved in the construction industry, such as Architects, Civil Engineers, Project Engineers and Site Engineers. A survey was conducted in Nepal, to identify the major factors impacting construction labor productivity. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis method was used to understand the underlying relationships among the factors, categorized into five groups, namely (1) Labor-management group; (2) Material management group; (3) Human labor group; (4) Technological group and (5) External group and was divided into 33 subfactors. AHP was used to establish the relative importance of the criteria. The AHP makes pairwise comparisons of relative importance between hierarchy elements grouped by labor productivity decision criteria. Respondents were asked to answer based on their experience of construction works. On the basis of the respondent’s response, weight of all the factors were calculated and ranked it. The AHP results were tabulated based on weight and ranking of influence factors. AHP model consists of five main criteria and 33 sub-criteria. Among five main criteria, the scenario assigns a weight of highest influential factor i.e. 26.15% to human labor group followed by 23.01% to technological group, 22.97% to labor management group, 17.61% material management group and 10.25% to external group. While in 33 sub-criteria, the most influential factor for poor productivity in Nepal are lack of monetary incentive (20.53%) for human labor group, unsafe working condition (17.55%) for technological group, lack of leadership (18.43%) for labor management group, unavailability of tools at site (25.03%) for material management group and strikes (35.01%) for external group. The results show that AHP model associated criteria are helpful to predict the current situation of labor productivity. It is essential to consider these influence factors to improve the labor productivity in the construction industry of Nepal.

Keywords: construction, hierarchical analysis, influence factors, labor productivity

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Authors: Muhammed Buhary Muhammed Thabith, Nor Asiah Mohamad

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Religious Endowment (RE) (Waqf) has played an essential role in Islamic history and made a significant impact on the society, particularly in terms of socioeconomics. This has been made possible by having appropriate management of the RE propertiesin order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the region of Kinniya, Sri Lanka, is not an exception. However, since the last Religious Endowment Act of 1982, a considerable deterioration has taken place, and cases of dormant properties have increased. This study proposes a conceptual model based on the SDGs initiatives to fill in the gaps. It analyses the application of the current RE properties management and identifies the issues as well as the challenges in the implementation of the RE Act. It adopts a doctrinal analysis involving the primary and secondary data, including statutes, practices, case law, and reports. The findings show that there are various management modes adopted by the stakeholders of RE. Some approaches are in tandem with the rules and practices of the SDGs with emphasis on support and cooperation from the community, private sector, and the government. Several initiatives such as awareness on RE, legal enforcements without fears and favours, as well as accounting and auditing, are recommended to minimize problems in managing the RE towards attaining the SDGs.

Keywords: sustainable development goals (SDGs), management, endowment, Sri Lanka

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Authors: Tomoya Oshiro, Hiroko Ono

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Japan's aging population is increasing due to the decrease in birthrate. It causes various problems like the decrease in the gross domestic product of the country. The reason is why the local government of Japan has been on the way to a sustainable city recently. Then it is essential to get control of an urban structure to make the compact city successful. There are many kinds of paper about the compact city; however, the paper about a compact city of the island-type city is less. The purpose of this study is to clarify difference of urban structure between an island-type and a general city type. The method which has conducted in this research has two steps. First of all, by using evaluation indexes in the handbook, we evaluated the urban structures among each same -population-class cities from 50,000 to 100,000 people. Next, to clear the difference about the urban structure and feature between island-type and general-type cities compare the radar chart which is composed with each evaluation indexes of urban structure. Moreover, in order to clarify the relationship between evaluation indexes and the place of residence by using GIS software to show up population density on the map. As a result of this research, the management of local government and the local economy in evaluation indexes are indicated to be negative point in comparison of island-type cities with general cities. However, evaluation indexes of safety/security and low-carbon/energy are proved to be positive point. The research to find the difference features of the island-type of urban structure proves that the management of local government or the local economy is negative point in these island-type cities. In addition, the public transportation coverage in Miyako Island, Sado Island, and Amakusa Island show low value compare with other islands and average value. Relationship between evaluation indexes of an urban structure and the place of residence prove that the place of residence is related to public transportation coverage. If the place of residence is spread out, the public transportation coverage will be decreased. The results of this research reveal that the finances in island-type cities are negative point compare to general cities. This problem is caused by declining population. In addition, the place of residence is related to the public transportation coverage. Even though, it needs a much money to increase the public transportation coverage. It is possibly to cause other problems furthermore the aspect of finance is influenced by that as well. The conclusion in this research suggests that it is important for creating the compact city in island-type cities that we first need to address solving the problems about the management of local government and the local economy.

Keywords: sustainable city, comparative analysis, geographic information system, urban structure

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Authors: Feride Eskin Bacaksiz, Aytolan Yildirim

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Practices voluntarily performed by organizations for their employees well-being, create an emotional imperative for employees in accordance with reciprocity norm. Changes in desired course occur in organizational outputs and attitudes towards organization among employees perceiving their organizations as virtuous and supportive. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of organizational virtuousness on performance and organizational identification levels of employees and mediating role of perceived organizational support in this relationship. The data of this descriptive and methodological study were collected from 336 nurses working in a public university hospital in 2015. Participant information form, Organizational Virtuousness, Perceived Organizational Support, Organizational Identification, and Employee Performance scales were used to collect the data. Descriptive, correlative, psychometric analyses and Structural Equation Modeling were performed for the data analysis. Most of the participants were female, under 30 years of age, graduated degrees and staff nurse. Mean scores obtained by the participants from scales were calculated as 3.43(SD=.99) for organizational virtuousness, 2.99 (SD=1.16) for perceived organizational support, 3.18 (SD=1.03) for organizational identification and 3.84 (SD=0.66) for employee performance. It was found that correlation between organizational virtuousness and employee performance regressed from r=0.64 to r=-0.01 and correlation between organizational virtuousness and organizational identification regressed from r=0.55 to r=-0.16 and became statistically non-significant (p < 0.05) via mediating role of perceived organizational support. According to the results, perceived organizational support assumes full mediation on the impact of organizational virtues of employee performance and organizational identification levels. Therefore, organizations, which intend to positively affect employees attitudes towards organization and their performance, should both extend organizational virtuous activities and affect perceptions of employees; whereas, employees should perceive that they are supported by their organization.

Keywords: employee performance, organizational identification, organizational virtuousness, perceived organizational support

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Authors: Aneri Mehta, Krunal Mehta

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Financial administration is part of government which deals with collection, preservation and distribution of public funds, with the coordination of public revenue and expenditure, with the management of credit operation on behalf of the state and with the general control of the financial affairs of public households. The researcher has taken the prime body of the local self government viz. Municipal Corporation. However, the number of municipal corporations in India has rapidly increased in recent years. Countries 27% of the total population are living in urban area & in recent it increasing very fast. People are moving very fast from rural area to urban area. Their demand, awareness is increasing day by day. The Municipal Corporations render many services for the development of the urban area. Thus, researcher has taken a step to know the accounting practices of the municipal corporations of Gujarat state (AMC & BMC ). The research will try to show you the status of finance of municipal corporations. Article 243(w) of the constitution of India envisaged that the state government maybe, by law , endow the municipalities with such powers and authorities as may be necessary to enable them to function as institution of self government and such law may contain provision for devolution of powers and responsibilities upon municipalities subjects to such condition as may be specified there in with respect to (i) the peroration of plans for economic development and social justice and (ii) the performance of the function and the implementation of schemes as may be entrusted to them including those in relation to the matters listed in the twelfth schedule. The three tier structure of the Indian Government i.e. Union, State & Local Self Government is the scenario of the Indian constitution. Local Self Government performs or renders many services under the direct control of state government. They (local bodies) possess autonomy within its limited sphere, raise revenue through local taxation and spend its income on local services.

Keywords: financial administration, urban local bodies, local self government, constitution

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Authors: Mirza Waseem Abbas, Syed Danish Raza

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For many countries agriculture is still the major force driving the economy and a critically important socioeconomic sector, despite exceptional industrial development across the globe. In countries like Pakistan, this sector is considered the backbone of the economy, and most of the economic decision making revolves around agricultural outputs and data. Timely and accurate facts and figures about this vital sector hold immense significance and have serious implications for the long-term development of the economy. Therefore, any significant improvements in the statistics and other forms of data regarding agriculture sector are considered important by all policymakers. This is especially true for decision making for the betterment of crops and the agriculture sector in general. Provincial and federal agricultural departments collect data for all cash and non-cash crops and the sector, in general, every year. Traditional data collection for such a large sector i.e. agriculture, being time-consuming, prone to human error and labor-intensive, is slowly but gradually being replaced by remote sensing techniques. For this study, remotely sensed data were used for change detection (machine learning, supervised & unsupervised classification) to assess the increase or decrease in area under agriculture over the last fifteen years due to urbanization. Detailed Landsat Images for the selected agricultural districts were acquired for the year 2000 and compared to images of the same area acquired for the year 2016. Observed differences validated through detailed analysis of the areas show that there was a considerable decrease in vegetation during the last fifteen years in four major agricultural districts of the Punjab province due to urbanization (housing societies).

Keywords: change detection, area estimation, machine learning, urbanization, remote sensing

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Authors: K. M. G. T. R. Waidyarathna, S. M. Vidanagamachchi

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Public Health System exists in Sri Lanka has a satisfactory complete information flow when compared to other systems in developing countries. The availability of a good health information system contributed immensely to achieve health indices that are in line with the developed countries like US and UK. The health information flow at the moment is completely paper based. In Sri Lanka, the fields like banking, accounting and engineering have incorporated information and communication technology to the same extent that can be observed in any other country. The field of medicine has behind those fields throughout the world mainly due to its complexity, issues like privacy, confidentially and lack of people with knowledge in both fields of Information Technology (IT) and Medicine. Sri Lanka’s situation is much worse and the gap is rapidly increasing with huge IT initiatives by private-public partnerships in all other countries. The major goal of the framework is to support minimizing the spreading diseases. To achieve that a web based framework should be implemented for this application domain with web mapping. The aim of this GIS based public health system is a secure, flexible, easy to maintain environment for creating and maintaining public health records and easy to interact with relevant parties.

Keywords: DHIS2, GIS, public health, Sri Lanka

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Authors: Dalia Suša Vugec

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Business process management (BPM) is widely used approach focused on designing, mapping, changing, managing and analyzing business processes of an organization, which eventually leads to better performance and derives many other benefits. Since every organization strives to improve its performance in order to be sustainable and to remain competitive on the market in long-term period, numerous organizations are nowadays adopting and implementing BPM. However, not all organizations are equally successful in that. One of the ways of measuring BPM success is by measuring its maturity by calculating Process Performance Index (PPI) using ten BPM success factors. Still, although BPM is a holistic concept, organizational culture is not taken into consideration in calculating PPI. Hence, aim of this paper is twofold; first, it aims to explore and analyze the current state of BPM success factors within the big organizations from Slovenia, Croatia, and Austria and second, it aims to analyze the structure of organizational culture within the observed companies, focusing on the link with BPM success factors as well. The presented study is based on the results of the questionnaire conducted as the part of the PROSPER project (IP-2014-09-3729) and financed by Croatian Science Foundation. The results of the questionnaire reveal differences in the achieved levels of BPM success factors and therefore BPM maturity in total between the three observed countries. Moreover, the structure of organizational culture across three countries also differs. This paper discusses the revealed differences between countries as well as the link between organizational culture and BPM success factors.

Keywords: business process management, BPM maturity, BPM success factors, organizational culture, process performance index

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Authors: Giga Phartenadze

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In the legal framework of regulation of electronic governance, those norms are considered which include measures for improvement of functions of public institutions and a complex of actions for raising their standard such as websites of public institutions, online services, some forms of internet interactions and higher level of internet services. An important legal basis for electronic governance in Georgia is Georgian Law about Electronic Communications which defines legal and economic basis for utilizing electronic communication systems in Georgia. As for single electronic basis for e-governance regulation, it can be said that it does not exist at all. The official websites of public institutions do not have standards for proactive spreading of information. At the same time, there is no common legal norm which would make all public institutions have an official website for public relations, accountability, publicity, and raising information quality. Electronic governance in Georgia needs comprehensive legal regulation. Public administration in electronic form is on the initial stage of development. Currently existing legal basis has a low quality for public institutions and officials as well as citizens and business. Services of e-involvement and e-consultation have also low quality. So far there is no established legal framework for e-governance. Therefore, a single legislative system of e-governance should be created which will help develop effective, comprehensive and multi component electronic systems in the country (central, regional, local levels). Such comprehensive legal framework will provide relevant technological, institutional, and informational conditions.

Keywords: law, e-government, public administration, Georgia

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Authors: A. Roukbi, B. Draoui

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Due to the high cost and the environmental problems caused by the conventional air-conditioning systems, various researches are being increasingly focused on thermal comfort in the building sector integrating renewable energy sources, particularly solar energy. For that purpose, this study aims to present a modeling and performance analysis of a direct air-cooled Water/LiBr absorption chiller. The chiller is considered to be coupled to a small residential building at an arid zone situated in south Algeria. The system is modeled with TRNSYS simulation program. The main objective is to study the feasibility of the chosen system in arid zones and to apply a simplified method to predict the performance of the system by mean of the characteristic equation approach tacking in account the influence of the climatic conditions of the considered site, the collector area and storage volume of the hot water tank on the performance of the installation. First, the results of the system modeling are compared with an experimental data from the open literature and the developed model is then validated. In another hand, a parametric study is performed to analyze the performance of the direct air-cooled absorption chiller at the operating conditions of interest for the present study. Thus, the obtained results has shown that the studied system can present a good alternative for cooling systems in arid zones since the cooling load is roughly in phase with solar availability.

Keywords: absorption chiller, air-cooled, arid zone, thermal comfort

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Authors: Vishwa Nath Maurya, Rama Shanker Sharma, Saad Talib Hasson Aljebori, Avadhesh Kumar Maurya, Diwinder Kaur Arora

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Present paper deals with problems of determining the relationship between the variables of corporate governance and financial performance of Islamic banks. Here, we dealt with the corporate governance in the banking sector, where increasing the importance of corporate governance, due to their special nature, as the bankruptcy of banks affects not only the relevant parties from customers, depositors and lenders, but also affect financial stability and then the economy as a whole. Through this paper we dealt to the specificity of governance in Islamic banks, which face double governance: Anglo-Saxon governance system and Islamic governance system. In addition, we focused our attention to measure the impact of corporate governance variables on financial performance through an empirical study on a sample of Islamic banks during the period 2005-2012 in the GCC region. Our present study implies that there is a very strong relationship between the variables of governance and financial performance of Islamic banks, where there is a positive relationship between return on assets and the composition of the Board of Directors, the size of the Board of Directors, the number of committees in the Council, as well as the number of members of the Sharia Supervisory Board, while it is clear that there is a negative relationship between return on assets and concentration ownership.

Keywords: correlation analysis, parametric estimation, corporate governance, financial performance, financial stability, conventional banks, bankruptcy, Islamic governance system

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Authors: E. Kharaishvili, G. Erkomaishvili, M. Chavleishvili

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The paper evaluates the natural and resource potential of agriculture, a traditional sector for Georgia. It is concluded that despite favorable conditions the rate of development of the sector is lower compared to other sectors of the economy, self-sufficiency rate for locally produced agricultural products is low; on average, import of food is 4 times higher compared to export, and the country faces considerable challenges in this regard. Tendencies of self-sufficiency rates are studied, and it is concluded that the indicators of export and import of agro-food products increase in accordance with the tendency of increasing production in agricultural sector. The paper substantiates stimulating impact of international trade on agricultural development. Two alternative strategies are assessed in this respect: 1) export stimulation, and 2) import replacement strategies. It is concluded that significant tendencies are observed in agro-food sector of Georgia; in particular, productivity is low; import volume significantly exceeds the export volume. It is considered that the growth of export will allow Georgia to overcome limited opportunities of local market and encourage increasing competitiveness. Various tools of economic policy are suggested for achieving these goals; in particular to subsidize export, optimize trade barriers, manage exchange rates effectively, offer special financial services, provide insurance for export, etc.

Keywords: agro-food sector, trend of production, export stimulation, economic policy

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Authors: Abdullah M. Alzahrani, Abdel Halim Boussabaine

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There is an international consensus on the climate change in the entire world and this is as a result of the combination of the natural factors, such as volcanoes and hurricanes with increased of human activity on the earth, such as industrial renaissance. Where this solidarity increases emissions of greenhouse gases GHGs that considered as the main driver of climate change scenarios and related emerging risks and impacts on buildings. These climatic risks including damages, disruption and disquiet are set to increase and it is considered as the main challenges and difficulties facing built environment due to major implications on assets sector. Consequently, the threat from climate change patterns has a significant impact on a variety of complex human decisions, which affect all aspects of living. Understanding the relationship between buildings and such risks arising from climate change scenarios on buildings are the key in insuring the optimal timing and design of policies and systems, which affect all aspects of the built environment. This paper will uncovering this correlation between emerging climate change risks and the building assets. In addition, how these emerging risks can be classified in practical way in terms of their impact type on buildings. Hence, this mapping will assist professionals and interested parties in the building sector to cope with such risks in several systematic ways including development and designing of mitigation and adaptation strategies and processes of design, specification, construction, and operation; all these leads to successful management of assets.

Keywords: climate change, climate change risks, built environment, building sector, impacts

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Authors: Rima Alfaraj, Abeer Alarawi, Murtadha AlTammar

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The global energy landscape heavily relies on the oil and gas industry, which faces the critical challenge of reducing its carbon footprint. To address this issue, the integration of advanced materials like aerogels has emerged as a promising solution to enhance sustainability and environmental performance within the industry. This study thoroughly examines the application of aerogel-based technologies in the oil and gas sector, focusing particularly on their role in carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiatives. Aerogels, known for their exceptional properties, such as high surface area, low density, and customizable pore structure, have garnered attention for their potential in various CCS strategies. The review delves into various fabrication techniques utilized in producing aerogel materials, including sol-gel, supercritical drying, and freeze-drying methods, to assess their suitability for specific industry applications. Beyond fabrication, the practicality of aerogel materials in critical areas such as flow assurance, enhanced oil recovery, and thermal insulation is explored. The analysis spans a wide range of applications, from potential use in pipelines and equipment to subsea installations, offering valuable insights into the real-world implementation of aerogels in the oil and gas sector. The paper also investigates the adsorption and storage capabilities of aerogel-based sorbents, showcasing their effectiveness in capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CO₂) molecules. Optimization of pore size distribution and surface chemistry is examined to enhance the affinity and selectivity of aerogels towards CO₂, thereby improving the efficiency and capacity of CCS systems. Additionally, the study explores the potential of aerogel-based membranes for separating and purifying CO₂ from oil and gas streams, emphasizing their role in the carbon capture and utilization (CCU) value chain in the industry. Emerging trends and future perspectives in integrating aerogel-based technologies within the oil and gas sector are also discussed, including the development of hybrid aerogel composites and advanced functional components to further enhance material performance and versatility. By synthesizing the latest advancements and future directions in aerogel used for CCS applications in the oil and gas industry, this review offers a comprehensive understanding of how these innovative materials can aid in transitioning towards a more sustainable and environmentally conscious energy landscape. The insights provided can assist in strategic decision-making, drive technology development, and foster collaborations among academia, industry, and policymakers to promote the widespread adoption of aerogel-based solutions in the oil and gas sector.

Keywords: CCS, porous, carbon capture, oil and gas, sustainability

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Authors: I. Rodionov, A. Semenov, E. Gosteva, O. Sokolova

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Currently, the venture capital becomes more and more advanced and effective source of the innovation project financing, connected with a high-risk level. In the developed countries, it plays a key role in transforming innovation projects into successful businesses and creating prosperity of the modern economy. Actually, in Russia there are many necessary preconditions for creation of the effective venture investment system: the network of the public institutes for innovation financing operates; there is a significant number of the small and medium-sized enterprises, capable to sell production with good market potential. However, the current system does not confirm the necessary level of efficiency in practice that can be substantially explained by the absence of the accurate plan of action to form the national venture model and by the lack of experience of successful venture deals with profitable exits in Russian economy. This paper studies the influence of various factors on the venture industry development by the example of the IT-sector in Russia. The choice of the sector is based on the fact, that this segment is the main driver of the venture capital market growth in Russia, and the necessary set of data exists. The size of investment of the second round is used as the dependent variable. To analyse the influence of the previous round such determinant as the volume of the previous (first) round investments is used. There is also used a dummy variable in regression to examine that the participation of an investor with high reputation and experience in the previous round can influence the size of the next investment round. The regression analysis of short-term interrelations between studied variables reveals prevailing influence of the volume of the first round investments on the venture investments volume of the second round. Because of the research, the participation of investors with first-class reputation has a small impact on an indicator of the value of investment of the second round. The expected positive dependence of the second round investments on the forecasted market growth rate now of the deal is also rejected. So, the most important determinant of the value of the second-round investment is the value of first–round investment, so it means that the most competitive on the Russian market are the start-up teams which can attract more money on the start, and the target market growth is not the factor of crucial importance.

Keywords: venture industry, venture investment, determinants of the venture sector development, IT-sector

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Authors: Jonathan De Rothewelle

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A pandemic, such as that of COVID-19, can be a time of panic and stress; concerns about health supersede others such as work and leisure. With such concern comes the seeking of crucial information— information that, during a global health crisis, could mean the difference between life and death. Whether newspapers, cable news, or radio, media plays an important role in the transmission of medical information to the general public. Moreover, the news media in particular must uphold its obligation to the public to only disseminate factual, useful information. The circulation of misinformation, whether explicit or implicit, may profoundly impact global health. Using a discursive analytic framework founded in linguistics, the images and headlines of top coverage of COVID-19 from the most influential media outlets will be examined. Micro-analyses reveal what may be interpreted as evidence of sensationalism, which may be argued to a form of misinformation, and ultimately a departure from ethical media. Withdrawal from responsible reporting and publishing, expressly in times of epidemic, may cause further confusion and panic.

Keywords: public health, pandemic, public education, media

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Authors: Muhamad Azani Yahya, Vikneswaran Munikanan, Mohammed Alias Yusof

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Lean thinking holds the potential for improving the construction sector, and therefore, it is a concept that should be adopted by construction sector players and academicians in the real industry. Bridging from that, a learning process for construction sector players regarding this matter should be the agenda in gaining the knowledge in preparation for their career. Lean principles offer opportunities for reducing lead times, eliminating non-value adding activities, reducing variability, and are facilitated by methods such as pull scheduling, simplified operations and buffer reduction. Thus, the drive for rapid construction, which is a systematic approach in enhancing efficiency to deliver a project using time reduction, while lean is the continuous process of eliminating waste, meeting or exceeding all customer requirements, focusing on the entire value stream and pursuing perfection in the execution of a constructed project. The methodology presented is shown to be valid through literature, interviews and questionnaire. The results show that the majority of construction sector players unfamiliar with lean thinking and they agreed that it can improve the construction process flow. With this background knowledge established and identified, best practices and recommended action are drawn.

Keywords: construction improvement, rapid construction, time reduction, lean construction

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Authors: Shishir Kumar, Chhaya Gangwal, Seema Raj

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Public health informatics (PHI) which has seen successful implementation in the developed world, become the buzzword in the developing countries in providing improved healthcare with enhanced access. In rural areas especially, where a huge gap exists between demand and supply of healthcare facilities, PHI is being seen as a major solution. There are factors such as growing network infrastructure and the technological adoption by the health fraternity which provide support to these claims. Public health informatics has opportunities in healthcare by providing opportunities to diagnose patients, provide intra-operative assistance and consultation from a remote site. It also has certain barriers in the awareness, adaptation, network infrastructure, funding and policy related areas. There are certain medico-legal aspects involving all the stakeholders which need to be standardized to enable a working system. This paper aims to analyze the potential and challenges of public health informatics services in rural communities.

Keywords: PHI, e-health, public health, health informatics

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Authors: Gadinga Walter Forje, Martin Ngankam Tchamba, Nyong Princely Awazi, Barnabas Neba Nfornka

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Ecotourism is viewed as a double edge sword for the enhancement of conservation and local livelihood within a protected landscape. The Campo Ma’an National Park (CMNP) adopted ecotourism in its management plan as a strategic axis for better management of the park. The growing importance of ecotourism as a strategy for the sustainable management of CMNP and its environs requires adequate information to bolster the sector. This study was carried out between November 2018 and September 2021, with the main objective to contribute to the sustainable management of the CMNP through suggestions for enhancing the capacity of ecotourism in and around the park. More specifically, the study aimed at; 1) Analyse the governance of ecotourism in the CMNP and its surrounding; 2) Assessing the impact of ecotourism on local livelihood around the CMNP; 3) Evaluating the contribution of ecotourism to biodiversity conservation in and around the CMNP; 4) Evaluate the determinants of ecotourism possibilities in achieving sustainable livelihood and biodiversity conservation in and around the CMNP. Data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were obtained from household surveys (N=124), focus group discussions (N=8), and key informant interviews (N=16). Data collected were coded and imputed into SPSS (version 19.0) software and Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Findings from the Chi-square test revealed overall poor ecotourism governance in and around the CMNP, with benefit sharing (X2 = 122.774, p <0.01) and conflict management (X2 = 90.839, p<0.01) viewed to be very poor. For the majority of the local population sampled, 65% think ecotourism does not contribute to local livelihood around CMNP. The main factors influencing the impact of ecotourism around the CMNP on the local population’s livelihood were gender (logistic regression (β) = 1.218; p = 0.000); and level of education (logistic regression (β) = 0.442; p = 0.000). Furthermore, 55.6% of the local population investigated believed ecotourism activities do not contribute to the biodiversity conservation of CMNP. Spearman correlation between socio-economic variables and ecotourism impact on biodiversity conservation indicated relationships with gender (r = 0.200, p = 0.032), main occupation (r = 0.300 p = 0.012), time spent in the community (r = 0.287 p = 0.017), and number of children (r =-0.286 p = 0.018). Variables affecting ecotourism impact on biodiversity conservation were age (logistic regression (β) = -0.683; p = 0.037) and gender (logistic regression (β) = 0.917; p = 0.045). This study recommends the development of ecotourism-friendly policies that can accelerate Public Private Partnership for the sustainable management of the CMNP as a commitment toward good governance. It also recommends the development of gender-sensitive ecotourism packages, with fair opportunities for rural women and more parity in benefit sharing to improve livelihood and contribute more to biodiversity conservation in and around the Park.

Keywords: biodiversity conservation, Campo Ma’an national park, ecotourism, ecotourism governance, rural livelihoods, protected area management

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Authors: Hakan Akin

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The aim of this study was to examine the policy making process in Turkish Health System. This policy making process will be examined through public policy change theories. Since political actors played in the formulation of public policies also explains the type of policy change, this actors will be inspected in the supranational and national basis. Also the transformation of public policy in the Turkish health care system will be analysed under the concepts of New right ideology, neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism and governance. And after this analyse, the outputs and outcomes of this transformation will be discussed in the context of developing countries.

Keywords: policy transfer, policy diffusion, policy convergence, new right, governance

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Authors: Carolina Mayen Huerta, Clara Ivanescu, Paloma Marcos

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Due to their unique geographic challenges and the imperative to combat climate change, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are experiencing rapid growth in the renewable energy (RE) sector. However, women's representation in formal employment within this burgeoning field remains significantly lower than their male counterparts. Conventional methodologies often overlook critical geographic data that influence women's job prospects. To address this gap, this paper introduces a Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE) framework designed to identify spatially enabling environments and restrictions affecting women's access to formal employment and business opportunities in the SIDS' RE sector. The proposed MCE framework comprises 24 key factors categorized into four dimensions: Individual, Contextual, Accessibility, and Place Characterization. "Individual factors" encompass personal attributes influencing women's career development, including caregiving responsibilities, exposure to domestic violence, and disparities in education. "Contextual factors" pertain to the legal and policy environment, influencing workplace gender discrimination, financial autonomy, and overall gender empowerment. "Accessibility factors" evaluate women's day-to-day mobility, considering travel patterns, access to public transport, educational facilities, RE job opportunities, healthcare facilities, and financial services. Finally, "Place Characterization factors" enclose attributes of geographical locations or environments. This dimension includes walkability, public transport availability, safety, electricity access, digital inclusion, fragility, conflict, violence, water and sanitation, and climatic factors in specific regions. The analytical framework proposed in this paper incorporates a spatial methodology to visualize regions within countries where conducive environments for women to access RE jobs exist. In areas where these environments are absent, the methodology serves as a decision-making tool to reinforce critical factors, such as transportation, education, and internet access, which currently hinder access to employment opportunities. This approach is designed to equip policymakers and institutions with data-driven insights, enabling them to make evidence-based decisions that consider the geographic dimensions of disparity. These insights, in turn, can help ensure the efficient allocation of resources to achieve gender equity objectives.

Keywords: gender, women, spatial analysis, renewable energy, access

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Authors: Carolina Mayen Huerta, Clara Ivanescu, Paloma Marcos

Abstract:

Due to their unique geographic challenges and the imperative to combat climate change, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are experiencing rapid growth in the renewable energy (RE) sector. However, women's representation in formal employment within this burgeoning field remains significantly lower than their male counterparts. Conventional methodologies often overlook critical geographic data that influence women's job prospects. To address this gap, this paper introduces a Multicriteria Evaluation (MCE) framework designed to identify spatially enabling environments and restrictions affecting women's access to formal employment and business opportunities in the SIDS' RE sector. The proposed MCE framework comprises 24 key factors categorized into four dimensions: Individual, Contextual, Accessibility, and Place Characterization. "Individual factors" encompass personal attributes influencing women's career development, including caregiving responsibilities, exposure to domestic violence, and disparities in education. "Contextual factors" pertain to the legal and policy environment, influencing workplace gender discrimination, financial autonomy, and overall gender empowerment. "Accessibility factors" evaluate women's day-to-day mobility, considering travel patterns, access to public transport, educational facilities, RE job opportunities, healthcare facilities, and financial services. Finally, "Place Characterization factors" enclose attributes of geographical locations or environments. This dimension includes walkability, public transport availability, safety, electricity access, digital inclusion, fragility, conflict, violence, water and sanitation, and climatic factors in specific regions. The analytical framework proposed in this paper incorporates a spatial methodology to visualize regions within countries where conducive environments for women to access RE jobs exist. In areas where these environments are absent, the methodology serves as a decision-making tool to reinforce critical factors, such as transportation, education, and internet access, which currently hinder access to employment opportunities. This approach is designed to equip policymakers and institutions with data-driven insights, enabling them to make evidence-based decisions that consider the geographic dimensions of disparity. These insights, in turn, can help ensure the efficient allocation of resources to achieve gender equity objectives.

Keywords: gender, women, spatial analysis, renewable energy, access

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Authors: Khlif Hamadi

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Supply chain integration has become a potentially valuable way of securing shared information and improving supply chain performance since competition is no longer between organizations but among supply chains. This research conceptualizes and develops three dimensions of supply chain integration (integration with customers, integration with suppliers, and the interorganizational integration) and tests the relationships between supply chain integration, information sharing, and supply chain performance. Furthermore, the four types of information sharing namely; information sharing with customers, information sharing with suppliers, inter-functional information sharing, and intra-organizational information sharing; and the four constructs of Supply Chain Performance represents expenses of costs, asset utilization, supply chain reliability, and supply chain flexibility and responsiveness. The theoretical and practical implications of the study, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

Keywords: supply chain integration, supply chain management, information sharing, supply chain performance

Procedia PDF Downloads 246

Authors: S. Sabatino, V. Calderaro, V. Galdi, G. Graber, L. Ippolito

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Climate change is a rapidly growing global threat caused mainly by increased emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere. These emissions come from multiple sources, including industry, power generation, and the transport sector. The need to tackle climate change and reduce CO₂ emissions is indisputable. A crucial solution to achieving decarbonization in the transport sector is the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs). These vehicles use lithium (Li-Ion) batteries as an energy source, making them extremely efficient and with low direct emissions. However, Li-Ion batteries are not without problems, including the risk of overheating and performance degradation. To ensure its safety and longevity, it is essential to use a battery management system (BMS). The BMS constantly monitors battery status, adjusts temperature and cell balance, ensuring optimal performance and preventing dangerous situations. From the monitoring carried out, it is also able to optimally manage the battery to increase its life. Among the parameters monitored by the BMS, the main ones are State of Charge (SoC), State of Health (SoH), and State of Power (SoP). The evaluation of these parameters can be carried out in two ways: offline, using benchtop batteries tested in the laboratory, or online, using batteries installed in moving vehicles. Online estimation is the preferred approach, as it relies on capturing real-time data from batteries while operating in real-life situations, such as in everyday EV use. Actual battery usage conditions are highly variable. Moving vehicles are exposed to a wide range of factors, including temperature variations, different driving styles, and complex charge/discharge cycles. This variability is difficult to replicate in a controlled laboratory environment and can greatly affect performance and battery life. Online estimation captures this variety of conditions, providing a more accurate assessment of battery behavior in real-world situations. In this article, a hybrid approach based on a neural network and a statistical method for real-time estimation of SoC, SoH, and SoP parameters of interest is proposed. These parameters are estimated from the analysis of a one-day driving profile of an electric vehicle, assumed to be divided into the following four phases: (i) Partial discharge (SoC 100% - SoC 50%), (ii) Partial discharge (SoC 50% - SoC 80%), (iii) Deep Discharge (SoC 80% - SoC 30%) (iv) Full charge (SoC 30% - SoC 100%). The neural network predicts the values of ohmic resistance and incremental capacity, while the statistical method is used to estimate the parameters of interest. This reduces the complexity of the model and improves its prediction accuracy. The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated by analyzing its performance in terms of square mean error (RMSE) and percentage error (MAPE) and comparing it with the reference method found in the literature.

Keywords: electric vehicle, Li-Ion battery, BMS, state-of-charge, state-of-health, state-of-power, artificial neural networks

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Authors: Naiara de Almeida Rios

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The environmental education, from Tbilisi, is signaled as an important instrument for conservation and environmental management. However, the social, economic, political and environmental aspects of each place require an environmental management that corresponds to the reality to which they are inserted, as well as environmental education practices. The city of Belém, the capital of the State of Pará, is one of the most important cities in the Amazon Region, and its vast water dimension requires that its watersheds take a careful look at their socio-environmental management. The Estrada Nova Hydrographic Basin is considered as one of the most critical river basins in the city due to flooding, lack of basic sanitation and degradation of water bodies. In this context, environmental education is understood as one of the necessary conditions to reduce environmental degradation. Environmental education presents itself as an instrument of social transformation and conservation of natural resources (especially water resources), where thinking about the sustainability of natural resources is moving towards dialogue on the importance of building an environmental awareness. The commitment that environmental education proposes covers all spheres of society, since the main objective of the same is the transformation of thought and attitudes from the understanding of reality. Therefore, to analyze how the government is managing the basin, as well as the environmental education practices developed in it, is fundamental, so that government can be charged with improvements for the population and for the natural environment. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the influence of environmental education actions developed by local public authorities in the management of the Estrada Nova Hydrographic Basin, Belém/PA. For the accomplishment of this study, some methodological procedures will be used, like documentary analysis, bibliographical survey and fieldwork. If the multivariate statistical method is used to analyze the results obtained in the field. Unfortunately, public policies in the area of ​environmental education in Belém are still moving in short steps, since government interests have had very little dialogue with the socio-environmental problems that affect the Estrada Nova Hydrographic Basin. Both formal and informal environmental education has been poorly developed, hampering the continuous process proposed by water resources management.

Keywords: environmental education, environmental management, hydrographic basin, water resources

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Authors: Syafril Hendrik Hutabarat, Hartiwiningsih, Pujiyono Suwadi

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The Financial Service Authority (FSA) was formed as a response to the 1997 monetary crisis and the 2008 financial crisis so that it was more defensive in nature while developments in information and communication technology have required state policies to be more offensive to keep up with times. Reconstruction of Authorities of the FSA's Investigator is intended to keep the agency worthy to be part of an integrated criminal justice system in Indonesia which has implications for expanding its authority in line with efforts to protect and increase the welfare of the people. The results show that internal synergy between sub-sectors in the financial services sector is not optimised, some are even left behind so that the FSA is not truly an authority in the financial services sector. This research method is empirical. The goal of synergy must begin with internal synergy which has its moment when Indonesia gets a demographic bonus in the 2030s and becomes an international logistics hub supported by the national financial services sector.

Keywords: reconstruction, authorities, FSA investigators, synergy, demography

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Authors: Astha Sinha, Anjali Kanagali

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The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, also termed as “Brexit,” took place on June 23, 2016 and immediately had global repercussions on the stock markets of the world. It is however expected to have a greater impact on the Banking sector in the UK. There is a two-fold effect on the earnings of banks which is being expected. First is of the trading activity and investment banking businesses being hit due to global weakness in financial markets. Second is that the banks having a large presence in the European Union will have to restructure their operations in order to cover other European countries as well increase their operating costs. As per the analysis, banks are expected to face rate cuts, bad loans, and tight liquidity. The directives in the Brexit negotiations on the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) will be a major decision to be taken for the Banking sector. New regulations will be required since most of the regulations governing the financial services industry allowing for the cross-border transactions were at the EU level. This paper aims to analyze the effect of Brexit on the UK Banking sector and changes in regulations that are expected due to the same. It shall also lay down the lessons learnt from the 2008 financial crisis and draw a parallel in terms of potential areas to be focused on for revival of the financial sector of Britain.

Keywords: Brexit, Brexit impact on UK, impact of Brexit on banking, impact of Brexit on financial services

Procedia PDF Downloads 396

Authors: Ese Urhie, Bosede Olopade, Muyiwa Oladosun, Henry Okodua

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In the past three and half decades, aside from the fact that the contribution of the industrial sector to gross domestic product in Nigeria has nose-dived, its performance has also been highly unstable. Investment funds needed to develop the industrial sector usually come from both internal and external sources. The internal sources include surplus generated within the industrial sector and surplus diverted from other sectors of the economy. It has been observed that due to the small size of the industrial sector in developing countries, very limited funds could be raised for further investment. External sources of funds which many currently industrialized and some ‘newly industrializing countries’ have benefited from including direct and indirect investment by foreign capitalists; foreign aid and loans; and investments by nationals living abroad. Foreign direct investment inflow in Nigeria has been declining since 2009 in both absolute and relative terms. High level of human capital has been identified as one of the crucial factors that explain the miraculous growth of the ‘Asian Tigers’. Its low level has also been identified as the major cause for the low level of FDI flow to Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. There has been positive, but slow improvement in human capital indicators in Nigeria in the past three decades. In spite of this, foreign direct investment inflow has not only been low; it has declined drastically in recent years. i) Why has the improvement in human capital in Nigeria failed to attract more FDI inflow? ii) To what extent does the level of human capital influence FDI inflow in Nigeria? iii) Is there a threshold of human capital stock that guarantees sustained inflow of FDI? iv) Does the quality of human capital matter? v) Does the influence of other (negative) factors outweigh the benefits of human capital? Using time series secondary data, a system of equations is employed to evaluate the effect of human capital on FDI inflow in Nigeria on one hand and the effect of FDI on the level of industrialization on the other. A weak relationship between human capital and FDI is expected, while a strong relationship between FDI and industrial growth is expected from the result.

Keywords: human capital, foreign direct investment, industrialization, gross domestic product

Procedia PDF Downloads 224