Search results for: computer-mediated social support platforms

Authors: Beverly Black

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Teen dating violence (TDV) is a significant public health problem with severe negative impact on youths’ mental and physical health and well-being. Exacerbating the negative impact of TDV victimization is the fact that teens rarely report the violence. They are fearful to tell friends or family, especially parents. The family context is the first place where children learn about interpersonal relationships, and therefore, parental response of teens’ life experiences influences teens’ actions and development. This study examined youths’ perspectives on parental responses to TDV. Effective parental responses to TDV may increase the likelihood that youth will leave abusive relationships. Method. Eleven gender-separate focus groups were conducted with 27 females and 28 males, ages 12 to 17, to discuss parental responses to teen dating violence. Youth were recruited from a metropolitan community in the southwestern part of the United States. Focus groups questions asked the middle and high school youth how they would want their parents to respond to them if they approached them about various incidents of dating violence. All focus groups were transcribed. Using QSR-N10, two researchers’ analyzed data first using open and axial coding techniques to find overarching themes. Researchers triangulated the coded data to ensure accurate interpretations of the participants’ messages and used the scenario questions to structure the coded results. Results. Most youths suggested that parents should simply talk with them; they recognized the importance of communication. Teens wanted parents to ask questions, educate them about healthy relationships, share their personal experiences, and give teens advice (tell them to break up, limit contact with perpetrator, go to police). Younger youth expressed more willingness to listen to parental advice. Older youth wanted their parents to give them the opportunity to make their decisions. Many of the teens’ comments focused on the importance of parents protecting the teen, providing support and empathy for the teen, and especially refraining from overreacting (not yelling, not getting angry and staying calm). Implications. Parents need to know how to effectively respond to youth needing to leave unhealthy relationships. Demanding that their children end a relationship may not be a realistic approach to TDV. A parent’s ineffective response, when approached by an adolescent for assistance in TDV, may influence a youth to dismiss parents and other adults as viable options for seeking assistance. Parents and prevention educators can learn from hearing youths’ voices about effective responses to TDV.

Keywords: adolescents dating abuse, adolescent and parent communication, parental responses to teen dating violence, teen dating violence

Procedia PDF Downloads 272

Authors: M. Taghavi Zavareh, H. Saremi

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Railway transportation is one of the types of transportation systems which, due to the advantages such as the ability to transport a large number of passengers, environmental protection, low energy consumption, and contribution to tourism, has importance. The existence of suitable and accessible stations is one of the requirements that leads to better performance and plays a significant role in the economic, social, political, and cultural development of urban areas. This paper aims to propose a framework for locating railway passenger stations. This research used descriptive-analytical methods and library tools to answer which definitions and theoretical approaches are suitable for the location of railway passenger stations. The results showed that theoretical approaches such as Transit-Oriented Development and Urban Regeneration are of the utmost importance theoretical bases in the field of research. Moreover, we studied three stations in Iran to find out about real trends and criteria in this research. This study also proposed four major criteria including accessibility, development, rail related and economics, and environmental harmony. Ultimately with an emphasis on the proposed criteria, the study concludes that the combination of Transit-Oriented Development and Urban Regeneration is the most suitable framework to locate railway passenger stations.

Keywords: railway passenger station, railway station, site selection, transit-oriented development, urban regeneration

Procedia PDF Downloads 269

Authors: Anamika Devi

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Based on Vygotsky’s cultural, historical theory and Hedegaard’s concept of transition, this study aims to investigate to propose strategies to maintain digital wellbeing of children and parents during and post COVID pandemic. Due COVID 19 pandemic, children and families have been facing new challenges and sudden changes in their everyday life. While children are juggling to adjust themselves in new circumstance of onsite and online learning settings, parents are juggling with their work-life balance. A number of papers have identified that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the lives of many families around the world in many ways, for example, the stress level of many parents increased, families faced financial difficulties, uncertainty impacted on long term effects on their emotional and social wellbeing. After searching and doing an intensive literature review from 2020 and 2021, this study has found some scholarly articles provided solution or strategies of reducing stress levels of parents and children in this unprecedented time. However, most of them are not underpinned by proper theoretical lens to ensure they validity and success. Therefore, this study has proposed strategies that are underpinned by theoretical lens to ensure their impact on children’s and parents' emotional wellbeing during and post COVID-19 era. The strategies will highlight on activities for positive coping strategies to the best use of family values and digital technologies.

Keywords: onsite and online learning, strategies, emotional wellbeing, tips, and strategies, COVID19

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Authors: Mohammad H. Taheri, David J. Brown, Nasser Sherkat

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Engagement is one of the most important factors in determining successful outcomes and deep learning in students. Existing approaches to detect student engagement involve periodic human observations that are subject to inter-rater reliability. Our solution uses real-time multimodal multisensor data labeled by objective performance outcomes to infer the engagement of students. The study involves four students with a combined diagnosis of cerebral palsy and a learning disability who took part in a 3-month trial over 59 sessions. Multimodal multisensor data were collected while they participated in a continuous performance test. Eye gaze, electroencephalogram, body pose, and interaction data were used to create a model of student engagement through objective labeling from the continuous performance test outcomes. In order to achieve this, a type of continuous performance test is introduced, the Seek-X type. Nine features were extracted including high-level handpicked compound features. Using leave-one-out cross-validation, a series of different machine learning approaches were evaluated. Overall, the random forest classification approach achieved the best classification results. Using random forest, 93.3% classification for engagement and 42.9% accuracy for disengagement were achieved. We compared these results to outcomes from different models: AdaBoost, decision tree, k-Nearest Neighbor, naïve Bayes, neural network, and support vector machine. We showed that using a multisensor approach achieved higher accuracy than using features from any reduced set of sensors. We found that using high-level handpicked features can improve the classification accuracy in every sensor mode. Our approach is robust to both sensor fallout and occlusions. The single most important sensor feature to the classification of engagement and distraction was shown to be eye gaze. It has been shown that we can accurately predict the level of engagement of students with learning disabilities in a real-time approach that is not subject to inter-rater reliability, human observation or reliant on a single mode of sensor input. This will help teachers design interventions for a heterogeneous group of students, where teachers cannot possibly attend to each of their individual needs. Our approach can be used to identify those with the greatest learning challenges so that all students are supported to reach their full potential.

Keywords: affective computing in education, affect detection, continuous performance test, engagement, flow, HCI, interaction, learning disabilities, machine learning, multimodal, multisensor, physiological sensors, student engagement

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Authors: B. D. Patni, Ashwani Jain, Arindom Chakraborty

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The world’s highest mountain range has been forming since the collision of Indian Plate with Asian Plate 40-50 million years ago. The Indian subcontinent has been deeper and deeper in to the rest of Asia resulting upliftment of Himalaya & Tibetan Plateau. The complex domain has become a major challenge for construction of hydro electric projects. The Himalayas are geologically complex & seismically active. Shifting of Indian Plate northwardly and increasing the amount of stresses in the fragile domain which leads to deformation in the form of several fold, faults and upliftment. It is difficult to undergo extensive geological investigation to ascertain the geological problems to be encountered during construction. Inaccessibility of the terrain, high rock cover, unpredictable ground water condition etc. are the main constraints. The hydroelectric projects located in Himalayas have faced many geological and geo-hydrological problems while construction of surface and subsurface works. Based on the experience, efforts have been made to identify the expected geological problems during and after construction of the projects. These have been classified into surface and subsurface problems which include existence of inhomogeneous deep overburden in the river bed or buried valley, abrupt change in bed rock profile, Occurrences of fault zones/shear zones/fractured rock in dam foundation and slope instability in the abutments. The tunneling difficulties are many such as squeezing ground condition, popping, rock bursting, high temperature gradient, heavy ingress of water, existence of shear seams/shear zones and emission of obnoxious gases. However, these problems were mitigated by adopting suitable remedial measures as per site requirement. The support system includes shotcrete, wire mesh, rock bolts, steel ribs, fore-poling, pre-grouting, pipe-roofing, MAI anchors, toe wall, retaining walls, reinforced concrete dowels, drainage drifts, anchorage cum drainage shafts, soil nails, concrete cladding and shear keys. Controlled drilling & blasting, heading & benching, proper drainage network and ventilation system are other remedial measures adopted to overcome such adverse situations. The paper highlights the geological uncertainties and its remedial measures in Himalaya, based on the analysis and evaluation of 20 hydroelectric projects during construction.

Keywords: geological problems, shear seams, slope, drilling & blasting, shear zones

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Authors: N. Khater, I. Djbablia, A. Telaoumaten, S. A. Menina, H. Benbouza

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Thureferous Juniper is an endemic cupressacée constitutes a forest cover in the mountains of Aures (Algeria ). It is an heritage and important ecological richness, but continues to decline, highly endangered species in danger of extinction, these populations show significant originality due to climatic conditions of the environment, because of its strength and extraordinary vitality, made a powerful but fragile and unique ecosystem in which natural regeneration by seed is almost absent in Algeria. Because of the quality of seeds that are either dormant or affected at the tree and the ground level by a large number of pests and parasites, which will lead to the total disappearance of this species and consequently leading to the biodiversity. View the ecological and social- economic interest presented by this case, it deserves to be preserved and produced in large quantities in this respect. The present work aims to try to regenerate the Juniperus thurefera via vegetative propagation. We studied the potential of cuttings to form adventitious roots and buds. Cuttings were taken from young subjects from 5 to 20 years treated with indole butyric acid (AIB) and planted out inside perlite under atomizer whose temperature and light are controlled. The results show that the rate of rooting is important and encourages the regeneration of this species through vegetative propagation.

Keywords: juniperus thurefera, indole butyric acid, cutting, buds, rooting

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Authors: Görkem Cemali̇, Avram Aruh, Gamze Torun Köse, Erde Can ŞAfak

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In order to heal bone disorders, the conventional methods which involve the use of autologous and allogenous bone grafts or permanent implants have certain disadvantages such as limited supply, disease transmission, or adverse immune response. A biodegradable material that acts as structural support to the damaged bone area and serves as a scaffold that enhances bone regeneration and guides bone formation is one desirable solution. Poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF) which is an unsaturated polyester that can be copolymerized with appropriate vinyl monomers to give biodegradable network structures, is a promising candidate polymer to prepare bone tissue engineering scaffolds. In this study, hydroxyl-terminated PPF was synthesized and thermally cured with vinyl phosphonic acid (VPA) and diethyl vinyl phosphonate (VPES) in the presence of radical initiator benzoyl peroxide (BP), with changing co-monomer weight ratios (10-40wt%). In addition, the synthesized PPF was cured with VPES comonomer at body temperature (37oC) in the presence of BP initiator, N, N-Dimethyl para-toluidine catalyst and varying amounts of Beta-tricalcium phosphate (0-20 wt% ß-TCP) as filler via radical polymerization to prepare composite materials that can be used in injectable forms. Thermomechanical properties, compressive properties, hydrophilicity and biodegradability of the PPF/VPA and PPF/VPES copolymers were determined and analyzed with respect to the copolymer composition. Biocompatibility of the resulting polymers and their composites was determined by the MTS assay and osteoblast activity was explored with von kossa, alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin activity analysis and the effects of VPA and VPES comonomer composition on these properties were investigated. Thermally cured PPF/VPA and PPF/VPES copolymers with different compositions exhibited compressive modulus and strength values in the wide range of 10–836 MPa and 14–119 MPa, respectively. MTS assay studies showed that the majority of the tested compositions were biocompatible and the overall results indicated that PPF/VPA and PPF/VPES network polymers show significant potential for applications as bone tissue engineering scaffolds where varying PPF and co-monomer ratio provides adjustable and controllable properties of the end product. The body temperature cured PPF/VPES/ß-TCP composites exhibited significantly lower compressive modulus and strength values than the thermal cured PPF/VPES copolymers and were therefore found to be useful as scaffolds for cartilage tissue engineering applications.

Keywords: biodegradable, bone tissue, copolymer, poly(propylene fumarate), scaffold

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Authors: Olena Kavats, Dmitry Khramov, Kateryna Sergieieva, Vladimir Vasyliev, Iurii Kavats

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Geoinformation technologies of space agromonitoring are a means of operative decision making support in the tasks of managing the agricultural sector of the economy. Existing technologies use satellite images in the optical range of electromagnetic spectrum. Time series of optical images often contain gaps due to the presence of clouds and haze. A geoinformation technology is created. It allows to fill gaps in time series of optical images (Sentinel-2, Landsat-8, PROBA-V, MODIS) with radar survey data (Sentinel-1) and use information about agrometeorological conditions of the growing season for individual monitoring years. The technology allows to perform crop classification and mapping for spring-summer (winter and spring crops) and autumn-winter (winter crops) periods of vegetation, monitoring the dynamics of crop state seasonal changes, crop yield forecasting. Crop classification is based on supervised classification algorithms, takes into account the peculiarities of crop growth at different vegetation stages (dates of sowing, emergence, active vegetation, and harvesting) and agriculture land state characteristics (row spacing, seedling density, etc.). A catalog of samples of the main agricultural crops (Ukraine) is created and crop spectral signatures are calculated with the preliminary removal of row spacing, cloud cover, and cloud shadows in order to construct time series of crop growth characteristics. The obtained data is used in grain crop growth tracking and in timely detection of growth trends deviations from reference samples of a given crop for a selected date. Statistical models of crop yield forecast are created in the forms of linear and nonlinear interconnections between crop yield indicators and crop state characteristics (temperature, precipitation, vegetation indices, etc.). Predicted values of grain crop yield are evaluated with an accuracy up to 95%. The developed technology was used for agricultural areas monitoring in a number of Great Britain and Ukraine regions using EOS Crop Monitoring Platform (https://crop-monitoring.eos.com). The obtained results allow to conclude that joint use of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images improve separation of winter crops (rapeseed, wheat, barley) in the early stages of vegetation (October-December). It allows to separate successfully the soybean, corn, and sunflower sowing areas that are quite similar in their spectral characteristics.

Keywords: geoinformation technology, crop classification, crop yield prediction, agricultural monitoring, EOS Crop Monitoring Platform

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Authors: Ernest Nweke, Enkhtuya Bavuudorj

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The harsh realities of the scandalous failure of several notable corporations in the past two decades have inextricably resulted in a surge in corporate governance studies. Nevertheless, little or no attention has been paid to corporate governance studies in Mongolian firms and much less to the comprehension of the correlation among ownership structure, corporate governance mechanisms and trend of innovative activities. Innovation is the bed rock of enterprise success. However, the funding and support for innovative activities in many firms are to a great extent determined by the incentives provided by the firm’s internal and external governance mechanisms. Mongolia is an East Asian country currently undergoing a fast-paced transition from socialist to democratic system and it is a widely held view that private ownership as against public ownership fosters innovation. Hence, following the privatization policy of Mongolian Government which has led to the transfer of the ownership of hitherto state controlled and state directed firms to private individuals and organizations, expectations are high that sufficient motivation would be provided for firm managers to engage in innovative activities. This research focuses on the relationship between ownership structure, corporate governance on one hand and the level of innovation on the hand. The paper is empirical in nature and derives data from both reliable secondary and primary sources. Secondary data for the study was in respect of ownership structure of Mongolian listed firms and innovation trend in Mongolia generally. These were analyzed using tables, charts, bars and percentages. Personal interviews and surveys were held to collect primary data. Primary data was in respect of corporate governance practices in Mongolian firms and were collected using structured questionnaire. Out of a population of three hundred and twenty (320) companies listed on the Mongolian Stock Exchange (MSE), a sample size of thirty (30) randomly selected companies was utilized for the study. Five (5) management level employees were surveyed in each selected firm giving a total of one hundred and fifty (150) respondents. Data collected were analyzed and research hypotheses tested using Chi-Square test statistic. Research results showed that corporate governance mechanisms were better and have significantly improved overtime in privately held as opposed to publicly owned firms. Consequently, the levels of innovation in privately held firms were considerably higher. It was concluded that a significant and positive relationship exists between private ownership and good corporate governance on one hand and the level of funding provided for innovative activities in Mongolian firms on the other hand.

Keywords: corporate governance, innovation, ownership structure, stock exchange

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Authors: Khaled M. Khader, Mamdouh I. Elimy, Omayma A. Nada

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Sustainable development is the nominal goal of most countries at present. In general, fossil fuels are the development mainstay of most world countries. Regrettably, the fossil fuel consumption rate is very high, and the world is facing the problem of conventional fuels depletion soon. In addition, there are many problems of environmental pollution resulting from the emission of harmful gases and vapors during fuel burning. Thus, clean, renewable energy became the main concern of most countries for filling the gap between available energy resources and their growing needs. There are many renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and wave energy. Energy can be obtained from the motion of sea waves almost all the time. However, power generation from solar or wind energy is highly restricted to sunny periods or the availability of suitable wind speeds. Moreover, energy produced from sea wave motion is one of the cheapest types of clean energy. In addition, renewable energy usage of sea waves guarantees safe environmental conditions. Cheap electricity can be generated from wave energy using different systems such as oscillating bodies' system, pendulum gate system, ocean wave dragon system and oscillating water column device. In this paper, a multi-criteria model has been developed using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to support the decision of selecting the most effective system for generating power from sea waves. This paper provides a widespread overview of the different design alternatives for sea wave energy converter systems. The considered design alternatives have been evaluated using the developed AHP model. The multi-criteria assessment reveals that the off-shore Oscillating Water Column (OWC) system is the most appropriate system for generating power from sea waves. The OWC system consists of a suitable hollow chamber at the shore which is completely closed except at its base which has an open area for gathering moving sea waves. Sea wave's motion pushes the air up and down passing through a suitable well turbine for generating power. Improving the power generation capability of the OWC system is one of the main objectives of this research. After investigating the effect of some design modifications, it has been concluded that selecting the appropriate settings of some effective design parameters such as the number of layers of Wells turbine fans and the intermediate distance between the fans can result in significant improvements. Moreover, simple dynamic analysis of the Wells turbine is introduced. Furthermore, this paper strives for comparing the theoretical and experimental results of the built experimental prototype.

Keywords: renewable energy, oscillating water column, multi-criteria selection, Wells turbine

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Authors: Hossein Havaeji, Tony Wong, Thien-My Dao

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1. Research Problems and Research Objectives: Blockchain Technology-enabled Supply Chain System (BT-enabled SCS) is the system using BT to drive SCS transparency, security, durability, and process integrity as SCS data is not always visible, available, or trusted. The costs of operating BT in the SCS are a common problem in several organizations. The costs must be estimated as they can impact existing cost control strategies. To account for system and deployment costs, it is necessary to overcome the following hurdle. The problem is that the costs of developing and running a BT in SCS are not yet clear in most cases. Many industries aiming to use BT have special attention to the importance of BT installation cost which has a direct impact on the total costs of SCS. Predicting BT installation cost in SCS may help managers decide whether BT is to be an economic advantage. The purpose of the research is to identify some main BT installation cost components in SCS needed for deeper cost analysis. We then identify and categorize the main groups of cost components in more detail to utilize them in the prediction process. The second objective is to determine the suitable Supervised Learning technique in order to predict the costs of developing and running BT in SCS in a particular case study. The last aim is to investigate how the running BT cost can be involved in the total cost of SCS. 2. Work Performed: Applied successfully in various fields, Supervised Learning is a method to set the data frame, treat the data, and train/practice the method sort. It is a learning model directed to make predictions of an outcome measurement based on a set of unforeseen input data. The following steps must be conducted to search for the objectives of our subject. The first step is to make a literature review to identify the different cost components of BT installation in SCS. Based on the literature review, we should choose some Supervised Learning methods which are suitable for BT installation cost prediction in SCS. According to the literature review, some Supervised Learning algorithms which provide us with a powerful tool to classify BT installation components and predict BT installation cost are the Support Vector Regression (SVR) algorithm, Back Propagation (BP) neural network, and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Choosing a case study to feed data into the models comes into the third step. Finally, we will propose the best predictive performance to find the minimum BT installation costs in SCS. 3. Expected Results and Conclusion: This study tends to propose a cost prediction of BT installation in SCS with the help of Supervised Learning algorithms. At first attempt, we will select a case study in the field of BT-enabled SCS, and then use some Supervised Learning algorithms to predict BT installation cost in SCS. We continue to find the best predictive performance for developing and running BT in SCS. Finally, the paper will be presented at the conference.

Keywords: blockchain technology, blockchain technology-enabled supply chain system, installation cost, supervised learning

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Authors: Tesfaye Fentaw Nigatu, Alexander Trupp, Teh Pek Yen

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Research on museums and the experiences of visitors has flourished in recent years, especially after museums became centers of edutainment beyond preserving heritage resources. This paper aims to comprehensively understand the changes, continuities, and future research development directions of museum visitors’ experiences. To identify current research trends, the paper summarizes and analyses research article publications from 1986 to 2023 on museum visitors' experiences. Bibliometric analysis software VOSviewer and Harzing POP (Publish or Perish) were used to analyze 407 academic articles. The articles were generated from the Scopus database. The study attempted to map new insights for future scholars and academics to expand the scope of museum visitors’ experience studies by analyzing keywords, citation patterns, influential articles in the field, publication trends, collaborations between authors, institutions, and clusters of highly cited articles. Accessibility to museums, social media usage within museums, aesthetics in museum settings, mixed reality experiences, sustainability issues, and emotions have emerged as key research areas in the study of museum visitors' experiences. The results benefit stakeholders and researchers in advancing the collective progress of considering recent research trends to stay informed about the latest developments and breakthroughs in the global academic landscape and visitors’ experiences development in the museum.

Keywords: bibliometric analysis, museum, network analysis, visitors’ experiences, visual analysis

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Authors: Michelo Obrey

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Traditionally, mutual funds have long been esteemed as stand-alone entities in the U.S. However, the prevalence of the fund families’ affiliation to financial conglomerates is eroding this striking feature. Mutual fund families' affiliation with financial conglomerates can potentially be an important source of superior performance or cost to the affiliated mutual fund investors. On the one hand, financial conglomerates affiliation offers the mutual funds access to abundant resources, better research quality, private material information, and business connections within the financial group. On the other hand, conflict of interest is bound to arise between the financial conglomerate relationship and fund management. Using a sample of U.S. domestic equity mutual funds from 1994 to 2017, this paper examines whether fund family affiliation to an investment bank help the affiliated mutual funds deliver superior performance through private material information advantage possessed by the investment banks or it costs affiliated mutual fund shareholders due to the conflict of interest. Robust to alternative risk adjustments and cross-section regression methodologies, this paper finds that the investment bank-affiliated mutual funds significantly outperform those of the mutual funds that are not affiliated with an investment bank. Interestingly the paper finds that the outperformance is confined to holding return, a return measure that captures the investment talent that is uninfluenced by transaction costs, fees, and other expenses. Further analysis shows that the investment bank-affiliated mutual funds specialize in hard-to-value stocks, which are not more likely to be held by unaffiliated funds. Consistent with the information advantage hypothesis, the paper finds that affiliated funds holding covered stocks outperform affiliated funds without covered stocks lending no support to the hypothesis that affiliated mutual funds attract superior stock-picking talent. Overall, the paper findings are consistent with the idea that investment banks maximize fee income by monopolistically exploiting their private information, thus strategically transferring performance to their affiliated mutual funds. This paper contributes to the extant literature on the agency problem in mutual fund families. It adds to this stream of research by showing that the agency problem is not only prevalent in fund families but also in financial organizations such as investment banks that have affiliated mutual fund families. The results show evidence of exploitation of synergies such as private material information sharing that benefit mutual fund investors due to affiliation with a financial conglomerate. However, this research has a normative dimension, allowing such incestuous behavior of insider trading and exploitation of superior information not only negatively affect the unaffiliated fund investors but also led to an unfair and unleveled playing field in the financial market.

Keywords: mutual fund performance, conflicts of interest, informational advantage, investment bank

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Authors: Aamir Ayub, Yasir Shehzad, Shakeel Ahmad

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This research paper aims to understand how the Pashtuns have been represented in relationship to terrorism in post-9/11 Bollywood and Lollywood movies. It focuses particularly on ‘Torbaaz’ from Bollywood and ‘Waar’ from Lollywood in order to define the nature of Pashtun characterization, the functioning of intelligence agencies, as well as the socio-political side of the represented narratives. In this research, the analytical approach developed is applied to contemplate how these films represent or fail to represent Pashtun identity, taking into consideration the cultural, historical and social dimensions. The study also aims to examine the effects of the media, particularly on the different ethnic groups’ perceptions of terrorism. In this case, it covers how the movie relates actual events in society – specifically, socio-political – to the messages in the film regarding the Pashtun people and their portrayal. Such elements may constitute the portrayal of intelligence agencies and their fight against terrorism, state-security dynamics, and the Pashtun society. In conclusion, this research paper focuses on the representation of Pashtuns in films after 9/11 and addresses the issue concerning the representation of ethnic groups in the method of the theme of terrorism. It provides ideas about the role of media in influencing the mind of the society and their attitude towards certain communities after geopolitics upheavals.

Keywords: pashtun representation, terrorism, 9/11 attacks, socio-political implications, ethnic representation in media

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Authors: Rainner Roweder

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Theme: The present paper aims to analyze the specificity of the judicial evidence linked to the subjects of dignity and personality rights, otherwise known as moral rights, in the determination of the truth and formation of the judicial reasoning in cases concerning these areas. This research is about the way courts in Brazilian domestic law search for truth and handles evidence in cases involving moral rights that are abundant and important in Brazil. The main object of the paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the evidence in the formation of judicial conviction in matters related to morally controverted rights, based on the Brazilian, and as a comparison, the Latin American legal systems. In short, the rights of dignity and personality are moral. However, the evidential legal system expects a rational demonstration of moral rights that generate judicial conviction or persuasion. Moral, in turn, tends to be difficult or impossible to demonstrate in court, generating the problem considered in this paper, that is, the study of the moral demonstration problem as proof in court. In this sense, the more linked to moral, the more difficult to be demonstrated in court that right is, expanding the field of judicial discretion, generating legal uncertainty. More specifically, the new personality rights, such as gender, and their possibility of alteration, further amplify the problem being essentially an intimate manner, which does not exist in the objective, rational evidential system, as normally occurs in other categories, such as contracts. Therefore, evidencing this legal category in court, with the level of security required by the law, is a herculean task. It becomes virtually impossible to use the same evidentiary system when judging the rights researched here; therefore, it generates the need for a new design of the evidential task regarding the rights of the personality, a central effort of the present paper. Methodology: Concerning the methodology, the Method used in the Investigation phase was Inductive, with the use of the comparative law method; in the data treatment phase, the Inductive Method was also used. Doctrine, Legislative, and jurisprudential comparison was the technique research used. Results: In addition to the peculiar characteristics of personality rights that are not found in other rights, part of them are essentially linked to morale and are not objectively verifiable by design, and it is necessary to use specific argumentative theories for their secure confirmation, such as interdisciplinary support. The traditional pragmatic theory of proof, for having an obvious objective character, when applied in the rights linked to the morale, aggravates decisionism and generates legal insecurity, being necessary its reconstruction for morally charged cases, with the possible use of the “predictive theory” ( and predictive facts) through algorithms in data collection and treatment.

Keywords: moral rights, proof, pragmatic proof theory, insufficiency, Brazil

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Authors: Haiqiao Du, Qian Wang, Shuwei Wang, Jianan Li

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Purpose: The aim is to evaluate the effect of cochlear implantation (CI) in patients with unilateral hearing loss, with a view to providing data support for the selection of therapeutic interventions for patients with single-sided deafness (SSD)/asymmetric hearing loss (AHL) and the broadening of the indications for CI. Methods: The study subjects were patients with unilateral hearing loss who underwent cochlear implantation surgery in our hospital in August 2022 and were willing to cooperate with the test and were divided into 2 groups: SSD group and AHL group. The enrolled patients were followed up for hearing level, tinnitus changes, speech recognition ability, sound source localization ability, and quality of life at five-time points: preoperatively, and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after postoperative start-up. Results: As of June 30, 2024, a total of nine patients completed follow-up, including four in the SSD group and five in the AHL group. The mean postoperative hearing aid thresholds on the CI side were 31.56 dB HL and 34.75 dB HL in the two groups, respectively. Of the four patients with preoperative tinnitus symptoms (three patients in the SSD group and one patient in the AHL group), all showed a degree of reduction in Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) scores, except for one patient who showed no change. In both the SSD and AHL groups, the sound source localization results (expressed as RMS error values, with smaller values indicating better ability) were 66.87° and 77.41° preoperatively and 29.34° and 54.60° 12 months after postoperative start-up, respectively, which showed that the ability to localize the sound source improved significantly with longer implantation time. The level of speech recognition was assessed by 3 test methods: speech recognition rate of monosyllabic words in a quiet environment and speech recognition rate of different sound source directions at 0° and 90° (implantation side) in a noisy environment. The results of the 3 tests were 99.0%, 72.0%, and 36.0% in the preoperative SSD group and 96.0%, 83.6%, and 73.8% in the AHL group, respectively, whereas they fluctuated in the postoperative period 3 months after start-up, and stabilized at 12 months after start-up to 99.0%, 100.0%, and 100.0% in the SSD group and 99.5%, 96.0%, and 99.0%. Quality of life was subjectively evaluated by three tests: the Speech Spatial Quality of Sound Auditory Scale (SSQ-12), the Quality-of-Life Bilateral Listening Questionnaire (QLBHE), and the Nijmegen Cochlear Implantation Inventory (NCIQ). The results of the SSQ-12 (with a 10-point score out of 10) showed that the scores of preoperative and postoperative 12 months after start-up were 6.35 and 6.46 in the SSD group, while they were 5.61 and 9.83 in the AHL group. The QLBHE scores (100 points out of 100) were 61.0 and 76.0 in the SSD group and 53.4 and 63.7 in the AHL group for the preoperative versus the postoperative 12 months after start-up. Conclusion: Patients with unilateral hearing loss can benefit from cochlear implantation: CI implantation is effective in compensating for the hearing on the affected side and reduces the accompanying tinnitus symptoms; there is a significant improvement in sound source localization and speech recognition in the presence of noise; and the quality of life is improved.

Keywords: single-sided deafness, asymmetric hearing loss, cochlear implant, unilateral hearing loss

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Authors: Ramin Barati, Atefeh Salemi

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In Victorian era, the society had been surrounded by extreme class ranking in order to identify the people of the classes and to intensify power relationships due to the growth of industry in Charles Dickens's (1812-1870) Great Expectations (2003) in which he illustrates the clash and dichotomy in the 19th century London. The classes in Victorian period have socially divided the population into two parts, the lower and the upper class of the community. In such a panopticon society, the major character Pip was the best example of the working class who was under the domination of violence, malice, and abuse of Miss Havisham as a member of the ruling class in order to take revenge on her failures. The conflict and disunity represented in vindictiveness and the sense of revenge applied by Miss Havisham against his victim Pip, made him experience alienation and eventually suffer from identity crisis. This paper considers New Historicism based on the theories of the French critic Michel Foucault (1926-1984). The social concept, panopticism, was called after the panopticon society, basically elaborated by Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish (1975) and he considers the panopticon as a sign of punitive community of surveillance. This paper evaluates the problems of a dual society to show that the people of the lower class are under the domination of capitalist society.

Keywords: class, identity crisis, violence, panoptic society, domination

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Authors: G. Senoga, D. Nakimuli, B. Ndagire, B. Lukwago, D. Kyamagwa

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Background: The COVID-19 epidemic affected the education sector, with some private schools closing while other children missed schooling for fear contracting COVID-19. Post COVID-19, PSIU in collaborated with Kampala City Council Authority Directorate of Education and Social Science, Water and Sanitation department, and Directorate of Public Health and Environment to improve sanitation and hygiene among pupils and staff in 50 public and private school system in Kampala city. The “Be Clean, Stay Healthy Campaign” used a behavioral change approach in educating, reinforcing and engaging learners on proper hand washing behaviors, proper toilet usage and garbage disposal. In April 2022, 40 Washa lots were constructed, to reduce the pupil - hand wash station ratio; distributed KCCA approved printed materials; oriented 50 teachers, WASH committees to execute and implement hygiene promotion. To ensure sustainability, WASH messages were memorized and practiced through hand washing songs, Pledge, prayer, Poems, Skits, Music, dance and drama, coupled with participatory, practical demonstrations using peer to peer approach, guest speakers at assemblies and in classes. This improved hygiene and sanitation practices. Premised on this, PSI conducted an end line assessment to explore the impact of a hand washing campaign in regards to improvements in hand washing practices and hand hygiene among pupils, accessibility, functionality and usage of the constructed hygiene and sanitation facilities. Method: A cross-sectional post intervention assessment using a mixed methods approach, targeting headteachers, wash committee members and pupils less <17 years was used. Quantitative approaches with a mix of open-ended questions were used in purposively selected respondents in 50 schools. Primary three to primary seven pupils were randomly selected, data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) Outcomes and Findings: 46,989 pupils (51% female), 1,127 and 524 teaching and non-teaching staff were reached by the intervention, respectively. 96% of schools trained on sanitation, sustainable water usage and hygiene constituted 17-man school WASH committees with teacher, parents and pupils representatives. (31%) of the WASH committees developed workplans, (78%) held WASH meetings monthly. This resulted into improved sanitation, water usage, waste management, proper use of toilets, and improved pupils’ health with reduced occurrences of stomach upsets, diarrhoea initially attributed to improper use of latrines and general waste management. Teachers reported reduced number of school absenteeism due to improved hygiene and general waste management at school, especially proper management of sanitary pads. School administrations response rate in purchase of hygiene equipment’s and detergents like soap improved. Regular WASH meetings in classes, teachers and community supervision ensured WASH facilities are used appropriately. Conclusion and Recommendations: Practical behaviour change innovations improves pupil’s knowledge and understanding of hygiene messages and usage. Over 70% of pupils had clear recall of key WASH Messages. There is need for continuous water flow in the Washa lots, harvesting rain water would reduce water bills while complementing National water supply coupled with increasing on Washa lots in densely populated schools.

Keywords: handwashing, hygyiene, sanitation, behaviour change

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Authors: Lei Qin

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Culture has long been recognized as a possible reason to influence travelers’ decisions, which explains why travelers in different countries make distinct decisions. Cultural distance is a concept illustrating how much difference there is between travelers’ home culture and that of the destination, but the research in distinguishing short-and-long haul travel destinations is limited. This study explored the research gap by examining the impact of cultural distance on Chinese travelers’ intentions to visit short-haul and long-haul destinations, respectively. Six cultural distance measurements, including five measurements calculated from secondary database (Kogut & Singh, Developed Kogut & Singh, Euclidean distance Index (EDI), world value survey index (WVS), social axioms measurement (SAM)) and perceived cultural distance (PCD) collected from the primary survey. Of the six measurements, culture distance has the opposite impact on Chinese outbound travelers’ intentions in the short-haul and long haul. For short-haul travel, travelers’ intentions for traveling can be positive influenced by cultural distance; a possible reason is that travelers’ novelty-seeking satisfaction is greater than the strangeness obtained from overseas regions. For long-haul travel, travelers’ intentions for traveling can be negative influenced by cultural distance, a possible explanation is that travelers’ uncertainty, risk, and language concerns of farther destinations.

Keywords: cultural distance, intention, outbound travel, short-long haul

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Authors: Mehmet Tahir Dursun, Hilmi Rafet Yüncü

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In social life growing fast, not only people, but also, companies and regions are located in a struggle to provide continuity of life cycles. This struggle brings together an important competitiveness when considering environmental conditions. By emphasizing this point, being able to competitiveness notion comes out as a determiner of the struggle to exist. With the development of technology in tourism industry so as in all branches, it is seen that the companies and regions in different districts are in competitiveness and competitiveness ability is affected in assessing of marketing shares. A condition of competitiveness is to provide sustainability of all structured forms. In addition, environment and sensitiveness of environment are notions affecting directly the competitiveness ability of tourism destinations. It is claimed that providing the sustainability of environment gives competitiveness to tourism destinations. In this study, competitiveness and performances of tourism in Mediterranean countries are going to be compared by examining a variety of indexes related to the sensitiveness of environment. Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (T&TCI) (Environmental Sustainability and Natural Resources), Environmental Performance Index (EPI), Ecological Foot Print, Human Development Index (HDI), Climate Risk Index (CRI) will be used in this study. These Index data will be compared with international tourist arrivals, international tourism receives and expenses of per tourist of countries.

Keywords: ecological foot print, environmental performance index, human development index, sustainability, travel and tourism competitiveness index

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Authors: Lianxue Shi

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Riverfront street has the dual characteristics of street space and waterfront space, which is not only a vital place for residents to travel and communicate but also a high-frequency space for people's leisure and entertainment. However, under the development of cities and towns pursuing efficiency, riverfront streets appear to have a variety of problems, such as a lack of multifunctionality, insufficient facilities, and loss of characteristics, which fail to meet the needs of various groups of people, and their inclusiveness is facing a great challenge. It is, therefore, evident that the optimization of riverfront street space from an inclusivity perspective is important to the establishment of a human-centered, high-quality urban space. Therefore, this article starts by exploring the interactive relationship between inclusive design and street space. Based on the analysis of the characteristics of the riverfront street space and people's needs, it proposes the four inclusive design orientations of natural inclusion, group inclusion, spatial inclusion, and social inclusion. It then constructs a design framework for the inclusive optimization of riverfront street space, aiming to create streets that are “safe and accessible, diverse and shared, distinctive and friendly, green and sustainable”. Riverfront streets in Wansheng District, Chongqing, are selected as a practice case, and specific strategies are put forward in four aspects: the creation of an accessible slow-traffic system, the provision of diversified functional services, the reshaping of emotional bonds and the integration of ecological spaces.

Keywords: inclusiveness design, riverfront street, spatial optimization, street spaces

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Authors: Lesley Karen Penera

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Despite the countless that has been drawn to investigate Philippine English for a myriad of reasons, none was known to have ventured on a probe of its grammatical features as used in a technology-driven linguistic landscape by two generations in the digital age. Propelled by the assumption of an emerging Philippine English variety, this paper determined the grammatical features that characterize the digital native-immigrants’ Philippine English. It also ascertained whether mistake or deviation instigated the use of the features, and established this variety’s level of comprehensibility. This exploratory mixed-methods inquiry employed some qualitative and quantitative data drawn from a social networking site, the digital native-immigrant group, and the comprehensibility-raters who were selected through non-random purposive sampling. The study yields 8 grammatical features, mostly deemed results of deviation, yet the texts characterized by such features were mostly rated with excellent comprehensibility. This substantiates some of the grammatical features identified in earlier studies, provides evidentiary proof that the digital groups’ Philippine English is not bound by the standard of syntactic accuracy and corroborates the assertion on language’s manipulability as an instrument fashioned to satisfy the users’ need for successful communication in actual instances for use of English past the walls of any university where the variety is cultivated. The same could also be rationalized by some respondents’ position on grammar and accuracy to be less vital than one’s facility to communicate effectively.

Keywords: comprehensibility, deviation, digital immigrants, digital natives, mistake, Philippine English variety

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Authors: Marie Louis

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Even though many stakeholders are doing their very best to promote public transportation around the world, many areas are still public transportation non-accessible. With travelers purchasing and driving their private vehicles can be considered as a threat to all three aspects of the sustainability (e.g., economical, social, environmental). However, most studies that considered simultaneously all three aspects of the sustainability concept when planning and designing public transportation for a corridor have found tradeoffs among the said three aspects.One of the tradeoffs was identified by looking at tipping points of the travel demands to question whether transit agencies/and or transportation policymakers should either operate smaller buses or provide incentives to purchase Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-Qualified low-emission vehicles or greener vehicles (e.g., hybrid). However, how and when do the department of environmental protection (DEP) and the department of revenue (DOR) figure out how much incentives to give to each traveler who lives in a zoning that is considered as public transportation inaccessible or accessible? To answer this policy question, this study aims to compare the greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions when hybrid and conventional cars are used to access public transportation stops/stations. Additionally, this study also intends to review previous states that have already adopted low-emissions vehicle (LEVs) or Zero-Emissions Vehicles (ZEVs) to diminish the daily GHGs pollutants.

Keywords: LEED-qualified vehicles, public transit accessibility, hybrid vehicles incentives, sustainability trade-offs

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Authors: Hazaila Hassan

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This research aims and discusses about the effectiveness of the Psynnova i-Behaviour Modification Technique (iBMT) module towards the change in behaviour of low-performing employees. The purpose of the study is to examine the effectiveness of the Psynnova Module on changing behaviour through five factors among low-performing employees in the public sector. The five main factors/constructs were cognitive enhancement and rationality, emotional stability, attitude alignment and adjustment, social skills development and psycho-spirituality enhancement. In this research, 5 main constructs will be using to indicate behaviour changing performance of the employees after attending The Psynnova Program that using this Psynnova IBMT Module. The respondents are among those who have low scores in terms of annual performance through annual performance value reports and have gone through various stages before being required to attend Psynnova Program. Besides that, the research plan was also to critically examine and understand the change in behaviour among the low-performing employees through the five dimensions in the Psynnova Module. A total of 50 respondent will purposively sampled to be the respondents of this research. This study will use the Experimental Method to One Group Purposively Pre and Post Test using the Time Series Design. Experimental SPSS software version 22.0 will be used to analyse this data. Hopefully this research can see the changing of their behaviour in five factors as an indicator to the respondent after attending the Psynnova Programme. Findings from this study are also used to propose to assisting psychologist to see the changes that occurred to the respondents with the best framework of behaviour changing for them.

Keywords: five dimension of behaviour changing, among adult, low performance, modul effectiveness

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Authors: Tris Kee

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As the urban design discipline develops renewed interests in participatory design and collaborative place-making, it becomes critical to review the potential and limitations in current processes to ensure a sustainable method for future development.This paper explores how collaborative design can be a key to future sustainable urban development through two case studies from Asia.The process involves a multi-disciplinary collaboration and an innovative learning process by sharing ideas as well as careful consideration on social, economic and political circumstances among government and district stakeholders.This intrinsic proposition of innovative participatory planning implies interdisciplinary collaboration between professionals and local residents to integrate knowledge into new urban place-making thinking.Design innovation in contemporary society can manifest itself in the discourse sustainable urban development by bottom-up planning and community driven design. This paper examines the emerging design pedagogy which promotes interdisciplinary coalition of professionals and local stakeholders in community development as an innovative design rubric to create a sustainable urban approach.Through two case studies in Hong Kong, this paper reviews and critically evaluates the process of how the notion of sustainable development in contemporary urban planning theory is underpinned by the collaborative design practice.

Keywords: collaborative design, design innovation, sustainable development, urban development

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Authors: Mehran Nozari-Asbemarz, Italo Pisano, Simin Arshi, Edmond Magner, James J. Leahy

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Integrating electrolytic synthesis with renewable energy makes it feasible to address urgent environmental and energy challenges. Conventional water electrolyzers concurrently produce H₂ and O₂, demanding additional procedures in gas separation to prevent contamination of H₂ with O₂. Moreover, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is sluggish and has a low overall energy conversion efficiency, does not deliver a significant value product on the electrode surface. Compared to conventional water electrolysis, integrating electrolytic hydrogen generation from water with thermodynamically more advantageous aqueous organic oxidation processes can increase energy conversion efficiency and create value-added compounds instead of oxygen at the anode. One strategy is to use renewable and sustainable carbon sources from biomass, which has a large annual production capacity and presents a significant opportunity to supplement carbon sourced from fossil fuels. Numerous catalytic techniques have been researched in order to utilize biomass economically. Because of its safe operating conditions, excellent energy efficiency, and reasonable control over production rate and selectivity using electrochemical parameters, electrocatalytic upgrading stands out as an appealing choice among the numerous biomass refinery technologies. Therefore, we propose a broad framework for coupling H2 generation from water splitting with oxidative biomass upgrading processes. Four representative biomass targets were considered for oxidative upgrading that used a hierarchically porous CoFe-MOF/LDH @ Graphite Paper bifunctional electrocatalyst, including glucose, ethanol, benzyl, furfural, and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). The potential required to support 50 mA cm-2 is considerably lower than (~ 380 mV) the potential for OER. All four compounds can be oxidized to yield liquid byproducts with economic benefit. The electrocatalytic oxidation of glucose to the value-added products, gluconic acid, glucuronic acid, and glucaric acid, was examined in detail. The cell potential for combined H₂ production and glucose oxidation was substantially lower than for water splitting (1.44 V(RHE) vs. 1.82 V(RHE) for 50 mA cm-2). In contrast, the oxidation byproduct at the anode was significantly more valuable than O₂, taking advantage of the more favorable glucose oxidation in comparison to the OER. Overall, such a combination of HER and oxidative biomass valorization using electrocatalysts prevents the production of potentially explosive H₂/O₂mixtures and produces high-value products at both electrodes with lower voltage input, thereby increasing the efficiency and activity of electrocatalytic conversion.

Keywords: biomass, electrocatalytic, glucose oxidation, hydrogen evolution

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Authors: S. Masud, J. Merson, D. F. Robinson

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The management of environmental resources requires engagement of a range of stakeholders including public/private agencies and different community groups to implement sustainable conservation practices. The challenge which is often ignored is the analysis of agencies involved and their power relations. One of the barriers identified is the difference in risk perceptions among the agencies involved that leads to disjointed efforts of assessing and managing risks. Wood et al 2012, explains that it is important to have an integrated approach to risk management where decision makers address stakeholder perspectives. This is critical for an effective risk management policy. This abstract is part of a PhD research that looks into barriers to flood management under a changing climate and intends to identify bottlenecks that create maladaptation. Experiences are drawn from international practices in the UK and examined in the context of Australia through exploring the flood governance in a highly flood-prone region in Australia: the Hawkesbury Ne-pean catchment as a case study. In this research study several aspects of governance and management are explored: (i) the complexities created by the way different agencies are involved in assessing flood risks (ii) different perceptions on acceptable flood risk level; (iii) perceptions on community engagement in defining acceptable flood risk level; (iv) Views on a holistic flood risk management approach; and, (v) challenges of centralised information system. The study concludes that the complexity of managing a large catchment is exacerbated by the difference in the way professionals perceive the problem. This has led to: (a) different standards for acceptable risks; (b) inconsistent attempt to set-up a regional scale flood management plan beyond the jurisdictional boundaries: (c) absence of a regional scale agency with license to share and update information (d) Lack of forums for dialogue with insurance companies to ensure an integrated approach to flood management. The research takes the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment as case example and draws from literary evidence from around the world. In addition, conclusions were extrapolated from eighteen semi-structured interviews from agencies involved in flood risk management in the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment of NSW, Australia. The outcome of this research is to provide a better understanding of complexity in assessing risks against a rapidly changing climate and contribute towards developing effective risk communication strategies thus enabling better management of floods and achieving increased level of support from insurance companies, real-estate agencies, state and regional risk managers and the affected communities.

Keywords: adaptive governance, flood management, flood risk communication, stakeholder risk perceptions

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Authors: Medani Prasad Rijal

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The study outlines the impacts of decentralized forest policy on natural Sal (shorea robusta) forests in the Terai region of Nepal. The government has implemented community forestry program to manage the forest resources and improve the livelihood of local people collectively. The forest management authorities such as conserve, manage, develop and use of forest resources were shifted to the local communities, however, the ownership right of the forestland retained by the government. Local communities took the decision on harvesting, distribution, and sell of forest products by fixing the prices independently. The local communities were putting the low value of forest products and distributed among the user households on the name of collective decision. The decision of low valuation is devaluating the worth of forest products. Therefore, the study hypothesized that decision-making capacities are equally prominent next to the decentralized policy and program formulation. To accomplish the study, individual to group level discussions and questionnaire survey methods were applied with executive committee members and user households. The study revealed that the local intuition called Community Forest User Group (CFUG) committee normally took the decisions on consensus basis. Considering to the access and affording capacity of user households having poor economic backgrounds, low pricing mechanism of forest products has been practiced, even though the Sal timber is far expensive in the local market. The local communities thought that low pricing mechanism is accessible to all user households from poor to better off households. However, the analysis of forest products distribution opposed the assumption as most of the Sal timber, which is the most valuable forest product of community forest only purchased by the limited households of better economic conditions. Since the Terai region is heterogeneous by socio-economic conditions, better off households always have higher affording capacity and possibility of taking higher timber benefits because of low price mechanism. On the other hand, the minimum price rate of forest products has poor contribution in community fund collection. Consequently, it has poor support to carry out poverty alleviation activities to poor people. The local communities have been fixed Sal timber price rate around three times cheaper than normal market price, which is a strong evidence of forest product devaluation itself. Finally, the study concluded that the capacity building of local executives as the decision-makers of natural Sal forests is equally indispensable next to the policy and program formulation for effective decentralized forest management. Unilateral decentralized forest policy may devaluate the forest products rather than devolve of power to the local communities and empower to them.

Keywords: community forestry program, decentralized forest policy, Nepal, Sal forests, Terai

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Authors: Sohil I. Alqazlan

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Introduction and Objectives: There is limited research focusing on young adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) and their experiences after finishing compulsory education, especially in the Middle Eastern/Arab countries. This paper aims to further understand the lives of young adults with ID in Riyadh [the capital city of Saudi Arabia], particularly as they go on to access Post-Secondary Education [PSE]. As part of this study, it is important to understand the roles of high schools in Riyadh in terms of preparing their students for post-school life. To achieve this, the researcher has asked Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education to provide student transition plans (TPs) for post-school opportunities. However, and unfortunately, high schools in Riyadh do not use transition plans for their students. Therefore, the researcher has requested individual education plans (IEPs) for students with ID in their final year at high school to find the type of support the students had regarding both their long- and short-term goals that might help them access PSE or the labour market. Methods: The researcher analysed 10 IEPs of students in their final year at high school. To achieve the aim of the study, the researcher compared these IEPs with expectations set out in the official IEP framework of the MoE in Saudi Arabia, such as collaboration on the IEP sample and the focus on adult life. By analysing the students’ IEPs in terms of various goals, this study attempts to highlight skills that might offer students more independence after finishing compulsory education and going on to PSE. Results: Unfortunately, communication between IEP team members proved persistently absent in the sample. This was clear from the fact that none of the team members, apart from the SEN teachers, had signed any of the IEPs. Thus, none of the daily or weekly goals outlined were sent to parents to review at home. As a result of this, there were no goals in the IEPs that clearly referred to PSE. However, some long-term goals were set which might help those with ID become more independent in their adult life. For example, in the IEPs, which dealt with computer skills, the student had goals related to using Microsoft Word. Finally, just one goal of these IEPs set an important independent skill for the young adults with ID: “the student will learn how to use public transportation”. Conclusions: From analysing the ten IEPs, it was clear that SEN teachers in Riyadh schools were working without any help from other professionals. The students with ID, as well as their families, were not consulted on their views on important goals. Therefore, more work needs to be done with the students regarding their transition to PSE, perhaps by building partnerships between high schools and potential PSE institutions. Finally, more PSE programmes and a higher level of employer awareness could help create a bridge for students transferring from high school to PSE. Schools could also focus their IEP goals towards specific PSE programmes the student might attend, which could increase their chances of success.

Keywords: high school, post-secondary education, PSE, students with intellectual disabilities

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Authors: Luciana Brandao Ferreira, Janaina de Moura Engracia Giraldi, Fabiana Gondim Mariutti, Marina Toledo de Arruda Lourencao

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Developing countries, such as BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are hosting sports mega-events to promote socio-economic development and image enhancement. Thus, this paper aims to verify the image of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, as the host city of 2016 Olympic Games, considering the main cognitive and affective image dimensions. The research design uses exploratory factorial analysis to find the most important factors highlighted in the city image dimensions. The data were collected by structured questionnaires with an international respondents sample (n=274) with high international travel experience. The results show that Rio’s image as a sport mega-event host city has two main factors in each dimension: Cognitive ('General Infrastructure'; 'Services and Attractions') and Affective ('Positive Feelings'; 'Negative Feelings'). The most important factor related to cognitive dimension was 'Services and Attractions' which is more related to tourism activities. In the affective dimension 'Positive Feelings' was the most important factor, which means a good result considering that is a city in an emerging country with many unmet social demands.

Keywords: Rio de Janeiro, 2016 olympic games, host city image, cognitive image dimension, affective image dimension

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