Search results for: public paths

Authors: Ibrahim Alreshidi, Aseel Albrekeit, Ruaa Alharthi

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Background: As a result of the spread of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020, many governments, including Saudi Arabia, have suspended operations in many agencies. Most dermatologists have restricted their practice, including cosmetic procedures, to ensure social distancing. On the 7th of May 2020, Saudi authorities reduced the restriction of COVID-19 virus preventative measures, allowing clinics to start accepting patients following the ministry of health protocols. Objectives: Evaluation of the public's perception and willingness to undergo cosmetic procedures during COVID-19 outbreaks in Saudi Arabia. Materials and methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was carried out among the individuals who lack typical symptoms of COVID-19 infection in Saudi Arabia. A self-designed web-based questionnaire was developed; content face validity and a pilot study were done. The questionnaire was distributed electronically from the 8th of May until the 31st of May 2020. Results: A total of 656 individuals who lack typical symptoms of COVID-19 infection were included in this analysis. Only 10.5% of participants expressed their will to do cosmetic procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 90% of the participants believed that the COVID-19 pandemic was either somewhat serious (52.9%) or very serious (38.7%). The willingness to do cosmetic procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic remained unaltered when the price was discounted (p<0.001) and when infection control measures were ensured (p<0.001). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the practice of cosmetic dermatology. Fear of transferring the infection to a beloved home member is the main reason to avoid these procedures. Generating well-structured safety guidelines to decrease the risk of this unusual virus transmission in dermatology practice and creating financial incentives may help increase the public willingness to do these cosmetic procedures during this pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, cosmetic procedures, questionnaire, dermatology

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Authors: Eman Mohamed Abdelwahab, Badreyya Alkhanbooli

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This study focuses on exploring the challenges encountered by English language teachers in same-ability English language classrooms in the United Arab Emirates public schools. This qualitative study uses open-ended questions for data collection from teacher participants. The study sample includes the participation of 60 English language teachers from 8 public schools across 4 emirates/cities in the United Arab Emirates. The study results highlight a number of challenges that are mostly encountered by English language teachers in their classrooms while teaching in same-ability classrooms, including lack of diversity in abilities, class-time limitation, difficulty in engaging all students (especially lower-achieving students), limited opportunities for peer learning and limited linguistic diversity. A set of suggestions is to be provided by participating teachers and researchers to improve the same-ability teaching and learning experience in English language classrooms.

Keywords: English language teaching, same ability grouping, ESL, English language learners

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Authors: Khalid Alshaikh

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Libya has recently gained momentum, especially with the rise of the social issues ensued by the recent war. CSR is a new organisational culture designing its features and route within the Libyan financial institutions. Now, both the public and private banks invest in this construct trusting that its powers are capable of improving the economic, social and environmental problems the conflict has created. On the other hand, the Libyan commercial banks recognise the benefits of utilising CSR to entice investors and ensure their continuations in the national and international markets. Nevertheless, as a new concept, CSR necessitates an in-depth exploration and analysis to help its transition from the margins of religion to the mainstream of society and businesses. This can assist in constructing its activities to bring about change nation-wide. Therefore, this paper intends to explore the current definitions attached to this term through tracing back its historical beginnings. Then, it investigates its trends both in the public and private banks to identify where its sustainable development materialises. Lastly, it seeks to understand the key challenges that obscure its success in the Libyan environment. The research methodology used both public and private banks as case study and qualitative research to interview ten Board of Directors (BoDs) and eleven Chief Executive Managers (CEOs) to discover how CSR is defined and the core CSR activities practiced by the Libyan Commercial Banks (LCBs) and the key constraints that CSR faces and make it unsuccessful. The findings suggest that CSR is still influenced by the power of religion. Nevertheless, the Islamic perspective is more consistent with the social contract concept of CSR. The LCBs do not solely focus on the economic side of maximizing profits, but also concentrate on its morality. The issue is that CSR activities are not enough to achieve good charity publicly and needs strategies to address major social issues. Moreover, shareholders do not support CSR activities. Their argument is that the only social responsibility of businesses is to maximize profits, while the government should deal with the existing social issues. Finally, although the LCBs endeavour to embed CSR in their organisational culture, it is still important that different stakeholders need to do much more to entrench this construct through their core functions. The Central bank of Libya needs also to boost its standing to be more influential and ensure that the right discussions about CSR happen with the right stakeholders involved.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, private banks, public banks, stakeholders

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Authors: Anupama Singh, Papia Raj

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Though Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is a worldwide problem, yet its implications are enormous in developing countries, as they are unable to provide proper Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) for the large volume of MSW. As a result, the collected wastes are dumped in open dumping at landfilling sites while the uncollected wastes remain strewn on the roadside, many-a-time clogging drainage. Such unsafe and inadequate management of MSW causes various public health hazards. For example, MSW directly on contact or by leachate contaminate the soil, surface water, and ground water; open burning causes air pollution; anaerobic digestion between the piles of MSW enhance the greenhouse gases i.e., carbon dioxide and methane (CO2 and CH4) into the atmosphere. Moreover, open dumping can cause spread of vector borne disease like cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and so on. Patna, the capital city of Bihar, one of the most underdeveloped provinces in India, is a unique representation of this situation. Patna has been identified as the ‘garbage city’. Over the last decade there has been an exponential increase in the quantity of MSW generation in Patna. Though a large proportion of such MSW is recyclable in nature, only a negligible portion is recycled. Plastic constitutes the major chunk of the recyclable waste. The chemical composition of plastic is versatile consisting of toxic compounds, such as, plasticizers, like adipates and phthalates. Pigmented plastic is highly toxic and it contains harmful metals such as copper, lead, chromium, cobalt, selenium, and cadmium. Human population becomes vulnerable to an array of health problems as they are exposed to these toxic chemicals multiple times a day through air, water, dust, and food. Based on analysis of health data it can be emphasized that in Patna there has been an increase in the incidence of specific diseases, such as, diarrhoea, dysentry, acute respiratory infection (ARI), asthma, and other chronic respiratory diseases (CRD). This trend can be attributed to improper MSWM. The results were reiterated through a survey (N=127) conducted during 2014-15 in selected areas of Patna. Random sampling method of data collection was used to better understand the relationship between different variables affecting public health due to exposure to MSW and lack of MSWM. The results derived through bivariate and logistic regression analysis of the survey data indicate that segregation of wastes at source, segregation behavior, collection bins in the area, distance of collection bins from residential area, and transportation of MSW are the major determinants of public health issues. Sustainable recycling is a robust method for MSWM with its pioneer concerns being environment, society, and economy. It thus ensures minimal threat to environment and ecology consequently improving public health conditions. Hence, this paper concludes that sustainable recycling would be the most viable approach to manage MSW in Patna and would eventually reduce public health hazards.

Keywords: municipal solid waste, Patna, public health, sustainable recycling

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Authors: Reem Alkadeem

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This study aims at evaluating the overall satisfaction of faculty members and relating it to organizational and personal aspects in Egyptian public and private universities. These aspects are identified through an extensive study of all factors that might affect job satisfaction. The most influencing parameters selected are academics’ demographics, human resource management, organizational profile, workload, teamwork skills, recognition, autonomy, teaching activity, research activity, and motivation. A questionnaire of 94 questions was used to assess job satisfaction and the previously mentioned parameters. It was distributed among seven hundred members of different universities in Egypt. Two hundred and twenty-seven faculty members responded. This sample was gathered from twelve universities and The Supreme Council of Universities. The ANOVA showed a significant relationship (p < 0.05) between eight of the selected parameters and job satisfaction. These parameters are age, rank, human resource management, profile of organizational characteristics, workload, recognition, teaching activity, and motivation.

Keywords: job satisfaction, higher education, organizational profile, Egyptian universities

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Authors: Guijie Sang, Geo Davis, Momchil Terziev

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Geological CO2 storage has been regarded as a promising strategy to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gas generated from traditional power stations and energy-intensive industry. Caprocks with very low permeability and ultra-fine pores create viscous and capillary barriers to guarantee CO2 sealing efficiency. However, caprock fractures, either naturally existing or artificially induced due to injection, could provide preferential paths for CO₂ escaping. Seeking an efficient technique to seal and strengthen caprock fractures is crucial. We apply microbial-induced-calcite-precipitation (MICP) technique for sealing and strengthening caprock fractures in the laboratory scale. The MICP bio-grouting technique has several advantages over conventional cement grouting methods, including its low viscosity, micron-size microbes (accessible to fine apertures), and low carbon footprint, among others. Different injection strategies are tested to achieve relatively homogenous calcite precipitation along the fractures, which is monitored dynamically based on laser ultrasonic technique. The MICP process in caprock fractures, which integrates the coupled flow and bio-chemical precipitation, is also modeled and validated through the experiment. The study could provide an effective bio-mediated grouting strategy for caprock sealing and thus ensuring a long-term safe geological CO2 storage.

Keywords: caprock sealing, geological CO2 storage, grouting strategy, microbial induced calcite precipitation

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Authors: S. Akinde, Jubril Olatunbosun

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In recent years, most of the urban centers in Nigeria are fast experiencing housing problems such as unaffordable housing and environmental challenges, all of which determine the nature of housing quality. The population continues to increase and the demand for quality housing increases probably at the same rate. Several kinds of houses serve various purposes; the objectives of the low cost housing schemes as the name suggests is to make houses quality to both the middle and lower classes of people in Lagos. A casual look into the study area of Iba Low Cost Housing Estate and the Unity Low Cost Housing Estate, Ojo and Alimosho respectively in Lagos State have shown a huge demands for houses. The study area boasts of a large population all engaged in various commercial activities with income at various levels. It would be fair to say that these people are mainly of the middle class and lower class. This means the low cost housing scheme truly serves these purposes. A Low Cost Housing Scheme of Iba which is publicly owned and Low Cost Housing Scheme of Unity Estate (UE) is privately owned.  

Keywords: housing, residential quality, low cost housing scheme, public, private estates

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Authors: Mahda Foroughi, Bruno de Anderade, Ana Pereira Roders

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Social media platforms have been increasingly used by locals and tourists to express their opinions about buildings, cities, and built heritage in particular. Most recently, scholars have been using social media to conduct innovative research on built heritage and heritage management. Still, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) methods to analyze social media data for heritage management is seldom explored. This paper investigates the potential of short texts (sentences and hashtags) shared through social media as a data source and artificial intelligence methods for data analysis for revealing the cultural significance (values and attributes) of built heritage. The city of Yazd, Iran, was taken as a case study, with a particular focus on windcatchers, key attributes conveying outstanding universal values, as inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This paper has three subsequent phases: 1) state of the art on the intersection of public participation in heritage management and social media research; 2) methodology of data collection and data analysis related to coding people's voices from Instagram and Twitter into values of windcatchers over the last ten-years; 3) preliminary findings on the comparison between opinions of locals and tourists, sentiment analysis, and its association with the values and attributes of windcatchers. Results indicate that the age value is recognized as the most important value by all interest groups, while the political value is the least acknowledged. Besides, the negative sentiments are scarcely reflected (e.g., critiques) in social media. Results confirm the potential of social media for heritage management in terms of (de)coding and measuring the cultural significance of built heritage for windcatchers in Yazd. The methodology developed in this paper can be applied to other attributes in Yazd and also to other case studies.

Keywords: social media, artificial intelligence, public participation, cultural significance, heritage, sentiment analysis

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Authors: Paule Olivia Akotto

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The recent literature suggests spending between 50%-85% of oil rents. However, there are not yet clear guidelines for allocating this windfall in the public investment system, while most of the resource-rich countries fail to improve their intergenerational mobility. We study a design of the optimal spending system in Senegal, a low-income developing country featuring newly discovered oil fields and low intergenerational mobility. We build a dynamic general equilibrium model in which rural and urban (Dakar and other urban centers henceforth OUC) households face different health, education, and employment opportunities based on their location, affecting their intergenerational mobility. The model captures the relationship between oil rents, public investment, and multidimensional inequality of opportunity. The government invests oil rents in three broad sectors: health and education, road and industries, and agriculture. Through endogenous productivity externality and human capital accumulation, our model generates the predominant position of Dakar and OUC households in terms of access to health, education, and employment in line with Senegal data. Rural households are worse off in all dimensions. We compute the optimal spending policy under two sets of simulation scenarios. Under the current Senegal public investment strategy, which weighs more health and education investments, we find that the reform maximizing the decline in inequality of opportunity between households, frontloads investment during the first eight years of the oil exploitation and spends the perpetual value of oil wealth thereafter. We will then identify the marginal winners and losers associated with this policy and its redistributive implications. Under our second set of scenarios, we will test whether the Senegalese economy can reach better equality of opportunity outcomes under this frontloading reform, by allowing the sectoral shares of investment to vary. The trade-off will be between cutting human capital investment in favor of agricultural and productive infrastructure or increasing the former. We will characterize the optimal policy by specifying where the higher weight should be. We expect that the optimal policy of the second set strictly dominates in terms of equality of opportunity, the optimal policy computed under the current investment strategy. Finally, we will quantify this optimal policy's aggregate and distributional effects on poverty, well-being, and gender earning gaps.

Keywords: developing countries, general equilibrium, inequality of opportunity, oil rents

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Authors: Fatima Kiran

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This study investigates the HIV/AIDS coverage in the selected newspapers. The premises of the study depend upon the fact that informing public about any social issue that effects people’s life is among one of the fundamental functions of media, such as HIV/AIDS is one of prime importance. In this study two most prime newspapers of Pakistan Daily Jang and Daily Dawn were analyzed. This paper adopted two approaches for investigation one is content analysis and another is discourse analysis. The content analysis was used to determine the frequency of HIV/AIDS content coverage. Discourse analysis was used to determine consciousness of these newspapers on covering HIV/AIDS stories with correct language and terminologies according to the given media guideline of UNICEF. Total 368 editions from 1st July 2017 to 31st December 2017 were sampled for the study. The result of the study indicates that newspapers have severely underestimated the severity of HIV/AIDS. The coverage given by newspapers is dissatisfactory. Selected newspapers used inappropriate terminologies and language in the stories which shows negligence of newspapers regarding HIV/AIDS issue.

Keywords: Pakistani newspapers, HIV/AIDS, coverage, public awareness, content analysis, discourse analysis, press consciousness

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Authors: Murat İskender Aktaş, Selma Söyük

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The aim of this work is to specify the levels of organizational cynicism health workers. Organizational cynicism concept is evaluated in three sub-branches and these are cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The main objective of the work is to answer the questions about the relationship of demographic characteristics like sub-branches of cynicism and age, marital status, education level, total working hours, occupational groups and income levels. As works in our country are analyzed, there have been studies about cynicism in health and other sectors. However, there were no master’s thesis or organizational cynicism research found about the public health professionals. This is why the aim was chosen as to specify the levels of organizational cynicism of public health professionals. The average of the answers of the health workers to the questions about cynicism levels are 2.86. As organizational cynicism is evaluated according to the sub-branches, cognitive subscale average score is 3.21 affective subscale average score is 2.68 and behavioral subscale average score is counted as 2.67. As the results are analyzed, it is seen that the behavioral subscale has the highest average. This shows that the workers are often criticizing the internal complaints and organizational information with their friends out of the organization.

Keywords: cynicism, organizational cynicism, health care workers

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Authors: Kyle Burke Pfeiffer, Carmella Burdi, Karen Marsh

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The evacuation and shelter-in-place planning process employed by most jurisdictions within the United States is not informed by a scientifically-derived framework that is inclusive of the behavioral and policy-related indicators of public compliance with evacuation orders. While a significant body of work exists to define these indicators, the research findings have not been well-integrated nor translated into useable planning factors for public safety officials. Additionally, refinement of the planning factors alone is insufficient to support science-based evacuation planning as the behavioral elements of evacuees—even with consideration of policy-related indicators—must be examined in the context of specific regional transportation and shelter networks. To address this problem, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Argonne National Laboratory developed an agent-based model to support regional analysis of zone-based evacuation in southeastern Georgia. In particular, this model allows public safety officials to analyze the consequences that a range of hazards may have upon a community, assess evacuation and shelter-in-place decisions in the context of specified evacuation and response plans, and predict outcomes based on community compliance with orders and the capacity of the regional (to include extra-jurisdictional) transportation and shelter networks. The intention is to use this model to aid evacuation planning and decision-making. Applications for the model include developing a science-driven risk communication strategy and, ultimately, in the case of evacuation, the shortest possible travel distance and clearance times for evacuees within the regional boundary conditions.

Keywords: agent-based modeling for evacuation, decision-support for evacuation planning, evacuation planning, human behavior in evacuation

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Authors: S. Abdolvahab Samavi, Kobra Hajializadeh, S. Abdolhadi Samavi

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Nursing is a critical work that that can effect on the health of the society. A parenting style is a psychological construct demonstrating standard policies that parents use in their child rearing. The quality of parenting is more critical than the quantity spend with the child. Also, marital Conflict resolution is conceptualized as the methods and processes involved in facilitating the peaceful ending of conflict between couples. Both of these variables were affected by job status in nurses. Aim of this study was to compare the Marital Conflict Resolution and Parenting Styles between Nurses with fixed and rotating shifts in public hospitals of Bandar Abbas, Iran. Statistical population includes all married Nurses in hospitals of Bandar Abbas (900 Persons). For sample size estimation, the Morgan table was used, 270 people were selected by random sampling method. Conflict solution styles and Baumrind parenting styles questionnaire were used for collecting data about study variables. For analysis of data, descriptive and inferential statistics were used. Results showed there was significant difference between both groups in conflict solution styles. According to study results, nurses with fixed shifts had an effective conflict solution styles. Also, there was significant difference between both groups in Parenting Styles. According to study results, nurses with fixed shifts had an effective parenting style. Totally, results of this study showed that job status of nurses affected on Marital Conflict Resolution and Parenting Styles of nurses. Managers of health system should be consider these issues about work of nurses and if possible, married nurses employed at fixed day (vs. rotating) shift.

Keywords: marital conflict resolution procedures, parenting styles, nurses with fixed and rotating shifts, public hospitals

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Authors: Manoj K. Sharma, Neha Grover

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Dynamical cluster decay model (DCM) is applied to study the decay mechanism of 118Xe* nucleus in reference to recent data on 28Si + 90Zr → 118Xe* reaction, as an extension of our previous work on the dynamics of 112Xe* nucleus. It is relevant to mention here that DCM is based on collective clusterization approach, where emission probability of different decay paths such as evaporation residue (ER), intermediate mass fragments (IMF) and fission etc. is worked out on parallel scale. Calculations have been done over a wide range of center of mass energies with Ec.m. = 65 - 92 MeV. The evaporation residue (ER) cross-sections of 118Xe* compound nucleus are fitted in reference to available data, using spherical and quadrupole (β2) deformed choice of decaying fragments within the optimum orientations approach. It may be noted that our calculated cross-sections find decent agreement with experimental data and hence provide an opportunity to analyze the exclusive role of deformations in view of fragmentation behavior of 118Xe* nucleus. The possible contribution of IMF fragments is worked out and an extensive effort is being made to analyze the role of excitation energy, angular momentum, diffuseness parameter and level density parameter to have better understanding of the decay patterns governed in the dynamics of 28Si + 90Zr → 118Xe* reaction.

Keywords: cross-sections, deformations, fragmentation, angular momentum

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Authors: Nadia Ezzat Al-Kirbasee, Ahlam Hussein Hassan, Shatha Raheem Helal Alhimidi, Doaa Ezzat Al-Kirbasee, Muhsen Abood Muhsen Al-Ibadi

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Through DFT/QTAIM calculations, we have provided new insights into the nature of the M-M, M-H, M-O, and M-C bonds of the (Cp*Ru)n(Cp*Os)3−n(μ3-O)2(μ-H)(Cp* = η5-C5Me5, n= 3,2,1,0). The topological analysis of the electron density reveals important details of the chemical bonding interactions in the clusters. Calculations confirm the absence of bond critical points (BCP) and the corresponding bond paths (BP) between Ru-Ru, Ru-Os, and Os-Os. The position of bridging hydrides and Oxo atoms coordinated to Ru-Ru, Ru-Os, and Os-Os determines the distribution of the electron densities and which strongly affects the formation of the bonds between these transition metal atoms. On the other hand, the results confirm that the four clusters contain a 6c–12e and 4c–2e bonding interaction delocalized over M3(μ-H)(μ-O)2 and M3(μ-H), respectively, as revealed by the non-negligible delocalization indexes calculations. The small values for electron density ρ(b) above zero, together with the small values, again above zero, for laplacian ∇2ρ(b) and the small negative values for total energy density H(b) are shown by the Ru-H, Os-H, Ru-O, and Os-O bonds in the four clusters are typical of open shell interactions. Also, the topological data for the bonds between Ru and Os atoms with the C atoms of the pentamethylcyclopentadienyl (Cp*) ring ligands are basically similar and show properties very consistent with open shell interactions in the QTAIM classification.

Keywords: metal-metal and metal-ligand interactions, organometallic complexes, topological analysis, DFT and QTAIM analyses

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Authors: Therese Scali

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Over the years, the European Union has continued to extend its action on lesbian, gay men, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights to a range of areas including access to justice, asylum, freedom of expression and assembly, parenting, and mutual recognition of civil status within the EU. The European Parliament has been a driving force behind such action adopting a range of resolutions calling for continued progress in this field. In particular, Belgium has been one of the first countries to legalize same-sex parenting and to create a general framework for action against negative attitudes towards gay and lesbian parents. The present paper aims at highlighting public healthcare workers’ attitudes towards different types of same-sex headed families in Belgium, and the content of their interventions in schools. Results revealed that attitudes can go from supportive to unsupportive, and participants do not show the same degree of support towards the different types of same-sex parenting. This contribution highlights work’s implication for public policy by understanding the resources and challenges that health-care professionals face in their work.

Keywords: attitudes, gay and lesbian parents, health-care workers, homophobia, prevention

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Authors: Shuyu Zhao

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This study uses the cat-themed "Night at the Museum" event of the Shanghai Museum as a case to examine how museum events are portrayed across various digital news platforms. Grounded in communication and cultural creativity theories and employing a three-tier framing approach, this research provides an in-depth analysis of media strategies in cross-platform museum image building. Through a quantitative content analysis, it is investigated that how digital media employ specific narrative strategies to shape the public perception of museum events. The findings reveal a prevalent use of leadership framing, highlighting the museum's unique role in cultural dissemination. By combining elements of museum culture with a pet-friendly theme, the "catty Night at the Museum" event serves as a distinctive example in exploring museum image construction within digital media. This study sheds light on how museum events, as unique cultural arenas, are positioned in the public mind, offering a fresh perspective for the promotion and image-building of museum activities.

Keywords: cultural communication, digital media, museum, framing theory

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Authors: Jason T. Hilton

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The ‘post-truth era’ is marked by a shift toward a period in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. Applying narrative analysis techniques to current public discourses in education that run counter to scientific findings, it becomes possible to identify weakness in modern pedagogy and suggest ways to counter false narratives in the classroom. Results of this study indicate that a failure to engage with popular narratives lessens teachers’ ability to be convincing in the classroom, even when presenting information supported by scientific evidence. This study seeks to empower teachers by illustrating the influence of story within the post-truth era and the ways in which narrative and rhetorical elements take hold in social media contexts. Equipped with this knowledge, teachers can create a shift in pedagogy, away from transmission of knowledge toward the crafting of powerful narratives, built upon evidence, and connected to the lives of modern learners.

Keywords: 21st century learner, critical pedagogy, culture, narrative, post-truth era, social media

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Authors: Alfredo Fortunato, Carmelofrancesco Origlia, Sara Laurita, Rossella Nicoletti

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In the post-pandemic recovery phase of tourism, the role of a Destination Management Organization (DMO) as a coordinated management system of all the elements that make up a destination (attractions, access, marketing, human resources, brand, pricing, etc.) is also becoming relevant for local territories. The objective of a DMO is to maximize the visitor's perception of value and quality while ensuring the competitiveness and sustainability of the destination, as well as the long-term preservation of its natural and cultural assets, and to catalyze benefits for the local economy and residents. In carrying out the multiple functions to which it is called, the DMO can leverage a collective intelligence that comes from the ability to pool information, explicit and tacit knowledge, and relationships of the various stakeholders: policymakers, public managers and officials, entrepreneurs in the tourism supply chain, researchers, data journalists, schools, associations and committees, citizens, etc. The DMO potentially has at its disposal large volumes of data and many of them at low cost, that need to be properly processed to produce value. Based on these assumptions, the paper presents a conceptual framework for building an information system to support the DMO in the intelligent management of a tourist destination tested in an area of southern Italy. The approach adopted is data-informed and consists of four phases: (1) formulation of the knowledge problem (analysis of policy documents and industry reports; focus groups and co-design with stakeholders; definition of information needs and key questions); (2) research and metadatation of relevant sources (reconnaissance of official sources, administrative archives and internal DMO sources); (3) gap analysis and identification of unconventional information sources (evaluation of traditional sources with respect to the level of consistency with information needs, the freshness of information and granularity of data; enrichment of the information base by identifying and studying web sources such as Wikipedia, Google Trends, Booking.com, Tripadvisor, websites of accommodation facilities and online newspapers); (4) definition of the set of indicators and construction of the information base (specific definition of indicators and procedures for data acquisition, transformation, and analysis). The framework derived consists of 6 thematic areas (accommodation supply, cultural heritage, flows, value, sustainability, and enabling factors), each of which is divided into three domains that gather a specific information need to be represented by a scheme of questions to be answered through the analysis of available indicators. The framework is characterized by a high degree of flexibility in the European context, given that it can be customized for each destination by adapting the part related to internal sources. Application to the case study led to the creation of a decision support system that allows: •integration of data from heterogeneous sources, including through the execution of automated web crawling procedures for data ingestion of social and web information; •reading and interpretation of data and metadata through guided navigation paths in the key of digital story-telling; •implementation of complex analysis capabilities through the use of data mining algorithms such as for the prediction of tourist flows.

Keywords: collective intelligence, data framework, destination management, smart tourism

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Authors: Khaled Abu Awwad, Abdussalam Shibani, Michel Ghostin

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In the last few years, building information modelling (BIM) has been acknowledged as a new technology capable of transforming the construction sector to a collaborated industry. The implementation of BIM in the United Kingdom (UK) construction sector has increased significantly in the last decade, particularly after the UK government mandated the use of BIM in all public projects by 2016. Despite this, there are many indicators that BIM implementation is the main concern for large companies, while small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are lagging behind in adopting and implementing this new technology. This slow adoption of BIM leads to an uncompetitive disadvantage in public projects and possible private projects. On the other hand, there is limited research focusing on the implementation of BIM Level 2 within SMEs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to bridge this gap and provide a conceptual framework to aid SMEs in implementing BIM Level 2. This framework is a result of interpreting qualitative data obtained by conducting semi-structured interviews with BIM experts in the UK construction industry.

Keywords: building information modelling, critical success factors, small and medium-sized enterprises, United Kingdom

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Authors: Ratri Werdiningtyas, Yongping Wei, Andrew Western

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This paper contributes to on-going attempts at bringing together land, water and environmental policy in catchment management. A tension remains in defining the boundaries of policy integration. Most of Integrated Water Resource Management is valued as rhetoric policy. It is far from being achieved on the ground because the socio-ecological system has not been understood and developed into complete and coherent problem representation. To clarify the feature of integration, this article draws on institutional fit for public policy integration and uses these insights in an empirical setting to identify the mechanism that can facilitate effective public integration for catchment management. This research is based on the journey of Victoria’s government from 1890-2016. A total of 274 Victorian Acts related to land, water, environment management published in those periods has been investigated. Four conditions of integration have been identified in their co-evolution: (1) the integration policy based on reserves, (2) the integration policy based on authority interest, (3) policy based on integrated information and, (4) policy based coordinated resource, authority and information. Results suggest that policy coordination among their policy instrument is superior rather than policy integration in the case of catchment management.

Keywords: catchment management, co-evolution, policy integration, phase

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Authors: Cyril Ekuaze

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This paper was instigated by a set of assumption drawn at the introduction to a research work on alternative institutional arrangements for sustaining rural infrastructure in developing countries. Of one of such assumption is the one held that, a problem facing developing countries is the sustaining of infrastructural investment long enough to allow the facility to at least repay the cost of the development as been due to insufficient maintenance. On the contrary, this work argues that, most international partnerships relation with developing nations in developing infrastructures is “vertical modeling” with the hierarchical authority and command flow from top to bottom. The work argued that where international donor partners/agencies set out infrastructural development agenda in the developing nations without cognizance of design suitability and capacity for maintenance by the recipient nations; and where public administrative capacity building in the field of science, technology and engineering requisite for design, development and sustenance of infrastructure in the recipient countries are negated, prospective output becomes problematic.

Keywords: vertical partnerships, responsive failure, infrastructural development, developing countries

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Authors: Adrián P. Gómez Mañas

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Autonomous vehicles have already transformed urban policies and cities. This is the main assumption of our research, which aims to understand how the representations of the possible arrival of autonomous vehicles already transform priorities or actions in transport and more largely, urban policies. This research is done within the framework of a Ph.D. doctorate directed by Professor Xavier Desjardins at the Sorbonne University of Paris. Our hypotheses are: (i) the perspectives, representations, and imaginaries on autonomous vehicles already affect the stakeholders of urban policies; (ii) the discourses on the opportunities or threats of autonomous vehicles reflect the current strategies of the stakeholders. Each stakeholder tries to integrate a discourse on autonomous vehicles that allows them to change as little as possible their current tactics and strategies. The objective is to eventually make a comparison between three different cases: Paris, United Arab Emirates, and Bogota. We chose those territories because their contexts are very different, but they all have important interests in mobility and innovation, and they all have started to reflect on the subject of self-driving mobility. The main methodology used is to interview actors of the metropolitan area (local officials, leading urban and transport planners, influent experts, and private companies). This work is supplemented with conferences, official documents, press articles, and websites. The objective is to understand: 1) What they know about autonomous vehicles and where does their knowledge come from; 2) What they expect from autonomous vehicles; 3) How their ideas about autonomous vehicles are transforming their action and strategy in managing daily mobility, investing in transport, designing public spaces and urban planning. We are going to present the research and some preliminary results; we will show that autonomous vehicles are often viewed by public authorities as a lever to reach something else. We will also present that speeches are very influenced by local context (political, geographical, economic, etc.), creating an interesting balance between global and local influences. We will analyze the differences and similarities between the three cases and will try to understand which are the causes.

Keywords: autonomous vehicles, self-driving mobility, urban planning, urban mobility, transport, public policies

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Authors: Bingying Liu, Dandong Ge, Xinlan Zhang, Haoyang Liang

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Over the past two years, a new generation of No-Pile Bike sharing, represented by the Ofo, Mobike and HelloBike, has sprung up in various cities in China, and spread rapidly in countries such as Britain, Japan, the United States and Singapore. As a new green public transportation mode, bike sharing can bring a series of benefits to urban space. At first, this paper analyzes the specific impact of bike sharing on urban space in China. Based on the market research and data analyzing, it is found that bike sharing can improve the quality of urban space in three aspects: expanding the radius of public transportation service, filling service blind spots, alleviating urban traffic congestion, and enhancing the vitality of urban space. On the other hand, due to the immature market and the imperfect system, bike sharing has gradually revealed some difficulties, such as parking chaos, malicious damage, safety problems, imbalance between supply and demand, and so on. Then the paper investigates the characteristics of shared bikes, business model, operating mechanism on Chinese market currently. Finally, in order to make bike sharing serve urban construction better, this paper puts forward some specific countermeasures from four aspects. In terms of market operations, it is necessary to establish a public-private partnership model and set up a unified bike-sharing integrated management platform. From technical methods level, the paper proposes to develop an intelligent parking system for regulating parking. From policy formulation level, establishing a bike-sharing assessment mechanism would strengthen supervision. As to urban planning, sharing data and redesigning slow roadway is beneficial for transportation and spatial planning.

Keywords: bike sharing, impact analysis, improvement strategy, urban space

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Authors: Jamie Lee Harder

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In the context of rapidly changing social and economic circumstances in the developing world, this paper analyses access to public healthcare for poor people with disabilities in Cambodia. Like other countries of South East Asia, Cambodia is developing at rapid pace. The historical past of Cambodia, however, has set former social policy structures to zero. This past forces Cambodia and its citizens to implement new public health policies to align with the needs of social care, healthcare, and urban planning. In this context, the role of people with disabilities (PwDs) is crucial as new developments should and can take into consideration their specific needs from the beginning onwards. This paper is based on qualitative research with expert interviews and focus group discussions in Cambodia. During the field work it became clear that the identification tool for the poorest households (HHs) does not count disability as a financial risk to fall into poverty neither when becoming sick nor because of higher health expenditures and/or lower income because of the disability. The social risk group of poor PwDs faces several barriers in accessing public healthcare. The urbanization, the socio-economic health status, and opportunities for education; all influence social status and have an impact on the health situation of these individuals. Cambodia has various difficulties with providing access to people with disabilities, mostly due to barriers regarding finances, geography, quality of care, poor knowledge about their rights and negative social and cultural beliefs. Shortened budgets and the lack of prioritizations lead to the need for reorientation of local communities, international and national non-governmental organizations and social policy. The poorest HHs are identified with a questionnaire, the IDPoor program, for which the Ministry of Planning is responsible. The identified HHs receive an ‘Equity Card’ which provides access free of charge to public healthcare centers and hospitals among other benefits. The dataset usually does not include information about the disability status. Four focus group discussions (FGD) with 28 participants showed various barriers in accessing public healthcare. These barriers go far beyond a missing ramp to access the healthcare center. The contents of the FGDs were ratified and repeated during the expert interviews with the local Ministries, NGOs, international organizations and private persons working in the field. The participants of the FGDs faced and continue to face high discrimination, low capacity to work and earn an own income, dependency on others and less social competence in their lives. When discussing their health situation, we identified, a huge difference between those who are identified and hold an Equity Card and those who do not. Participants reported high costs without IDPoor identification, positive experiences when going to the health center in terms of attitude and treatment, low satisfaction with specific capacities for treatments, negative rumors, and discrimination with the consequence of fear to seek treatment in many cases. The problem of accessing public healthcare by risk groups can be adapted to situations in other countries.

Keywords: access, disability, health, inequality, Cambodia

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Authors: Michael Miller, G. David Gearhart

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The role of the American college presidency continues to evolve, increasingly incorporating varied elements of responsibility of institutional management. Once primarily focused on the academic operation of an institution, the role has changed to incorporate all of the business-related and public agency operations of an institution. This means that the modern college president must be capable of persuasively talking to legislators and donors, as well as students taking classes and the faculty who teach them. In addition to these dimensions, the contemporary college president must also be an expert on state and federal compliance issues, and must have the talent to steer marketing and public relations activities in a persuasive manner. This paper will report the findings of a spring 2020 survey of nearly 300 college presidents in the United States concerning their perceptions about the changing nature of the college presidency, with special consideration given to media relations, fundraising, business development, internationalization, and facility management.Survey results will be analyzed based on institutional type, gender, length of tenure in the presidential position, and career pathway to the presidency.

Keywords: college president, leadership, education management, neo-liberal higher education

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Authors: Qin Wei

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There has been an increased number of immigrants arriving in Canada and a concurrent rise in the number of immigrant youth suffering from drug abuse. Immigrant youths’ drug abuse has become a significant social and public health concern for researchers. This literature review explores the nature of immigrant youths’ drug abuse by examining the factors influencing the onset of substance misuse, the barriers that discourage youth to seek out treatment, and how to resolve addictions amidst immigrant youth. Findings from the literature demonstrate that diminished parental supervision, acculturation challenges, peer conformity, discrimination, and ethnic marginalization are all significant factors influencing youth to use drugs as an outlet for their pain, while culturally competent care and fear of family and culture-based addiction stigma act as barriers discouraging youth from seeking out addiction support. To resolve addiction challenges amidst immigrant youth, future research should focus on promoting and implementing culturally sensitive practices and psychoeducational initiatives into immigrant communities and within public health policies.

Keywords: approaches, barriers, drug abuse, Canada, immigrant youth, reasons

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Authors: Saira Soroya, Khalid Mahmood

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Library catalogs open the door to the library collection. OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) are one of the services offered by automated libraries. The present study aims to explore user’s awareness, the level of use and their searching behavior of OPAC with a purpose to give suggestions and ways to improve user-friendly features of library OPAC. The population consisted of OPAC users of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Convenient sampling technique was carried out. Total sample size was 100 OPAC users. Quantitative research design, based on survey method used to carry out the study. The data collection instrument was adopted. Data was analyzed using SPSS. Results revealed that a considerable number of users were not aware of OPAC i.e. (30%); however, those who were aware were using basic features of the OPAC. It was found that lack of knowledge was considered the frequent reason for not using all features of OPAC. In this regard, it is strongly recommended that compulsory information literacy programme should be established.

Keywords: catalog, OPAC, library automation, usability study, university library

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Authors: Dilsad Aladag

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From the closure of Tempelhofer Airport and the field in 2008 till 2014, the field's opening to public use was a subject of an urban movement that comprised demonstrations, protests, squats, workshops, panels, petition campaigns, and a referendum in 2014. As a result, Tempelhofer Feld is an open urban space for the use of Berliners today and protected by 'ThF law'. This analysis questioned how these urban movements' story is narrated and interpreted by two actor groups involved: citizen initiatives and city officials. Representation and communication take a vital part in transmitting and narrating meanings in heritage discourse and practice. Therefore, this research focused on particular websites as channels of representation and communication that these stakeholder groups maintained. The narrative analysis aims to examine meanings and stories portrayed with texts and images on the stakeholder's websites. This paper shares the essential findings of research and draws new questions regarding the urban heritage as both a source and a result of conflicts and stakeholders' role as producers of narrations of urban heritage.

Keywords: conflict, heritage, urban movement, representation

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Authors: Francesca Nardi, Kashish Aneja, Katherine Ginsbach

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The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated both a need for evidence-based and rights-based public health policy and how challenging it can be to make effective decisions with limited information, evidence, and data. The O’Neill Institute, in conjunction with several partners, has been working since the beginning of the pandemic to collect, analyze, and distribute critical data on public health policies enacted in response to COVID-19 around the world in the COVID-19 Law Lab. Well-designed laws and policies can help build strong health systems, implement necessary measures to combat viral transmission, enforce actions that promote public health and safety for everyone, and on the individual level have a direct impact on health outcomes. Poorly designed laws and policies, on the other hand, can fail to achieve the intended results and/or obstruct the realization of fundamental human rights, further disease spread, or cause unintended collateral harms. When done properly, laws can provide the foundation that brings clarity to complexity, embrace nuance, and identifies gaps of uncertainty. However, laws can also shape the societal factors that make disease possible. Law is inseparable from the rest of society, and COVID-19 has exposed just how much laws and policies intersects all facets of society. In the COVID-19 context, evidence-based and well-informed law and policy decisions—made at the right time and in the right place—can and have meant the difference between life or death for many. Having a solid evidentiary base of legal information can promote the understanding of what works well and where, and it can drive resources and action to where they are needed most. We know that legal mechanisms can enable nations to reduce inequities and prepare for emerging threats, like novel pathogens that result in deadly disease outbreaks or antibiotic resistance. The collection and analysis of data on these legal mechanisms is a critical step towards ensuring that legal interventions and legal landscapes are effectively incorporated into more traditional kinds of health science data analyses. The COVID-19 Law Labs see a unique opportunity to collect and analyze this kind of non-traditional data to inform policy using laws and policies from across the globe and across diseases. This global view is critical to assessing the efficacy of policies in a wide range of cultural, economic, and demographic circumstances. The COVID-19 Law Lab is not just a collection of legal texts relating to COVID-19; it is a dataset of concise and actionable legal information that can be used by health researchers, social scientists, academics, human rights advocates, law and policymakers, government decision-makers, and others for cross-disciplinary quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify best practices from this outbreak, and previous ones, to be better prepared for potential future public health events.

Keywords: public health law, surveillance, policy, legal, data

Procedia PDF Downloads 141