Search results for: historical developments

Authors: Eman Ayman, Gehan Nagy

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The learning environment has four main parameters that affect its efficiency which they are: pedagogy, user, technology, and space. According to Morrone, enhancing these parameters to be adaptable for future developments is essential. The educational organization will be in need of developing its learning spaces. Flexibility of design an immersive technology could be used as tools for this development. when flexible design concepts are used, learning spaces that can accommodate a variety of teaching and learning activities are created. To accommodate the various needs and interests of students, these learning spaces are easily reconfigurable and customizable. The immersive learning opportunities offered by technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive displays, on the other hand, transcend beyond the confines of the traditional classroom. These technological advancements could improve learning. This thesis highlights the problem of the lack of innovative, flexible learning spaces in educational institutions. It aims to develop guidelines for enhancing the learning environment by the integration of flexible design and immersive technology. This research uses a mixed method approach, both qualitative and quantitative: the qualitative section is related to the literature review theories and case studies analysis. On the other hand, the quantitative section will be identified by the results of the applied studies of the effectiveness of redesigning a learning space from its traditional current state to a flexible technological contemporary space that will be adaptable to many changes and educational needs. Research findings determine the importance of flexibility in learning spaces' internal design as it enhances the space optimization and capability to accommodate the changes and record the significant contribution of immersive technology that assists the process of designing. It will be summarized by the questionnaire results and comparative analysis, which will be the last step of finalizing the guidelines.

Keywords: flexibility, learning space, immersive technology, learning environment, interior design

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Authors: Lungile Maliba, O. I. Nkwonta, E Onyari

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Water resources development and management are regarded as crucial for poverty reduction in many developing countries and sustainable economic growth such as South Africa. The contribution of large hydraulic infrastructure and management of it, particularly reservoirs, to development remains controversial. This controversy stems from the fact that from a historical point of view construction of reservoirs has brought fewer benefits than envisaged and has resulted in significant environmental and social costs. A further complexity in reservoir management is the variety of stakeholders involved, all with different objectives, including domestic and industrial water use, flood control, irrigation and hydropower generation. The objective was to evaluate technical adaptation options for kleinfontein Dam’s current operating rule curves. To achieve this objective, the current operating rules curves being used in the sub-basin were analysed. An objective methodology was implemented in other to get the operating rules with regards to the target storage curves. These were derived using the Water Resources Yield/Planning Model (WRY/PM), with the aim of maximising of releases to demand zones. The result showed that the system is over allocated and in addition the demands exceed the long-term yield that is available for the system. It was concluded that the current operating rules in the system do not produce the optimum operation such as target storage curves to avoid supply failures in the system.

Keywords: infrastructure, Kleinfontein dam, operating rule curve, water resources yield and planning model

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Authors: Bahadır Erişti

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Values are the behavioral procedures of society based communication and interaction process that includes social and cultural backgrounds. The policy of learning and teaching in higher education is oriented towards constructing knowledge and skills, based on theorist framework of cognitive and psychomotor aspects. This approach makes people not to develop generosity, empathy, affection, solidarity, justice, equality and so on. But the sensorial gains of education system provide the integrity of society interaction. This situation carries out the necessity of values education’s in higher education. The current study aims to consider values education from the viewpoint of students in higher education. Within the framework of the current study, an open ended survey based scenario of higher education students was conducted with the students’ social, cognitive, affective and moral developments. In line with this purpose, the following situations of the higher education system were addressed based on the higher education students’ viewpoint: The views of higher education students’ regarding values that are tried to be gained at the higher education system; The higher education students’ suggestions regarding values education at the higher education system; The views of the higher education students’ regarding values that are imposed at the higher education system. In this study, descriptive qualitative research method was used. The study group of the research is composed of 20 higher education postgraduate students at Curriculum and Instruction Department of Educational Sciences at Anadolu University. An open-ended survey was applied for the purpose of collecting qualitative data. As a result of the study, value preferences, value judgments and value systems of the higher education students were constructed on prioritizes based on social, cultural and economic backgrounds and statues. Multi-dimensional process of value education in higher education need to be constructed on higher education-community-cultural background cooperation. Thus, the act of judgement upon values between higher education students based on the survey seems to be inherent in the system of education itself. The present study highlights the students’ value priorities and importance of values in higher education. If the purpose of the higher education system gains on values, it is possible to enable society to promote humanity.

Keywords: higher education, value, values education, values in higher education

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Authors: Abigail Qian Zhou

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Since China has entered an era of mass tourism, there has been a fundamental change in the way Chinese people approach and perceive the image of other countries. With the advent of the new media era, social networking sites such as Sina Weibo have become a tool for many foreign governmental organizations to spread and promote their national image. Among them, the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO) was one of the first foreign official tourism agencies to register with Sina Weibo and actively implement communication activities. Due to historical and political reasons, cognition of Japan's national image by the Chinese has always been complicated and contradictory. However, since 2015, China has become the largest source of tourists visiting Japan. This clearly indicates that the broadening of Japan's national image in China has been effective and has value worthy of reference in promoting a positive Chinese perception of Japan and encouraging Japanese tourism. Within this context and using the method of content analysis in media studies through content mining software, this study analyzed how JNTO’s Sina Weibo accounts have constructed and spread Japan's national image. This study also summarized the characteristics of its content and form, and finally revealed the strategy of JNTO in building its international image. The findings of this study not only add a tourism-based perspective to traditional national image communications research, but also provide some reference for the effective international dissemination of national image in the future.

Keywords: national image, international communication, tourism, Japan, China

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Authors: Kubra Sultan Yuzuncuyil, Aytekin İsman, Berkay Bulus

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With the developments of information and communication technologies, the forms of molding public opinion have changed. In the presence of Internet, the notion of activism has been endowed with digital codes. Activists have engaged the use of Internet into their campaigns and the process of creating collective identity. Activist movements have been incorporating the relevance of new communication technologies for their goals and opposition. Creating and managing activism through Internet is called Online Activism. In this main, Slow Food Movement which was emerged within the philosophy of defending regional, fair and sustainable food has been engaging Internet into their activist campaign. This movement supports the idea that a new food system which allows strong connections between plate and planet is possible. In order to make their voices heard, it has utilized social networks and develop particular skills in the framework online activism. This study analyzes online activist skills of Slow Food Movement (SFM) develop and attempts to measure its effectiveness. To achieve this aim, it adopts the model proposed by Sivitandies and Shah and conduct both qualitiative and quantiative content analysis on social network use of Slow Food Movement. In this regard, the sample is chosen as the official profile and analyzed between in a three month period respectively March-May 2017. It was found that SFM develops particular techniques that appeal to the model of Sivitandies and Shah. The prominent skill in this regard was found as hyperlink abbreviation and use of multimedia elements. On the other hand, there are inadequacies in hashtag and interactivity use. The importance of this study is that it highlights and discusses how online activism can be engaged into a social movement. It also reveals current online activism skills of SFM and their effectiveness. Furthermore, it makes suggestions to enhance the related abilities and strengthen its voice on social networks.

Keywords: slow food movement, Twitter, internet, online activism

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Authors: Ayla Hoeta, Holly Winton

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Maramataka is an ancestral lunar environmental knowledge system based on environmental tohu (signs, observations or indicators), that continues to impart maatauranga (knowledge) to tangata whenua, people of the land after thousands of years. Maramataka is the mauri (energy) flow between whenua (land), moana (water) and rangi (sky), experienced through tirotiro (observing), connecting and attuning to the natural environment. Tohu serve as guidance to practises of kaiawhina (protection) a key value driving Aotearoa New Zealand led research in Antarctica. Recent developments recognise the importance of including and integrating indigenous knowledge and perspectives such as maatauranga Maaori which can provide insights into the conservation of Antarctica. We use an ancient kaupapa Maaori framework of weaving, wayfinding and attunement to navigate complexities using Hautu Waka. We investigate and weave together learnings from Antarctic and western science and indigenous Maaori maatauranga and tohu of moana, whenua and rangi to provide an indigenous perspective of Antarctica taiao and Maramataka. Drawing on past and present knowledge of environmental calendars contained in maatauranga Maaori and paleoclimate knowledge bases, field observations, interviews and whakataukii (proverbs), we aim to provide a conceptual Maramataka of the southwestern Ross Sea region and area of Antarctica. A key area of interest are the tohu related to the marama which are connected to all three interweaving spheres of moana, rangi, whenua. Maatauranga Maramataka in Aotearoa has been developed over millennia and we acknowledge the mana and sacredness of this tupuna knowledge and that this conceptual Maramataka serves as the starting point of a journey to shine light on indigenous perspectives using Maaori methods and frameworks in a dominant western science paradigm.

Keywords: Maramataka, Antarctica, Aotearoa, Maaori, tohu, moon, lunar calendar

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Authors: Kamil Jonski

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Last year vividly demonstrated, that populism and political instability can endanger democratic institutions in countries regarded as democratic transition champions (Poland) or cornerstones of liberal order (UK, US). So called ‘illiberal democracy’ is winning hearts and minds of voters, keen to believe that rule of strongman is a viable alternative to perceived decay of western values and institutions. These developments pose a serious threat to the democratic institutions (including rule of law), proven critical for both personal freedom and economic development. Although scholars proposed some structural explanations of the illiberal wave (notably focusing on inequality, stagnant incomes and drawbacks of globalization), they seem to have little predictive value. Indeed, events like Trump’s victory, Brexit or Polish shift towards populist nationalism always came as a surprise. Intriguingly, in the case of US election, simple rules like ‘Bread and Peace model’ gauged prospects of Trump’s victory better than pundits and pollsters. This paper attempts to compile set of indicators, in order to gauge various democracies’ vulnerability to populism, instability and pursuance of ‘illiberal’ projects. Among them, it identifies the gap between consensus assessment of institutional performance (as measured by WGI indicators) and citizens’ subjective assessment (survey based confidence in institutions). Plotting these variables against each other, reveals three clusters of countries – ‘predictable’ (good institutions and high confidence, poor institutions and low confidence), ‘blind’ (poor institutions, high confidence e.g. Uzbekistan or Azerbaijan) and ‘disillusioned’ (good institutions, low confidence e.g. Spain, Chile, Poland and US). It seems that this clustering – carried out separately for various institutions (like legislature, executive and courts) and blended with economic indicators like inequality and living standards (using PCA) – offers reasonably good watchlist of countries, that should ‘expect the unexpected’.

Keywords: illiberal democracy, populism, political instability, political risk measurement

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Authors: Veronika Efremova

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In recent decades, there have been significant developments in the European Union in the field of collective consumer redress. South East European countries (SEE) covered by this paper, in line with their EU accession priorities and duties under Stabilisation and Association Agreements, have to harmonize their national laws with the relevant EU acquis for consumer protection (Chapter 28: Health and Consumer). In these countries, only minimal compliance is achieved. SEE countries have introduced rudimentary collective redress mechanisms, with modest enforcement of collective redress and case law. This paper is based on comprehensive interdisciplinary research conducted for SEE countries on common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms, emphasizing cross-national comparisons, underlining issues of commonality and difference aiming to develop recommendations for an adequate enforcement of collective redress. SEE countries are recognized by the sectoral approach for regulating collective redress contrary to the majority of EU Member States with having adopted horizontal approach to collective redress. In most SEE countries, the laws do not recognize compensatory but only injunctive collective redress in consumer protection. All responsible stakeholders for implementation of collective redress in SEE countries, lack information and awareness on collective redress mechanisms and the way they function in practice. Therefore, specific actions are needed in these countries to make the whole system of collective redress for consumer protection operational and efficient. Taking into consideration the various designated stakeholders in collective redress in each SEE countries, there is a need of their mutual coordination and cooperation in order to develop consumer protection system and policies. By putting into practice the national collective redress mechanisms, effective access to justice for all consumers, the principle of rule of law will be secured and appropriate procedural guarantees to avoid abusive litigation will be ensured.

Keywords: collective redress mechanism, consumer protection, commonality and difference, South East Europe

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Authors: Sotiroula Liasidou, Katerina Pericleous, Zanete Garanti,

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Traveling for religious and pilgrimage purposes consists of an early-stage motivation for the historical development of tourism. Sacred places have become important attractions for local and foreign visitors, and many countries invest in the development of religious and pilgrimage tourism. Cyprus has a rich tradition as an important place for the establishment and diffusion of the Christian Orthodox Religion (Greek). Being considered the ‘island of Saints’, Cyprus sets strong foundations to be recognised as a spiritual destination of devotion for visitors interested in discovering the roots and the spiritual essence of the Christian Orthodox Religion. The paper elucidates on bringing together the fact of whether tourism in sacred places affects spirituality and religiosity. Thus, the aim is to consider the perceptions of the main religious stakeholders, including monastery abbots, in relation to the development of religious tourism. The aim of the study is fulfilled by incorporating questionnaires targeting the responses of the involved religious key players and stakeholders. The results of the study are indicative and provide an understanding in terms of religious tourism as an important product by interpreting the stance of religious stakeholders. In general, religious leaders support tourism in religious sites and argue that spirituality and holiness can be maintained as long there is a policy that is followed both by religious and tourism policymakers. Undoubtedly, establishing Cyprus as a religious tourism destination would bring many economic and social benefits.

Keywords: religious tourism, pilgrimage, Cyprus, Christian Orthodox Religion, sacred places, monasteries

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Authors: Hye-Kyung Kang

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Social justice is a central principle of the social work profession and education. However, scholars have long questioned the profession’s commitment to putting social justice values into practice. Clinical social work has been particularly criticized for its lack of attention to social justice and for failing to address the concerns of the oppressed. One prominent criticism of clinical social work is that it often relies on individual intervention and fails to take on system-level changes or advocacy. This concern evokes the historical macro-micro tension of the social work profession where micro (e.g., mental health counseling) and macro (e.g., policy advocacy) practices are conceptualized as separate domains, creating a false binary for social workers. One contributor to this false binary seems to be that most clinical practice models do not prepare social work students and practitioners to make a clear link between clinical practice and social justice. This paper presents a model of clinical social work practice that clearly recognizes the essential and necessary connection between social justice, advocacy, and clinical practice throughout the clinical process: engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation. Contemporary relational theories, critical social work frameworks, and anti-oppressive practice approaches are integrated to build a clinical social work practice model that addresses the urgent need for mental health practice that not only helps and heals the person but also challenges societal oppressions and aims to change them. The application of the model is presented through case vignettes.

Keywords: social justice, clinical social work, clinical social work model, integrative model

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Authors: Evan Hajani, Ataur Rahman, Khaled Haddad

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Climate change will affect the hydrological cycle in many different ways such as increase in evaporation and rainfalls. There have been growing interests among researchers to identify the nature of trends in historical rainfall data in many different parts of the world. This paper examines the trends in annual maximum rainfall data from 30 stations in New South Wales, Australia by using two non-parametric tests, Mann-Kendall (MK) and Spearman’s Rho (SR). Rainfall data were analyzed for fifteen different durations ranging from 6 min to 3 days. It is found that the sub-hourly durations (6, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 48 minutes) show statistically significant positive (upward) trends whereas longer duration (sub-daily and daily) events generally show a statistically significant negative (downward) trend. It is also found that the MK test and SR test provide notably different results for some rainfall event durations considered in this study. Since shorter duration sub-hourly rainfall events show positive trends at many stations, the design rainfall data based on stationary frequency analysis for these durations need to be adjusted to account for the impact of climate change. These shorter durations are more relevant to many urban development projects based on smaller catchments having a much shorter response time.

Keywords: climate change, Mann-Kendall test, Spearman’s Rho test, trends, design rainfall

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Authors: Aïssa Rezzoug

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This paper is aimed to bring new elements that demonstrate the tide caused the groundwater to rise in the shoreline band, on which the urban areas occurs, especially in the western coastal cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia like Jeddah. The reason for the last events of Jeddah inundation was the groundwater rise in the city coupled at the same time to a strong precipitation event. This paper will illustrate the tide participation in increasing the groundwater level significantly. It shows that the reason for internal groundwater recharge within the urban area is not only the excess of the water supply coming from surrounding areas, due to the human activity, with lack of sufficient and efficient sewage system, but also due to tide effect. The research study follows a quantitative method to assess groundwater level rise risks through many in-situ measurements and mathematical modelling. The proposed approach highlights groundwater level, in the urban areas of the city on the shoreline band, reaching the high tide level without considering any input from precipitation. Despite the small tide in the Red Sea compared to other oceanic coasts, the groundwater level is considerably enhanced by the tide from the seaside and by the freshwater table from the landside of the city. In these conditions, the groundwater level becomes high in the city and prevents the soil to evacuate quickly enough the surface flow caused by the storm event, as it was observed in the last historical flood catastrophe of Jeddah in 2009.

Keywords: flood, groundwater rise, Jeddah, tide

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Authors: Lubna Eljabu, Mohammad Etemad, Stan Matwin

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Port authorities have many challenges in congested ports to allocate their resources to provide a safe and secure loading/ unloading procedure for cargo vessels. Selecting a destination port is the decision of a vessel master based on many factors such as weather, wavelength and changes of priorities. Having access to a tool which leverages AIS messages to monitor vessel’s movements and accurately predict their next destination port promotes an effective resource allocation process for port authorities. In this research, we propose a method, namely, Reference Route of Trajectory (RRoT) to assist port authorities in predicting inflow and outflow traffic in their local environment by monitoring Automatic Identification System (AIS) messages. Our RRoT method creates a reference route based on historical AIS messages. It utilizes some of the best trajectory similarity measure to identify the destination of a vessel using their recent movement. We evaluated five different similarity measures such as Discrete Fr´echet Distance (DFD), Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), Partial Curve Mapping (PCM), Area between two curves (Area) and Curve length (CL). Our experiments show that our method identifies the destination port with an accuracy of 98.97% and an fmeasure of 99.08% using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) similarity measure.

Keywords: spatial temporal data mining, trajectory mining, trajectory similarity, resource optimization

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Authors: Abdullah Kaya, Muammer Koc

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A levelized cost analysis of solar energy powered seawater desalination in The Emirate of Abu Dhabi is conducted to show that clean and renewable desalination is economically viable. The Emirate heavily relies on seawater desalination for its freshwater needs due to limited freshwater resources available. This trend is expected to increase further due to growing population and economic activity, rapid decline in limited freshwater reserves, and aggravating effects of climate change. Seawater desalination in Abu Dhabi is currently done through thermal desalination technologies such as multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) which are coupled with thermal power plants known as co-generation. Our analysis indicates that these thermal desalination methods are inefficient regarding energy consumption and harmful to the environment due to CO₂ emissions and other dangerous byproducts. Therefore, utilization of clean and renewable desalination options has become a must for The Emirate for the transition to a sustainable future. The rapid decline in the cost of solar PV system for energy production and RO technology for desalination makes the combination of these two an ideal option for a future of sustainable desalination in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. A Levelized cost analysis for water produced by solar PV + RO system indicates that Abu Dhabi is well positioned to utilize this technological combination for cheap and clean desalination for the coming years. It has been shown that cap-ex cost of solar PV powered RO system has potential to go as low as to 101 million US $ (1111 $/m³) at best case considering the recent technological developments. The levelized cost of water (LCW) values fluctuate between 0.34 $/m³ for the baseline case and 0.27 $/m³ for the best case. Even the highly conservative case yields LCW cheaper than 100% from all thermal desalination methods currently employed in the Emirate. Exponential cost decreases in both solar PV and RO sectors along with increasing economic scale globally signal the fact that a cheap and clean desalination can be achieved by the combination of these technologies.

Keywords: solar PV, RO desalination, sustainable desalination, levelized cost of analysis, Emirate of Abu Dhabi

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Authors: S. Lemoussu, J. C. Chaudemar, R. A. Vingerhoeds

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The aeronautics sector is currently living an unprecedented growth largely due to innovative projects. In several cases, such innovative developments are being carried out by Small and Medium sized-Enterprises (SMEs). For instance, in Europe, a handful of SMEs are leading projects like airships, large civil drones, or flying cars. These SMEs have all limited resources, must make strategic decisions, take considerable financial risks and in the same time must take into account the constraints of safety, cost, time and performance as any commercial organization in this industry. Moreover, today, no international regulations fully exist for the development and certification of this kind of projects. The absence of such a precise and sufficiently detailed regulatory framework requires a very close contact with regulatory instances. But, SMEs do not always have sufficient resources and internal knowledge to handle this complexity and to discuss these issues. This poses additional challenges for those SMEs that have system integration responsibilities and that must provide all the necessary means of compliance to demonstrate their ability to design, produce, and operate airships with the expected level of safety and reliability. The final objective of our research is thus to provide a methodological framework supporting SMEs in their development taking into account recent innovation and institutional rules of the sector. We aim to provide a contribution to the problematic by developing a specific Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach. Airspace regulation, aeronautics standards and international norms on systems engineering are taken on board to be formalized in a set of models. This paper presents the on-going research project combining Systems Engineering and Project Management process modeling and taking into account the metamodeling problematic.

Keywords: aeronautics, certification, process modeling, project management, SME, systems engineering

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Authors: Arash Gharibi

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Mankind has always used models to solve problems. Essentially, models are simplified versions of reality, whose need stems from having to deal with complexity; many processes or phenomena are too complex to be described completely. Thus a fundamental model requirement is that it contains the characteristic features that are essential in the context of the problem to be solved or described. Models are used in virtually every scientific domain to deal with various problems. During the recent decades, the number of models has increased exponentially. Publication of models as part of original research has traditionally been in in scientific periodicals, series, monographs, agency reports, national journals and laboratory reports. This makes it difficult for interested groups and communities to stay informed about the state-of-the-art. During the modeling process, many important decisions are made which impact the final form of the model. Without a record of these considerations, the final model remains ill-defined and open to varying interpretations. Unfortunately, the details of these considerations are often lost or in case there is any existing information about a model, it is likely to be written intuitively in different layouts and in different degrees of detail. In order to overcome these issues, different domains have attempted to implement their own approaches to preserve their models’ information in forms of model documentation. The most frequently cited model documentation approaches show that they are domain specific, not to applicable to the existing models and evolutionary flexibility and intrinsic corrections and improvements are not possible with the current approaches. These issues are all because of a lack of unified standards for model documentation. As a way forward, this research will propose a new standard for capturing and managing models’ information in a unified way so that interoperability and reusability of models become possible. This standard will also be evolutionary, meaning members of modeling realm could contribute to its ongoing developments and improvements. In this paper, the current 3 of the most common metamodels are reviewed and according to pros and cons of each, a new metamodel is proposed.

Keywords: metamodel, modeling, interoperability, reuse

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Authors: Raheleh Saifiabolhassan

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After the post-industrial era, when a wide variety of foods and drinks are readily available everywhere, the motive has shifted from meeting basic nutritional needs to enjoy the eating experience. Today, behavioral environmental studies are an essential branch of science when it comes to understanding, analyzing, and evaluating how humans react to the environment. Similarly, these studies explore customer-influencing factors and the effectiveness of restaurant designs. To facilitate a pleasant dining experience, the authors focused on acoustics, flexibility, and lighting. In this study, 2700 square feet of surface area was used to plan a restaurant (called Mesineh) based on behavioral science, considering many factors related to the interaction between the building and the users, such as flexibility and privacy, acoustics, and light. Environment psychology considerations in architectural design have been lacking for several decades. To fill this gap, the author evaluated environmental psychology standards and applied them to Mesineh's design. A sense of nostalgia will be felt by customers of the Mesineh restaurant thanks to its interior design, which combines historical elements with contemporary elements. Additionally, vernacular Persian architectural elements were incorporated into a modern context to fulfill the behavioral science component of interior design.

Keywords: Mesineh restaurant, interior design, behavioral sciences, environment psychology, traditional persian architecture

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Authors: Eyad H. R. Fadda, Jawaher K. Al Rashdieah, Aysha H. Al Rashdieh

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Urban Sprawl is a phenomenon that many regions in the Sultanate of Oman suffer from in general and in Welayat Barka in particular. It is considered a human phenomenon that causes many negative effects as it has increased in the last time clearly, and this study aims to diagnose the current status of urban growth taking place in Walayat Barka. The objective of this study is to monitor and follow up on the most prominent changes and developments taking place in Barka in the period from 2002 to 2019 and provide suggestions to the decision-makers to reduce the negative effects of the phenomenon. The study methodology depends on the descriptive and analytical approach to describe the phenomenon and its analysis and knowledge of the factors that helped in urban expansion in the Barka, using a number of studies and interviews with the specialists, both in governmental and private institutions, as well as with individuals who own land, real estate, and others. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (ERDAS software) have been used to analyze the satellite images that helped in obtaining results that reflect the changes Barka, in addition to knowing the natural and human determinants that stand on Urban Sprawl Expansion. The study concluded that the geographical location of Barka has a significant role in its urban expansion, as it is the closest state to the capital Muscat, as this expansion continues toward the southern and south-western directions, as this expansion has significant negative effects represented in the low number of agricultural lands due to the continuous change in land use. In addition, it was found that there are two types of natural determinants of urban expansion in Barka, which are consumed land from the Sea of Oman and from the western sands.

Keywords: GIS applications, remote sensing, urbanization, urban sprawl expansion trends

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Authors: Hanan M. Alghamdi, Kholud E. Alsalami, Manal I. Alshaikhi, Nouf M. Alsalami, Sara A. Awad, Ruqaya A. Alrabei

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Tourism in Saudi Arabia is one of the emerging sectors with rapid growth. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is characterized by its wonderful and historical areas, which constitute important cultural and tourist landmarks. These landmarks attract the attention of the government of Saudi Arabia; hence the improvement of the tourism sector becomes one of the important axes of Saudi Arabia's vision 2030. There is a need to enhance the tourist experience by facilitating the tourism process for visitors to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This project aims to design an application to serve domestic tourists and visitors from outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This application will contain an automated tourist generate plan service by sentiment analysis of comments in Google Map using Lexicon for method Rule-based approach. There are thirteen regions in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The regions supported in this application will be Makkah and Asir regions. According to the output of the sentiment analysis, the application will recommend restaurants and cafes, activities (parks, museums) and shopping (shopping centers) in the generated plan. After that, the system will show the user a drop-down list of “Mega-events in Saudi Arabia” containing a link to the site of events in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. and “important information for you” public decency regulations.

Keywords: tourist automated plan, sentiment analysis, comments in google map, tourism in Saudi Arabia

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Authors: Nahla H. Alaswadko, Rayya A. Hassan, Bayar N. Mohammed

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Empirical deterministic models have been developed to predict roughness progression of heavy duty spray sealed pavements for a dataset representing rural arterial roads. The dataset provides a good representation of the relevant network and covers a wide range of operating and environmental conditions. A sample with a large size of historical time series data for many pavement sections has been collected and prepared for use in multilevel regression analysis. The modelling parameters include road roughness as performance parameter and traffic loading, time, initial pavement strength, reactivity level of subgrade soil, climate condition, and condition of drainage system as predictor parameters. The purpose of this paper is to report the approaches adopted for models development and validation. The study presents multilevel models that can account for the correlation among time series data of the same section and to capture the effect of unobserved variables. Study results show that the models fit the data very well. The contribution and significance of relevant influencing factors in predicting roughness progression are presented and explained. The paper concludes that the analysis approach used for developing the models confirmed their accuracy and reliability by well-fitting to the validation data.

Keywords: roughness progression, empirical model, pavement performance, heavy duty pavement

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Authors: Ana Luiza Casasanta Garcia, Maria Del Carmen Cortizo

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From the classic contractualist and early declarations of modern rights, discussions on policies for the protection and promotion of human rights were highlighted in an attempt to ensure the realization of human dignity and its values, which are (re) negotiated according to the needs evidenced in each historical and contextual moment. Aiming at guaranteeing human rights to Brazilian citizens, created in 2009 and updated in 2010, the Third National Human Rights Program (PNDH III) in force highlights guidelines and recommendations to guarantee human rights, among them, to guarantee the rights of women in Brazil. Based on this document, this article aims to locate historically and culturally the understanding of human rights related to the rights of women in Brazilian territory, from the analysis of the guiding axes of women's rights of the PNDH III. In methodological terms, the qualitative approach and documentary research were used to analyze the data according to the critical discourse analysis. As a result, it has been found that the process of building and maintaining the guarantee of women's human rights needs a reformulation that also shows a social revolution. This is justified by the fact that even with the provision in the PNDH III that, in order to guarantee the rights of women, it is necessary, for example, to adapt the Penal Code to the decriminalization of abortion and the professionalization of prostitution, these points are still very controversial and are not put into practice by the State. Finally, the importance of the critique of politics and the current system of production of understandings in favor of this social transformation is emphasized.

Keywords: human rights of women, social transformation, national human rights program III, public politics

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Authors: Berhanu Keno Terfa

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To realize the consequences of urbanization, accurate, and up-to-date representation of the urban landscape patterns is critical for urban planners and policymakers. Thus, the study quantitatively characterized the spatiotemporal composition and configuration of the urban landscape and urban expansion process in Dire Dawa City, Ethiopia, form the year 2006 to 2018. The integrated approaches of various sensors satellite data, Spot (2006) and Sentinel 2 (2018) combined with landscape metrics analysis was employed to explore the pattern, process, and overall growth status in the city. The result showed that the built-up area had increased by 62% between 2006 and 2018, at an average annual increment of 3.6%, while the other land covers were lost significantly due to urban expansion. The highest urban expansion has occurred in the northwest direction, whereas the most fragmented landscape pattern was recorded in the west direction. Overall, the analysis showed that Dire Dawa City experienced accelerated urban expansion with a fragmented and complicated spatiotemporal urban landscape patterns, suggesting a strong tendency towards sprawl over the past 12 years. The findings in the study could help planners and policy developers to insight the historical dynamics of the urban region for sustainable development.

Keywords: zonal metrics, multi-temporal, multi-resolution, urban growth, remote sensing data

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Authors: Ibrahim Suliman Hanaish

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Disaggregation daily rainfall using stochastic models formulated based on multivariate approach (MuDRain) is discussed in this paper. Seven rain gauge stations are considered in this study for different distances from the referred station starting from 4 km to 160 km in Peninsular Malaysia. The hourly rainfall data used are covered the period from 1973 to 2008 and July and November months are considered as an example of dry and wet periods. The cross-correlation among the rain gauges is considered for the available hourly rainfall information at the neighboring stations or not. This paper discussed the applicability of the MuDRain model for disaggregation daily rainfall to hourly rainfall for both sources of cross-correlation. The goodness of fit of the model was based on the reproduction of fitting statistics like the means, variances, coefficients of skewness, lag zero cross-correlation of coefficients and the lag one auto correlation of coefficients. It is found the correlation coefficients based on extracted correlations that was based on daily are slightly higher than correlations based on available hourly rainfall especially for neighboring stations not more than 28 km. The results showed also the MuDRain model did not reproduce statistics very well. In addition, a bad reproduction of the actual hyetographs comparing to the synthetic hourly rainfall data. Mean while, it is showed a good fit between the distribution function of the historical and synthetic hourly rainfall. These discrepancies are unavoidable because of the lowest cross correlation of hourly rainfall. The overall performance indicated that the MuDRain model would not be appropriate choice for disaggregation daily rainfall.

Keywords: rainfall disaggregation, multivariate disaggregation rainfall model, correlation, stochastic model

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Authors: F. Z. Benabid, F. Zouai, A. Douibi, D. Benachour

Abstract:

These Fluorinated polymers and polyacrylics have known a wide use in the field of historical monuments. PVDF provides a great easiness to processing, a good UV resistance and good chemical inertia. Although the quality of physical characteristics of the PMMA and its low price with a respect to PVDF, its deterioration against UV radiations limits its use as protector agent for the stones. On the other hand, PVDF/PMMA blend is a compromise of a great development in the field of architectural restoration, since it is the best method in term of quality and price to make new polymeric materials having enhanced properties. Films of different compositions based on the two polymers within an adequate solvent (DMF) were obtained to perform an exposition to artificial ageing and to the salted fog, a spectroscopic analysis (FTIR and UV) and optical analysis (refractive index). Based on its great interest in the field of building, a variety of standard tests has been elaborated for the first time at the central laboratory of ENAP (Souk-Ahras) in order to evaluate our blend performance. The obtained results have allowed observing the behavior of the different compositions of the blend under various tests. The addition of PVDF to PMMA enhances the properties of this last to know the exhibition to the natural and artificial ageing and to the saline fog. On the other hand, PMMA enhances the optical properties of the blend. Finally, 70/30 composition of the blend is in concordance with results of previous works and it is the adequate proportion for an eventual application.

Keywords: blend, PVDF, PMMA, preservation, historic monuments

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Authors: Ursula D'Almeida, Danielly Aliprandi

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A car-based development is observed in our cities, what leads to social and environmental impacts, such as air pollution, excessive noises and the substitution of public open spaces for roads and parking lots. Concerning the efforts to promote a sustainable development, a key issue is the reduction of fossil fuels consumption. An alternative to the pollutant gases emission, especially from urban transportation, is the incentive for active transport. The promoting of non-motorized travels and locomotion ways that only depend on human propulsion meets the sustainable mobility notion. Walking is one of the healthiest, cleanest, most natural and economical means to move around. Also, it integrates part of public transportation travels. Since walking demands physical effort, it is sensitive to environmental conditions. In urban space, not always we come across pedestrian friendly road structures. Based on the theory of walkability, the present paper aims to discuss the walking conditions in city centers by analyzing the distribution of urban services and uses, and this also regarding sidewalks quality. The case study presented is the urban center in the medium-sized Brazilian city Campos dos Goytacazes, in Rio de Janeiro State. The study also brings contributions to the recovering of underused public open spaces, especially by encouraging their use and appropriation through valuing non-motorized travels conditions.

Keywords: active transport, historical center, sustainable mobility, walking

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Authors: M. Fathy, I. Maarouf, S. El-Sayary

Abstract:

Our buildings are responsible for around 50% of energy consumption and most of this consumption because of spaces design, low heat isolation building material and occupant presence and behavior in buildings beside non-efficient architectural treatments. It has been shown to have large impact on heating, cooling and ventilation demand, energy consumption of lighting and appliances, and building controls. This paper aims to focus on passive treatments in Wakala Buildings in Cairo and how far it meets the LEED Criteria as the LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – considered the widest spread rating system in the world. By studying Wakala buildings in Cairo, there are a lot of environmental potentials in it in the field of passive treatments and energy efficiency that could be found in examples by surveying and analyzing Wakala buildings. Besides the environmental treatments through the natural materials and façade architectural treatments, there is a measuring phase to declare the efficiency of the Wakala building through temperature decline between outdoor and indoor the Wakala building. Also, measuring how far the indoor conditions matched the thermal comfort for occupants. After measuring the Wakala buildings, it is the role of applying the criteria of LEED rating system to find out how fare Wakala buildings meet the LEED rating system criteria. After all, the building technologies used in Wakala buildings in the field of passive design and caused that energy efficiency would be clear and what is needed for Wakala buildings to have a LEED Certification.

Keywords: energy awareness, historical commercial buildings, LEED, Wakala buildings

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Authors: Anna Lytvynova

Abstract:

This essay presents labour as a performatively national phenomenon from a cultural perspective. Considering Engels’ proposition of labour as the epicentre of development of social structures and communities, it theorizes the formation and sustainment of group identities through labour identities. Taking labour in the cultural sector as the starting point case study, the essay further enunciates such labour and labour identity as a form of engaged citizenship. In doing so, this piece hopes to arrive at a potential contemporary understanding of labour as having a central and dynamic role in cultural organization and citizenship. A parallel goal is to de-link sociological models of cultural labor from narratives of art and culture as something that stands separate from the 'real world' and the economy and exists in precarity. Combining discourse from cultural sociology, performance studies, and economics and grounding it in historical archive, the essay makes a primarily discursive theoretical contribution. Taking North American theatre organizations as the exemplifying starting point, this project positions cultural workers not solely as workers in a professional industry but as active citizen-subjects who are deeply involved in their society’s democratic processes. The resulting discourse can be used to shape more effective labour policies, as well as help art and cultural organizations find more effective organizational structures to engage the arts in the economic, political, and social spheres.

Keywords: arts labour, cultural sociology, national identity, performativity

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Authors: Farid Eltom A. E., Mustafa Abdul-Halim, Abdalla Markaz, Sami Atta, Mohamed Azhari, Ahmed Rashed

Abstract:

Smart environment sensors integrated with ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) technology can provide a new concept in tracking, sensing, and monitoring objects in the environment. The aim of the study is to evaluate the farm environmental monitoring system based on (IoT) and to realize the automated management of agriculture and the implementation of precision production. Until now, irrigation monitoring operations in Sudan have been carried out using traditional methods, which is a very costly and unreliable mechanism. However, by utilizing soil moisture sensors, irrigation can be conducted only when needed without fear of plant water stress. The result showed that software application allows farmers to display current and historical data on soil moisture and nutrients in the form of line charts. Design measurements of the soil factors: moisture, electrical, humidity, conductivity, temperature, pH, phosphorus, and potassium; these factors, together with a timestamp, are sent to the data server using the Lora WAN interface. It is considered scientifically agreed upon in the modern era that artificial intelligence works to arrange the necessary procedures to take care of the terrain, predict the quality and quantity of production through deep analysis of the various operations in agricultural fields, and also support monitoring of weather conditions.

Keywords: smart environment, monitoring systems, IoT, LoRa Gateway, center pivot

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Authors: Magy Atef Awad Attia

Abstract:

The objective of this study was to study the effect of social stories on social interaction of students with autism. The sample was at level 5 student with autism, Another University Demonstration School student, who was diagnosed by the Physician as High Functioning Autism since he was able to read, write, calculate and was studying in inclusive classroom. However, he still had disability in social interaction to participate in social activity group and communication. He could not learn how to develop friendship or create relationship. He had inappropriate behavior in social context. He did not understand complex social situations. In addition, he did seemed to not know time and place. He was not able to understand feeling of oneself as well as the others. Consequently, he could not express his emotion appropriately. He did not understand or express his non-verbal language for communicating with friends. He lacked of common interest or emotion with nearby persons. He greeted inappropriately or was not interested in greeting. In addition, he did not have eye contact. He used inadequate language etc. He was elected by Purposive Sampling. His parents were willing to allow them to participate in this study. The research instruments were the lesson plan of social stories, and the picture book of social stories. The instruments used for data collection, were the social interaction evaluation of autistic students. This research was Experimental Research as One Group Pre-test, Post-test Design. For the Pre-test, the experiment was conducted by social stories. Then, the Post-test was implemented. The statistic used for data analysis. The research results were shown by scale. The results revealed that the autistic students taught by social stories indicated better social reaction after being taught by social stories.

Keywords: autism, autistic behavior, stability, harsh environments, techniques, thermal, properties, materials, applications, brittleness, fragility, disadvantages, bank, branches, profitability, setting prediction, effective target, measurement, evaluation, performance, commercial, business, sustainability, financial, system.

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Authors: Alexandra Amling, Emina Sadic

Abstract:

The migration routes linking the Horn of Africa to Europe shift in response to political and humanitarian developments across the region. Abrupt changes to those routes can have profound effects on the relative ease of movement and the well-being of migrants. Somali migrants have traditionally been able to rely on a sophisticated, well-established, and reliable network of smugglers to facilitate their journey through the Sahel to Libya, but changes to the routes have undermined those networks. Recently, these shifts have made the journey from Somalia to Europe much more perilous. As the Libyan coast guard intensifies its efforts to stymie boats leaving its coast for Italian shores, arrivals in Spain are trending upwards. This paper thus, will examine how the instability in transit countries that are most commonly used by Somali migrants has had an impact on the reliability of their massive network of smuggling, and how resurgence in the Western route toward Spain provides a potentially new opportunity to reach Europe—a route that has rarely been used by the Somali migrant population in the past. First, the paper will discuss what scholars have called the pastoralist, nomadic tradition of Somalis which reportedly has allowed them to endure the long journeys from Somalia to their chosen destinations. Facilitated by relatives or clan affiliation, Somali migrants have historically been able to rely on a smuggling network that – at least tangentially – provided more security nets during their travels. Given the violence and chaos that unfolded both in Libya and Yemen in 2011 and 2015, respectively, the paper will, secondly, examine which actors in smuggling hubs increase the vulnerabilities of Somalis, pushing them to consider other routes. As a result, this paper will consider to what extent Somalis could follow the stream of other migrants to Algeria and Morocco to enter Europe via Spain. By examining one particular group of migrants and the nature and limitations of the networks associated with their movements, the paper will demonstrate the resilience and adaptability of both the migrants and the networks regardless of the ever-changing nature of migration routes and actors.

Keywords: Europe, migration, smuggling networks, Somalia

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