Search results for: growth and development

Authors: Natalia Moreira, Trevor Wood-Harper

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The acceptance of sustainable products by the final consumer is still one of the challenges of the industry, which constantly seeks alternative approaches to successfully be accepted in the global market. A large set of methods and approaches have been discussed and analysed throughout the literature. Considering the current need for sustainable development and the current pace of consumption, the need for a combined solution towards the development of new products became clear, forcing researchers in product development to propose alternatives to the previous standard product development models. This paper presents, through a systemic analysis of the literature on product development, eco-design and consumer involvement, a set of alternatives regarding consumer involvement towards the development of sustainable products and how these approaches could help improve the sustainable industry’s establishment in the general market. The initial findings of the research show that the understanding of the benefits of sustainable behaviour lead to a more conscious acquisition and eventually to the implementation of sustainable change in the consumer. Thus this paper is the initial approach towards the development of new sustainable products using the fashion industry as an example of practical implementation and acceptance by the consumers. By comparing the existing literature and critically analysing it this paper concluded that the consumer involvement is strategic to improve the general understanding of sustainability and its features. The use of consumers and communities has been studied since the early 90s in order to exemplify uses and to guarantee a fast comprehension. The analysis done also includes the importance of this approach for the increase of innovation and ground breaking developments, thus requiring further research and practical implementation in order to better understand the implications and limitations of this methodology.

Keywords: consumer involvement, products development, sustainability, eco-design

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Authors: M. Djekoun, H. Berrebah, M. R. Djebar

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Fusarium wilt is destructive disease of cereal crops with small grains. It affects yields but also the quality of the crop and economic losses arising are often very heavy. Chemical control is currently one of the most effective ways to fight against these diseases. In this study, the efficacy of three fungicides (tebuconazole, thiram, and fludioxonil-difenoconazole mixture) was tested. In vitro, on the phytopathogenic Fusarium spp. isolated from seeds of wheat. The active ingredients were tested at different concentrations: 0.06, 1.39, 2.79, 5.58, and 11.16 mg/l for tebuconazole, 0.035, 0.052, 0.105, 0.21, and 0.42 mg/l for thiram and finally, for the mixture fludioxonil-difenoconazole 4 concentrations were tested: 0.05, 0.1, 0.5 and 1 mg/l. Toxicity responses were expressed as effective concentration, which inhibits mycelial growth by 50%, (EC50). Of the three selected fungicides, thirame proved to be the most effective with EC50 value of the order of 0,15 mg/l followed by the mixture of fludioxonil-difenoconazole with 0,27mg/l and finally tebuconazole with a value of 3.79 mg/l.

Keywords: Fusarium spp., thiram, tebuconazole, fludioxonil, difenoconazole, percentage of inhibition, EC50

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Authors: José M. Brotons, Manuel E. Sansalvador

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The relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and financial performance (FP) is a subject of great interest that has not yet been resolved. In this work, we have developed a new and original tool to measure this relation. The tool quantifies the value contributed to companies that are committed to CSR. The theoretical model used is the fuzzy discounted cash flow method. Two assumptions have been considered, the first, the company has implemented the IQNet SR10 certification, and the second, the company has not implemented that certification. For the first one, the growth rate used for the time horizon is the rate maintained by the company after obtaining the IQNet SR10 certificate. For the second one, both, the growth rates company prior to the implementation of the certification, and the evolution of the sector will be taken into account. By using triangular fuzzy numbers, it is possible to deal adequately with each company’s forecasts as well as the information corresponding to the sector. Once the annual growth rate of the sales is obtained, the profit and loss accounts are generated from the annual estimate sales. For the remaining elements of this account, their regression with the nets sales has been considered. The difference between these two valuations, made in a fuzzy environment, allows obtaining the value of the IQNet SR10 certification. Although this study presents an innovative methodology to quantify the relation between CSR and FP, the authors are aware that only one company has been analyzed. This is precisely the main limitation of this study which in turn opens up an interesting line for future research: to broaden the sample of companies.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, case study, financial performance, company valuation

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Authors: Rhea Kapoor

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Fractal dimension provides a way to characterize non-geometric shapes like those found in nature. The purpose of this research is to estimate Minkowski fractal dimension of human lung images for early detection of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among all types of cancer and an early histopathological analysis will help reduce deaths primarily due to late diagnosis. A Python application program, PathoPy2.0, was developed for analyzing medical images in pixelated format and estimating Minkowski fractal dimension using a new box-counting algorithm that allows windowing of images for more accurate calculation in the suspected areas of cancerous growth. Benchmark geometric fractals were used to validate the accuracy of the program and changes in fractal dimension of lung images to indicate the presence of issues in the lung. The accuracy of the program for the benchmark examples was between 93-99% of known values of the fractal dimensions. Fractal dimension values were then calculated for lung images, from National Cancer Institute, taken over time to correctly detect the presence of cancerous growth. For example, as the fractal dimension for a given lung increased from 1.19 to 1.27 due to cancerous growth, it represents a significant change in fractal dimension which lies between 1 and 2 for 2-D images. Based on the results obtained on many lung test cases, it was concluded that fractal dimension of human lungs can be used to diagnose lung cancer early. The ideas behind PathoPy2.0 can also be applied to study patterns in the electrical activity of the human brain and DNA matching.

Keywords: fractals, histopathological analysis, image processing, lung cancer, Minkowski dimension

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Authors: Chinedu Ifedi Okeke

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The behavioural orientations of fathers, which resonate in the way they relate to members of their families and other community members, appear to have a variety of implications for the early development of children. In this paper, a conceptual map of fathers’ lifestyles is adopted to provide an interconnected network of father lifestyles. Empirical evidence from a qualitative case study of 25 Black fathers, who had been purposively selected from a suburb in one rural Eastern Cape municipality in South Africa, is reported in this paper. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to obtain data, which was analysed thematically. Findings identify and provide evidence of father lifestyles that are incongruent with the kind of parental behaviour needed to support the healthy early development of children. Findings suggest that these negative lifestyles appear to incapacitate fathers who fail to make a positive contribution to their children’s early development. To ensure that fathers make the expected contributions to their children’s early development, policies aimed at rehabilitating fathers who are involved in the negative lifestyles reported in this paper should be put in place.

Keywords: childhood development, fathering, fathers, intervention strategies, lifestyles, South Africa

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Authors: Chux Gervase Iwu, Simon Nsengimane

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Entrepreneurship stimulates socio-economic development in many countries, if not all. It creates jobs and decreases unemployment and inequality. There are other benefits that are accruable from entrepreneurship, namely the empowerment of women and the promotion of better livelihoods. Innovation has become a weapon for business competition, growth, and sustainability. Paradoxically, it is a threat to businesses because products can be duplicated; new products may decrease the market share of existing ones or delete them from the market. This creates a constant competitive environment that calls for updates, innovation, and the invention of new products and services. Thus, the importance of higher education in instilling a good entrepreneurial mindset in students has become even more critical. It can be argued that the business environment is under enormous pressure from several factors, including the fourth industrial revolution, which calls for the adoption and use of information and communication technology, which is the catalyst for many innovations and organisational changes. Therefore, it is crucial that higher education students are equipped with relevant knowledge and skills to respond effectively to the needs of the business environment and create a vibrant entrepreneurship ecosystem. In South Africa, entrepreneurship education or some form of it has been a privilege for economic and management fields of study, leaving behind other fields. Entrepreneurship should not be limited to business faculties but rather extended to other fields of study. This is perhaps the reason for low levels of entrepreneurship uptake among South African graduates if they are compared with the graduates in other countries. There may be other reasons for the low entrepreneurship uptake. Some of these have been documented in extant literature to include (1) not enough time was spent teaching entrepreneurship in the business faculties, (2) the skills components in the curricula are insufficient, and (3) the overall attitudes/mindsets necessary to establish and run sustainable enterprises seem absent. Therefore, four important areas are recognised as crucial for the effective implementation of entrepreneurship education: policy, private sector engagement, curriculum development, and teacher development. The purpose of this research is to better comprehend the views, aspirations, and expectations of students and faculty members to design an entrepreneurial teaching model for higher education institutions. A qualitative method will be used to conduct a purposive interview with undergraduate and graduate students in select higher institutions. Members of faculty will also be included in the sample as well as, where possible, two or more government personnel responsible for higher education policy development. At present, interpretative analysis is proposed for the analysis of the interviews with the support of Atlas Ti. It is hoped that an entrepreneurship education model in the South African context is realised through this study.

Keywords: entrepreneurship education, higher education institution, graduate unemployment, curriculum development

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Authors: Aboagye Boye Gilbert

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Teaching and learning (Education), not only in Ghana but the whole world is regarded as the (Stepping stone) vehicle to accelerate the country’s economy, development and social growth. Basically the ingredients for human development and the country in general is Vocational and Technical education and this has been stressed in Ghana’s education system since Pre-independence. To this effect, this research seeks to determine using demonstration method of Teachings sewing to improve the skills of form 3 Fashion Designing students of Baworo Integrated Community Centre for Employable Skills. In this research, reviewed literature on opinions of other researchers and what other people have done and said on related articles or topics, analyzed the research design used, translate the data gathered in the study. The study was design to gather information from the school on how they use Teaching methods to teach sewing. The targeted respondent contacted to give assistance Consist of students from BICCES, fashion teachers and tailored garment makers. The sample size consisted of 5 teachers, 20 students and 5 tailors were selected to answer questionnaire items that were used to gather the data for the study. The study revealed that most teachers and students agreed to the fact that demonstration, teaching and learning materials had a positive attitude towards the students in learning sewing. The study recommends that there should be more mechanisms in place to serve as a guide.

Keywords: VOTEC, BECE, BICCES, SHS

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Authors: Yogesh Rai, Saurabh Singh, Sanjay Pandey, Dhananjay K. Sah, B. G. Roy, B. S. Dwarakanath, Anant N. Bhatt

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One of the most common signatures of highly malignant gliomas is their capacity to metabolize more glucose to lactic acid than normal brain tissues, even under normoxic conditions (Warburg effect), indicating that aerobic glycolysis is constitutively upregulated through stable genetic or epigenetic changes. However, oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos) is also required to maintain the mitochondrial membrane potential for tumor cell survival. In the process of tumorigenesis, tumor cells during fastest growth rate exhibit both high glycolytic and high OxPhos. Therefore, metabolically reprogrammed cancer cells with combination of both aerobic glycolysis and altered OxPhos develop a robust metabolic phenotype, which confers a selective growth advantage. In our study, we grew the high glycolytic BMG-1 (glioma) cells with continuous exposure of mitochondrial uncoupler 2, 4, dinitro phenol (DNP) for 10 passages to obtain a phenotype of high glycolysis with enhanced altered OxPhos. We found that OxPhos modified BMG (OPMBMG) cells has similar growth rate and cell cycle distribution but high mitochondrial mass and functional enzymatic activity than parental cells. In in-vitro studies, OPMBMG cells showed enhanced invasion, proliferation and migration properties. Moreover, it also showed enhanced angiogenesis in matrigel plug assay. Xenografted tumors from OPMBMG cells showed reduced latent period, faster growth rate and nearly five folds reduction in the tumor take in nude mice compared to BMG-1 cells, suggesting that robust metabolic phenotype facilitates tumor formation and growth. OPMBMG cells which were found radio-resistant, showed enhanced radio-sensitization by 2-DG as compared to the parental BMG-1 cells. This study suggests that metabolic reprogramming in cancer cells enhances the potential of migration, invasion and proliferation. It also strengthens the cancer cells to escape the death processes, conferring resistance to therapeutic modalities. Our data also suggest that combining metabolic inhibitors like 2-DG with conventional therapeutic modalities can sensitize such metabolically aggressive cancer cells more than the therapies alone.

Keywords: 2-DG, BMG, DNP, OPM-BMG

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Authors: Jing Ren, Kun Wu

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Over the last decade or so, China's urbanization has shown a rapid development trend. At the same time, it has also had a great negative impact on the habitat quality. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the impact of land use change on the level of habitat quality in mountain cities for sustainable urban development. This paper analyzed the spatial and temporal land use changes in Chongqing from 2010 to 2020 using ArcGIS 10.6, as well as the evolutionary trend of habitat quality during this period based on the InVEST 3.13.0, to obtain the impact of land use changes on habitat quality. The results showed that the habitat quality in the western part of Chongqing decreased significantly between 2010 and 2020, while the northeastern and southeastern parts remained stable. The main reason for this is the continuous expansion of urban construction land in the western area, which leads to serious habitat fragmentation and the continuous decline of habitat quality. while, in the northeast and southeast areas, due to the greater emphasis on ecological priority and urban-rural coordination in the development process, land use change is characterized by a benign transfer, which maintains the urbanization process while maintaining the coordinated development of habitat quality. This study can provide theoretical support for the sustainable development of mountain cities.

Keywords: mountain cities, ecological environment, habitat quality, sustainable development

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Authors: Purnendu Bose, Jyoti Kainthola

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Due to recent advances in illumination technology, artificially illuminated algal-bacterial photo bioreactors are now a potentially feasible option for simultaneous and comprehensive organic carbon and nutrients removal from secondary treated domestic sewage. The experiments described herein were designed to determine the extent of nutrient uptake in photo bioreactors through algal assimilation. Accordingly, quasi steady state data on algal photo bioreactor performance was obtained under 20 different conditions. Results indicated that irrespective of influent N and P levels, algal biomass recycling resulted in superior performance of algal photo bioreactors in terms of both N and P removals. Further, both N and P removals were positively related to the growth of algal biomass in the reactor. Conditions in the reactor favouring greater algal growth also resulted in greater N and P removals. N and P removals were adversely impacted in reactors with low algal concentrations due to the inability of the algae to grow fast enough under the conditions provided. Increasing algal concentrations in reactors over a certain threshold value through higher algal biomass recycling was also not fruitful, since algal growth slowed under such conditions due to reduced light availability due to algal ‘self-shading’. It was concluded that N removals greater than 80% at high influent N concentrations is not possible with the present reactor configuration. Greater than 80% N removals may however be possible in similar reactors if higher light intensity is provided. High P removal is possible only if the influent N: P ratio in the reactor is aligned closely with the algal stoichiometric requirements for P.

Keywords: nutrients, algae, photo, bioreactor

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Authors: Sundaram Chandrasekaran, Seung Hyun Hur

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Exploring strategies for oxygen vacancy engineering under mild conditions and understanding the relationship between dislocations and photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell performance are challenging issues for designing high performance PEC devices. Therefore, it is very important to understand that how the oxygen vacancies (VO) or other defect states affect the performance of the photocatalyst in photoelectric transfer. So far, it has been found that defects in nano or micro crystals can have two possible significances on the PEC performance. Firstly, an electron-hole pair produced at the interface of photoelectrode and electrolyte can recombine at the defect centers under illumination of light, thereby reducing the PEC performances. On the other hand, the defects could lead to a higher light absorption in the longer wavelength region and may act as energy centers for the water splitting reaction that can improve the PEC performances. Even if the dislocation growth of ZnO has been verified by the full density functional theory (DFT) calculations and local density approximation calculations (LDA), it requires further studies to correlate the structures of ZnO and PEC performances. Exploring the hybrid structures composed of graphene oxide (GO) and ZnO nanostructures offer not only the vision of how the complex structure form from a simple starting materials but also the tools to improve PEC performances by understanding the underlying mechanisms of mutual interactions. As there are few studies for the ZnO growth with other materials and the growth mechanism in those cases has not been clearly explored yet, it is very important to understand the fundamental growth process of nanomaterials with the specific materials, so that rational and controllable syntheses of efficient ZnO-based hybrid materials can be designed to prepare nanostructures that can exhibit significant PEC performances. Herein, we fabricated various ZnO nanostructures such as hollow sphere, bucky bowl, nanorod and triangle, investigated their pH dependent growth mechanism, and correlated the PEC performances with them. Especially, the origin of well-controlled dislocation-driven growth and its transformation mechanism of ZnO nanorods to triangles on the GO surface were discussed in detail. Surprisingly, the addition of GO during the synthesis process not only tunes the morphology of ZnO nanocrystals and also creates more oxygen vacancies (oxygen defects) in the lattice of ZnO, which obviously suggest that the oxygen vacancies be created by the redox reaction between GO and ZnO in which the surface oxygen is extracted from the surface of ZnO by the functional groups of GO. On the basis of our experimental and theoretical analysis, the detailed mechanism for the formation of specific structural shapes and oxygen vacancies via dislocation, and its impact in PEC performances are explored. In water splitting performance, the maximum photocurrent density of GO-ZnO triangles was 1.517mA/cm-2 (under UV light ~ 360 nm) vs. RHE with high incident photon to current conversion Efficiency (IPCE) of 10.41%, which is the highest among all samples fabricated in this study and also one of the highest IPCE reported so far obtained from GO-ZnO triangular shaped photocatalyst.

Keywords: dislocation driven growth, zinc oxide, graphene oxide, water splitting

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Authors: Guenther Schuh, Michael Riesener, Frederic Diels

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Nowadays, manufacturing companies are faced with the challenge of meeting heterogeneous customer requirements in short product life cycles with a variety of product functions. So far, some of the functional requirements remain unknown until late stages of the product development. A way to handle these uncertainties is the highly iterative product development (HIP) approach. By structuring the development project as a highly iterative process, this method provides customer oriented and marketable products. There are first approaches for combined, hybrid models comprising deterministic-normative methods like the Stage-Gate process and empirical-adaptive development methods like SCRUM on a project management level. However, almost unconsidered is the question, which development scopes can preferably be realized with either empirical-adaptive or deterministic-normative approaches. In this context, a development scope constitutes a self-contained section of the overall development objective. Therefore, this paper focuses on a methodology that deals with the uncertainty of requirements within the early development stages and the corresponding selection of the most appropriate development approach. For this purpose, internal influencing factors like a company’s technology ability, the prototype manufacturability and the potential solution space as well as external factors like the market accuracy, relevance and volatility will be analyzed and combined into an Agile-Indicator. The Agile-Indicator is derived in three steps. First of all, it is necessary to rate each internal and external factor in terms of the importance for the overall development task. Secondly, each requirement has to be evaluated for every single internal and external factor appropriate to their suitability for empirical-adaptive development. Finally, the total sums of internal and external side are composed in the Agile-Indicator. Thus, the Agile-Indicator constitutes a company-specific and application-related criterion, on which the allocation of empirical-adaptive and deterministic-normative development scopes can be made. In a last step, this indicator will be used for a specific clustering of development scopes by application of the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm. The FCM-method determines sub-clusters within functional clusters based on the empirical-adaptive environmental impact of the Agile-Indicator. By means of the methodology presented in this paper, it is possible to classify requirements, which are uncertainly carried out by the market, into empirical-adaptive or deterministic-normative development scopes.

Keywords: agile, highly iterative development, agile-indicator, product development

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Authors: S. Zouainia, R. Djebar, H. Berrebah, A. Sayeb

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This work focused on the study of physiological and biochemical changes observed in tadpoles exposed to fungicide Rana saharica Artea 330ec recently introduced in Algeria. For this, we tested the effect of xenobiotics on growth and development of tadpoles; among the studied parameters: total protein, glutathione and respiratory activity. The study of physiological parameters showed that the tadpoles change perfectly in the absence of toxic and in favorable conditions (pH, temperature). Our results showed an increased rate of protein and GSH in the presence of the fungicide Artea 330ec. The latter causes uninhibited very highly significant respiratory activity of tadpoles treated. The presence of xenobiotics in the breeding tadpoles water causes disturbances in behavior and food metabolism.

Keywords: amphibians, fungicides, pesticides, pollution

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Authors: Aziez Ouahiba, Remini Boualem, Habi Mohamed

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The growth and the development of a pay are strongly related to the existence or the absence of water in this area, the sedentary lifestyle of the population makes that water demand is increasing and the different brandishing (dams, tablecloths or other) are increasingly solicited. In normal time rain and snow of the winter period reloads the slicks and the wadis that fill dams. Over these two decades, Global warming fact that temperature is increasingly high and rainfall is increasingly low, which induces a charge less and less important tablecloths, add to that the strong demand in irrigation. Our study will focus on the variation of rainfall and irrigation, Their effects on the degree of pollution of the groundwater in this area based on statistical analyses by the Xlstat (ACP, correlation...) software for a better explanation of these results and determine the hydrochemistry of different groups or polluted areas pou be able to offer adequate solutions for each area.

Keywords: water in the basement, legislation, over exploitation, pollution, water prices

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Authors: André Rafael Ferreira, Laurentina Vareiro, Raquel Mendes

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This study’s main objective is to explore residents’ perceptions of film-induced tourism and the impacts of filmmaking on the development of a destination. Specifically, the research examines resident´s perceptions of the social, economic, and environmental impacts on a Portuguese municipality (Arcos de Valdevez) given its feature in a popular Portuguese television series. Data is collected by means of an Internet survey, in which resident´s perceptions of the impacts of filmmaking are solicited. Residents generally agree that the recording and exhibition of the television series is important to the municipality, and contributes to the increased number of tourists. Given that residents consider that the positive impacts are more significant than the negative impacts, they supported the recording of another television series in the same municipality. Considering that destination managers and tourism development authorities aim to plan for optimal tourism development, and at the same time wish to minimize the negative impacts of this development on the local communities, monitoring residents’ opinions of perceived impacts is a good way of incorporating their reaction into tourism planning and development. The results of this research may provide useful information in this sense.

Keywords: film-induced tourism, residents’ perceptions, tourism development, tourism impacts

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Authors: M. Adamczak-Retecka, O. Hołub-Śniadach

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Dangerous of climate change is now global problem and as such has a strategic priority also for the European Union. Europe and European citizens try to do their best to cut greenhouse gas emissions, moreover they substantially encourage other nations and regions to follow the same way. The European Commission and a number of Member States have developed adaptation strategies in order to help strengthen EU's resilience to the inevitable impacts of climate change. The EU has long been a driving force in international negotiations on climate change and was instrumental in the development of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As the world's leading donor of development aid, the EU also provides substantial funding to help developing countries tackle climate change problem. Global warming influences human health, biodiversity, ecosystems but also many social and economic sectors. The aim of this paper is to focus on impact of claimant change on for food security. Food security challenges are directly related to globalization, climate change. It means that current and future food policy is exposed to all cross-cutting and that must be linked with environmental and climate targets, which supposed to be achieved. In the 7th EAP —The new general Union Environment Action Program to 2020, called “Living well, within the limits of our planet” EU has agreed to step up its efforts to protect natural capital, stimulate resource efficient, low carbon growth and innovation, and safeguard people’s health and wellbeing– while respecting the Earth’s natural limits.

Keywords: climate change, food security, sustainable food consumption, climate governance

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Authors: Yu Zhao, Min Zhang, Yuanqian Wang, Qiuyu Yu

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The prediction of aesthetics of apparel is helpful for the development of a new type of apparel. This study is to build the quantitative relationship between the aesthetics and its design parameters. In particular, women’s pants have been preliminarily studied. This aforementioned relationship has been carried out by statistical analysis. The contributions of this study include the development of a more personalized apparel design mechanism and the provision of some empirical knowledge for the development of other products in the aspect of aesthetics.

Keywords: aesthetics, crease line, cropped straight leg pants, knee width

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Authors: Zia Ullah, Muhammad Asim, Shi Sujuan, Rayyan Khan, Aaqib Shaheen, LIU Haobao

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The plant-specific auxin efflux proteins PIN-FORMED (PIN) have been well depicted in many plant species for their essential roles in regulating the transport of auxins in several phases of plant growth. Little is known about the various functions of the PIN family genes in the Nicotiana tabacum (N. tabacum) species during plant growth. To define the expression pattern of the NtPIN1a gene under abiotic stresses and hormone treatment, transgenic tobacco with promoterNtPIN1a::GUS construct was employed. Comprehensive computational analyses of the NtPIN1a promoter confirmed the existence of common core promoter elements including CAAT-box, TATA-box, hormone, and abiotic stress-responsive elements such as ABRE, P-box, MYC, MYB, ARE, and GC-motifs. The transgenic plants with the promoter of NtPIN1a displayed a promising expression of β-glucuronidase (GUS) in germinating seeds, root tips, shoot-apex, and developing leaves under optimal conditions. While the differential expression of GUS in moderate salt, drought, low potassium stresses, and externally high auxin level at two different time points, suggested NtPIN1a played a key role in growth processes and the plants’ response to abiotic stresses. This analysis provides a foundation for more in-depth discoveries of the biological functions of NtPIN1a in Nicotiana species and this promoter may be employed in genetic engineering of other crops for enhanced stress tolerance.

Keywords: tobacco, nicotiana tabacum, pin, promoter, GUS, abiotic stresses, auxin

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Authors: Yenisleidy Martínez-Martínez, Yannay Casas-Ledón, Jo Dewulf

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Wind power constitutes a cleaner energy source with smaller unfavorable impacts on the environment than fossil fuels. Its development could be an alternative to fight climate change while meeting energy demands. However, wind energy development requires first determining the existing potential and areas with aptitude. Also, potential socio-economic and environmental impacts should be analyzed to prevent social rejection of this technology. In this context, this work performs a suitability assessment on a GIS environment to locate suitable areas for wind energy expansion in South-Central Chile. In addition, suitable areas were characterized in terms of potential goods and services to be produced as a proxy for analyzing potential impacts and trade-offs. First, layers of annual wind speed were generated as they represent the resource potential, and layer representing previously defined territorial constraints were created. Zones depicting territorial constraints were removed from resource measurement layers to identify suitable sites. Then, the appropriation of the primary production in suitable sites was determined to measure potential ecosystem services derived from human interventions in those areas. Results show that approximately 52% of the total surface of the study area has a good aptitude to install wind farms. In this area, provisioning services like food crops production, timber, and other forest resources like firewood play a key role in the regional economy and thus are the main cause of human interventions. This is reflected by human appropriation of the primary production values of 0.71 KgC/m².yr, 0.36 KgC/m².yr, and 0.14 KgC/m².yr, respectively. In this sense, wind energy development could be compatible with croplands, which is the predominant land use in suitable areas, and provide farmers with cheaper energy and extra income. Also, studies have reported changes in local temperature associated with wind turbines, which could be beneficial to crop growth. The results obtained in this study prove to be useful for identifying available areas for wind development, which could be very useful in decision-making processes related to energy planning.

Keywords: net primary productivity, provisioning services, suitability assessment, wind energy

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Authors: Przewodowski Włodzimierz, Przewodowska Agnieszka, Sekrecka Danuta, Michałowska Dorota

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Colloidal metal nanoparticles are widely applied in various areas and have great potential in different biotechnological applications. Their particular properties associated with both the antiseptic, antioxidant and anti aging properties as well as ability to penetrate most of the biological barriers, synergy in the absorption of nutrients and nontoxic to plants. The properties make them potentially useful in the fast and safe production of healthy, certified starting material in the production of plants exposed to many pathogenic microorganisms causing serious diseases, significantly affecting yield and causing the economic losses. In this case it is crucial to provide appropriate conditions for the production, storage and distribution of the plant material. Therefore, the aim of the proposed research was to develop and identify the influence of four colloidal metal nanoparticles on growth and proliferation of in vitro cultures of potato (Solanum tuberosum) - one of the most economically important strategic crops in the world. The research on different varieties of potato was performed by placing the explants of the in vitro cultures on sterile Murashige and Skoog (MS) type medium. The influence of the nanocolloids was evaluated using the MS medium impregnated with the examinated nanoparticles. The vigour of growth and the rate of proliferation was examinated for 6-8 weeks with both night/day-length and temperature over the ranges 8/16 h and 20–22 °C respectively. The results of our preliminary work confirmed high usefulness of the nanocolloids in the safe production of the examinated in vitro cultures.

Keywords: colloidal metal nanoparticles, in vitro cultures, potato, propagation

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Authors: Anna M. Pretorius

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The emerging markets category for portfolio investment was introduced in 1986 in an attempt to promote capital market development in less developed countries. Investors traditionally diversified their portfolios by investing in different developed markets. However, high growth opportunities forced investors to consider emerging markets as well. Examples include the rapid growth of the “Asian Tigers” during the 1980s, growth in Latin America during the 1990s and the increased interest in emerging markets during the global financial crisis. As such, portfolio flows to emerging markets have increased substantially. In 2002 7% of all equity allocations from advanced economies went to emerging markets; this increased to 20% in 2012. The stronger links between advanced and emerging markets led to increased synchronization of asset price movements. This increased level of stock market integration for emerging markets is confirmed by various empirical studies. Against the background of increased interest in emerging market assets and the increasing level of integration of emerging markets, this paper focuses on the determinants of stock market integration of emerging market countries. Various studies have linked the level of financial market integration with specific economic variables. These variables include: economic growth, local inflation, trade openness, local investment, budget surplus/ deficit, market capitalization, domestic bank credit, domestic institutional and legal environment and world interest rates. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate to what extent trade-related determinants have an impact on stock market integration. The panel data sample include data of 16 emerging market countries: Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey for the period 1998-2011. The integration variable for each emerging stock market is calculated as the explanatory power of a multi-factor model. These factors are extracted from a large panel of global stock market returns. Trade related explanatory variables include: exports as percentage of GDP, imports as percentage of GDP and total trade as percentage of GDP. Other macroeconomic indicators – such as market capitalisation, the size of the budget deficit and the effectiveness of the regulation of the securities exchange – are included in the regressions as control variables. An initial analysis on a sample of developed stock markets could not identify any significant determinants of stock market integration. Thus the macroeconomic variables identified in the literature are much more significant in explaining stock market integration of emerging markets than stock market integration of developed markets. The three trade variables are all statistically significant at a 5% level. The market capitalisation variable is also significant while the regulation variable is only marginally significant. The global financial crisis has highlighted the urgency to better understand the link between the financial and real sectors of the economy. This paper comes to the important finding that, apart from the level of market capitalisation (as financial indicator), trade (representative of the real economy) is a significant determinant of stock market integration of countries not yet classified as developed economies.

Keywords: emerging markets, financial market integration, panel data, trade

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Authors: Kesi Widjajanti

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To develop the growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), it is important to unlock potential resources that can improve their performance. Business Partnerships (BP) are currently an interesting topic of strategy to use to expand markets and maximize financial and marketing performance. However, many business partnerships have not quite a role among small and medium companies in the creative industry in the Batik Craft sector in Indonesia. This study is rooted in the Resource Advantage Theory of Competition ( RAToC), which emphasizes that the advantage of company resources can be sourced from organizational and relational resources. With the basis of this theory, SMEs can optimize the allocation of relational resources and organizational goals, improve operational efficiency, and gain a strategic advantage in the market. Companies that are able to actualize organizational and relational resources better than other market players can be used for the process of increasing their superior performance. This study explores key elements from the RAToC perspective and shows how Business Partnerships have the potential to drive SMEs' growth. By aligning visions, and organizational resources, sharing knowledge and leveraging complementary relational resources, SMEs can increase their competitiveness, enter new markets, and achieve superior performance. The theoretical contribution of RAToC in small companies is due to the role of Pro-Grow Business Partnership strength as an important antecedent for improving SMEs' performance. The benefits (scenarios) of a Business Partnership to grow together are directed at optimizing resources that can create additional value for customers so that they can outperform competitors. Furthermore, managerial implications for SMEs who wish to unlock their resource potential can encourage the role of Pro-Grow Business Partnerships, which have specific characteristics, can absorb experience/knowledge capacity and utilize this knowledge for the development of "together" business ventures.

Keywords: pro grow business partnership, performance, SMEs, resources advantage theory of competition, industry kreatif batik handycraft indonesia

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Authors: Fadzilah Abdul Rahman

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Emotional development is developed between the parents and their child. Behavioural development is also developed between the parents and their child. Social Development is how parents can help their special needs child to adapt to society and to face challenges. In promoting a lifelong learning mindset, enhancing skill sets and readiness to face challenges, parents would be able to counter balance these challenges during their care giving process and better manage their expectations through understanding the hierarchy of needs modality towards a positive attitude, and in turn, improve their quality of life and participation in society. This paper aims to demonstrate how the hierarchy of needs can be applied in various situations of caregiving for parents with a special needs child.

Keywords: hierarchy of needs, parents, special needs, care-giving

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Authors: Ramlan Jantan, Norfadilah Kamaruddin, Shahriman Zainal Abidin

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In this era of technology, the co-creation method has become a new development trend. In this light, most design businesses have currently transformed their development strategy from being goods-dominant into service-dominant where more attention is given to the end-users and their roles in the development process. As a result, the conventional development process has been replaced with a more cooperative one. Consequently, numerous studies have been conducted to explore the extension of co-creation method in the design development process and most studies have focused on issues found during the production process. In the meantime, this study aims to investigate potential values established during the pre-production process, which is also known as the ‘circumstances value creation’. User involvement is questioned and crucially debate at the entry level of pre-production process in value in-exchange jointly spheres; thus user experiences took place. Thus, this paper proposed a potential framework of the co-creation method for Malaysian interactive product development. The framework is formulated from both parties involved: the users and designers. The framework will clearly give an explanation of the value of the co-creation method, and it could assist relevant design industries/companies in developing a blueprint for the design process. This paper further contributes to the literature on the co-creation of value and digital ecosystems.

Keywords: co-creation method, co-creation framework, co-creation, co-production

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Authors: Ahmed Tawfik, Fausto Giunchiglia, Vincenzo Maltese

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Ontologies provide a common understanding of a specific domain of interest that can be communicated between people and used as background knowledge for automated reasoning in a wide range of applications. In this paper we address the design of multilingual ontologies following well-defined knowledge engineering methodologies with the support of novel collaborative development approaches. In particular, we present a collaborative platform which allows ontologies to be developed incrementally in multiple languages. This is made possible via an appropriate mapping between language independent concepts and one lexicalization per language (or a lexical gap in case such lexicalization does not exist). The collaborative platform has been designed to support the development of the Universal Knowledge Core, a multilingual ontology currently in English, Italian, Chinese, Mongolian, Hindi, and Bangladeshi. Its design follows a workflow-based development methodology that models resources as a set of collaborative objects and assigns customizable workflows to build and maintain each collaborative object in a community driven manner, with extensive support of modern web 2.0 social and collaborative features.

Keywords: knowledge diversity, knowledge representation, ontology, development

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Authors: M. E. Marwan, A. R. Madar, N. Fuad

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Mobile learning (m-learning) is a new method in teaching and learning process which combines technology of mobile device with learning materials. It can enhance student's engagement in learning activities and facilitate them to access the learning materials at anytime and anywhere. In Kolej Poly-Tech Mara (KPTM), this method is seen as an important effort in teaching practice and to improve student learning performance. The aim of this paper is to discuss the development of m-learning application called Mobile EEF Learning System (MEEFLS) to be implemented for Electric and Electronic Fundamentals course using Flash, XML (Extensible Markup Language) and J2ME (Java 2 micro edition). System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) was used as an application development approach. It has three modules in this application such as notes or course material, exercises and video. MEELFS development is seen as a tool or a pilot test for m-learning in KPTM.

Keywords: flash, mobile device, mobile learning, teaching and learning, SDLC, XML

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Authors: Chau Nguyen Pham Minh

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The aim of this study is to answer the following research question: What do we know about virtual customer integration in innovation development based on existing empirical research? The paper is based on a systematic review of 136 articles which were published in the past 16 years. The analysis focuses on three areas: what forms of virtual customer integration (e.g. netnography, online co-creation, virtual experience) have been applied in innovation development; how have virtual customer integration methods effectively been utilized by firms; and what are the influences of virtual customer integration on innovation development activities? Through the detailed analysis, the study provides researchers with broad understanding about virtual customer integration in innovation development. The study shows that practitioners and researchers increasingly pay attention on using virtual customer integration methods in developing innovation since those methods have dominant advantages in interact with customers in order to generate the best ideas for innovation development. Additionally, the findings indicate that netnography has been the most common method in integrating with customers for idea generation; while virtual product experience has been mainly used in product testing. Moreover, the analysis also reveals the positive and negative influences of virtual customer integration in innovation development from both process and strategic perspectives. Most of the review studies examined the phenomenon from company’s perspectives to understand the process of applying virtual customer integration methods and their impacts; however, the customers’ perspective on participating in the virtual interaction has been inadequately studied; therefore, it creates many potential interesting research paths for future studies.

Keywords: innovation, virtual customer integration, co-creation, netnography, new product development

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Authors: Kebron Asnake

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Water security and transboundary issues are critical concerns for countries, particularly in regions where shared water resources are significant. This Research focuses on exploring the challenges and opportunities related to water security and transboundary issues in Ethiopia, using the case of the Nile River. Ethiopia, as a riparian country of the Nile River, faces complex water security issues due to its dependence on this transboundary water resource. This abstract aims to analyze the various factors that affect water security in Ethiopia, including population growth, climate change, and competing water demands. The Study examines the challenges linked to transboundary water management of the Nile River. It delves into the complexities of negotiating water allocations and addressing potential conflicts among the downstream riparian countries. The paper also discusses the role of international agreements and cooperation in promoting sustainable water resource management. Additionally, the paper highlights the opportunities for collaboration and sustainable development that arise from transboundary water management. It explores the potential for joint investments in water infrastructure, hydropower generation, and irrigation systems that can contribute to regional economic growth and water security. Furthermore, the study emphasizes the need for integrated water management approaches in Ethiopia to ensure the equitable and sustainable use of the Nile River's waters. It highlights the importance of involving stakeholders from diverse sectors, including agriculture, energy, and environmental conservation, in decision-making processes. By presenting the case of the Nile River in Ethiopia, this Abstract contributes to the understanding of water security and transboundary issues. It underscores the significance of regional cooperation and informed policy-making to address the challenges and opportunities presented by transboundary water resources. The paper serves as a foundation for further research and policy in water management in Ethiopia and other regions facing similar challenges.

Keywords: water, health, agriculture, medicine

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Authors: Anita Singh, Richa Naula, Manoj Raghav

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India is a leading producer and consumer of fenugreek for its culinary uses and medicinal application. In India, most of the people are of vegetarian class. In such a situation, a leafy vegetable, such as fenugreek is of chief concern due to its high nutritional property, medicinal values and industrial uses. One of the most important factors restricting their large scale production and development of superior varieties is that very scanty knowledge about their genetic diversity, inter and intraspecific variability and genetic relationship among the species. Improvement of the crop depends upon the magnitude of genetic variability for economic characters. Therefore, the present research work was carried out to analyse the variability parameters for growth and yield character in twenty-eight fenugreek genotypes along with two standard checks Pant Ragini and Pusa Early Bunching. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with three replication during rabi season 2015-2016 at Pantnagar Centre for Plant Genetic Resources, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar, Uttarakhand. The analysis of variance revealed highly significant differences among all the genotypes for all traits. High genotypic and phenotypic coefficient variation were observed for characters, namely the number of primary branches per plant, number of leaves at 30, 45 and 60 DAS, green leaf yield per plant, green leaf yield q/ha . The genetic advance recorded highest in green leaf yield q/ha (33.93) followed by green leaf yield per plant (21.20g). Highest percent of heritability were shown by 1000 seed weight (99.12%) followed by the number of primary branches per plant (97.18%). Green leaf yield q/ha showed high heritability and high genetic advance. These superior genotypes can be further used in crop improvement programs of fenugreek.

Keywords: genetic advance, genotypic coefficient variation, heritability, phenotypic coefficient variation

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Authors: Tewodros Abate Alemayehu, Abebe Getahun, Akewake Geremew, Dawit Solomon Demeke, John Recha, Dawit Solomon, Gebremedihin Ambaw, Fasil Dawit Moges

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The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of supplementation of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles and Mannan-oligosaccharide (MOS) on growth performance, feed utilization, fatty acid profiles, hematology, and intestinal morphology of Chamo strain Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus (L.) fry reared at optimal temperature (28.62 ± 0.11 ⁰C). Nile tilapia fry (initial weight 1.45 ± 0.01g) were fed basal diet/control diet (Diet-T1), 6 g kg-¹ MOS supplemented diet (Diet-T2), 4 mg ZnO-NPs supplemented diet (Diet-T3), 4 mg ZnO-Bulk supplemented diet (Diet-T4), a combination of 6 g kg-¹ MOS and 4 mg ZnO-Bulk supplemented diet (Diet-T5) and combination of 6 g kg-¹ MOS and 4 mg ZnO-NPs supplemented diet (Diet-T6). Randomly, duplicate aquariums for each diet were assigned and hand-fed to apparent satiation three times daily (08:00, 12:00, and 16:00) for 12 weeks. Fish fed MOS, ZnO-NPs, and a combination of MOS and ZnO-Bulk supplemented diet had higher weight gain, Daily Growth Rate (DGR), and Specific Growth Rate (SGR) than fish fed the basal diet and other feeding groups, although the effect was not significant. According to the GC analysis, Nile tilapia was supplemented with 6 g kg-¹ MOS, 4 mg ZnO-NPs, or a combination of ZnO-NPs, and MOS showed the highest content of EPA, DHA, and higher ratios of PUFA/SFA than other feeding groups. Mean villi length in the proximal and middle portion of the Nile tilapia intestine was affected significantly (p<0.05) by diet. Fish fed Diet-T2 and Diet-T3 had significantly higher villi lengths in the proximal and middle portions of the intestine compared to other feeding groups. The inclusion of additives significantly improved goblet numbers at the proximal, middle, and distal portions of the intestine. Supplementation of additives had also improved some hematological parameters compared with control groups. In conclusion, dietary supplementation of additives MOS and ZnO-NPs could confer benefits on growth performance, fatty acid profiles, hematology, and intestinal morphology of Chamo strain Nile tilapia.

Keywords: chamo strain nile tilapia, fatty acid profile, hematology, intestinal morphology, MOS, ZnO-Bulk, ZnO-NPs

Procedia PDF Downloads 59