Search results for: beat context

Authors: Felix David

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The use of virtual reality (VR) technology is still in its infancy. This is especially true in a Japanese educational context with very little to no exposition of VR technology inside classrooms. Technology is growing and changing rapidly in America, but Japan seems to be lagging behind in integrating VR into its curriculum. The aim of this research was to expose 111 students from Hiroshima Jogakuin University (HJU) to seven classes that involved virtual reality content and assess students’ attitudinal responses toward this new technology. The students are all female, and they are taking the “Kiso Eigo/基礎英語” or “Foundation English” course, which is mandatory for all first-year and second-year students. Two surveys were given, one before the treatment and a second survey after the treatment, which in this case means the seven VR classes. These surveys first established that the technical environment could accommodate VR activities in terms of internet connection, VR headsets, and the quality of the smartphone’s screen. Based on the attitudinal responses gathered in this research, VR is perceived by students as “fun,” useful to “learn about the world,” as well as being useful to “learn about English.” This research validates VR as a worthy educational tool and should therefore continue being an integral part of the mandatory English course curriculum at HJU University.

Keywords: virtual reality, smartphone, English learning, curriculum

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Authors: Ritvik Chauhan, Vijay Kumar Baraik

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Women are most vulnerable to crime despite occupying central position in shaping a society as the first teacher of children. In India too, having equal rights and constitutional safeguards, the incidences of crime against them are large and grave. In this context of crime against women, especially rape has been increasing over time. This paper explores the spatial and temporal aspects of crime against women in India with special reference to rape. It also examines the crime against women with its spatial, socio-economic and demographic associates using related data obtained from the National Crime Records Bureau India, Indian Census and other government sources of the Government of India. The simple statistical, choropleth mapping and other cartographic representation methods have been used to see the crime rates, spatio-temporal patterns of crime, and association of crime with its correlates.  The major findings are visible spatial variations across the country and are also in the rising trends in terms of incidence and rates over the reference period. The study also indicates that the geographical associations are somewhat observed. However, selected indicators of socio-economic factors seem to have no significant bearing on crime against women at this level.

Keywords: crime against women, crime mapping, trend analysis, society

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Authors: Adam J. Bowen

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Abstract— Should robots have rights or legal protections. Often debates concerning whether robots and AI should be afforded rights focus on conditions of personhood and the possibility of future advanced forms of AI satisfying particular intrinsic cognitive and moral attributes of rights-holding persons. Such discussions raise compelling questions about machine consciousness, autonomy, and value alignment with human interests. Although these are important theoretical concerns, especially from a future design perspective, they provide limited guidance for addressing the moral and legal standing of current and near-term AI that operate well below the cognitive and moral agency of human persons. Robots and AI are already being pressed into service in a wide range of roles, especially in healthcare and biomedical contexts. The design and large-scale implementation of robots in the context of core societal institutions like healthcare systems continues to rapidly develop. For example, we bring them into our homes, hospitals, and other care facilities to assist in care for the sick, disabled, elderly, children, or otherwise vulnerable persons. We enlist surgical robotic systems in precision tasks, albeit still human-in-the-loop technology controlled by surgeons. We also entrust them with social roles involving companionship and even assisting in intimate caregiving tasks (e.g., bathing, feeding, turning, medicine administration, monitoring, transporting). There have been advances to enable severely disabled persons to use robots to feed themselves or pilot robot avatars to work in service industries. As the applications for near-term AI increase and the roles of robots in restructuring our biomedical practices expand, we face pressing questions about the normative implications of human-robot interactions and collaborations in our collective worldmaking, as well as the moral and legal status of robots. This paper argues that robots operating in public and private spaces be afforded some protections as either moral patients or legal agents to establish prohibitions on robot abuse, misuse, and mistreatment. We already implement robots and embed them in our practices and institutions, which generates a host of human-to-machine and machine-to-machine relationships. As we interact with machines, whether in service contexts, medical assistance, or home health companions, these robots are first encountered in relationship to us and our respective roles in the encounter (e.g., surgeon, physical or occupational therapist, recipient of care, patient’s family, healthcare professional, stakeholder). This proposal aims to outline a framework for establishing limiting factors and determining the extent of moral or legal protections for robots. In doing so, it advocates for a relational approach that emphasizes the priority of mapping the complex contextually sensitive roles played and the relations in which humans and robots stand to guide policy determinations by relevant institutions and authorities. The relational approach must also be technically informed by the intended uses of the biomedical technologies in question, Design History Files, extensive risk assessments and hazard analyses, as well as use case social impact assessments.

Keywords: biomedical robots, robot ethics, robot laws, human-robot interaction

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Authors: Morteza Aien, Masoud Rashidinejad, Mahmud Fotuhi-Firuzabad

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As energetic and environmental issues are getting more and more attention all around the world, the penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) mainly those harvesting renewable energies (REs) ascends with an unprecedented rate. This matter causes more uncertainties to appear in the power system context; ergo, the uncertainty analysis of the system performance is an obligation. The uncertainties of any system can be represented probabilistically or possibilistically. Since sufficient historical data about all the system variables is not available, therefore, they do not have a probability density function (PDF) and must be represented possibilistiacally. When some of system uncertain variables are probabilistic and some are possibilistic, neither the conventional pure probabilistic nor pure possibilistic methods can be implemented. Hence, a combined solution is appealed. The first of this two-paper series formulates a new possibilistic-probabilistic tool for the load flow uncertainty assessment. The proposed methodology is based on the evidence theory and joint propagation of possibilistic and probabilistic uncertainties. This possibilistic- probabilistic formulation is solved in the second companion paper in an uncertain load flow (ULF) study problem.

Keywords: probabilistic uncertainty modeling, possibilistic uncertainty modeling, uncertain load flow, wind turbine generator

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Authors: A. Hol

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21^st century brought waves of business and industry eTransformations. The impact of change is also being seen in education. To identify the extent of this, scenario analysis methodology was utilised with the aim to assess business transformations across industry sectors ranging from craftsmanship, medicine, finance and manufacture to innovations and adoptions of new technologies and business models. Firstly, scenarios were drafted based on the current eTransformation models and its dimensions. Following this, eTransformation framework was utilised with the aim to derive the key eTransformation parameters, the essential characteristics that have enabled eTransformations across the sectors. Following this, identified key parameters were mapped to the transforming domain-education. The mapping assisted in deriving a cognitive eTransformation framework for education sector. The framework highlights the importance of context and the notion that education today needs not only to deliver content to students but it also needs to be able to meet the dynamically changing demands of specific student and industry groups. Furthermore, it pinpoints that for such processes to be supported, specific technology is required, so that instant, on demand and periodic feedback as well as flexible, dynamically expanding study content can be sought and received via multiple education mediums.

Keywords: education sector, business transformation, eTransformation model, cognitive model, cognitive systems, eTransformation

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Authors: Merav Hayakac, Orit Avidov-Ungarab

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The current study adopted an interpretive-constructivist approach to examine how senior academics from a large sample of Israeli teacher education colleges serving general or religious populations perceived the integration of digital games into their teacher instruction and what their policy and vision were in this regard in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Half the participants expressed a desire to integrate digital games into their teaching and learning but acknowledged that this practice was uncommon. Only a small minority believed they had achieved successful integration, with doubt and skepticism expressed by some religious colleges. Most colleges had policies encouraging technology integration supported by ongoing funding. Although a considerable gap between policy and implementation remained, the COVID-19 pandemic was viewed as having accelerated the integration of digital games into pre-service teacher instruction. The findings suggest that discussions around technology-related vision and policy and their translation into practice should relate to the specific cultural needs and academic preparedness of the population(s) served by the college.

Keywords: COVID-19, digital games, pedagogy, teacher education colleges

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Authors: Diane Vassallo., Leonard Busuttil

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Recent educational developments have seen increasing attention attributed to Computational Thinking (CT) and its integration into primary and secondary school curricula. CT is more than simply being able to use technology but encompasses fundamental Computer Science concepts which are deemed to be very important in developing the correct mindset for our future digital citizens. The case study presented in this article explores the journey of a Maltese secondary school teacher in his efforts to plan, develop and integrate CT within the context of a local classroom. The teacher participant was recruited from the Malta EU Code week summer school, a pilot initiative that stemmed from the EU Code week Team’s Train the Trainer program. The qualitative methodology involved interviews with the participant teacher as well as an analysis of the artefacts created by the students during the lessons. The results shed light on the numerous challenges and obstacles that the teacher encountered in his integration of CT, as well as portray some brilliant examples of good practices which can substantially inform further research and practice around the integration of CT in classroom practice.

Keywords: computational thinking, digital citizens, digital literacy, technology integration

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Authors: Mohammad Abu Nassar, Mahmoud Al Khalilah, Hussein Abu Nassar

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The purpose of this study is to examine whether corporate tax avoidance practices can impact firm value in the Jordanian context. The study employs a quantitative approach using s sample of (124) industrial and services companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange for the period from 2010 to 2019. Multiple linear regression analysis has been applied to test the study's hypothesis. The study employs effective tax rate and book-tax difference to measure tax avoidance and Tobin's Q factor to measure firm value. The results of the study revealed that tax avoidance practices, when measured using effective tax rates, do not significantly impact firm value. When the book-tax difference is used to measure tax avoidance, the study results showed a negative impact on firm value. The result of the study has not supported the traditional view of tax avoidance as a transfer of wealth from the government to shareholders for industrial and services companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange, indicating that Jordanian firms should not use tax avoidance strategies to enhance their value.

Keywords: tax avoidance, effective tax rate, book-tax difference, firm value, Amman stock exchange

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Authors: Meltem Işık, Fatma Gür, İbrahim Kılıç

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This study aims to explore the effects of hemsball shooting techniques on the fine motor skill level of children with hearing disabilities. A total number of 26 children with hearing disabilities, ages ranging between 7 and 11 and which were equally divided into experimental group and control group participated in the study. In this context, an exercise training program dedicated to hemsball shooting techniques was introduced to the experimental group 3 days a week in one hour sessions for a period of 10 weeks. BOT-2 fine motor skills test which includes three dimensions (fine motor accuracy, fine motor task completion, and dexterity) was selected as the data collection method. Descriptive statistics along with two-factor ANOVA which was focused on repetitive measurements of the differences between pretest and posttest scores of both groups were used in the analysis of the data collected. The results of this study showed that hemsball shooting techniques have a statistically significant effect on the fine motor skill level.

Keywords: hemsball shooting techniques, BOT-2 test, fine motor skills, hearing disabilities

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Authors: Gang Wang

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Education is widely believed to be a prerequisite for democracy and civil society, but the causal link between education and outcome variables is usually hardly to be identified. This study applies a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to examine the effects of college education on democratic attitudes in the Chinese context. In the analysis treatment assignment is determined by students’ college entry years and thus naturally selected by subjects’ ages. Using a sample of Chinese college students collected in Beijing in 2009, this study finds that college education actually reduces undergraduates’ motivation for political development in China but promotes political loyalty to the authoritarian government. Further hypotheses tests explain these interesting findings from two perspectives. The first is related to the complexity of politics. As college students progress over time, they increasingly realize the complexity of political reform in China’s authoritarian regime and rather stay away from politics. The second is related to students’ career opportunities. As students are close to graduation, they are immersed with job hunting and have a reduced interest in political freedom.

Keywords: china, college education, democratic attitudes, regression discontinuity

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Authors: Wilfred Jeyatheese Jeyaraj

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The Sri Lankan legislative acts dictate several recommendations to improve accessibility of services for the visually challenged. But the main consideration here is the feasibility and extent to which these endorsements have been implemented in actuality within Sri Lankan academic libraries. This paper tends to assess the existent issues that impediment the implementation of accessibility features for the visually challenged in Sri Lankan academic libraries. Visually challenged students continually walk through immense challenges to step forth into their university life. Reaching their undergrad stage of their academic phase, they should be entitled to access information resources with ease and with equality in comparison to the sighted users of a university library. The current university libraries in Sri Lanka, have well improved services that they render to their users. But, what lacks in this scenario is the consideration as to whether these features offered by libraries are user-friendly and easily accessible by the visually challenged users as well. Hence, this paper tends to analyze the inhibitions in delivering services oriented towards the visually challenged and the sighted, and propose feasible alternatives to create a neutral high-end university library environment.

Keywords: accessibility, university library, Sri Lanka, visually-challenged

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Authors: Khalid S. Hashim, Andy Shaw, Rafid Al-Khaddar, Montserrat Ortoneda Pedrola

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In spite of the acknowledged advantages of the electrocoagulation (EC) method to remove a wide range of pollutants from waters and wastewaters, its efficiency is limited by several operational parameters (such as electrolysis time, current density, electrode material, distance between electrodes, and water temperature). Hence, optimizing these key operating parameters is considered a vital step to remove a pollutant efficiently. In this context, the present study has been carried out to explore the influence of electrodes spacing on energy consumption, temperature of the water being treated, and iron removal from water. To achieve this target, iron containing synthetic water samples were electrolysed for 20 min, using a new flow column electrocoagulation reactor (FCER), at three different gaps between electrodes (5, 10, and 20 mm). These batch experiments were commenced at a constant current density of 1.5 mA/cm² and initial pH of 6. The obtained results demonstrated that increasing gap between electrodes negatively influenced the performance of the EC method. It was found that increasing the gap between electrodes from 5 to 20 mm increased the energy consumption from about 3.3 to 7.3 kW.h/m³, and water temperature from 20.2 to 22 °C, respectively. In addition, it has been found, after 20 min of electrolysing, that increasing the gap between electrodes from 5 to 20 mm increased the residual iron concentration from 0.05 to 1.01 mg/L, respectively.

Keywords: electrocoagulation, water, electrodes, iron

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Authors: Roland F. Karthaus, Rachel S. O'Brien

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Over the past decade, the authors have undertaken applied research aimed at enabling transformation within the prison service to improve conditions and outcomes for those living, working and visiting in prisons in the UK and the communities they serve. The research has taken place against a context of reducing resources and public discontent at increasing levels of violence, deteriorating conditions and persistently high levels of re-offending. Top-down governmental policies have mainly been ineffectual and in some cases counter-productive. The prison service is characterised by hierarchical organisation, and the research has applied design thinking at multiple levels to challenge and precipitate change: top-down, middle-out and bottom-up. The research employs three distinct but related approaches, system design (top-down): working at the national policy level to analyse the changing policy context, identifying opportunities and challenges; engaging with the Ministry of Justice commissioners and sector organisations to facilitate debate, introducing new evidence and provoking creative thinking, place-based design (middle-out): working with individual prison establishments as pilots to illustrate and test the potential for local empowerment, creative change, and improved architecture within place-specific contexts and organisational hierarchies, everyday design (bottom-up): working with individuals in the system to explore the potential for localised, significant, demonstrator changes; including collaborative design, capacity building and empowerment in skills, employment, communication, training, and other activities. The research spans a series of projects, through which the methodological approach has developed responsively. The projects include a place-based model for the re-purposing of Ministry of Justice land assets for the purposes of rehabilitation; an evidence-based guide to improve prison design for health and well-being; capacity-based employment, skills and self-build project as a template for future open prisons. The overarching research has enabled knowledge to be developed and disseminated through policy and academic networks. Whilst the research remains live and continuing; key findings are emerging as a basis for a new methodological approach to effecting change in the UK prison service. An interdisciplinary approach is necessary to overcome the barriers between distinct areas of the prison service. Sometimes referred to as total environments, prisons encompass entire social and physical environments which themselves are orchestrated by institutional arms of government, resulting in complex systems that cannot be meaningfully engaged through narrow disciplinary lenses. A scalar approach is necessary to connect strategic policies with individual experiences and potential, through the medium of individual prison establishments, operating as discrete entities within the system. A reflexive process is necessary to connect research with action in a responsive mode, learning to adapt as the system itself is changing. The role of individuals in the system, their latent knowledge and experience and their ability to engage and become agents of change are essential. Whilst the specific characteristics of the UK prison system are unique, the approach is internationally applicable.

Keywords: architecture, design, policy, prison, system, transformation

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Authors: Adeline Stals

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The transformation of architectural design practices has been underway for almost forty years due to the development and democratization of computer technology. New and more efficient tools are constantly being proposed to architects, amplifying a technological wave that sometimes stimulates them, sometimes overwhelms them, depending essentially on their digital culture and the context (socio-economic, structural, organizational) in which they work on a daily basis. Our focus is on VR, AR, and MR technologies dedicated to architecture. The commercialization of affordable headsets like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive or more low-tech like the Google CardBoard, makes it more accessible to benefit from these technologies. In that regard, researchers report the growing interest of these tools for architects, given the new perspectives they open up in terms of workflow, representation, collaboration, and client’s involvement. However, studies rarely mention the consequences of the sample studied on results. Our research provides an overview of VR, AR, and MR researches among a corpus of papers selected from conferences and journals. A closer look at the sample of these research projects highlights the necessity to take into consideration the context of studies in order to develop tools truly dedicated to the real practices of specific architect profiles. This literature review formalizes milestones for future challenges to address. The methodology applied is based on a systematic review of two sources of publications. The first one is the Cumincad database, which regroups publications from conferences exclusively about digital in architecture. Additionally, the second part of the corpus is based on journal publications. Journals have been selected considering their ranking on Scimago. Among the journals in the predefined category ‘architecture’ and in Quartile 1 for 2018 (last update when consulted), we have retained the ones related to the architectural design process: Design Studies, CoDesign, Architectural Science Review, Frontiers of Architectural Research and Archnet-IJAR. Beside those journals, IJAC, not classified in the ‘architecture’ category, is selected by the author for its adequacy with architecture and computing. For all requests, the search terms were ‘virtual reality’, ‘augmented reality’, and ‘mixed reality’ in title and/or keywords for papers published between 2015 and 2019 (included). This frame time is defined considering the fast evolution of these technologies in the past few years. Accordingly, the systematic review covers 202 publications. The literature review on studies about XR technologies establishes the state of the art of the current situation. It highlights that studies are mostly based on experimental contexts with controlled conditions (pedagogical, e.g.) or on practices established in large architectural offices of international renown. However, few studies focus on the strategies and practices developed by offices of smaller size, which represent the largest part of the market. Indeed, a European survey studying the architectural profession in Europe in 2018 reveals that 99% of offices are composed of less than ten people, and 71% of only one person. The study also showed that the number of medium-sized offices is continuously decreasing in favour of smaller structures. In doing so, a frontier seems to remain between the worlds of research and practice, especially for the majority of small architectural practices having a modest use of technology. This paper constitutes a reference for the next step of the research and for further worldwide researches by facilitating their contextualization.

Keywords: architectural design, literature review, SME, XR technologies

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Authors: Lei Liu

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This paper concerns on a special phenomenon of rocketing of bride’s price in rural China after the rural-urban labor migration nowadays. It provides a brief overview of three major prospective on marriage exchange, especially impose the local marriage market due to the post-migration economic environments. Then the author highlights on several factors that influence the rocketing raise of rural marriage gifts using both the primary data from census 2010 and the interviews from the field study, such as one-child policy and the unbalanced sex ratio with the familiar context parents used different strategies in raising their sons and daughters so as to best hold their own interests, causing inequality between females and males. Then this was broken by the independence of rural women and the phenomenon of cross-regional marriage after the free mobility of labor resource between rural areas and urban areas which gives women equal rights to choose their spouses together with some publicly policies that accelerate the decline of patriarchy. In the end, the author spells out a framework of migration influence on rural marriage for some theoretical and policy implications of the findings.

Keywords: rural-urban migration, gender stratification, rural China, bride price, marriage

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Authors: I. Grigoratos, R. Monteiro

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Regions with a significant percentage of non-seismically designed buildings and reduced urban planning are particularly vulnerable to natural hazards. In this context, the project ‘Improved Tools for Disaster Risk Mitigation in Algeria’ (ITERATE) aims at seismic risk mitigation in Algeria. Past earthquakes in North Algeria caused extensive damages, e.g. the El Asnam 1980 moment magnitude (Mw) 7.1 and Boumerdes 2003 Mw 6.8 earthquakes. This paper will address a number of proposed developments and considerations made towards a further improvement of the component of seismic hazard. In specific, an updated earthquake catalog (until year 2018) is compiled, and new conversion equations to moment magnitude are introduced. Furthermore, a network-based method for the estimation of the spatial and temporal distribution of the minimum magnitude of completeness is applied. We found relatively large values for M_c, due to the sparse network, and a nonlinear trend between M_w and body wave (m_b) or local magnitude (M_L), which are the most common scales reported in the region. Lastly, the resulting b-value of the Gutenberg-Richter distribution is sensitive to the declustering method.

Keywords: conversion equation, magnitude of completeness, seismic events, seismic hazard

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Authors: S. Boulenouar, M. Sefir, M. Benahmed

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All facilities need medication and other pharmaceuticals for their operation. Management and supply is therefore to provide the different services of the facility goods and services in required quantity and quality. The permanent availability of drugs in the facilities is very difficult because most face many difficulties at the inventory management and drug supplies. Therefore, it is necessary for each health facility to know the causes for the malfunction of its management system to cope with them. It is in this context that we have undertaken to conduct this study to know the causes which should be taken into consideration by the concerned authorities to carry out their mission, which is to provide quality health care for the population. In terms of financial resources, the budget for medicines represents a significant part of the budget of the pharmacy. Our study shows that the share of the hospital budget reserved for the drugs procurement represent on average 70% of the budget of the pharmacy. The results show a state of lack of anticancer drugs at Oran teaching hospital. The analysis of the management process allowed us to know the level that the problem of stock-outs of anti-cancer drugs is at. Suggestions were made to that effect to improve the availability for these products and to respond better to the needs of patients.

Keywords: anticancer drugs, health care facility, budget, hospital pharmacist, hospital service

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Authors: M. Tahir Demirsel, Mustafa Atsan

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Many elements of the environment in which businesses operate today leave them faced with unexpected threats and opportunities. One of the major threats is business crisis. The crisis is a state of affairs in a business wherein the executives must take urgent and unprecedented action to try to save the business from failure. In order to survive in the business environment, organizations should be prepared for the potential crises. Technological developments, uncertainty in the market and the intense competition increase the probability of encountering a crisis for organizations. Therefore, by acting proactively to predict crisis, to detect signals of crisis and be prepared for a crisis by taking necessary precautions accordingly, is of great importance for businesses. In this context, the objective of this study is to reveal that how much organizations are proactive and can predict the future crises and investigate whether they are prepared for possible crises or not. The research was conducted on 222 business executives in one of the major industrial zones of Turkey, Konya Organized Industrial Zone (KOS). The findings are analyzed through descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. According to the results, it has been observed that organizations cannot predict the crisis signals and are not prepared for potential crises.

Keywords: crisis preparedness, crisis signals, industrial organizations, proactivity

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Authors: Darshana Thomas, Edward Wilkie, James Irvine

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The Internet of things (IoT) is currently a highly researched topic, especially within the context of the smart home. These are small sensors that are capable of gathering data and transmitting it to a server. The majority of smart home products use protocols such as ZigBee or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). As these small sensors are increasing in number, the need to implement these with much more capable and ubiquitous transmission technology is necessary. The high power consumption is the reason that holds these small sensors back from using other protocols such as the most ubiquitous form of communication, WiFi. Comparing the power consumption of existing transmission technologies to one with WiFi inbuilt, would provide a better understanding for choosing between these technologies. We have developed a small IoT device with WiFi capability and proven that it is much more efficient than the first protocol, 433 MHz. We extend our work in this paper and compare WiFi power consumption with the other most widely used protocol BLE. The experimental results in this paper would conclude whether the developed prototype is capable in terms of power consumption to replace the existing protocol BLE with WiFi.

Keywords: bluetooth, internet of things (IoT), power consumption, WiFi

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Authors: Wafa Nouari

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This study compares four novels written in English by Algerian writers: Donkey Heart Monkey Mind by Djaffar Chetouane, Pebble in the River by Noufel Bouzeboudja, Sophia in the White City by Belkacem Mezghouchene, and The Inner Light of Darkness by Iheb Kharab. It applies comparative research methods and cultural studies as the literary theory to analyze how these novels depict Algeria’s culture, history, and identity through their genre, style, tone, perspective, and structure. It identifies some common themes shared by them, such as the quest for freedom and dignity in a context of oppression and colonialism and the use of storytelling, imagination, and creativity as coping mechanisms for trauma and adversity. It also highlights their differences in terms of style, genre, setting, period, and perspectives. It concludes that these novels offer rich and diverse insights into Algeria and its multifaceted reality. It also discusses some limitations and challenges related to Algerian literature in English and suggests some directions for future research.

Keywords: Algeri an literature in English, comparative research methods, cultural studies, diversity and complexity

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Authors: Eliziane Navarro

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It is intended, in this study, from some poems from the work of the poet and Bishop of Sao Felix do Araguaia-MT Brazil Dom Pedro Casaldaliga, to analyze his poetics from the perspective of the environmental law. In his work, Casaldaliga made a considerable manifest against the oppression experienced especially by Xavante people inside the countryside of the state of Mato Grosso when some government programs benefited a large number of landowners in instead of that minority as a power and control self-affirmation process. The attention which Casaldaliga dismissed to the cause of indigenous eviction of their land called Maraiwatsede resulted in numerous death threats against the poet who was not silenced in the face of the landowners’ grievances. His voice contributed significantly to the process of land returning to the indigenous people. Because of the international pressure, the Italian company AGIP, owner of the land, tried to return it to the hands of the indigenous, unfortunately, in the middle of the process, the land was occupied by politicians and big landowners of the region. Another objective of this research is to check the connection of his testimonial literature with the actual legal context of the state in the 50s and also to analyze his poetry as a complaint that led the cause of the state's indigenous to the Eco 92 discussion in Rio de Janeiro.

Keywords: law and literature, indigenous migration, Mato Grosso, Pedro Casaldaliga

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Authors: Şebnem Aslan, Demet Akarçay

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The objective of this study is to investigate the feelings of health employees occurred by bullying and the relationships between these feelings at work place. In this context, the relationships between bullying and the feelings of self-esteem, employee silence, anger, self- blame and shame. This study was conducted among 512 health employees in three hospitals in Konya by using survey method and simple random sampling. The scales of bullying, self-esteem, employee silence, anger, self-blame, and shame were performed within the study. The obtained data were analyzed with descriptive analysis, correlation, confirmative factor analysis, structural equation modeling and path analysis. The results of the study showed that while bullying had a positive effect on self-esteem (.61), employee silence (.41), anger (.18), a negative effect on self-blame and shame (-.26) was observed. Employee silence affected self-blame and shame (.83) as positively. Besides, self-esteem impacted on self- blame and shame (.18), employee silence (.62) positively and self-blame and shame was observed as negatively affecting on anger (-.20). Similarly, self-esteem was found as negatively affected on anger (-.13).

Keywords: bullying, self-esteem, employee silence, anger, shame and guilt, healthcare employee

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Authors: Sibo Lu, Zhongkai Qian, Haotian Zhang

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This article examines the phenomenon of micro-sovereignty in the context of property management and its implications for biopolitics and urban governance in mainland China. It explores the transformation of urban spaces into privatized communities managed by property companies, leading to the reterritorialization of urban areas and the segmentation of urban populations. Drawing on legal frameworks, we analyze how commercial real estate development and property management have reshaped the urban landscape, placing nearly all urban residents within service areas of property management firms, thus establishing micro-sovereign entities that exercise control over residential spaces. Through a critique of property management's sovereign effects on social organization and the exploration of autonomous, democratic alternatives in community governance, this article contributes to the broader discourse on sovereignty, governance, and resistance within the urban milieu of contemporary China. It underscores the urgent need for more democratic forms of community management that can transcend the capitalist logic of property management companies and foster genuine participatory governance at the grassroots level.

Keywords: biopolitic, critical theory, political sociology, political philosophy

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Authors: Haitam Emhemad, Brian Agnew, David Greenwood

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Amongst the many priorities facing Libya following the 2011 uprising is the provision of a transport infrastructure that will meet the nation’s needs and not undermine its prospects for economic prosperity as with many developing economies non-technical issues such as management, planning and financing are the major barriers to the efficient and effective provision of transport infrastructure. This is particularly true in the case of the effective incorporation of sustainability criteria, and the research upon which this paper is based involves the examination of alternative ways of approaching this problem. It is probably fair to say that criteria that relate to sustainability have not, historically, featured strongly in Libya’s approach to the development of its transport infrastructure. However, the current reappraisal of how best to redevelop the country’s transport infrastructure that has been afforded by recent events may offer the opportunity to alter this. The research examines recent case studies from a number of countries to explore ways in which sustainability has been included as a criterion for planning and procurement decisions. There will also be an in-depth investigation into the Libyan planning and legislative context to examine the feasibility of the introduction of such sustainability criteria into the process of planning and procurement of Libya’s transport infrastructure.

Keywords: Libya reconstruction, sustainability criteria, transport infrastructure, public transport

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Authors: B. Makhlouf, O. Bouchhida, M. Nibouche, K. Laidi

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A variety of methods for selective harmonics elimination pulse width modulation have been developed, the most frequently used for real-time implementation based on look-up tables method. To address real-time requirements based in modified carrier signal is proposed in the presented work, with a general formulation to real-time harmonics control/elimination in switched inverters. Firstly, the proposed method has been demonstrated for a single value of the modulation index. However, in reality, this parameter is variable as a consequence of the voltage (amplitude) variability. In this context, a simple interpolation method for calculating the modified sine carrier signal is proposed. The method allows a continuous adjustment in both amplitude and frequency of the fundamental. To assess the performance of the proposed method, software simulations and hardware experiments have been carried out in the case of a single-phase inverter. Obtained results are very satisfactory.

Keywords: harmonic elimination, Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO), polynomial interpolation, pulse width modulation, real-time harmonics control, voltage inverter

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Authors: Awatef Hicheur Cairns, Billel Gueni, Hind Hafdi, Christian Joubert, Nasser Khelifa

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Given the ever changing needs of the job markets, education and training centers are increasingly held accountable for student success. Therefore, education and training centers have to focus on ways to streamline their offers and educational processes in order to achieve the highest level of quality in curriculum contents and managerial decisions. Educational process mining is an emerging field in the educational data mining (EDM) discipline, concerned with developing methods to discover, analyze and provide a visual representation of complete educational processes. In this paper, we present our distributed computation platform which allows different education centers and institutions to load their data and access to advanced data mining and process mining services. To achieve this, we present also a comparative study of the different clustering techniques developed in the context of process mining to partition efficiently educational traces. Our goal is to find the best strategy for distributing heavy analysis computations on many processing nodes of our platform.

Keywords: educational process mining, distributed process mining, clustering, distributed platform, educational data mining, ProM

Procedia PDF Downloads 435

Authors: Aofan Liu, Qianqian Tan, Burra Venkata Durga Kumar

Abstract:

Data security is of the utmost importance in the healthcare area, as sensitive patient information is constantly sent around and analyzed by many different parties. The use of federated learning, which enables data to be evaluated locally on devices rather than being transferred to a central server, has emerged as a potential solution for protecting the privacy of user information. To protect against data breaches and unauthorized access, federated learning alone might not be adequate. In this context, the application of blockchain technology could provide the system extra protection. This study proposes a distributed federated learning system that is built on blockchain technology in order to enhance security in healthcare. This makes it possible for a wide variety of healthcare providers to work together on data analysis without raising concerns about the confidentiality of the data. The technical aspects of the system, including as the design and implementation of distributed learning algorithms, consensus mechanisms, and smart contracts, are also investigated as part of this process. The technique that was offered is a workable alternative that addresses concerns about the safety of healthcare while also fostering collaborative research and the interchange of data.

Keywords: data privacy, distributed system, federated learning, machine learning

Procedia PDF Downloads 94

Authors: Joy Aworo-Okoroh

Abstract:

Literary texts are mirrors of a real-life situation. Thus, authors choose the linguistic items that would best encode their intended meanings and messages. However, words mean more than they seem. The meaning of words is not static rather, it is dynamic as they constantly enter into relationships within a context. Literary texts can only be meaningful if all pragmatic cues are identified and interpreted. Drawing upon Teun Van Djik's theory of local pragmatic coherence, it is established that words enter into relations in a text and these relations account for sequential speech acts in the texts. Comprehension of the text is dependent on the interpretation of these relations.To show the relevance of pragmatic coherence in literary text analysis, ten conversations were selected in Americanah in order to give a clear idea of the pragmatic relations used. The conversations were analysed, identifying the speech act and epistemic relations inherent in them. A subtle analysis of the structure of the conversations was also carried out. It was discovered that justification is the most commonly used relation and the meaning of the text is dependent on the interpretation of these instances' pragmatic coherence. The study concludes that to effectively teach literature in English, pragmatic coherence should be incorporated as words mean more than they say.

Keywords: pragmatic coherence, epistemic coherence, speech act, Americanah

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: E. Fredrick Rice

Abstract:

Over the past three decades, a substantial body of academic literature has asserted that the pressure to maintain household income can negatively affect the personal well-being of breadwinners. Given that scholars have failed to thoroughly explore this phenomenon with breadwinners who are also business owners, theory has been underdeveloped in the entrepreneurial context. To identify the most appropriate theories to apply to entrepreneurs, the current paper utilized two approaches. First, a comprehensive bibliographic analysis was conducted focusing on works at the intersection of breadwinner status and well-being. Co-authorship and journal citation patterns highlighted relative resource theory as a boundary spanning approach with promising applications in the entrepreneurial space. To build upon this theory, regression analysis was performed using data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). Empirical results showed evidence for the effects of breadwinner status and household income on entrepreneurial well-being. Further, the findings suggest that it is not merely income or job status that predicts well-being, but one’s relative financial contribution compared to that of one’s non-breadwinning organizationally employed partner. This paper offers insight into how breadwinner status can be studied in relation to the entrepreneurial personality.

Keywords: breadwinner, entrepreneurship, household income, well-being.

Procedia PDF Downloads 150

Authors: Madihah Shukri

Abstract:

Research examining whether eating behaviour is related to unhealthy or healthy eating pattern is required to explain the mechanisms underlying obesity, and to inform health intervention aim to prevent and treat obesity. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between eating behaviours and nature of food consumption. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of 588 adults (males = 231 and females = 357). The Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (DEBQ) was used to measure restrained, emotional and external eating. Nature of food consumption was assessed by self-reported consumption of fruit and vegetables, sweet food, junk food and snacking. Results: Results revealed that emotional eating was found to be the principal predictor of the consumption of less healthy food (sweet food, junk food and snacking), while external eating predicted sweet food intake. Intake of fruit and vegetable was associated with restrained eating. In light of the significant associations between eating behaviour and nature of food consumption, acknowledging individuals eating styles can have implications for tailoring effective nutritional programs in the context of obesity and chronic disease epidemic.

Keywords: eating behaviour, food consumption, adult, Malaysia

Procedia PDF Downloads 350