Search results for: three view

Authors: Suboohi Nasrin, MHD. Shahid, Abduraheem K.

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India is a tropical country, and it is estimated that biological and abiological agents are the major factors in the destruction and deterioration of archival materials like herbarium, paper, cellulose, bookbinding, etc. Silverfish, German Cockroaches, Termites, Booklice, Tobacco beetle and Carpet beetles are the common insect's pests in the museum, which causes deterioration to collections of museum specimens. Among them, silverfish is one of the most notorious pests and primarily responsible for the deterioration of Archival materials. So far, the investigation has been carried to overcome this existing problem as different management strategies such as chemical insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, nematicides, etc., have been applied. Moreover, Synthetic molecules lead to affect the ecological balance, have a detrimental effects on human health, reduce the beneficial microbial flora and fauna, etc. With a view, numbers of chemicals have been banned and advised not to be used due to their long-lasting persistency in soil ecosystem, water and carcinogenic. That’s why the authors used natural products with biocidal activity, cost-effective and eco-friendly approaches. In this study, various concentrations (30, 60 and 90 ml/L) of clove and lemongrass essential oil at different treatment duration (30, 60, 90 and 120-minutes) were investigated to test its properties as a silverfish repellent and insecticidal effect. The result of two ways ANOVA revealed that the mortality was significantly influenced by oil concentration, treatment duration and interaction between two independent factors was also found significant. The mortality rate increased with increasing the oil concentration in clove oil, and 100 % mortality was recorded in 0.9 ml at 120-minute. It was also observed that the treatment duration has the highest effect on the mortality rate of silverfish. The clove oil had the greatest effect on the silverfish in comparison to lemongrass. While in the case of percentage, repellency of adult silverfish was oil concentration and treatment duration-dependent, i.e., increase in concentration and treatment duration resulted in higher repellency percentage. The clove oil was found more effective, showing maximum repellency of 80.00% at 0.9ml/cm2 (highest) concentration, and in lemongrass highest repellency was observed at 33.4% at 0.9 ml/cm2 concentration in the treated area.

Keywords: adult silverfish, oils, oil concentration, treatment duration, mortality (%) and repellency

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Authors: Manjari Srivastsva, Ruta Vyas

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The research in the area of self leadership advocates employee/team empowerment. It is well understood that empowered employees would contribute more and better to their organizational outcomes. This research is a part of an ongoing larger research in the area of empowering leadership behavior. The present research aims to understand some of the antecedents to empowering behavior of leaders such that the organizations can focus on the right elements and invest in the appropriate areas during their leadership development activities. The research is exploratory field study. Sampling is purposive, employing triadic design i.e. a manager and two of his/her subordinates are selected for data collection. The total no. of respondents is 240, with 80 managers and 160 of their direct reports. Initially focus group interview was done and based on the inputs from focus group, quantitative data was collected personally by the researchers using questionnaire. The sample is drawn from seven professionally run organization including those of Indian origin as well as multi-national companies. This study proposes to explore the constituents of empowering behavior both from leaders’ and their subordinates’ perspective and also see the relationship between some of the personal variables of leaders as an antecedent to empowering behavior. Similarly, the study aims to explore the subordinates’ perspectives as an antecedent to empowering behavior. The relationship between antecedent variables and empowering behavior is tested for moderation employing organization culture. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was done to establish the validity of the questionnaires. Further hierarchical regression analysis results revealed that organization based self-esteem and global self-esteem impact leaders’ empowering behavior and this relationship is further moderated by organization culture. Team members’ perspective showed higher importance for task characteristics and members' readiness from the point of view of empowerment. The relation between task characteristics and members’ readiness was not moderated by culture. The finding from this research may be utilized by professionals to guide organizations desiring rapid and sustainable growth, to develop leaders who empower their teams such that they act as leaders themselves and become stimulants for the growth of organizations.

Keywords: empowering behavior, team leaders, subordinates, self-esteem, organization culture, task characteristics, team members readiness

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Authors: Krassimir Todorov

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The purpose of the paper is to redefine the levels of structure of corporate, business and functional strategies that were established over the past several decades, to a conceptual model, consisting of corporate, business and operations strategies, that are reinforced by functional strategies. We will propose a conceptual framework of different perspectives in the role of strategic operations as a separate strategic place and reposition the remaining functional strategies as supporting tools, existing at all three levels. The proposed model is called ‘the strategic engine’, since the mutual relationships of its ingredients are identical with main elements and working principle of the internal combustion engine. Based on theoretical essence, related to every strategic level, we will prove that the strategic engine model is useful for managers seeking to safeguard the competitive advantage of their companies. Each strategy level is researched through its basic elements. At the corporate level we examine the scope of firm’s product, the vertical and geographical coverage. At the business level, the point of interest is limited to the SWOT analysis’ basic elements. While at operations level, the key research issue relates to the scope of the following performance indicators: cost, quality, speed, flexibility and dependability. In this relationship, the paper provides a different view for the role of operations strategy within the overall strategy concept. We will prove that the theoretical essence of operations goes far beyond the scope of traditionally accepted business functions. Exploring the applications of Resource-based theory and Market-based theory within the strategic levels framework, we will prove that there is a logical consequence of the theoretical impact in corporate, business and operations strategy – at every strategic level, the validity of one theory is substituted to the level of the other. Practical application of the conceptual model is tested in automotive industry. Actually, the proposed theoretical concept is inspired by a leading global automotive group – Inchcape PLC, listed on the London Stock Exchange, and constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Keywords: business strategy, corporate strategy, functional strategies, operations strategy

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Authors: Haniyeh Sameie

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In the process of globalization, geographical boundaries gradually lose their importance, and ethnic, local, and regional cultures are integrated with each other and even marginalized. Globalization has many manifestations and aspects, including economic, political, social, etc., but this paper has focused on the cultural aspect of globalization. From this point of view, one of the important issues that have always been raised is the assimilation of diverse and plural cultures, which are gradually disappearing and destroyed in the onslaught of global culture and are dissolved in global culture. In the postmodern paradigm, the tools of the globalized world can be used to preserve and strengthen cultural diversity. For example, the Internet, as a globalization tool, can play an important role in preserving and recognizing local cultures. In today's world, the world nations and ethnic groups are trying to revive their specific and native cultures in different ways in opposition to the rising cultural assimilation and challenge the globalization of culture. One of the manifestations of these actions is addressing the issue of tourism and, specifically, eco-tourism, which is being developed in Iran as well as in other parts of the world, relying on the powerful tool of globalization, the Internet. Considering the significant growth of the ecotourism industry in Iran in recent years, this paper focuses on the role of the Internet in the development of ecotourism in Iran as one of the manifestations of tourism in recent decades and how to preserve and survive diverse local cultures and strengthen local communities against global culture through it. One of the major challenges in the development of communication technology in Iran in the last decade has been the debate over the necessity or non-necessity of access to high-speed Internet in the villages of Iran. Some believe that accessing the broadband internet in the villages may lead to the disappearance of local cultures and can facilitate the spread of western culture among villagers. On the other hand, the speed of expansion of ecotourism in Iran in the last ten years is owed to the development of the Internet in villages. In this regard, we pay attention to the dual role of the Internet in cultural assimilation and, at the same time, the platform that the online space has created for the growth and development of ecotourism accommodations as a source of stable income for local communities, focusing on the Iranian experience in the recent decade.

Keywords: tourism, globalization, internet, ecotourism in Iran, cultural assimilation

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Authors: Tobias Strübing, Fatemeh Ziaeetabar

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Humans usually manipulate objects with their hands. To represent these actions in a simple and understandable way, we need to use a semantic framework. For this purpose, the Semantic Event Chain (SEC) method has already been presented which is done by consideration of touching and non-touching relations between manipulated objects in a scene. This method was improved by a computational model, the so-called enriched Semantic Event Chain (eSEC), which incorporates the information of static (e.g. top, bottom) and dynamic spatial relations (e.g. moving apart, getting closer) between objects in an action scene. This leads to a better action prediction as well as the ability to distinguish between more actions. Each eSEC manipulation descriptor is a huge matrix with thirty rows and a massive set of the spatial relations between each pair of manipulated objects. The current eSEC framework has so far only been used in the category of manipulation actions, which eventually involve two hands. Here, we would like to extend this approach to a whole body action descriptor and make a conjoint activity representation structure. For this purpose, we need to do a statistical analysis to modify the current eSEC by summarizing while preserving its features, and introduce a new version called Enhanced eSEC or (e2SEC). This summarization can be done from two points of the view: 1) reducing the number of rows in an eSEC matrix, 2) shrinking the set of possible semantic spatial relations. To achieve these, we computed the importance of each matrix row in an statistical way, to see if it is possible to remove a particular one while all manipulations are still distinguishable from each other. On the other hand, we examined which semantic spatial relations can be merged without compromising the unity of the predefined manipulation actions. Therefore by performing the above analyses, we made the new e2SEC framework which has 20% fewer rows, 16.7% less static spatial and 11.1% less dynamic spatial relations. This simplification, while preserving the salient features of a semantic structure in representing actions, has a tremendous impact on the recognition and prediction of complex actions, as well as the interactions between humans and robots. It also creates a comprehensive platform to integrate with the body limbs descriptors and dramatically increases system performance, especially in complex real time applications such as human-robot interaction prediction.

Keywords: enriched semantic event chain, semantic action representation, spatial relations, statistical analysis

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Authors: María Teresa Baquero, Ester Higueras

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One of the challenges facing 21st century cities, is their adaptation to the phenomenon of an ageing population. International policies have been developed, such as the "Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities". These cities must recognize the diversity of the elderly population, and facilitate an active, healthy, satisfied aging and promote inclusion. In order to promote active and healthy aging, older people should be encouraged to engage in physical activity, sunbathe, socialize and enjoy the public open spaces in the city. Some studies recognize thermal comfort as one of the factors that most influence the use of public open spaces. However, although some studies have shown vulnerability to thermal extremes and environmental conditions in older people, there is little research on thermal comfort for older adults, because it is usually analyzed based on the characteristics of the ¨average young person¨ without considering the physiological, physical and psychological differences that characterize the elderly. This study analyzes the relationship between the microclimate parameters as air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and sky view factor (SVF) with the personal thermal perception of older adults in three public spaces in Madrid, through a mixed methodology that combines weather measurements with interviews, made during the year 2018. Statistical test like Chi-square, Spearman, and analysis of variance were used to analyze the relationship between preference votes and thermal sensation votes with environmental and personal parameters. The results show that there is a significant correlation between thermal sensation and thermal preference with the measured air temperature, age, level of clothing, the color of clothing, season, time of the day and kind of space while no influence of gender or other environmental variables was detected. These data would contribute to the design of comfortable public spaces that improve the welfare of the elderly contributing to "active and healthy aging" as one of the 21st century challenges cities face.

Keywords: healthy ageing, older adults, outdoor public space, thermal perception

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Authors: Meng-Cong Zheng, Yu-Sheng Chen

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The meeting behavior is a pervasive kind of interaction, which often occurs between the passenger and the shuttle. However, the meeting point set up at the Taoyuan International Airport is too far from the entry-exit, often causing passengers to stop searching near the entry-exit. When the number of people waiting for the rush hour increases, it often results in chaos in the waiting area. This study tried to find out what is the key factor to promote the rapid finding of each other between the passengers and the pick-ups. Then we implemented several design proposals to improve the meeting behavior of passengers and pick-ups based on behavior mapping and post-occupancy evaluation to enhance their meeting efficiency in unfamiliar environments. The research base is the reception hall of the second terminal of Taoyuan International Airport. Behavioral observation and mapping are implemented on the entry of inbound passengers into the welcome space, including the crowd distribution of the people who rely on the separation wall in the waiting area, the behavior of meeting and the interaction between the inbound passengers and the pick-ups. Then we redesign the space planning and signage design based on post-occupancy evaluation to verify the effectiveness of space plan and signage design. This study found that passengers ignore existing meeting-point designs which are placed on distant pillars at both ends. The position of the screen affects the area where the receiver is stranded, causing the pick-ups to block the passenger's moving line. The pick-ups prefer to wait where it is easy to watch incoming passengers and where it is closest to the mode of transport they take when leaving. Large visitors tend to gather next to landmarks, and smaller groups have a wide waiting area in the lobby. The location of the meeting point chosen by the pick-ups is related to the view of the incoming passenger. Finally, this study proposes an improved design of the meeting point, setting the traffic information in it, so that most passengers can see the traffic information when they enter the country. At the same time, we also redesigned the pick-ups desk to improve the efficiency of passenger meeting.

Keywords: meeting point design, post-occupancy evaluation, behavioral mapping, international airport

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Authors: Chi-Wai Kan, Kam-Hong Chau, Ho-Shing Law

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Wicking property is important for textile finishing and wears comfort. Good wicking properties can ensure uniformity and efficiency of the textiles treatment. In view of wear comfort, quick wicking fabrics facilitate the evaporation of sweat. Therefore, the wetness sensation of the skin is minimised to prevent discomfort. The testing method for vertical wicking was standardised by the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) in 2011. The traditional vertical wicking test involves human error to observe fast changing and/or unclear wicking height. This study introduces optoelectronic devices to achieve an automatic Vertical Wicking Tester (VWT) and reduce human error. The VWT can record the wicking time and wicking height of samples. By reducing the difficulties of manual judgment, the reliability of the vertical wicking experiment is highly increased. Furthermore, labour is greatly decreased by using the VWT. The automatic measurement of the VWT has optoelectronic devices to trace the liquid wicking with a simple operation procedure. The optoelectronic devices detect the colour difference between dry and wet samples. This allows high sensitivity to a difference in irradiance down to 10 μW/cm². Therefore, the VWT is capable of testing dark fabric. The VWT gives a wicking distance (wicking height) of 1 mm resolution and a wicking time of one-second resolution. Acknowledgment: This is a research project of HKRITA funded by Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) with title “Development of an Automatic Measuring System for Vertical Wicking” (ITP/055/20TP). Author would like to thank the financial support by ITF. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material/event (or by members of the project team) do not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Innovation and Technology Commission or the Panel of Assessors for the Innovation and Technology Support Programme of the Innovation and Technology Fund and the Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel. Also, we would like to thank the support and sponsorship from Lai Tak Enterprises Limited, Kingis Development Limited and Wing Yue Textile Company Limited.

Keywords: AATCC method, comfort, textile measurement, wetness sensation

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Authors: Cornelia-Eugenia Munteanu

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The goal of this paper is to present the diagnostic contribution that the screening instrument, Mini-Mental State Examination-2: Expanded Version (MMSE-2:EV), brings in detecting the cognitive impairment or in monitoring the progress of degenerative disorders. The diagnostic signification is underlined by the interpretation of the MMSE-2:EV scores, resulted from the test application to patients with mild and major neurocognitive disorders. The original MMSE is one of the most widely used screening tools for detecting the cognitive impairment, in clinical settings, but also in the field of neurocognitive research. Now, the practitioners and researchers are turning their attention to the MMSE-2. To enhance its clinical utility, the new instrument was enriched and reorganized in three versions (MMSE-2:BV, MMSE-2:SV and MMSE-2:EV), each with two forms: blue and red. The MMSE-2 was adapted and used successfully in Romania since 2013. The cases were selected from current practice, in order to cover vast and significant neurocognitive pathology: mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, mixed dementia, Parkinson’s disease, conversion of the mild cognitive impairment into Alzheimer’s disease. The MMSE-2:EV version was used: it was applied one month after the initial assessment, three months after the first reevaluation and then every six months, alternating the blue and red forms. Correlated with age and educational level, the raw scores were converted in T scores and then, with the mean and the standard deviation, the z scores were calculated. The differences of raw scores between the evaluations were analyzed from the point of view of statistic signification, in order to establish the progression in time of the disease. The results indicated that the psycho-diagnostic approach for the evaluation of the cognitive impairment with MMSE-2:EV is safe and the application interval is optimal. The alternation of the forms prevents the learning phenomenon. The diagnostic accuracy and efficient therapeutic conduct derive from the usage of the national test norms. In clinical settings with a large flux of patients, the application of the MMSE-2:EV is a safe and fast psycho-diagnostic solution. The clinicians can draw objective decisions and for the patients: it doesn’t take too much time and energy, it doesn’t bother them and it doesn’t force them to travel frequently.

Keywords: MMSE-2, dementia, cognitive impairment, neuropsychology

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Authors: Carlos Joel Tchawouo Mbiada

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At the back of the apartheid era, South Africa embarked on a democratic drive of all its institution underpinned by a social justice perspective to eradicate past injustices. These democratic values based on fundamental human rights and equality informed all rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. This means that all rights are therefore infused by social justice perspective and labour rights are no exception. Labour law is therefore regulated to the extent that it is viewed as too rigid. Hence a call for more flexibility to enhance investment and boost job creation. This view articulated by the Free Market Foundation fell on deaf ears as the opponents believe in what is termed regulated flexibility which affords greater protection to vulnerable workers while promoting business opportunities and investment. The question that this paper seeks to examine is to what extent the regulation of labour law will go to protect employees. This question is prompted by the recent Constitutional Court’s judgment of National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa v Trenstar which barred the employer from employing labour replacement in response to the strike action by its employees. The question whether employers may use replacement labour and have recourse to lock-outs in response to strike action is considered in the context of the dichotomy between the Free market foundation and social justice perspectives which are at loggerheads in the South African collective bargaining process. With the current unemployment rate soaring constantly, the aftermath of the Covid 19 pandemic, the effects of the war in Ukraine and lately the financial burden of load shedding on companies to run their businesses, this paper argues for a policy shift toward deregulation or a lesser state and judiciary intervention. This initiative will relieve the burden on companies to run a viable business while at the same time protecting existing jobs.

Keywords: labour law, replacement labour, right to strike, free market foundation perspective, social justice perspective

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Authors: Vilma Zydziunaite, Ausra Rutkiene

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In modern society, problems related to the teacher's personality, mental and physical health, teacher's emotions and competencies are becoming more and more relevant. In Lithuania, compared to other European countries, teachers experience specific difficulties at work: they have to work in conditions of constant reforms and changes and face growing competition due to the decrease in students and schools. Professional burnout, teacher’s self-efficacy and perceived stress are interrelated personally and/or organisationally. So, the relationship between teachers' professional burnout, self-efficacy, and perceived stress in the school environment seems to be a relatively underresearched area in Lithuania. The research aim was to reveal and characterize teacher burnout, self-efficacy, and perceived stress in the Lithuanian school context. The quantitative research design with a questioning survey was chosen for the study. The sample size consisted of 427 Lithuanian teachers. Research results revealed the highest scores for exhaustion and the lowest for cynicism; at a time when the teacher experiences professional burnout, cynicism is observed as the weakest characteristic; no significant differences were found according to educational level work experience; significant differences were identified according to age for exhaustion and overall burnout level among teachers; the most of teachers in Lithuanian sample perceive the moderate stress level in school environment; overall burnout has a significant correlation with self-efficacy and stress among Lithuanian teachers. This study has empirical and practical implications: it is relevant to study the problems of teacher's professional burnout, stress, and self-efficacy in connection with contextual qualitative variables and specify the interrelationships between variables in order to be able to identify specific problems and provide empirical evidence to practically solve them. From a practical point of view, the results show that the socio-emotional state of teachers should not be dismissed as an insignificant aspect. Therefore, the school administration must make efforts to develop a positive school climate that supports the socio-emotional state of the teacher. At the same time, school administration must pay great attention to the development of teachers' socio-emotional competencies without ignoring their importance in the teacher's professional life.

Keywords: Lithuania, perceived stress, professional burnout, self-efficacy, teacher

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Authors: Puran Prasad Adhikari

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Considering the fact that when we are able to communicate science and economics effectively to broader nonprofessional audiences, it promotes a great understanding of its wider relevance to society and encourages more informed and confident decision-making at all levels, from the government to communities to individuals. The study has been conducted. This study is aimed to examine the understanding of the general public of economics and the basic sciences functioning in our surroundings in our day-to-day life. Data was gathered through historical documents related to science communication and through interviews with the public. The statistical result shows that there is a great lack of knowledge in the general public about the basic sciences and how economics impacts their life daily. The difficulties faced by the public include the view that these things can only be understood by professionals and it is beyond their capacity to grasp these concepts, the use of technical words and jargon by the professionals, and the lack of the medium to understand even if they want to learn it. The result further indicates that the lack of this basic knowledge also leads to bad decision-making, which causes frustration and anxiety. The result shows the great correlation between the confidence level of a person and the knowledge of basic science and economics. The factor behind this was the right decision-making capacity of the individual, which boosts the happy hormones of the individual. So indirectly, we found the correlation between mental health and the understanding of science and economics. The public wants to have a basic understanding and concepts of these topics, but they complain that there is no effective medium through which they can gain the understanding; the medium which is available is full of jargon and technical terms directed to professional and highly educated which they consider is beyond their reach. So, communicating the basic concepts to the general public is of great importance in the 21st century for the overall progress of society. The professional one can make this possible by considering the level of public understanding and making the communication and the programs comprehensible to the layman. Various means can be used to make this successful and effective, e.g., cartoon guide books, Q&A with the layman, animations use, and daily life examples. This study’s implication will help educators of high-level institutions and policymakers improve general public [layman] access to comprehensible knowledge.

Keywords: layman, comprehensible, decision making, frustration, confidence

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Authors: Mohsen Goodarzi, George Berghorn

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Despite the rapid growth in the number of green building and community development projects, the long-term performance of these projects has not yet been sufficiently evaluated from the users’ points of view. This is partially due to the lack of post-occupancy evaluation tools available for this type of project. In this study, a post-construction evaluation model is developed to evaluate the relationship between the perceived performance and satisfaction of residents in LEED-certified residential buildings and communities. To develop this evaluation model, a primary five-factor model was developed based on the existing models and residential satisfaction theories. Each factor of the model included several measures that were adopted from LEED certification systems such as LEED-BD+C New Construction, LEED-BD+C Multifamily Midrise, LEED-ND, as well as the UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment survey tool. The model included four predictor variables (factors), including perceived building performance (8 measures), perceived infrastructure performance (9 measures), perceived neighborhood design (6 measures), and perceived economic performance (4 measures), and one dependent variable (factor), which was residential satisfaction (6 measures). An online survey was then conducted to collect the data from the residents of LEED-certified residential communities (n=192) and the validity of the model was tested through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). After modifying the CFA model, 26 measures, out of the initial 33 measures, were retained to enter into a Structural Equation Model (SEM) and to find the relationships between the perceived buildings performance, infrastructure performance, neighborhood design, economic performance and residential Satisfaction. The results of the SEM showed that the perceived building performance was the most influential factor in determining residential satisfaction in LEED-certified communities, followed by the perceived neighborhood design. On the other hand, perceived infrastructure performance and perceived economic performance did not show any significant relationship with residential satisfaction in these communities. This study can benefit green building researchers by providing a model for the evaluation of the long-term performance of these projects. It can also provide opportunities for green building practitioners to determine priorities for future residential development projects.

Keywords: green building, residential satisfaction, perceived performance, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling

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Authors: A. Anastasopoulou, A. Kolios, T. Somorin, A. Sowale, Y. Jiang, B. Fidalgo, A. Parker, L. Williams, M. Collins, E. J. McAdam, S. Tyrrel

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Developing countries are nowadays confronted with great challenges related to domestic sanitation services in view of the imminent water scarcity. Contemporary sanitation technologies established in these countries are likely to pose health risks unless waste management standards are followed properly. This paper provides a solution to sustainable sanitation with the development of an innovative toilet system, called Nano Membrane Toilet (NMT), which has been developed by Cranfield University and sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The particular technology converts human faeces into energy through gasification and provides treated wastewater from urine through membrane filtration. In order to evaluate the environmental profile of the NMT system, a deterministic life cycle assessment (LCA) has been conducted in SimaPro software employing the Ecoinvent v3.3 database. The particular study has determined the most contributory factors to the environmental footprint of the NMT system. However, as sensitivity analysis has identified certain critical operating parameters for the robustness of the LCA results, adopting a stochastic approach to the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) will comprehensively capture the input data uncertainty and enhance the credibility of the LCA outcome. For that purpose, Monte Carlo simulations, in combination with an artificial neural network (ANN) model, have been conducted for the input parameters of raw material, produced electricity, NO_X emissions, amount of ash and transportation of fertilizer. The given analysis has provided the distribution and the confidence intervals of the selected impact categories and, in turn, more credible conclusions are drawn on the respective LCIA (Life Cycle Impact Assessment) profile of NMT system. Last but not least, the specific study will also yield essential insights into the methodological framework that can be adopted in the environmental impact assessment of other complex engineering systems subject to a high level of input data uncertainty.

Keywords: sanitation systems, nano-membrane toilet, lca, stochastic uncertainty analysis, Monte Carlo simulations, artificial neural network

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Authors: Elitza Z. Ambrus, Bjoern Hartig, Ryan McKay

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Individuals’ self-judgments might be malleable and influenced by comparison with a random value. On the one hand, self-judgments reflect our self-image, which is typically considered to be stable in adulthood. Indeed, people also strive hard to maintain a fixed, positive moral image of themselves. On the other hand, research has shown the robustness of the so-called anchoring effect on judgments and decisions. The anchoring effect refers to the influence of a previously considered comparative value (anchor) on a consecutive absolute judgment and reveals that individuals’ estimates of various quantities are flexible and can be influenced by a salient random value. The present study extends the anchoring paradigm to the domain of the self. We also investigate whether participants are more susceptible to self-serving anchors, i.e., anchors that enhance participant’s self-image, especially their moral self-image. In a pre-reregistered study via the online platform Prolific, 249 participants (156 females, 89 males, 3 other and 1 who preferred not to specify their gender; M = 35.88, SD = 13.91) ranked themselves on eight personality characteristics. However, in the anchoring conditions, respondents were asked to first indicate whether they thought they would rank higher or lower than a given anchor value before providing their estimated rank in comparison to 100 other anonymous participants. A high and a low anchor value were employed to differentiate between anchors in a desirable (self-serving) direction and anchors in an undesirable (self-diminishing) direction. In the control treatment, there was no comparison question. Subsequently, participants provided their self-rankings on the eight personality traits with two personal characteristics for each combination of the factors desirable/undesirable and moral/non-moral. We found evidence of an anchoring effect for self-judgments. Moreover, anchoring was more efficient when people were anchored in a self-serving direction: the anchoring effect was enhanced when supporting a more favorable self-view and mitigated (even reversed) when implying a deterioration of the self-image. The self-serving anchoring was more pronounced for moral than for non-moral traits. The data also provided evidence in support of a better-than-average effect in general as well as a magnified better-than-average effect for moral traits. Taken together, these results suggest that self-judgments might not be as stable in adulthood as previously thought. In addition, considerations of constructing and maintaining a positive self-image might interact with the anchoring effect on self-judgments. Potential implications of our results concern the construction and malleability of self-judgments as well as the psychological mechanism shaping anchoring.

Keywords: anchoring, better-than-average effect, self-judgments, self-serving anchoring

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Authors: Lineo Dzansi

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South African government has been mandated by the Constitution (Act 108 of 1996) to deliver basic services to all who live in it. However, service delivery has always been marred with much criticism and citizens’ dissatisfaction regarding the quality of services rendered to them. This is evidenced by public protests that are common in South Africa lately which they are mostly alleged to link with failure by the government through various municipalities to meet citizens’ service delivery expectations. Municipalities render services through people. People management plays a crucial role in influencing employee and organisational performance and it thus needs to be conducted in a fair and just manner. Literature confirms that there is a relationship between organisational justice perceptions and employee behaviour, and that positive or negative justice perceptions can have an influence on employee attitudes, commitment to their jobs and organisation. The nature of the attachments formed by individuals to their employing organisations depends on the manner in which the organisation treats them. This implies that Municipal employees’ commitment could be linked to fair or unfair perceptions of Human Resource Management practices within their organisations. Unfortunately, the political nature of municipal environment could be a fertile ground for appointments of people based on political affiliation as a reward for political patronage rather than on merit. This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal employees’ perceptions of fairness of Human Resource Management practices and employee commitment from the organisational justice point of view. Research on organisational justice has shown that employees’ organisational justice perceptions link directly with job satisfaction and employee organisational commitment. Quantitative research methods were employed to collect and analyse data from selected managerial and non-managerial municipal employees within selected municipalities in Free State Province of South Africa. Employee commitment has positive relationships with HRM practices at the .05 and .01 levels of significance – indicating that the higher the levels of HRM practices in municipal employees the higher the organisational commitment of employees. Therefore, it is concluded that organisational commitment of municipal employees (EOC) is positively related to their perceptions of fairness of HRM practices (PHF) of municipalities. In other words, fair HRM practices of municipalities promote organisational commitment in municipal employees.

Keywords: organisational Justice, HRM practices, employee organisational commitment, employee attitudes

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Authors: Wen Cai Ng, Saman Ilankoon, Meng Nan Chong

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The vast increase in global energy demand, coupled with the growing concerns on environmental issues, has triggered the search for cleaner alternative energy sources. In view of this, the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting offers a sustainable hydrogen (H2) production route that only requires solar energy, water, and PEC system operating in an ambient environment. However, the current advancement of PEC water splitting technologies is still far from the commercialization benchmark indicated by the solar-to-H2 (STH) efficiency of at least 10 %. This is largely due to the shortcomings of photoelectrodes used in the PEC system, such as the rapid recombination of photogenerated charge carriers and limited photo-responsiveness in the visible-light spectrum. Silver orthophosphate (Ag3PO4) possesses many desirable intrinsic properties for the fabrication into photoanode used in PEC systems, such as narrow bandgap of 2.4 eV and low valence band (VB) position. Hence, in this study, a highly efficient Ag3PO4-based photoanode was synthesized and characterized. The surface of the Ag foil substrate was directly oxidized to fabricate a top layer composed of {111}-bound Ag3PO4 tetrahedrons layer with a porous structure, forming the dual-layer Ag/Ag3PO4 photoanode. Furthermore, the key synthesis parameters were systematically investigated by varying the concentration ratio of capping agent-to-precursor (R), the volume ratio of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-to-water, and reaction period. Results showed that the optimized dual-layer Ag/Ag3PO4 photoanode achieved a photocurrent density as high as 4.19 mA/cm2 at 1 V vs. Ag/AgCl for the R-value of 4, the volume ratio of H2O2-to-water of 3:5 and 20 h reaction period. The current work provides a solid foundation for further nanoarchitecture modification strategies on Ag3PO4-based photoanodes for more efficient PEC water splitting applications. This piece of information needs to be backed up by evidence; therefore, you need to provide a reference. As the abstract should be self-contained, all information requiring a reference should be removed. This is a fact known to the area of research, and not necessarily required a reference to support.

Keywords: solar-to-hydrogen fuel, photoelectrochemical water splitting, photoelectrode, silver orthophosphate

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Authors: Mohammed Mutala Surazu

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The origin of Islam is traced back to the time of Prophet Mohammed (SAW), 571 AD, who thought the six main articles of faith and the five pillars of the region. Today, Islam is regarded as one of the fastest growing religions in the world, another peaceful one and very accommodating to other religions. Politics dominates in Islam and, as a result, divisions into various groupings, including the Ahmadiyah, Tijania, Suni and many others. Despite all believing the Qur’an as the only holy book used, they are all affiliated with different types of hadiths, including the al-Nawawi’s. These divisions are the reasons for tension in Islam, and it is necessary to conduct this research to investigate political situations in Islam within the society. Over the past three or two decades, there have been diverse and divided opinions about politics and religion (Islam). Many believe that politics and religion are inherently subjective and should be accepted as such, and the further argument for a relativistic approach is that individuals' and communities’ beliefs and values should be acknowledged and respected since no single political or religious ideology can claim absolute truth and superiority over the other. The perspective view is that emphasis is placed on tolerance and coexistence between different political and religious views; moreover, society is comprised of individuals with different backgrounds, opinions and interests, so it is necessary to find common ground and create space where diverse ideas can peacefully coexist in order to promote dialogue, understanding and mutual respect to maintain social harmony and peaceful relation in the society. Also, some individuals in society argue about the universalism of certain moral principles, which should be certain and agreed upon by all. For example, the Jewish people believe that eating pork is wrong, and if someone of another religion is asked if they agree with that, objectively, the non-Jewish would be comfortable with that. Others still argue that a continuous relativistic approach to politics and religion can lead to a breakdown of shared moral standards, loss of ethical principles, doubting faith or loyalty and uprising against agencies of politics and religion. And within the political groupings, they believe in the same ideologies to propagate their message, likewise the religious belongings (Christianity, Islam, Judaism and others) who also ensure that their religious perspectives or beliefs are deeply rooted in the society. This forms the basis for research about the perspective of politics and religious relativism in this modern era to respond to the questions and the challenges of religious politics in Islam.

Keywords: relativism, religion, universality, politics

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Authors: M. Amparo Nunez-Andres, Nieves Lantada

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One of the most harmful geological risks is rockfalls. They cause both economic lost, damaged in buildings and infrastructures, and personal ones. Therefore, in order to estimate the risk of the exposed elements, it is necessary to know the mechanism of this kind of events, since the characteristics of the rock walls, to the propagation of fragments generated by the initial detached rock mass. In the framework of the research RockModels project, several inventories of rockfalls were carried out along the northeast of the Spanish peninsula and the Mallorca island. These inventories have general information about the events, although the important fact is that they contained detailed information about fragmentation. Specifically, the IBSD (Insitu Block Size Distribution) is obtained by photogrammetry from drone or TLS (Terrestrial Laser Scanner) and the RBSD (Rock Block Size Distribution) from the volume of the fragment in the deposit measured by hand. In order to share all this information with other scientists, engineers, members of civil protection, and stakeholders, it is necessary a platform accessible from the internet and following interoperable standards. In all the process, open-software have been used: PostGIS 2.1., Geoserver, and OpenLayers library. In the first step, a spatial database was implemented to manage all the information. We have used the data specifications of INSPIRE for natural risks adding specific and detailed data about fragmentation distribution. The next step was to develop a WMS with Geoserver. A previous phase was the creation of several views in PostGIS to show the information at different scales of visualization and with different degrees of detail. In the first view, the sites are identified with a point, and basic information about the rockfall event is facilitated. In the next level of zoom, at medium scale, the convex hull of the rockfall appears with its real shape and the source of the event and fragments are represented by symbols. The queries at this level offer a major detail about the movement. Eventually, the third level shows all elements: deposit, source, and blocks, in their real size, if it is possible, and in their real localization. The last task was the publication of all information in a web mapping site (www.rockdb.upc.edu) with data classified by levels using libraries in JavaScript as OpenLayers.

Keywords: geological risk, web mapping, WMS, rockfalls

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Authors: Massimiliano Frezza, Sergio Bianchi, Augusto Pianese

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The relation between stock price volatility and trading volume represents a controversial issue which has received a remarkable attention over the past decades. In fact, an extensive literature shows a positive relation between price volatility and trading volume in the financial markets, but the causal relationship which originates such association is an open question, from both a theoretical and empirical point of view. In this regard, various models, which can be considered as complementary rather than competitive, have been introduced to explain this relationship. They include the long debated Mixture of Distributions Hypothesis (MDH); the Sequential Arrival of Information Hypothesis (SAIH); the Dispersion of Beliefs Hypothesis (DBH); the Noise Trader Hypothesis (NTH). In this work, we analyze whether stock market efficiency can explain the diversity of results achieved during the years. For this purpose, we propose an alternative measure of market efficiency, based on the pointwise regularity of a stochastic process, which is the Hurst–H¨older dynamic exponent. In particular, we model the stock market by means of the multifractional Brownian motion (mBm) that displays the property of a time-changing regularity. Mostly, such models have in common the fact that they locally behave as a fractional Brownian motion, in the sense that their local regularity at time t0 (measured by the local Hurst–H¨older exponent in a neighborhood of t0 equals the exponent of a fractional Brownian motion of parameter H(t0)). Assuming that the stock price follows an mBm, we introduce and theoretically justify the Hurst–H¨older dynamical exponent as a measure of market efficiency. This allows to measure, at any time t, markets’ departures from the martingale property, i.e. from efficiency as stated by the Efficient Market Hypothesis. This approach is applied to financial markets; using data for the SP500 index from 1978 to 2017, on the one hand we find that when efficiency is not accounted for, a positive contemporaneous relationship emerges and is stable over time. Conversely, it disappears as soon as efficiency is taken into account. In particular, this association is more pronounced during time frames of high volatility and tends to disappear when market becomes fully efficient.

Keywords: volume–volatility relationship, efficient market hypothesis, martingale model, Hurst–Hölder exponent

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Authors: Shuk Ting Kinnia Yau

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As China has become more and more influential in the global and geo-political arena, mutual understanding between Japan and China has also become a topic of paramount importance. There have always been tensions between the two countries, but unfortunately, each country tends to blame the other for fanning emotions. This research will investigate portrayals of China and the Chinese people in Japanese media such as newspapers, TV news, TV drama, and cinema over this period, focusing on media sources that have particularly wide viewership or readership. By doing so, it attempts to detect any general trends in the positive or negative character of such portrayals and to see if they correlate with the results of surveys of attitudes among the general population. To the degree that correlations may be found, the question arises as to whether the media portrayals are a reflection of societal attitudes towards the Chinese, on one hand, or may be playing a role in promoting such attitudes, on the other. The relationship here is, without doubt, more complex than a simple one-way relationship of cause and effect, but indications of some direction of causality may be suggested by trends in one occurring before or after the other. Evidence will also be sought of possible longer-term trends in media portrayals of China and the Chinese people in Japan during the post-2012 period, i.e., Abe Shinzo’s second term as prime minister, in comparison to earlier periods. Perceptions of Japan’s view of China and the Chinese, both inside and outside the scholarly world, tend to be oversimplified and are often incomprehensive. This research calls attention to the role played by the media in promoting or de-promoting Sino-Japanese relations. By analyzing the nature and background of images of China and the Chinese people presented in the Japanese media, especially under the new Abe Regime, this research seeks to promote a more balanced and comprehensive understanding of attitudes in Japanese society towards its gigantic neighbor. Scholars have seen the increasingly fragile Sino-Japanese relationship as inseparable from the real-world political conflicts that have become more frequent in recent years and have sought to draw a correlation between the two. The influence of the media, however, remains a mostly under-explored domain in the academic world. Against this background, this research aims to provide an enriched scholarly understanding of Japan’s perception of China by investigating to what extent such perception can be seen to be affected by subjective or selective forms of presentation of China found in the Japanese media, or vice versa.

Keywords: Abe Shinzo, China, Japan, media

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Authors: Olawale S. Fatoba, Stephen A. Akinlabi, Esther T. Akinlabi, Rezvan Gharehbaghi

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The performance of material surface under wear and corrosion environments cannot be fulfilled by the conventional surface modifications and coatings. Therefore, different industrial sectors need an alternative technique for enhanced surface properties. Titanium and its alloys possess poor tribological properties which limit their use in certain industries. This paper focuses on the effect of hybrid coatings Al-Cu-Fe on a grade five titanium alloy using laser metal deposition (LMD) process. Icosahedral Al-Cu-Fe as quasicrystals is a relatively new class of materials which exhibit unusual atomic structure and useful physical and chemical properties. A 3kW continuous wave ytterbium laser system (YLS) attached to a KUKA robot which controls the movement of the cladding process was utilized for the fabrication of the coatings. The titanium cladded surfaces were investigated for its hardness, corrosion and tribological behaviour at different laser processing conditions. The samples were cut to corrosion coupons, and immersed into 3.65% NaCl solution at 28oC using Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Linear Polarization (LP) techniques. The cross-sectional view of the samples was analysed. It was found that the geometrical properties of the deposits such as width, height and the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ) of each sample remarkably increased with increasing laser power due to the laser-material interaction. It was observed that there are higher number of aluminum and titanium presented in the formation of the composite. The indentation testing reveals that for both scanning speed of 0.8 m/min and 1m/min, the mean hardness value decreases with increasing laser power. The low coefficient of friction, excellent wear resistance and high microhardness were attributed to the formation of hard intermetallic compounds (TiCu, Ti2Cu, Ti3Al, Al3Ti) produced through the in situ metallurgical reactions during the LMD process. The load-bearing capability of the substrate was improved due to the excellent wear resistance of the coatings. The cladded layer showed a uniform crack free surface due to optimized laser process parameters which led to the refinement of the coatings.

Keywords: Al-Cu-Fe coating, corrosion, intermetallics, laser metal deposition, Ti-6Al-4V alloy, wear resistance

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Authors: Esther Cabezas-Rivas

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Ordinary differential equations (ODE) are a fundamental part of the curriculum for most engineering degrees, and students typically have difficulties in the subsequent abstract mathematical calculations. To enhance their motivation and profit that they are digital natives, we propose a teamwork project that includes the creation of a video. It should explain how to model mathematically a real-world problem transforming it into an ODE, which should then be solved using the tools learned in the lectures. This idea was indeed implemented with first-year students of a BSc in Engineering and Management during the period of online learning caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 in Spain. Each group of 4 students was assigned a different topic: model a hot water heater, search for the shortest path, design the quickest route for delivery, cooling a computer chip, the shape of the hanging cables of the Golden Gate, detecting land mines, rocket trajectories, etc. These topics should be worked out through two complementary channels: a written report describing the problem and a 10-15 min video on the subject. The report includes the following items: description of the problem to be modeled, detailed obtention of the ODE that models the problem, its complete solution, and interpretation in the context of the original problem. We report the outcomes of this teaching in context and active learning experience, including the feedback received by the students. They highlighted the encouragement of creativity and originality, which are skills that they do not typically relate to mathematics. Additionally, the video format (unlike a common presentation) has the advantage of allowing them to critically review and self-assess the recording, repeating some parts until the result is satisfactory. As a side effect, they felt more confident about their oral abilities. In short, students agreed that they had fun preparing the video. They recognized that it was tricky to combine deep mathematical contents with entertainment since, without the latter, it is impossible to engage people to view the video till the end. Despite this difficulty, after the activity, they claimed to understand better the material, and they enjoyed showing the videos to family and friends during and after the project.

Keywords: active learning, contextual teaching, models in differential equations, student-produced videos

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Authors: Vani Tanggamani, Azlan Amran

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The issues of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have been extended from developmental economics to corporate and business in recent years. Research in issues related to CSR is deemed to make higher impacts as CSR encourages long-term economy and business success without neglecting social, environmental risks, obligations and opportunities. Therefore, CSR is a key matter for any organisation aiming for long term sustainability since business incorporates principles of social responsibility into each of its business decisions. Thus, this paper presents a theoretical proposition based on stakeholder theory from the organisational perspective as a foundation for better CSR practices. The primary subject of this paper is to explore how looping concept can be effectively embedded into corporate CSR strategy to foster sustainable long term growth. In general, the concept of a loop is a structure or process, the end of which is connected to the beginning, whereas the narrow view of a loop in business field means plan, do, check, and improve. In this sense, looping concept is a blend of balance and agility with the awareness to know when to which. Organisations can introduce similar pull mechanisms by formulating CSR strategies in order to perform the best plan of actions in real time, then a chance to change those actions, pushing them toward well-organized planning and successful performance. Through the analysis of an exploratory study, this paper demonstrates that approaching looping concept in the context of corporate CSR strategy is an important source of new idea to propel CSR practices by deepening basic understanding through the looping concept which is increasingly necessary to attract and retain business stakeholders include people such as employees, customers, suppliers and other communities for long-term business survival. This paper contributes to the literature by providing a fundamental explanation of how the organisations will experience less financial and reputation risk if looping concept logic is integrated into core business CSR strategy.The value of the paper rests in the treatment of looping concept as a corporate CSR strategy which demonstrates "looping concept implementation framework for CSR" that could further foster business sustainability, and help organisations move along the path from laggards to leaders.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility, looping concept, stakeholder theory, sustainable growth

Procedia PDF Downloads 381

Authors: Linjie Zhang, Baifen Ren, Xi Zhang, Genwang Liu

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Ship detection is of great significance for both military and civilian applications. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with all-day, all-weather, ultra-long-range characteristics, has been used widely. In view of the low time resolution of low orbit SAR and the needs for high time resolution SAR data, GEO (Geosynchronous orbit) SAR is getting more and more attention. Since GEO SAR has short revisiting period and large coverage area, it is expected to be well utilized in marine ship targets monitoring. However, the height of the orbit increases the time of integration by almost two orders of magnitude. For moving marine vessels, the utility and efficacy of GEO SAR are still not sure. This paper attempts to find the feasibility of GEO SAR by giving a GEO SAR simulator of moving ships. This presented GEO SAR simulator is a kind of geometrical-based radar imaging simulator, which focus on geometrical quality rather than high radiometric. Inputs of this simulator are 3D ship model (.obj format, produced by most 3D design software, such as 3D Max), ship's velocity, and the parameters of satellite orbit and SAR platform. Its outputs are simulated GEO SAR raw signal data and SAR image. This simulating process is accomplished by the following four steps. (1) Reading 3D model, including the ship rotations (pitch, yaw, and roll) and velocity (speed and direction) parameters, extract information of those little primitives (triangles) which is visible from the SAR platform. (2) Computing the radar scattering from the ship with physical optics (PO) method. In this step, the vessel is sliced into many little rectangles primitives along the azimuth. The radiometric calculation of each primitive is carried out separately. Since this simulator only focuses on the complex structure of ships, only single-bounce reflection and double-bounce reflection are considered. (3) Generating the raw data with GEO SAR signal modeling. Since the normal ‘stop and go’ model is not available for GEO SAR, the range model should be reconsidered. (4) At last, generating GEO SAR image with improved Range Doppler method. Numerical simulation of fishing boat and cargo ship will be given. GEO SAR images of different posture, velocity, satellite orbit, and SAR platform will be simulated. By analyzing these simulated results, the effectiveness of GEO SAR for the detection of marine moving vessels is evaluated.

Keywords: GEO SAR, radar, simulation, ship

Procedia PDF Downloads 161

Authors: Ramona-Niculina Jurcau, Ioana-Marieta Jurcau

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Background: Preparing in the stress field (SF) is, increasingly, a concern for doctors of different specialties. Aims: The aim was to evaluate the importance of an e-learning program for doctors postgraduate courses, in SF. Methods: Doctors (n= 40 male, 40 female) of different specialties and ages (31-71 years), who attended postgraduate courses in SF, voluntarily responded to a questionnaire that included the following themes: Importance of SF courses for specialty practiced by each respondent doctor (using visual analogue scale, VAS); What SF themes would be indicated as e-learning (EL); Preferred form of SF information assimilation: Classical lectures (CL), EL or a combination of these methods (CL+EL); Which information on the SF course are facilitated by EL model versus CL; In their view which are the first four advantages and the first four disadvantages of EL compared to CL, for SF. Results: To most respondents, the SF courses are important for the specialty they practiced (VAS by an average of 4). The SF themes suggested to be done as EL were: Stress mechanisms; stress factor models for different medical specialties; stress assessment methods; primary stress management methods for different specialties. Preferred form of information assimilation was CL+EL. Aspects of the course facilitated by EL versus CL model: Active reading of theoretical information, with fast access to keywords details; watching documentaries in everyone's favorite order; practice through tests and the rapid control of results. The first four EL advantages, mentioned for SF were: Autonomy in managing the time allocated to the study; saving time for traveling to the venue; the ability to read information in various contexts of time and space; communication with colleagues, in good times for everyone. The first three EL disadvantages, mentioned for SF were: It decreases capabilities for group discussion and mobilization for active participation; EL information accession may depend on electrical source or/and Internet; learning slowdown can appear, by temptation of postponing the implementation. Answering questions was partially influenced by the respondent's age and genre. Conclusions: 1) Post-graduate courses in SF are of interest to doctors of different specialties. 2) The majority of participating doctors preferred EL, but combined with CL (CL+EL). 3) Preference for EL was manifested mainly by young or middle age men doctors. 4) It is important to balance the proper formula for chosen EL, to be the most efficient, interesting, useful and agreeable.

Keywords: stress field, doctors’ postgraduate courses, classical lectures, e-learning lecture

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Authors: Ana Luiza Aranha

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This paper contributes to the discussions that consider corruption as a challenge to the establishment of more democratically inclusive societies in Latin America. The paper advocates an intrinsic connection between democratic principles and corruption control – it is only possible to achieve just forms of democratic life if accountability institutions are able to control corruption, and therefore control the political exclusions that it brings. Departing from a non-trivial approach to corruption, and recognizing a gap in democratic theory when thinking about this phenomenon, corruption is understood as the breakdown of the democratic inclusive rule, whereby political decisions are made (and actions were taken) in spite of those potentially affected by them. Based on this idea, this paper proposes a new way of measuring corruption, moving away from usual aggregate measures – such as the Corruption Perception Index – and case studies of corruption scandals. The main argument sustains that corruption is intrinsically connected with the ability to be accountable and to provide public justification for the political conduct. The point advocated is that corruption involves a dimension of political exclusion. It generates a private benefit which is, from a democratic point of view, illegitimate, since it benefits some at the expense of the decisions made by the political community. Corruption is then a form of exclusion based on deception and opacity - for corruption, there is no plausible justification. Empirically, the paper uses the audit reports produced by the Brazilian anti-corruption agency (the CGU - Office of the Comptroller General) in its Inspections From Public Lotteries Program to exemplify how we can use this definition to separate corruption cases from mismanagement irregularities. On one side, there is poor management and inefficiencies, and, on the other, corruption, defined by the implausibility of public justifications – because the public officials would have to publicize illegitimate privileges and undue advantages. CGU reports provide the justifications given by the public officials for the irregularities found and also the acceptance or not by the control agency of these justifications. The analysis of this dialogue – between public officials and control agents – makes it possible to divide the irregularities on those that can be publicly justified versus those that cannot. In order to hold public officials accountable for their actions, making them responsible for the exclusions that they may cause (such as corruption), the accountability institutions fulfil an important role in reinforcing and empowering democracy and its basic inclusive condition.

Keywords: accountability, brazil, corruption, democracy

Procedia PDF Downloads 248

Authors: Metin Özkan

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In the last decade, Turkish higher education has been expanded dramatically. With this expansion, Turkey has come a long way in establishing an efficient system of higher education which is moving into a ‘mass’ system with institutions spanning the whole country. This expansion as a quantitative target leads to questioning the quality of higher education services. Especially, the qualities of higher education services depend on mainly quality of educators. Qualities of educators are most important in Turkish higher education system due to rapid rise in the number of universities and students. Therefore, it is seen important that reveals the portrait of ideal university teacher from the point of view student enrolled in Turkish higher education system. The purpose of this current study is to determine the portrait of ideal university teacher according to the views of Turkish Students. This research is carried out with descriptive scanning method and combined and mixed of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Research data of qualitative section were collected at Gaziantep University with the participation of 45 students enrolled in 15 different faculties. Quantitative section was performed on 217 students. The data were obtained through semi-structured interview and “Ideal University Teacher Assessment” form developed by the researcher. The interview form consists of basically two parts. The first part of the interview was about personal information, the second part included questions about the characteristic of ideal university teacher. The questions which constitute the second part of the interview are; "what is a good university teacher like?” and “What human qualities and professional skills should a university teacher have? ". Assessment form which was created from the qualitative data obtained from interviews was used to attain scaling values for pairwise comparison and ranking judgment. According to study results, it has been found that ideal university teacher characteristics include the features like patient, tolerant, comprehensive and tolerant. Ideal university teacher, besides, implement the teaching methods like encouraging the students’ critical thinking, accepting the students’ recommendations on how to conduct the lesson and making use of the new technologies etc. Motivating and respecting the students, adopting a participative style, adopting a sincere way of manner also constitute the ideal university features relationships with students.

Keywords: faculty, higher education, ideal university teacher, teacher behavior

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Authors: Janneth Gonzalez, Andrés Pinzon Velasco, Maria Angarita

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Astrocytes play an important role in various processes in the brain, including pathological conditions such as neurodegenerative diseases. Recent studies have shown that the increase in saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid (PA) triggers pro-inflammatorypathways in the brain. The use of synthetic neurosteroids such as tibolone has demonstrated neuro-protective mechanisms. However, broad studies with a systemic point of view on the neurodegenerative role of PA and the neuro-protective mechanisms of tibolone are lacking. In this study, we performed the integration of multi-omic data (transcriptome and proteome) into a human astrocyte genomic scale metabolic model to study the astrocytic response during palmitate treatment. We evaluated metabolic fluxes in three scenarios (healthy, induced inflammation by PA, and tibolone treatment under PA inflammation). We also applied a control theory approach to identify those reactions that exert more control in the astrocytic system. Our results suggest that PA generates a modulation of central and secondary metabolism, showing a switch in energy source use through inhibition of folate cycle and fatty acid β‐oxidation and upregulation of ketone bodies formation. We found 25 metabolic switches under PA‐mediated cellular regulation, 9 of which were critical only in the inflammatory scenario but not in the protective tibolone one. Within these reactions, inhibitory, total, and directional coupling profiles were key findings, playing a fundamental role in the (de)regulation of metabolic pathways that may increase neurotoxicity and represent potential treatment targets. Finally, the overall framework of our approach facilitates the understanding of complex metabolic regulation, and it can be used for in silico exploration of the mechanisms of astrocytic cell regulation, directing a more complex future experimental work in neurodegenerative diseases.

Keywords: astrocytes, data integration, palmitic acid, computational model, multi-omics

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Authors: Donato Vese

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According to the common interpretation, in a legal system, public powers are established by law. Exceptions are admitted in an emergency or particular relationship with public power. However, we currently agree that law allows public administration a margin of decision, even in the case of non-discretionary acts. Hence, the administrative decision not exclusively established by law becomes the rule in the ordinary state of things, non-only in state of exception. This paper aims to analyze and discuss different ideas on discretionary power on the Rule of Law and Rechtsstaat. Observing the legal literature in Europe and Nord and South America, discretionary power can be described as follow: it could be considered a margin that law accords to the executive power for political decisions or a choice between different interpretations of vague legal previsions. In essence, this explanation admits for the executive a decision not established by law or anyhow not exclusively established by law. This means that the discretionary power of public administration integrates the law. However, integrating law does not mean to decide according to the law, but it means to integrate law with a decision involving public power. Consequently, discretionary power is essentially free will. In this perspective, also the Rule of Law and the Rechtsstaat are notions explained differently. Recently, we can observe how the European notion of Rechtsstaat is founded on the formal validity of the law; therefore, for this notion, public authority’s decisions not regulated by law represent a problem. Thus, different systems of law integration have been proposed in legal literature, such as values, democracy, reasonableness, and so on. This paper aims to verify how, looking at those integration clauses from a logical viewpoint, integration based on the recourse to the legal system itself does not resolve the problem. The aforementioned integration clauses are legal rules that require hard work to explain the correct meaning of the law; in particular, they introduce dangerous criteria in favor of the political majority. A different notion of public power can be proposed. This notion includes two main features: (a) sovereignty belongs to persons and not the state, and (b) fundamental rights are not grounded but recognized by Constitutions. Hence, public power is a system based on fundamental rights. According to this approach, it can also be defined as the notion of public interest as concrete maximization of fundamental rights enjoyments. Like this, integration of the law, vague or subject to several interpretations, must be done by referring to the system of fundamental individual rights. We can think, for instance, to fundamental rights that are right in an objective view but not legal because not established by law.

Keywords: administrative discretion, free will, fundamental rights, public power, sovereignty

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