Search results for: cultural infrastructure
3548 Using Multi-Arm Bandits to Optimize Game Play Metrics and Effective Game Design
Authors: Kenny Raharjo, Ramon Lawrence
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Game designers have the challenging task of building games that engage players to spend their time and money on the game. There are an infinite number of game variations and design choices, and it is hard to systematically determine game design choices that will have positive experiences for players. In this work, we demonstrate how multi-arm bandits can be used to automatically explore game design variations to achieve improved player metrics. The advantage of multi-arm bandits is that they allow for continuous experimentation and variation, intrinsically converge to the best solution, and require no special infrastructure to use beyond allowing minor game variations to be deployed to users for evaluation. A user study confirms that applying multi-arm bandits was successful in determining the preferred game variation with highest play time metrics and can be a useful technique in a game designer's toolkit.Keywords: game design, multi-arm bandit, design exploration and data mining, player metric optimization and analytics
Procedia PDF Downloads 5103547 Children in Conflict: Institutionalization as a Rehabilitative Mechanism in Jammu and Kashmir
Authors: Moksha Singh
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The proponents of deinstitutionalization, including Goffman and others, in their works, have regarded institutions (orphanages to be specific) as regulated social arrangements that negatively impinge upon a resident’s development. They, therefore, propose alternative forms of care. However, even after five decades of this critique institutionalization remains the only hope for children with social, physical and mental disabilities in larger parts of the developing world such as the conflict affected state of Jammu and Kashmir in India. This paper is based on the experiences of children who lost their parents to insurgency and counter-insurgency operations and the rehabilitation process. This study is qualitative in nature and adopts descriptive-cum-exploratory research design. Using theoretical sampling, six orphanages and thirty one child residents who lost their parent(s) in the course of the armed conflict in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in India were studied in the year 2009-2010. It included interviews, observation, life histories and introspective accounts of the orphans and the management. The results were drawn through the qualitative examination, understanding, and interpretation of the primary and secondary data. The findings suggested that rehabilitation of these conflict-affected children is taking place mainly through residential child care facilities run by non-governmental bodies. Alternative forms of rehabilitation are not functional in the state because of various geopolitical and socio-cultural complexities. Even after five years of arriving at these conclusions and more, the state of Jammu and Kashmir still lacks a comprehensive rehabilitation plan for these children. This has further encouraged a mushroomed growth of legal and illegal institutions. Some of these institutions compromise the standard norms of functioning and yet remain the only hope for thousands rendered orphan. These institutions, therefore, are there to stay as other alternative forms of care are not available in the state. A comprehensive intervention policy is needed based on the cultural specifics of the state and incorporation of views of institutions offering aid, the state and the children. The paper introduces Small Group Residential Care Model through which it is expected that the restoration process can be made smooth and effective.Keywords: armed conflict, children's rights, institutionalization, orphanages, rehabilitation
Procedia PDF Downloads 2503546 To Allow or to Forbid: Investigating How Europeans Reason about Endorsing Rights to Minorities: A Vignette Methodology Based Cross-Cultural Study
Authors: Silvia Miele, Patrice Rusconi, Harriet Tenenbaum
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An increasingly multi-ethnic Europe has been pushing citizens’ boundaries on who should be entitled and to what extent to practise their own diversity. Indeed, according to a Standard Eurobarometer survey conducted in 2017, immigration is seen by Europeans as the most serious issue facing the EU, and a third of respondents reported they do not feel comfortable interacting with migrants from outside the EU. Many of these come from Muslim countries, accounting for 4.9% of Europe population in 2016. However, the figure is projected to rise up to 14% by 2050. Additionally, political debates have increasingly focused on Muslim immigrants, who are frequently portrayed as difficult to integrate, while nationalist parties across Europe have fostered the idea of insuperable cultural differences, creating an atmosphere of hostility. Using a 3 X 3 X 2 between-subjects design, it was investigated how people reason about endorsing religious and non-religious rights to minorities. An online survey has been administered to university students of three different countries (Italy, Spain and the UK) via Qualtrics, presenting hypothetical scenarios through a vignette methodology. Each respondent has been randomly allocated to one of the three following conditions: Christian, Muslim or non-religious (vegan) target. Each condition entailed three questions about children self-determination rights to exercise some control over their own lives and 3 questions about children nurturance rights of care and protection. Moreover, participants have been required to further elaborate on their answers via free-text entries and have been asked about their contact and quality of contact with the three targets, and to self-report religious, national and ethnic identification. Answers have been recorded on a Likert scale of 1-5, 1 being "not at all", 5 being "very much". A two-way ANCOVA will be used to analyse answers to closed-ended questions, while free-text answers will be coded and data will be dichotomised based on Social Cognitive Domain Theory for four categories: moral, social conventional and psychological reasons, and analysed via ANCOVAs. This study’s findings aim to contribute to the implementation of educational interventions and speak to the introduction of governmental policies on human rights.Keywords: children's rights, Europe, migration, minority
Procedia PDF Downloads 1293545 Transformation to M-Learning at the Nursing Institute in the Armed Force Hospital Alhada, in Saudi Arabia Based on Activity Theory
Authors: Rahimah Abdulrahman, A. Eardle, Wilfred Alan, Abdel Hamid Soliman
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With the rapid development in technology, and advances in learning technologies, m-learning has begun to occupy a great part of our lives. The pace of the life getting together with the need for learning started mobile learning (m-learning) concept. In 2008, Saudi Arabia requested a national plan for the adoption of information technology (IT) across the country. Part of the recommendations of this plan concerns the implementation of mobile learning (m-learning) as well as their prospective applications to higher education within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The overall aim of the research is to explore the main issues that impact the deployment of m-learning in nursing institutes in Saudi Arabia, at the Armed Force Hospitals (AFH), Alhada. This is in order to be able to develop a generic model to enable and assist the educational policy makers and implementers of m-learning, to comprehend and treat those issues effectively. Specifically, the research will explore the concept of m-learning; identify and analyse the main organisational; technological and cultural issue, that relate to the adoption of m-learning; develop a model of m-learning; investigate the perception of the students of the Nursing Institutes to the use of m-learning technologies for their nursing diploma programmes based on their experiences; conduct a validation of the m-learning model with the use of the nursing Institute of the AFH, Alhada in Saudi Arabia, and evaluate the research project as a learning experience and as a contribution to the body of knowledge. Activity Theory (AT) will be adopted for the study due to the fact that it provides a conceptual framework that engenders an understanding of the structure, development and the context of computer-supported activities. The study will be adopt a set of data collection methods which engage nursing students in a quantitative survey, while nurse teachers are engaged through in depth qualitative studies to get first-hand information about the organisational, technological and cultural issues that impact on the deployment of m-learning. The original contribution will be a model for developing m-learning material for classroom-based learning in the nursing institute that can have a general application.Keywords: activity theory (at), mobile learning (m-learning), nursing institute, Saudi Arabia (sa)
Procedia PDF Downloads 3533544 Socio-Religious Mythology of the Igala of Central Nigeria Area
Authors: Abdullahi Musa Yusuf
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Culture and traditions are an embodiment of every society. In Africa, people are socialized into believing that the world is full of mysteries. Mysteries that can only be explain through the interpretation of some forces which are ordinarily beyond the comprehension of Man. These forces have the power and capability of influencing the lives of the living either benevolently or malevolently. To decipher these mysteries various religious and cultural practices were evolved. This paper is therefore an attempt to explain the traditional religious belief system and the relationship existing between the forces of the living and dead among the Igala people of the Central Nigeria Region.Keywords: culture, tradition, mythology, Nigeria
Procedia PDF Downloads 6053543 Collaborative Program Student Community Service as a New Approach for Development in Rural Area in Case of Western Java
Authors: Brian Yulianto, Syachrial, Saeful Aziz, Anggita Clara Shinta
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Indonesia, with a population of about two hundred and fifty million people in quantity, indicates the outstanding wealth of human resources. Hundreds of millions of the population scattered in various communities in various regions in Indonesia with the different characteristics of economic, social and unique culture. Broadly speaking, the community in Indonesia is divided into two classes, namely urban communities and rural communities. The rural communities characterized by low potential and management of natural and human resources, limited access of development, and lack of social and economic infrastructure, and scattered and isolated population. West Java is one of the provinces with the largest population in Indonesia. Based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics in 2015 the number of population in West Java reached 46.7096 million souls spread over 18 districts and 9 cities. The big difference in geographical and social conditions of people in West Java from one region to another, especially the south to the north causing the gap is high. It is closely related to the flow of investment to promote the area. Poverty and underdevelopment are the classic problems that occur on a massive scale in the region as the effects of inequity in development. South Cianjur and Tasikmalaya area South became one of the portraits area where the existing potential has not been capable of prospering society. Tri Dharma College not only define the College as a pioneer implementation of education and research to improve the quality of human resources but also demanded to be a pioneer in the development through the concept of public service. Bandung Institute of Technology as one of the institutions of higher education to implement community service system through collaborative community work program "one of the university community" as one approach to developing villages. The program is based Community Service, where students are not only required to be able to take part in community service, but also able to develop a community development strategy that is comprehensive and integrity in cooperation with government agencies and non-government related as a real form of effort alignment potential, position and role from various parties. Areas of western Java in particular have high poverty rates and disparity. On the other hand, there are three fundamental pillars in the development of rural communities, namely economic development, community development, and the integrated infrastructure development. These pillars require the commitment of all components of community, including the students and colleges for upholding success. College’s community program is one of the approaches in the development of rural communities. ITB is committed to implement as one form of student community service as community-college programs that integrate all elements of the community which is called Kuliah Kerja Nyata-Thematic.Keywords: development in rural area, collaborative, student community service, Kuliah Kerja Nyata-Thematic ITB
Procedia PDF Downloads 2223542 Tutoring between “The Can Do” and “The Have to”: The Case of Batna 2 University (Algeria)
Authors: Radia Guerza
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Tutoring at the Algerian University has been an issue of great controversy and debate. Henceforth, the current paper is an attempt to shed light on the issue of tutoring at Algerian University. It aims to set a plan for tutoring that might meet the student's needs and challenges. It endeavors to explore the following query: “what is the role of tutoring in the Algerian university between “The CAN DO” and “The HAVE TO”? To equate with the addressed research question, an exploratory small-scale study has been carried out at Batna 2 University using questionnaires and interviews with fifty (50) teachers. Results indicate that Algerian University is still lagging behind because of the huge lack of infrastructure means, human resources, and even pedagogical resources. In addition, the majority of our teachers are reluctant to adhere to the tutorial policy due to the lack of incentives; next to that, the increasing yearly number of students and students high ratio would hardly permit any tutoring sessions. Finally, this paper is the first attempt, to our best knowledge, towards raising the awareness of our institution, staff members, teachers, and students towards the importance of tutoring and how to adopt it.Keywords: attitudes, higher education, perceptions, tutoring
Procedia PDF Downloads 623541 The Kindergarten as a Multicultural Workplace
Authors: Monika Haanpää
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Well-functioning workplaces are often characterized by good co-operation, adequate flow of information, open interaction between workers and a supportive work environment. The workplace is a mosaic of human personalities and the influx of people, who speak different languages and who are from different cultural backgrounds, may bring about new challenges and enrich this environment. However, this influx of people could also pose a problem as the adaptation of immigrant people to new terms of work may depend heavily on the level of language skills, the stage of culture shock, professional identity, and personality. Migration is not a rare phenomenon in Finland anymore; nobody is surprised to see people from different countries and different backgrounds in the schools, on the streets or in shops. However, this does not mean that immigration is an easy process for people coming from other countries. The experience of workers, with diverse language and backgrounds, has rarely been researched, particularly from the superior's point of view. In addition, the vast majority of researchers have paid more attention to multicultural kindergartens in terms of immigrant children and their families. Hence, there is a need to show the problem which exists in the recruitment of the increasing number of workers who come from different countries. Opinions about kindergartens, as multicultural workplaces, have been gathered through interviews with immigrant workers responsible for education. In addition, a questionnaire for native Finnish workers and superiors in kindergartens was carried out. The collected material has been analyzed qualitatively, focusing on topics such as: the kindergarten as a multicultural workplace, factors influencing career success of workers with diverse language and cultural backgrounds, the social relations in the multicultural workplaces and teachers’ changing professional identity. The results of the research provided a novel aspect of the multicultural workplace and emphasized a dependency of immigrant workers’ on language skills in Finnish; affecting professional success. In addition, they showed the good relations between other native Finnish co-workers and superiors. The results also illustrate why writing skills in Finnish are so important in kindergartens. Part of the investigation also questions some results of the research i.e. which is more important in the kindergarten as a multicultural workplace: personality, good professional skills or good language skills.Keywords: kindergarten, multicultural workplace, social relations at work, work satisfaction
Procedia PDF Downloads 2713540 Mobile Learning in Teacher Education: A Review in Context of Developing Countries
Authors: Mehwish Raza
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Mobile learning (m-learning) offers unique affordances to learners, setting them free of limitations posed by time and geographic space; thus becoming an affordable device for convenient distant learning. There is a plethora of research available on mobile learning projects planned, implemented and evaluated across disciplines in the context of developed countries, however, the potential of m-learning at different educational levels remain unexplored with little evidence of research carried out in developing countries. Despite the favorable technical infrastructure offered by cellular networks and boom in mobile subscriptions in the developing world, there is limited focus on utilizing m-learning for education and development purposes. The objective of this review is to unify findings from m-learning projects that have been implemented in developing countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, India, and Tanzania for teachers’ in-service training. The purpose is to draw upon key characteristics of mobile learning that would be useful for future researchers to inform conceptualizations of mobile learning for developing countries.Keywords: design model, developing countries, key characteristics, mobile learning
Procedia PDF Downloads 4473539 Future Research on the Resilience of Tehran’s Urban Areas Against Pandemic Crises Horizon 2050
Authors: Farzaneh Sasanpour, Saeed Amini Varaki
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Resilience is an important goal for cities as urban areas face an increasing range of challenges in the 21st century; therefore, according to the characteristics of risks, adopting an approach that responds to sensitive conditions in the risk management process is the resilience of cities. In the meantime, most of the resilience assessments have dealt with natural hazards and less attention has been paid to pandemics.In the covid-19 pandemic, the country of Iran and especially the metropolis of Tehran, was not immune from the crisis caused by its effects and consequences and faced many challenges. One of the methods that can increase the resilience of Tehran's metropolis against possible crises in the future is future studies. This research is practical in terms of type. The general pattern of the research will be descriptive-analytical and from the point of view that it is trying to communicate between the components and provide urban resilience indicators with pandemic crises and explain the scenarios, its future studies method is exploratory. In order to extract and determine the key factors and driving forces effective on the resilience of Tehran's urban areas against pandemic crises (Covid-19), the method of structural analysis of mutual effects and Micmac software was used. Therefore, the primary factors and variables affecting the resilience of Tehran's urban areas were set in 5 main factors, including physical-infrastructural (transportation, spatial and physical organization, streets and roads, multi-purpose development) with 39 variables based on mutual effects analysis. Finally, key factors and variables in five main areas, including managerial-institutional with five variables; Technology (intelligence) with 3 variables; economic with 2 variables; socio-cultural with 3 variables; and physical infrastructure, were categorized with 7 variables. These factors and variables have been used as key factors and effective driving forces on the resilience of Tehran's urban areas against pandemic crises (Covid-19), in explaining and developing scenarios. In order to develop the scenarios for the resilience of Tehran's urban areas against pandemic crises (Covid-19), intuitive logic, scenario planning as one of the future research methods and the Global Business Network (GBN) model were used. Finally, four scenarios have been drawn and selected with a creative method using the metaphor of weather conditions, which is indicative of the general outline of the conditions of the metropolis of Tehran in that situation. Therefore, the scenarios of Tehran metropolis were obtained in the form of four scenarios: 1- solar scenario (optimal governance and management leading in smart technology) 2- cloud scenario (optimal governance and management following in intelligent technology) 3- dark scenario (optimal governance and management Unfavorable leader in intelligence technology) 4- Storm scenario (unfavorable governance and management of follower in intelligence technology). The solar scenario shows the best situation and the stormy scenario shows the worst situation for the Tehran metropolis. According to the findings obtained in this research, city managers can, in order to achieve a better tomorrow for the metropolis of Tehran, in all the factors and components of urban resilience against pandemic crises by using future research methods, a coherent picture with the long-term horizon of 2050, from the path Provide urban resilience movement and platforms for upgrading and increasing the capacity to deal with the crisis. To create the necessary platforms for the realization, development and evolution of the urban areas of Tehran in a way that guarantees long-term balance and stability in all dimensions and levels.Keywords: future research, resilience, crisis, pandemic, covid-19, Tehran
Procedia PDF Downloads 673538 Stereotyping of Non-Western Students in Western Universities: Applying Critical Discourse Analysis to Undermine Educational Hegemony
Authors: Susan Lubbers
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This study applies critical discourse analysis to the language used by educators to frame international students of Asian backgrounds in Anglo-Western universities as quiet, shy, passive and unable to think critically. Emphasis is on the self-promoted ‘internationalised’ Australian tertiary context, where negative stereotypes are commonly voiced not only in the academy but also in the media. Parallels are drawn as well with other Anglo-Western educational contexts. The study critically compares the discourse of these persistent negative stereotypes, with in-class and interview discourses of international students of Asian and Western language, cultural and educational backgrounds enrolled in a Media and Popular Culture unit in an Australian university. The focus of analysis of the student discourse is on their engagement in critical dialogic interactions on the topics of culture and interculturality. The evidence is also drawn from student interviews and focus groups and from observation of whole-class discussion participation rates. The findings of the research project provide evidence that counters the myth of student as problem. They point rather to the widespread lack of intercultural awareness of Western educators and students as being at the heart of the negative perceptions of students of Asian backgrounds. The study suggests the efficacy of an approach to developing intercultural competence that is embedded, or integrated, into tertiary programs. The presentation includes an overview of the main strategies that have been developed by the tertiary educator (author) to support the development of intercultural competence of and among the student cohort. The evidence points to the importance of developing intercultural competence among tertiary educators and students. The failure by educators to ensure that the diverse voices, ideas and perspectives of students from all cultural, educational and language backgrounds are heard in our classrooms means that our universities can hardly be regarded or promoted as genuinely internationalised. They will continue as undemocratic institutions that perpetrate persistent Western educational hegemony.Keywords: critical discourse analysis, critical thinking, embedding, intercultural competence, interculturality, international student, internationalised education
Procedia PDF Downloads 2923537 Study on Energy Performance Comparison of Information Centric Network Based on Difference of Network Architecture
Authors: Takumi Shindo, Koji Okamura
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The first generation of the wide area network was circuit centric network. How the optimal circuit can be signed was the most important issue to get the best performance. This architecture had succeeded for line based telephone system. The second generation was host centric network and Internet based on this architecture has very succeeded world widely. And Internet became as new social infrastructure. Currently the architecture of the network is based on the location of the information. This future network is called Information centric network (ICN). The information-centric network (ICN) has being researched by many projects and different architectures for implementation of ICN have been proposed. The goal of this study is to compare performances of those ICN architectures. In this paper, the authors propose general ICN model which can represent two typical ICN architectures and compare communication performances using request routing. Finally, simulation results are shown. Also, we assume that this network architecture should be adapt to energy on-demand routing.Keywords: ICN, information centric network, CCN, energy
Procedia PDF Downloads 3373536 Information Technology Application for Knowledge Management in Medium-Size Businesses
Authors: S. Thongchai
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Result of the study on knowledge management systems in businesses was shown that the most of these businesses provide internet accessibility for their employees in order to study new knowledge via internet, corporate website, electronic mail, and electronic learning system. These business organizations use information technology application for knowledge management because of convenience, time saving, ease of use, accuracy of information and knowledge usefulness. The result indicated prominent improvements for corporate knowledge management systems as the following; 1) administrations must support corporate knowledge management system 2) the goal of corporate knowledge management must be clear 3) corporate culture should facilitate the exchange and sharing of knowledge within the organization 4) cooperation of personnel of all levels must be obtained 5) information technology infrastructure must be provided 6) they must develop the system regularly and constantly.Keywords: business organizations, information technology application, knowledge management systems, prominent improvements
Procedia PDF Downloads 3883535 Study of Effective Factors Influencing the Pragmatics of Knowledge Management in Iranian Oil Terminals Company
Authors: Ali Asghar Asad Sangabi, Afsaneh Aeen, Mohammad Behroozi
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Knowledge management is vital in today's world as one of the most valuable intangible assets regarded by companies. This study aimed to identify factors that affect the application of knowledge management in the Iranian Oil Terminals Company in 2022. In this study, 12 of the factors affecting the application of knowledge management have been studied, and implement practical solutions, and reuse has been studied. This study is descriptive data from the questionnaire factors affecting knowledge management application used by Cronbach's Coefficient Alpha equal to 0.85. The population of this study consisted of 1500 IOTC employees. The sample is determined by the Cochran formula sample; the results of this study showed that between the application of knowledge management and factors, there is a significant correlation. Among the factors that have been studied, valuable teamwork and organizational culture were the most effective, and the infrastructure of information systems had the least impact on Knowledge management.Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge-based organization, Iranian Oil Terminals
Procedia PDF Downloads 1603534 A Model Suggestion on Competitiveness and Sustainability of SMEs in Developing Countries
Authors: Ahmet Diken, Tahsin Karabulut
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The factor which developing countries are in need is capital. Such countries make an effort to increase their income in order to meet their expenses for employment, infrastructure, superstructure investments, education, health and defense. The sole income of the countries is taxes collected from businesses. The businesses should drive profit and return in order to be able to toll. In a world where competition exists, different strategies may be followed by business in developing countries and they must specify their target markets. İn order to minimize cost and maximize profit, SMEs have to concentrate on target markets and select cost oriented strategy. In this study, a theoretical model is suggested that SME firms have to act as cluster between each other, and also must be optimal provider for large scale firms. SMEs’ policy must be supported by public. This relationship can benefit large scale firms to have brand over the world, and this organization increases value added for developing countries.Keywords: competitiveness, countries, SMEs developing, sustainability
Procedia PDF Downloads 3143533 Representations of Wolves (Canis lupus) in Feature Films: The Detailed Analysis of the Text and Picture in the Chosen Movies
Authors: Barbara Klimek
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Wolves are one of the most misrepresented species in literature and the media. They’re often portrayed as vicious, man-eating beasts whose main life goal is to hunt and kill people. Many movie directors use wolves as their main characters in different types of films, especially horror, thriller and science fiction movies to create gore and fear. This, in turn, results in people being afraid of wolves and wanting to destroy them. Such cultural creations caused wolves being stalked, abused and killed by people and in many areas they were completely destroyed. This paper analyzes the representations of wolves in the chosen films in the four main portrayed aspects: 1. the overall picture – true versus false, positive versus negative, based on stereotypes or realistic, displaying wolf behavior typical of the species or fake 2. subjectivity – how humans treat and talk about the animals – as subjects or as objects 3. animal welfare – how humans treat wolves and nature, are the human – animal relations positive and appropriate or negative and abusive 4. empathy – are human characters shown to co-feel the suffering with the wolves, do they display signs of empathy towards the animals, do the animals empathize with humans? The detailed analysis of the text and pictures presented in the chosen films concludes that wolves are especially misrepresented in the movies. Their behavior is shown as fake and negative, based on stereotypes and myths, the human – animal relations are shown mainly as negative where people fear the animals and hunt them and wolves stalk, follow, attack and kill humans. It shows that people do not understand the needs of these animals and are unable to show empathy towards them. The article will discuss the above-mentioned study results in detail and will present many examples. Animal representations in cultural creations, including film have a great impact on how people treat particular species of animals. The media shape people’s attitudes, what in turn results in people either respecting and protecting the animals or fearing, disliking and destroying the particular species.Keywords: film, movies, representations, wolves
Procedia PDF Downloads 2133532 Interoception and Its Role in Connecting Empathy, Bodily Perception and Conceptual Representations: A Cross-Cultural Online Study
Authors: Fabio Marson, Revital Naor-Ziv, Patrizio Paoletti, Joseph Glicksohn, Filippo Carducci, Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan
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According to embodied cognition theories, higher-order cognitive functions and complex behaviors seems to be affected by bodily states. For example, the polyvagal theory suggests that the human autonomic nervous system evolved to support social interactions. Accordingly, integration and perception of information related to the physiological state arising from the peripherical nervous system (i.e., interoception) play a role in the regulation of social interaction by modulating emotional responses and prosocial behaviors. Moreover, recent studies showed that interoception is involved in the representations of conceptual knowledge, suggesting that the bodily information carried by the interoceptive system provides a perceptual basis for the embodiment of abstract concepts, especially those related to social and emotional domains. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies explored the relationship between interoception, prosocial behaviors, and conceptual representations. Considering the privileged position of interoception in mediating higher-order cognition and social interaction, we designed a cross-cultural study to explore the relationship between interoception, the sensitivity of bodily functions, and empathy. We recruited Italian, English, and Hebrew participants, and we asked them to fill in a questionnaire about empathy (Empathy Quotient), a questionnaire about bodily perception (Body Perception Questionnaire), and to rate different concrete and abstract concepts for the extent such concepts can be experienced through vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch, and interoception. We observed that in all languages, interoception ratings for abstract concepts were greater than for concrete concepts. Importantly, interoception ratings for abstract concepts were positively correlated with empathy and sensitivity of bodily functions. Our results suggest that participants with higher empathy and sensitivity of bodily functions show also a greater embodiment of abstract concepts in interoception, providing further evidence for the importance of the interoceptive system in regulating prosocial behaviors and integrating conceptual representations.Keywords: conceptual representations, embodiment, empathy, empathy quotient, interoception, prosocial behaviors
Procedia PDF Downloads 1663531 New Requirements of the Fifth Dimension of War: Planning of Cyber Operation Capabilities
Authors: Mehmet Kargaci
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Transformation of technology and strategy has been the main factor for the evolution of war. In addition to land, maritime, air and space domains, cyberspace has become the fifth domain with emerge of internet. The current security environment has become more complex and uncertain than ever before. Moreover, warfare has evaluated from conventional to irregular, asymmetric and hybrid war. Weak actors such as terrorist organizations and non-state actors has increasingly conducted cyber-attacks against strong adversaries. Besides, states has developed cyber capabilities in order to defense critical infrastructure regarding the cyber threats. Cyber warfare will be key in future security environment. Although what to do has been placed in operational plans, how to do has lacked and ignored as to cyber defense and attack. The purpose of the article is to put forward a model for how to conduct cyber capabilities in a conventional war. First, cyber operations capabilities will be discussed. Second put forward the necessities of cyberspace environment and develop a model for how to plan an operation using cyber operation capabilities, finally the assessment of the applicability of cyber operation capabilities and offers will be presented.Keywords: cyber war, cyber threats, cyber operation capabilities, operation planning
Procedia PDF Downloads 3353530 Interactive Teaching and Learning Resources for Bilingual Education
Authors: Sarolta Lipóczi, Ildikó Szabó
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The use of ICT in European Schools has increased over the last decade but there is still room for improvement. Also interactive technology is often used below its technical and pedagogical potentials. The pedagogical potential of interactive technology in classrooms has not yet reached classrooms in different countries and in a substantial way. To develop these materials cooperation between educational researchers and teachers from different backgrounds is necessary. INTACT project brings together experts from science education, mathematics education, social science education and foreign language education – with a focus on bilingual education – and teachers in secondary and primary schools to develop a variety of pedagogically qualitative interactive teaching and learning resources. Because of the backgrounds of the consortium members INTACT project focuses on the areas of science, mathematics and social sciences. To combine these two features (science/math and foreign language) the project focuses on bilingual education. A big issue supported by ‘interactiveness’ is social and collaborative learning. The easy way to communicate and collaborate offered by web 2.0 tools, mobile devices connected to the learning material allows students to work and learn together. There will be a wide range of possibilities for school co-operations at regional, national and also international level that allows students to communicate and cooperate with other students beyond the classroom boarders while using these interactive teaching materials. Opening up the learning scenario enhance the social, civic and cultural competences of the students by advocating their social skills and improving their cultural appreciation for other nations in Europe. To enable teachers to use the materials in indented ways descriptions of successful learning scenarios (i.e. using design patterns) will be provided as well. These materials and description will be made available to teachers by teacher trainings, teacher journals, booklets and online materials. The resources can also be used in different settings including the use of a projector and a touchpad or other technical interactive devices for the input i.e. mobile phones. Kecskemét College as a partner of INTACT project has developed two teaching and learning resources in the area of foreign language teaching. This article introduces these resources as well.Keywords: bilingual educational settings, international cooperation, interactive teaching and learning resources, work across culture
Procedia PDF Downloads 3953529 The Dimensions of Culture in the Productive Internationalization Process: An Overview about Brazilian Companies in Bolivia
Authors: Renato Dias Baptista
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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the elements of the cultural dimension in the internationalization process of Brazilian companies in Bolivia. This paper is based on research on two major Brazilian transnational companies which have plants in Bolivia. To achieve the objectives, the interconnective characteristics of culture in the process of productive internationalization were analyzed aiming to highlight it as a guiding element opposite the premises of the Brazilian leadership in the integration and development of the continent. The analysis aims to give relevance to the culture of a country and its relations with internationalization.Keywords: culture, transnational, internationalization, Bolivia, Brazil
Procedia PDF Downloads 4223528 The Impact of Using Building Information Modeling Technology in Construction Projects Management
Authors: Mohammad Ashraf
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This research links the use of Building Information Modeling technology in constructions and infrastructure projects, starting from the moment when considering the establishment of a project to demolishing or renovating it, going through the design work, planning, procurement and implementation. BIM Software's which used are Revit, Navisworks and Asta Project in the case study for the Atletico Madrid Stadium project (Wanda Stadium). Also, the project improves through various phases of construction (planning - implementation - management). Besides, the level of the details managed within this project advances gradually. In addition, the construction process problems become about 30 % less than before, resulting from high coordination between designing, implementation and follow through that is done by the project management office (PMO). The current disposition in the industry is to tightly manage the detail contained within the planning and coordination phases of construction, but we miss the opportunity to manage that data as it matures and grows into the execution and commissioning phases.Keywords: construction management, BIM technology, planning, design, procurements, critical path method
Procedia PDF Downloads 2803527 Collation between the Architecture of the Churches and Housing from Antiquity to the Present Day
Authors: Shaloom Mbambu Kabeya, Léonard Kabeya Mukeba
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Churches, cathedrals and castles beaten from antiquity to modern times were relevant from that time to the present day, and preserved as cultural heritage. Our predecessors as François 1er1, Michelangelo2, and Giotto3 left us traces. Gustave Eiffel4, Hector Guimard5 did not decrease their time to show modernization (evolution) in architecture. Plagiarism is a brake on architectural development, construction works of spirits is necessary architecture. This work explains the relationship between ancient and modern architecture. It also shows the power of mathematics in modern architecture.Keywords: architectural modernization, heritage, mathematical architecture, materials
Procedia PDF Downloads 5993526 Impact of Node Density and Transmission Range on the Performance of OLSR and DSDV Routing Protocols in VANET City Scenarios
Authors: Yassine Meraihi, Dalila Acheli, Rabah Meraihi
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Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) is a special case of Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) used to establish communications and exchange information among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed infrastructure. VANET is seen as a promising technology used to provide safety, efficiency, assistance and comfort to the road users. Routing is an important issue in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network to find and maintain communication between vehicles due to the highly dynamic topology, frequently disconnected network and mobility constraints. This paper evaluates the performance of two most popular proactive routing protocols OLSR and DSDV in real city traffic scenario on the basis of three metrics namely Packet delivery ratio, throughput and average end to end delay by varying vehicles density and transmission range.Keywords: DSDV, OLSR, quality of service, routing protocols, VANET
Procedia PDF Downloads 4713525 Utilizing AI Green Grader Scope to Promote Environmental Responsibility Among University Students
Authors: Tarek Taha Kandil
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In higher education, the use of automated grading systems is on the rise, automating the assessment of students' work and providing practical feedback. Sustainable Grader Scope addresses the environmental impact of these computational tasks. This system uses an AI-powered algorithm and is designed to minimize grading process emissions. It reduces carbon emissions through energy-efficient computing and carbon-conscious scheduling. Students submit their computational workloads to the system, which evaluates submissions using containers and a distributed infrastructure. A carbon-conscious scheduler manages workloads across global campuses, optimizing emissions using real-time carbon intensity data. This ensures the university stays within government-set emission limits while tracking and reducing its carbon footprint.Keywords: sustainability, green graders, digital sustainable grader scope, environmental responsibility; higher education.
Procedia PDF Downloads 33524 Teachers' Views on Mother Tongue Language Curriculum Development
Authors: Wai Ha Leung
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Mother tongue language (MTL) curriculum is core to school education in most countries/regions' school curriculum. Through mother tongue language learning, students are expected to enhance their understanding of the nation's culture and foster the sense of cultural and ethnic identity. However, MTL education in Hong Kong is complicated by the colonial history. This study examines Hong Kong Chinese language teachers' perceptions of MTL education, and the implication on MTL curriculum development. The questionnaire was administrated to 97 teachers, and interviews were carried out on 17 teachers. Usually, MTL is both the tool with which knowledge and skills are taught and learned and the vehicle for students to learn about the traditions of the countries' literature and culture. In Hong Kong, 95% of the population is of Chinese descent. Traditionally, education in China was a mixture of philosophy, history, politics and literacy. Chinese as an MTL subject in pre-colonial Hong Kong has always been assigned the mission of developing students' cultural identity in addition to the development of linguistic proficiency. During the colonial period, the Chinese Language curriculum shifted to be more language skills based with less emphasis on Chinese culture and moral education. After the sovereignty of Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, although a new curriculum was implemented in 2002, teaching and learning in school as well as public examinations seem to be remaining language skills oriented instead of culturally based. This deviation from the trend of both Chinese traditional education and global mother tongue language education makes some Chinese language teachers feel confused. In addition, there is comment that in general Hong Kong students' Chinese language proficiency is becoming weaker and weaker in recent years. Thus, effectiveness of the skills oriented language curriculum has come under question. How a language teacher views the aims and objectives of the language subject he or she is teaching has a direct effect on the curriculum delivery and pedagogies used. It is, therefore, important to investigate what is the language teachers' perception of MTL education, and whether the current school curriculum can meet the teachers' expectation as well as achieve the aims of MTL education. Given this context, this study explored the views of Hong Kong Chinese language teachers on MTL education. The data indicate that teachers showed a strong resentment towards the current curriculum. Results may have implications on mother tongue language curriculum development.Keywords: Chinese language education, curriculum development, mother tongue language education, teachers' perception
Procedia PDF Downloads 4893523 A Study on Bicycle Riding Behavior on Bike-Only Road
Authors: Hyeon Jong Yoo, Jae Hwan Yang, Dong Kyu Kim
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Recently, riding a bicycle is recommended as an eco-friendly means of transportation. In Seoul, the mayor has secured budget for extending bicycle infrastructure. As bicycle rental centers are adopted in places, more citizens are using bike rental service on bike-only roads for leisure. However, most of the citizens are not experienced in riding bicycles. They usually do not wear helmets, keep the balance of bicycle riding, and pay attention to nearby occasions. Therefore, in this study, bicycles on Han-river bike-only road were tracked, and their behaviors were analyzed in order to show how dangerously beginner riders are riding. The number of conflicts is calculated to evaluate riding safety on the most crowded bike-only road. As a result, conflicts between beginner riders and fast-driving skilled drivers are frequently observed especially at night, and on weekends. In conclusion, it is suggested that the government should acknowledge citizens the fact that bikes are vehicles and adopt a test for bike driving.Keywords: bicycles, safety, bike-only road, policy proposal
Procedia PDF Downloads 3593522 Forced Migrants in Israel and Their Impact on the Urban Structure of Southern Neighborhoods of Tel Aviv
Authors: Arnon Medzini, Lilach Lev Ari
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Migration, the driving force behind increased urbanization, has made cities much more diverse places to live in. Nearly one-fifth of all migrants live in the world’s 20 largest cities. In many of these global cities, migrants constitute over a third of the population. Many of contemporary migrants are in fact ‘forced migrants,’ pushed from their countries of origin due to political or ethnic violence and persecution or natural disasters. During the past decade, massive numbers of labor migrants and asylum seekers have migrated from African countries to Israel via Egypt. Their motives for leaving their countries of origin include ongoing and bloody wars in the African continent as well as corruption, severe conditions of poverty and hunger, and economic and political disintegration. Most of the African migrants came to Israel from Eritrea and Sudan as they saw Israel the closest natural geographic asylum to Africa; soon they found their way to the metropolitan Tel-Aviv area. There they concentrated in poor neighborhoods located in the southern part of the city, where they live under conditions of crowding, poverty, and poor sanitation. Today around 45,000 African migrants reside in these neighborhoods, and yet there is no legal option for expelling them due to dangers they might face upon returning to their native lands. Migration of such magnitude to the weakened neighborhoods of south Tel-Aviv can lead to the destruction of physical, social and human infrastructures. The character of the neighborhoods is changing, and the local population is the main victim. These local residents must bear the brunt of the failure of both authorities and the government to handle the illegal inhabitants. The extremely crowded living conditions place a heavy burden on the dilapidated infrastructures in the weakened areas where the refugees live and increase the distress of the veteran residents of the neighborhoods. Some problems are economic and some stem from damage to the services the residents are entitled to, others from a drastic decline in their standard of living. Even the public parks no longer serve the purpose for which they were originally established—the well-being of the public and the neighborhood residents; they have become the main gathering place for the infiltrators and a center of crime and violence. Based on secondary data analysis (for example: The Israel’s Population, Immigration and Border Authority, the hotline for refugees and migrants), the objective of this presentation is to discuss the effects of forced migration to Tel Aviv on the following tensions: between the local population and the immigrants; between the local population and the state authorities, and between human rights groups vis-a-vis nationalist local organizations. We will also describe the changes which have taken place in the urban infrastructure of the city of Tel Aviv, and discuss the efficacy of various Israeli strategic trajectories when handling human problems arising in the marginal urban regions where the forced migrant population is concentrated.Keywords: African asylum seekers, forced migrants, marginal urban regions, urban infrastructure
Procedia PDF Downloads 2523521 On Flow Consolidation Modelling in Urban Congested Areas
Authors: Serban Stere, Stefan Burciu
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The challenging and continuously growing competition in the urban freight transport market emphasizes the need for optimal planning of transportation processes in terms of identifying the solution of consolidating traffic flows in congested urban areas. The aim of the present paper is to present the mathematical framework and propose a methodology of combining urban traffic flows between the distribution centers located at the boundary of a congested urban area. The three scenarios regarding traffic flow between consolidation centers that are taken into consideration in the paper are based on the same characteristics of traffic flows. The scenarios differ in terms of the accessibility of the four consolidation centers given by the infrastructure, the connections between them, and the possibility of consolidating traffic flows for one or multiple destinations. Also, synthetical indicators will allow us to compare the scenarios considered and chose the indicated for our distribution system.Keywords: distribution system, single and multiple destinations, urban consolidation centers, traffic flow consolidation schemes
Procedia PDF Downloads 1563520 Improving Library Service Quality in Local City of Indonesia
Authors: Prima Fithri, Afri Adnan, Verra Syahmer
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Library as a public service should be able to provide excellent and quality service. The criteria that should be available in the library is having the collection which relevant, actual and reliable, qualified and professional employee, delivery system that prompt and appropriate as well as supported by proper infrastructure. The aim of this study is to show the performance as an effort to provide quality of services that appropriate with the needs and desires of user. Then, in this research has been carried out the calculation of the gap between the perceptions and expectations of user about the services of the library. The Sevqual and QFD methods are used in this study. Servqual method for measuring the value of the gap that occurs in the dimensions of service quality and QFD method for determine priority repairment that need to be done to improve the quality of services that occur in the dimensions of service quality. From 97 questionaires, shows that value of the gap that occurs in the dimensions of service quality using by Servqual is 27.7% dimensions of responsiveness. It show how much user expectations are not met by the quality of existing services. Construction of the library and standard library becomes priority improvements that need to be done to improve the quality of service that occurs in the dimensions of service quality using the QFD.Keywords: library, service quality, service quality, QFD
Procedia PDF Downloads 5783519 The Pragmatics of the Evil Eye: Compliment Response Strategies in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic
Authors: HebatAllah Mohamed
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The present study aims at identifying compliment response strategies used by Egyptian students when responding to a problematic and cultural-specific type of compliments: those allegedly provoking the evil eye. Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) and interviews were used to collect the data. both The participants were 21 female and 16 male Egyptian graduate and undergraduate students at the American university in Cairo. The results revealed a number of both common and different main and sub-categories of responses utilized by participants of both genders. Pedagogical implications are discussed.Keywords: Arabic pragmatics, compliment responses, evil eye pragmatics, pragmatics in Egypt
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