Search results for: climate adaptability，Southeast China

Authors: S. Masud, J. Merson, D. F. Robinson

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The management of environmental resources requires engagement of a range of stakeholders including public/private agencies and different community groups to implement sustainable conservation practices. The challenge which is often ignored is the analysis of agencies involved and their power relations. One of the barriers identified is the difference in risk perceptions among the agencies involved that leads to disjointed efforts of assessing and managing risks. Wood et al 2012, explains that it is important to have an integrated approach to risk management where decision makers address stakeholder perspectives. This is critical for an effective risk management policy. This abstract is part of a PhD research that looks into barriers to flood management under a changing climate and intends to identify bottlenecks that create maladaptation. Experiences are drawn from international practices in the UK and examined in the context of Australia through exploring the flood governance in a highly flood-prone region in Australia: the Hawkesbury Ne-pean catchment as a case study. In this research study several aspects of governance and management are explored: (i) the complexities created by the way different agencies are involved in assessing flood risks (ii) different perceptions on acceptable flood risk level; (iii) perceptions on community engagement in defining acceptable flood risk level; (iv) Views on a holistic flood risk management approach; and, (v) challenges of centralised information system. The study concludes that the complexity of managing a large catchment is exacerbated by the difference in the way professionals perceive the problem. This has led to: (a) different standards for acceptable risks; (b) inconsistent attempt to set-up a regional scale flood management plan beyond the jurisdictional boundaries: (c) absence of a regional scale agency with license to share and update information (d) Lack of forums for dialogue with insurance companies to ensure an integrated approach to flood management. The research takes the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment as case example and draws from literary evidence from around the world. In addition, conclusions were extrapolated from eighteen semi-structured interviews from agencies involved in flood risk management in the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment of NSW, Australia. The outcome of this research is to provide a better understanding of complexity in assessing risks against a rapidly changing climate and contribute towards developing effective risk communication strategies thus enabling better management of floods and achieving increased level of support from insurance companies, real-estate agencies, state and regional risk managers and the affected communities.

Keywords: adaptive governance, flood management, flood risk communication, stakeholder risk perceptions

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Authors: Murari Prasad

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This paper is motivated by the implications of indentured migration depicted in Amitav Ghosh’s critically acclaimed novel, Sea of Poppies (2008). Ghosh’s perspective on the experiences of North Indian indentured labourers moving from their homeland to a distant and unknown location across the seas suggests a radical attitudinal change among the migrants on board the Ibis, a schooner chartered to carry the recruits from Calcutta to Mauritius in the late 1830s. The novel unfolds the life-altering trauma of the bonded servants, including their efforts to maintain a sense of self while negotiating significant social and cultural transformations during the voyage which leads to the breakdown of familiar life-worlds. Equally, the migrants are introduced to an alternative network of relationships to ensure their survival away from land. They relinquish their entrenched beliefs and prejudices and commit themselves to a new brotherhood formed by ‘ship siblings.’ With the official abolition of direct slavery in 1833, the supply of cheap labour to the sugar plantation in British colonies as far-flung as Mauritius and Fiji to East Africa and the Caribbean sharply declined. Around the same time, China’s attempt to prohibit the illegal importation of opium from British India into China threatened the lucrative opium trade. To run the ever-profitable plantation colonies with cheap labour, Indian peasants, wrenched from their village economies, were indentured to plantations as girmitiyas (vernacularized from ‘agreement’) by the colonial government using the ploy of an optional form of recruitment. After the British conquest of the Isle of France in 1810, Mauritius became Britain’s premier sugar colony bringing waves of Indian immigrants to the island. In the articulations of their subjectivities one notices how the recruits cope with the alienating drudgery of indenture, mitigate the hardships of the voyage and forge new ties with pragmatic acts of cultural syncretism in a forward-looking autonomous community of ‘ship-siblings’ following the fracture of traditional identities. This paper tests the hypothesis that Ghosh envisions a kind of futuristic/utopian political collectivity in a hierarchically rigid, racially segregated and identity-obsessed world. In order to ground the claim and frame the complex representations of alliance and love across the boundaries of caste, religion, gender and nation, the essential methodology here is a close textual analysis of the novel. This methodology will be geared to explicate the utopian futurity that the novel gestures towards by underlining new regulations of life during voyage and dissolution of multiple differences among the indentured migrants on board the Ibis.

Keywords: indenture, colonial, opium, sugar plantation

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Authors: Mehdi Ameur, Ahmed Essadki, Tamou Nasser

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The purpose of this paper is the evaluation of photovoltaic system with MPPT techniques. This system is developed by combining the models of established solar module and DC-DC converter with the algorithms of perturbing and observing (P&O), incremental conductance (INC) and fuzzy logic controller (FLC). The system is simulated under different climate conditions and MPPT algorithms to determine the influence of these conditions on characteristic power-voltage of PV system. According to the comparisons of the simulation results, the photovoltaic system can extract the maximum power with precision and rapidity using the MPPT algorithms discussed in this paper.

Keywords: fuzzy logic controller, FLC, hill climbing, HC, incremental conductance (INC), perturb and observe (P&O), maximum power point, MPP, maximum power point tracking, MPPT

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Authors: Bin Su

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Auckland has a temperate climate with comfortable warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters. An Auckland school normally does not need air conditioning for cooling during the summer and only needs heating during the winter. The Auckland school building thermal design should more focus on winter thermal performance and indoor thermal comfort for energy efficiency. This field study of testing indoor and outdoor air temperatures, relative humidity and indoor surface temperatures of three classrooms with different envelopes were carried out in the Avondale College during the winter months in 2013. According to the field study data, this study is to compare and evaluate winter thermal performance and indoor thermal conditions of school buildings with different envelopes.

Keywords: building envelope, building mass effect, building thermal comfort, building thermal performance, school building

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Authors: Pianpian Zhang, Qingping Luo

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Currently, there is a great tendency that more and more villages in China are trying to increase income by development of tourism. Especially in Zhejiang Province, 'Beautiful Rural Construction' provides an excellent opportunity for the development of tourism. In this context, development orientation, transportation routes and tourism service facilities are analyzed under the perspective of water resources protection and regional integration based on the development tourism industry of the six villages in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province as a research object. In the program, the biggest issue is the contradiction between the ecological protection of the water and the development of economy. How to deal with the relationship between protection and development is the key to the design of this case. Furthermore, the six villages are regarded as a whole, connecting to each other by the system of five-path and the landscape along the lake. Every village has its own features, but cannot develop without one another. The article is actively exploring for suggestions and countermeasures to promote the development premised on protection and based on a regional view.

Keywords: development, integration, protection, rural tourism

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Authors: Julie Delany

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To thrive in today’s digital climate, it is vital that organisations adopt new technology and prepare for rising digital trends. This proves more difficult in government where, traditionally, people lack change readiness. While individuals may have a desire to work smarter, this does not necessarily mean embracing technology. This paper discusses the rollout of an application into a small department of highly experienced nurses. The goal was to both streamline the department's workflow and provide a platform for gathering essential business metrics. The biggest challenges were adoption and motivating the nurses to change their routines and learn new computer skills. Two-thirds struggled with the change, and as a result, some jeopardised the validity of the business metrics. In conclusion, there are lessons learned and recommendations for similar projects.

Keywords: change ready, information technology, end-user, iterative method, rollout plan, data analytics

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Authors: Chanchan Liu

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In the process of urbanization in China, the rapid development of urban construction has been achieved, but a large number of rural buildings still continue the construction mode many years ago. This paper mainly analyzes the rural residential buildings in the hot summer and cold winter regions analyze the active and passive technologies of the buildings. It explored the feasibility of realizing the sustainable development of rural buildings in an economically reasonable range, using mainly passive technologies, innovative building design methods, reducing the buildings’ demand for conventional energy, and supplementing them with renewable energy sources. On this basis, appropriate technology and regional characteristics are proposed to keep the rural architecture retain its characteristics in the development process. It is hoped that this exploration can provide reference and help for the development of rural buildings in the hot summer and cold winter regions.

Keywords: the rural building, active technology, passive technology, sustainable development

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Authors: Bahram Fathi, Mahdi Khodaparast Mashhadi, Masuod Homayounifar

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Global awareness on energy security and climate change has created much interest in assessing energy efficiency performance. A number of previous studies have contributed to evaluate energy efficiency performance using different analytical techniques among which data envelopment analysis (DEA) has recently received increasing attention. Most of DEA-related energy efficiency studies do not consider undesirable outputs such as CO2 emissions in their modeling framework, which may lead to biased energy efficiency values. Within a joint production frame work of desirable and undesirable outputs, in this paper we construct energy efficiency performance index for measuring energy efficiency performance by using environmental DEA model with CO2 emissions. We finally apply the index proposed to assess the energy efficiency performance in OPEC over time.

Keywords: energy efficiency, environmental, OPEC, data envelopment analysis

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Authors: Magdalena Biela, Marta Weber-Siwirska, Edyta Sierka

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The current noticed trend in Central European countries, as in other regions of the world, is for people to migrate to cities. As a result, the urban population is to have reached 70% of the total by 2050. Due to this tendency, as well as taking high real estate prices and limited reserves of city green areas into consideration, the greenery and agricultural soil adjacent to cities is are to be devoted to housing projects, while city centres are expected to undergo partial depopulation. Urban heat islands and phenomena such as torrential rains may cause serious damage. They may even endanger the very life and health of the inhabitants. Due to these tangible effects of climate change, residents expect that local government takes action to develop green infrastructure (GI). The main purpose of our research has been to assess the degree of readiness on the part of the local government in Poland to develop BGI. A questionnaire using the CAWI method was prepared, and a survey was carried out. The target group were town hall employees in all 380 powiat cities and towns (380 county centres) in Poland. The form contained 14 questions covering, among others, actions taken to support the development of GI and ways of motivating residents to take such actions. 224 respondents replied to the questions. The results of the research show that 52% of the cities/towns have taken or intend to take measures to favour the development of green spaces. Currently, the installation of green roofs and living walls is are only carried out by 6 Polish cities, and a few more are at the stage of preparing appropriate regulations. The problem of rainwater retention is much more widespread. Among the municipalities declaring any activities for the benefit of GI, approximately 42% have decided to work on this problem. Over 19% of the respondents are planning an increase in the surface occupied by green areas, 14% - the installation of green roofs, and 12% - redevelopment of city greenery. It is optimistic that 67% of the respondents are willing to acquire knowledge about BGI by means of taking part in educational activities both at the national and international levels. There are many ways to help GI development. The most common type of support in the cities and towns surveyed is co-financing (35%), followed by full financing of projects (11%). About 15% of the cities declare only advisory support. Thus, the problem of GI in Central European cities is at the stage of initial development and requires advanced measures and implementation of both proven solutions applied in other European and world countries using the concept of Nature-based Solutions.

Keywords: city/town, blue-green infrastructure, green roofs, climate change adaptation

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Authors: Bernard Ewuoso

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Introduction: Induction of labor (IOL) usually involves the patient moving between antenatal, labor, and postnatal wards. Delay in IOL has been defined as delay in the time it takes a woman to wait for induction after her cervix is assessed to be favorable. Opinions vary on the acceptable time the patient is allowed to wait for once the cervix is adjudged ripe for induction. What has been considered a benchmark is a delay of up to 12 hours. There is evidence that delay in IOL is associated with adverse outcomes. Aim: To determine the number of women experiencing delay in induction of labor and their outcomes. Method: This audit was retrospective and observational. It included women who had induction of labor in the month of October 2023 in two hospitals. Clinical data was collected from electronic medical records into an Excel sheet for analysis. Women had cervical ripening as inpatient or outpatient. The primary objective was to determine the number of women experiencing delay in induction of labor, while the secondary objective was to outcome these women. Result: 136 women had IOL. The least percentage of data retrieved for any parameter was 80%. The mean gestational age at IOL was 278.26 days. The mean waiting time was 905.34mins. Seventy-five women had their IOL at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE), fifty-seven at St. John’s Hospital (SJH), and three women were transferred from RIE to SJH. The preferred method of cervical ripening was balloon closely followed by prostaglandin. Twenty-seven women did not require cervical ripening and had their process started with amniotomy. Prostaglandin was the method of choice of cervical ripening at RIE, while balloon was preferred in SJH. Of the thirty-five women found to be suitable for outpatient cervical ripening, thirteen had outpatient ripening. There was a significant increase in the number of women undergoing outpatient cervical ripening at RIE from 10.5% in April 2022 to 42.9%. The preferred method for outpatient cervical ripening at the RIE was balloon, while it was prostaglandin for SJH. These were contradictory to the preferred method of inpatient cervical ripening at both centers. The average waiting time for IOL at RIE, 1166.92mins, is more than double that of SJH, 442.93mins, and far exceed 12hours, which is the proposed benchmark. The waiting time tends to be shorter with prostaglandin. Out of the women that had outpatient cervical ripening 63.6% had to wait for more than 12hrs before being induced while it was 36.1% for women that had inpatient cervical ripening. Overall, 38.5% women waited for more than 12 hours before having their induction. A lesser proportion of the women who waited for more than 12 hours had caesarean section, assisted vaginal delivery, and postpartum hemorrhage, whereas a greater proportion had spontaneous vaginal delivery and intrapartum or postpartum infection. Conclusion: A significant number of the women included in the study experienced delay in their induction process, and this was associated with an increased occurrence of intrapartum or postpartum infection. Outpatient cervical ripening contributed to delay.

Keywords: delay in induction of labor, inpatient, outpatient, intrapartum, postpartum, infection

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Authors: Biswanath Swain

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Ethical relativism, as an ethical perspective, holds that moral worth of a course of action is dependent on a particular space and time. Moral rightness or wrongness of a course of action varies from space to space and from time to time. In short, ethical relativism holds that morality is relative to the context. If we reflect conscientiously on the scope of this perspective, we will find that it is wide-spread amongst the marketers involved in the offshore business. However, the irony is that most of the marketers gone along with ethical relativism in their offshore business have been found to be unsuccessful in terms of loss in market-share and bankruptcy. The upshot is purely self-defeating in nature for the marketers. GSK in China and Nestle Maggi in India are some of the burning examples of that sort. The paper argues and recommends that a marketer, as an alternative, should have recourse to Kantian ethical perspective to deliberate courses of action sensitive to offshore business as Kantian ethical perspective is logically and methodologically sound in nature.

Keywords: business, course of action, Kant, morality, offshore, relativism

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Authors: Mingming Guo, Xiaozan Wang

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Introduction: The purpose of this study is to examine the correlation between the physical fitness of Chinese college students and their daily running habits (RH). Methods: A total of 718 college students from East China Normal University participated in this study (385 boys and 333 girls). Each participant participated in the Chinese Students’ Physical Fitness Test during the 2018-2019 school year. In addition, each student is also required to use the app to record all their running results during each run during the 2018-2019 school year. Researchers can query and export all running records through the app's management platform. Results: (1) The total number of kilometers run by the students showed a significant negative correlation with their vital capacity (VC), sitting body flexion (SBF), and long jump (LJ) (rᵥ

Keywords: college students, physical fitness, running habits, data mining

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Authors: Zaffar Hayat Nawaz Khan

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In the face of growing environmental concerns, the need for sustainable practices has become increasingly urgent. This paper aims to explore the path towards a greener and more resilient future by examining key strategies and initiatives that address environmental challenges. The paper begins by analyzing the current state of the environment, highlighting the various concerns such as climate change, deforestation, pollution, and depletion of natural resources. It emphasizes the need for immediate action and proposes a comprehensive approach to tackle these issues. Furthermore, the paper delves into the concept of resilience and its importance in creating a sustainable future. It discusses the need to build resilient systems and communities that can withstand and adapt to environmental shocks and stresses. The paper highlights the role of innovation, technology, and policy frameworks in promoting resilience and fostering a greener and more sustainable future.

Keywords: environmental concerns, ustainable development, greener future, energy, waste management

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Authors: Yea-Chyi Lin, Shinn-Dar Wu, Chien-Ping Chung

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Tea is not only part of the daily lives of the Chinese people, but also represents an essence of their culture. A manufactured tea is prepared with other complicated steps for self-cultivation. Tea drinking promotes friendship and is etiquette in Chinese ceremony. Tea was discovered in China and introduced worldwide. Tea is generally used as herbal medicine. Paowan of tea can be used as plant composts and deodorant as well as for moisture proof-package. Tea prepared via carbon material technology resulted in the increase of its value. Carbon material technology uses graphite. With the battery anode material, tea can also become a new carbon material element. It has a fiber carbon structure that can retain the advantage of tea ontology. Therefore, this study provides a new preparation method through special sintering technology equipment with a gas counter-current system of 300°C to 400°C and 400°C to 900°C. The recovery of carbonization was up to 80% or more. This study addresses tea recycling technology and shows charred sintering method and loss from solving grinder to obtain a good fiber carbon structure.

Keywords: recycling technology, tea, carbonization, sintering technology, manufacturing

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Authors: Yang Liu

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The work team has been being adopted by the CCP for special missions in a limited time. Since the 18th National Congress of CCP, the unprecedented practice of the work team has had impacts beyond the original goal of poverty alleviation, their functions in village governance have still not been well studied. As the state agents that come from the outside of the village community, this article argues that the work team is a group that represents the coexistence of political, economic, and cultural capital, which contributes to effectively empower the state, and the village cadres and the peasants. For the state, more accurate bottom-up information could be collected by the work team, and policies could be made scientifically and implemented without distortion. For the village cadres, they can learn leadership skills and share more resources owned or mobilized by the work team. For the peasants, they have more access to participate the public affairs of their village and express their claims. The multiple empowerments have greatly improved the relationship among the state, the peasants, and the village cadres since a series of reforms from 1980s to 2000s that alienated the relationship among them.

Keywords: state, village cadre, empowerment, work team, peasants

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Authors: Sungzoon Cho, Hye Jin Lee, Sungwhan Jeon, Dongyoung Min, Sungwon Lyu

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Major public corporations worldwide use conference calls to report their quarterly earnings. These 'earnings' conference calls allow for questions from stock analysts. We investigated if it is possible to identify sentiment from the call script and use it to predict stock price movement. We analyzed call scripts from six companies, two each from Korea, China and Indonesia during six years 2011Q1 – 2017Q2. Random forest with Frequency-based sentiment scores using Loughran MacDonald Dictionary did better than control model with only financial indicators. When the stock prices went up 20 days from earnings release, our model predicted correctly 77% of time. When the model predicted 'up,' actual stock prices went up 65% of time. This preliminary result encourages us to investigate advanced sentiment scoring methodologies such as topic modeling, auto-encoder, and word2vec variants.

Keywords: earnings call script, random forest, sentiment analysis, stock price prediction

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Authors: Jiazhen Zhou, Youcai Zhao

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Waste tea is commonly generated in certain areas of China and its utilization has drawn a lot of concern nowadays. In this paper, highly microporous and mesoporous activated carbons were produced from waste tea by physical activation in the presence of water vapor in a tubular furnace. The effect of activation temperature on yield and pore properties of produced activated carbon are studied. The yield decreased with the increase of activation temperature. According to the Nitrogen adsorption isotherms, the micropore and mesopore are both developed in the activated carbon. The specific surface area and the mesopore volume fractions of the activated carbon increased with the raise of activation temperature. The maximum specific surface area attained 756 m²/g produced at activation temperature 900°C. The results showed that the activation temperature had a significant effect on the micro and mesopore volumes as well as the specific surface area.

Keywords: activated carbon, nitrogen adsorption isotherm, physical activation, waste tea

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Authors: Xiaoying Guo, Xiangyun Wang

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Access rates is a key indicator of reflecting the popularity of web pages. Having high access rates are very important for web pages, especially for news web pages, online shopping sites and searching engines. In this paper, we analyzed the influences of visual fluency and cognitive fluency on access rates of Chinese web pages. Firstly, we conducted an experiment of scoring the web pages. Twenty-five subjects were invited to view top 50 web pages of China, and they were asked to give a score in a 5-point Likert-scale from four aspects, including complexity, comfortability, familiarity and usability. Secondly, the obtained results was analyzed by correlation analysis and factor analysis in R. By factor analysis; we analyzed the contributions of visual fluency and cognitive fluency to the access rates. The results showed that both visual fluency and cognitive fluency affect the access rate of web pages. Compared to cognitive fluency, visual fluency play a more important role in user’s accessing of web pages.

Keywords: visual fluency, cognitive fluency, visual complexity, usability

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Authors: Tripti Singhal, C. Tara Satyavathi, S. P. Singh, Aruna Kumar, Mukesh Sankar S., C. Bhardwaj, Mallik M., Jayant Bhat, N. Anuradha, Nirupma Singh

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Pearl millet is a climate-resilient nutritious crop. We report iron and zinc content QTLs from 3 divergent locations. The content of grain Fe in the RILs ranged between 36 and 114 mg/kg, and that of Zn from 20 to 106 mg/kg across the three years at over 3 locations (Delhi, Dharwad, and Jodhpur). We used SSRs to generate a linkage map using 210 F₆ RIL derived from the (PPMI 683 × PPMI 627) cross. The linkage map of 151 loci was 3403.6 cM in length. QTL analysis revealed a total of 22 QTLs for both traits at all locations. Inside QTLs, candidate genes were identified using bioinformatics approaches.

Keywords: yield, pearl millet, QTL mapping, multi-environment, RILs

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Authors: Elvis Nyirenda

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This research study work was done to evaluate and propose an optimum measure to enhance the uptake of clean energy technologies such as solar photovoltaics, the study also aims at enhancing the country’s energy mix from the overdependence on hydro power which is susceptible to droughts and climate change challenges The country in the years 2015 - 2016 and 2018 - 2019 had received rainfall below average due to climate change and a shift in the weather pattern; this resulted in prolonged power outages and load shedding for more than 10 hours per day. ZESCO Limited, the utility company that owns infrastructure in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity (state-owned), is seeking alternative sources of energy in order to reduce the over-dependence on hydropower stations. One of the alternative sources of energy is Solar Energy from the sun. However, solar power is intermittent in nature and to smoothen the load curve, investment in robust energy storage facilities is of great importance to enhance security and reliability of electricity supply in the country. The methodology of the study looked at the historical performance of the Kafue gorge upper power station and utilised the hourly generation figures as input data for generation modelling in Homer software. The average yearly demand was derived from the available data on the system SCADA. The two dams were modelled as natural battery with the absolute state of charging and discharging determined by the available water resource and the peak electricity demand. The software Homer Energy System is used to simulate the scheme incorporating a pumped storage facility and Solar photovoltaic systems. The pumped hydro scheme works like a natural battery for the conservation of water, with the only losses being evaporation and water leakages from the dams and the turbines. To address the problem of intermittency on the solar resource and the non-availability of water for hydropower generation, the study concluded that utilising the existing Hydro power stations, Kafue Gorge upper and Kafue Gorge Lower to work conjunctively with Solar energy will reduce power deficits and increase the security of supply for the country. An optimum capacity of 350MW of solar PV can be integrated while operating Kafue Gorge power station in both generating and pumping mode to enable efficient utilisation of water at Kafue Gorge upper Dam and Kafue Gorge Lower dam.

Keywords: hydropower, solar power systems, energy storage, photovoltaics, solar irradiation, pumped hydro storage system, supervisory control and data acquisition, Homer energy

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Authors: Sana El-Azzeh, Farraj Al-Ajmi, Abdulrahman Al-Aqqad, Mohamed Salem

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Thermal comfort is defined according to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55 as a condition of mind that expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment and is assessed by subjective evaluation. Sustaining this standard of thermal comfort for occupants of buildings or other enclosures is one of the important goals of HVAC design engineers. This paper presents a study of thermal comfort and adaptive behaviors of occupants who occupies two locations at the campus of the Australian College of Kuwait. A longitudinal survey and field measurement were conducted to measure thermal comfort, adaptive behaviors, and indoor environment qualities. The study revealed that female occupants in the selected locations felt warmer than males and needed more air velocity and lower temperature.

Keywords: indoor thermal comfort, educational facility, gender analysis, dry desert climate

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Authors: Vanessa Casadella, Mourad Chouki, Agnès Ceccarelli, Sofiane Tahi

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Mentoring is positioned in an interpersonal and intergenerational perspective, serving the transmission of interpersonal skills and organizational culture. It echoes orientation, project, self-actualization, guidance, transmission, and filiation. It is available using a formal or informal approach. The formal dimension refers to a privileged relationship between a senior and a junior. Informal mentoring is unplanned and emerges naturally between two people who choose each other. However, it remains more difficult to understand. To study the link between formal and informal mentoring and to define the notion of “social” mentoring, we conducted a qualitative study of an exploratory nature with around ten SSE organizations located in the southeast region of Tunisia. The wealth of this territory has pushed residents to found SSE organizations with a view to creating jobs but also to preserving traditions and preserving nature. These organizations developed spontaneously to solve various local problems, such as the revitalization of deserted rural areas, environmental degradation, and the reskilling and professional reintegration of people marginalized in the labor market. This research, based on semi-structured interviews in order to obtain exhaustive and sensitive data, involves an interview guide with few questions mobilized to let the respondents, leaders of the different structures, express themselves freely. The guide includes questions on activities, methods of sharing knowledge, and difficulties in understanding between stakeholders. The interviews, lasting 30 to 60 minutes, were recorded using a dictaphone and then transcribed in full. The results are as follows: 1. We see two iterative mentoring loops. A first loop can be considered a type of formal mentoring. It highlights the support organized (in the form of training) by social enterprises with the aim of developing the autonomy, know-how, and interpersonal skills of members. A second loop concerns informal mentoring. This is non-formalized support provided by members or with other members of the entourage. This informal mentoring is mainly based on the observation of good practices and learning by doing. 2. We notice an intersection between the two loops. If the first loop is not done, the second will not take place. The knowledge acquired in the first loop is used to feed the second. 3. We note a form of reluctance on the part of some members to share their knowledge for reasons of competition. Ultimately, we retain the notion of “social” mentoring as a hybridization of formal and informal mentoring while dimensioning the “social” perspective by emphasizing the reciprocal character, solidarity, confidence, and trust between the mentor and the mentee.

Keywords: social innovation, social mentoring, social and solidarity economy, informal mentoring

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Authors: Weijing Zhou, Yuting Lei, Francis Nolan

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In the domain of second language acquisition, whenever pronunciation errors or acquisition difficulties are found, researchers habitually attribute them to the negative transfer of the native language or local dialect. To what extent do Mandarin and local dialects affect English phonological acquisition for Chinese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL)? Little evidence, however, has been found via empirical research in China. To address this core issue, the present study conducted phonetic experiments to explore the roles of local dialects and Mandarin in Chinese EFL learners’ acquisition of L2 English consonants. Besides Mandarin, the sole national language in China, Suzhou dialect was selected as the target local dialect because of its distinct phonology from Mandarin. The experimental group consisted of 30 junior English majors at Yangzhou University, who were born and lived in Suzhou, acquired Suzhou Dialect since their early childhood, and were able to communicate freely and fluently with each other in Suzhou Dialect, Mandarin as well as English. The consonantal target segments were all the consonants of English, Mandarin and Suzhou Dialect in typical carrier words embedded in the carrier sentence Say again. The control group consisted of two Suzhou Dialect experts, two Mandarin radio broadcasters, and two British RP phoneticians, who served as the standard speakers of the three languages. The reading corpus was recorded and sampled in the phonetic laboratories at Yangzhou University, Soochow University and Cambridge University, respectively, then transcribed, segmented and analyzed acoustically via Praat software, and finally analyzed statistically via EXCEL and SPSS software. The main findings are as follows: First, in terms of correct acquisition rates (CARs) of all the consonants, Mandarin ranked top (92.83%), English second (74.81%) and Suzhou Dialect last (70.35%), and significant differences were found only between the CARs of Mandarin and English and between the CARs of Mandarin and Suzhou Dialect, demonstrating Mandarin was overwhelmingly more robust than English or Suzhou Dialect in subjects’ multilingual phonological ecology. Second, in terms of typical acoustic features, the average duration of all the consonants plus the voice onset time (VOT) of plosives, fricatives, and affricatives in 3 languages were much longer than those of standard speakers; the intensities of English fricatives and affricatives were higher than RP speakers but lower than Mandarin and Suzhou Dialect standard speakers; the formants of English nasals and approximants were significantly different from those of Mandarin and Suzhou Dialects, illustrating the inconsistent acoustic variations between the 3 languages. Thirdly, in terms of typical pronunciation variations or errors, there were significant interlingual interactions between the 3 consonant systems, in which Mandarin consonants were absolutely dominant, accounting for the strong transfer from L1 Mandarin to L2 English instead of from earlier-acquired L1 local dialect to L2 English. This is largely because the subjects were knowingly exposed to Mandarin since their nursery and were strictly required to speak in Mandarin through all the formal education periods from primary school to university.

Keywords: acquisition of L2 English consonants, role of Mandarin, role of local dialect, Chinese EFL learners from Suzhou Dialect areas

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Authors: Bishnupriya Sahoo, Prasad K. Bhaskaran

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Tropical cyclone is one among the worst natural hazards that results in a trail of destruction causing enormous damage to life, property, and coastal infrastructures. In a global perspective, the Indian Ocean is considered as one of the cyclone prone basins in the world. Specifically, the frequency of cyclogenesis in the Bay of Bengal is higher compared to the Arabian Sea. Out of the four maritime states in the East coast of India, Odisha is highly susceptible to tropical cyclone landfall. Historical records clearly decipher the fact that the frequency of cyclones have reduced in this basin. However, in the recent decades, the intensity and size of tropical cyclones have increased. This is a matter of concern as the risk and vulnerability level of Odisha coast exposed to high wind speed and gusts during cyclone landfall have increased. In this context, there is a need to assess and evaluate the severity of coastal risk, area of exposure under risk, and associated vulnerability with a higher dimension in a multi-risk perspective. Changing climate can result in the emergence of a new hazard and vulnerability over a region with differential spatial and socio-economic impact. Hence there is a need to have coastal vulnerability projections in a changing climate scenario. With this motivation, the present study attempts to estimate the destructiveness of tropical cyclones based on Power Dissipation Index (PDI) for those cyclones that made landfall along Odisha coast that exhibits an increasing trend based on historical data. The study also covers the futuristic scenarios of integral coastal vulnerability based on the trends in PDI for the Odisha coast. This study considers 11 essential and important parameters; the cyclone intensity, storm surge, onshore inundation, mean tidal range, continental shelf slope, topo-graphic elevation onshore, rate of shoreline change, maximum wave height, relative sea level rise, rainfall distribution, and coastal geomorphology. The study signifies that over a decadal scale, the coastal vulnerability index (CVI) depends largely on the incremental change in variables such as cyclone intensity, storm surge, and associated inundation. In addition, the study also performs a critical analysis on the modulation of PDI on storm surge and inundation characteristics for the entire coastal belt of Odisha State. Interestingly, the study brings to light that a linear correlation exists between the storm-tide with PDI. The trend analysis of PDI and its projection for coastal Odisha have direct practical applications in effective coastal zone management and vulnerability assessment.

Keywords: Bay of Bengal, coastal vulnerability index, power dissipation index, tropical cyclone

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Authors: Du Zhiqin

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WeChat is an instant messaging service similar to WhatsApp developed by Tencent, one of China's largest and most used Internet service portals. This paper investigates the penetration of WeChat among university students through a questionnaire, analyzes the effect of brand influence, information quality, interactivity, opinions of opinion-leaders, promotion, personal interests on the attitudes of university students towards WeChat marketing. This paper concludes that the penetration rate of WeChat marketing among university students is generally high enough, WeChat has generally been accepted by students as a way for businesses to market their products, and that all the above-mentioned five factors play a positive role in the process of WeChat marketing. It also proposes that businesses could maximize the effect of WeChat marketing by focusing more resources on the increase of brand influence, and the interactivity of WeChat contents and the use of opinions of opinion-leaders.

Keywords: WeChat, university students, marketing, AISAS

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Authors: Lur N. Dreier

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Spontaneous transformation in Ursus maritimus is generally considered to be seldom, albeit not, to this author's best knowledge, previously unpublished in the medical literature. However, no case series has to date described transformative spontaneous processes to filios hominum species. Norwegian public hospital system, is, however, especially the grounds of the specific climate in the Northern hemisphere, and because of a high suited to observe such transformations, both on income level. Hence, this paper describes, to our knowledge, the first case series of 25 patients undergoing treatment for spontaneous transformation in four Norwegian hospitals. The methodology was to include patients on a consecutive basis, identifying clinically and laboratory the typology in each of the four hospitals. The major findings were that the archetypes were heterogeneous, with coercive laboratory findings, with a high degree of redundancy of the process. This might potentially lead to many advances in the diagnostics.

Keywords: case series, transformation, hominum species, maritimus species

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Authors: Aishah Tamby Omar, Zolkifle Ahmad

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The aim of this research was to explore academician perception of toxic leadership in higher education organizations. The data consisted of 17 semi-structured interviews with academicians’ grade 45 above. According to them, toxicity in higher education organizations can be categorized as dysfunctional command, employee anti-social, less trust and commitment, abusive supervision, tyranny, unethical, hierarchical structures, and permissive environment. While they believed that culture, climate, and situational factors may form a toxic development and have the greatest influence on toxicity determination in higher education organizations. Respondents acknowledged that the future studies should involve the person who had held positions to get their opinions. These results emphasized the need for the leaders to learn about leadership in order to avoid a negative performance of the higher education organizations in the near future.

Keywords: academician perception, higher education organizations, leadership, toxic leadership

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Authors: Dongwoo Kang, Yunsung Yoo, Injun Kim, Jongin Lee, Jinwon Park

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Since industrial revolution, energy usage by human-beings has been drastically increased resulting in the enormous emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. High concentration of carbon dioxide is well recognized as the main reason for the climate change by breaking the heat equilibrium of the earth. In order to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide emission, lots of technologies have been developed. One of the methods is to capture carbon dioxide after combustion process using liquid type absorbents. However, for some nations, captured carbon dioxide cannot be treated and stored properly due to their geological structures. Also, captured carbon dioxide can be leaked out when crust activities are active. Hence, the method to convert carbon dioxide as stable and useful products were developed. It is usually called CCU, that is, Carbon Capture and Utilization. There are several ways to convert carbon dioxide into useful substances. For example, carbon dioxide can be converted and used as fuels such as diesel, plastics, and polymers. However, these types of technologies require lots of energy to make stable carbon dioxide into a reactive one. Hence, converting it into metal carbonates salts have been studied widely. When carbon dioxide is captured by alkanolamine-based liquid absorbents, it exists as ionic forms such as carbonate, carbamate, and bicarbonate. When adequate metal ions are added, metal carbonate salt can be produced by ionic reaction with fast reaction kinetics. However, finding metal sources can be one of the problems for this method to be commercialized. If natural resources such as calcium oxide were used to supply calcium ions, it is not thought to have the economic feasibility to use natural resources to treat carbon dioxide. In this research, high concentrated industrial wastewater produced from refined salt production facility have been used as metal supplying source, especially for calcium cations. To ensure purity of final products, calcium ions were selectively separated in the form of gypsum dihydrate. After that, carbon dioxide is captured using alkanolamine-based absorbents making carbon dioxide into reactive ionic form. And then, high purity calcium carbonate salt was produced. The existence of calcium carbonate was confirmed by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images. Also, carbon dioxide loading curves for absorption, conversion, and desorption were provided. Also, in order to investigate the possibility of the absorbent reuse, reabsorption experiments were performed either. Produced calcium carbonate as final products is seemed to have potential to be used in various industrial fields including cement and paper making industries and pharmaceutical engineering fields.

Keywords: alkanolamine, calcium carbonate, climate change, seawater, industrial wastewater

Procedia PDF Downloads 189

Authors: Carlotta D’Alessandro, Giuseppe Ioppolo, Katarzyna Szopik-Depczyńska

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— The growing scarcity of resources and the mounting pressures of climate change, water pollution, and chemical contamination have prompted societies, governments, and businesses to seek ways to minimize their environmental impact. To combat climate change, and foster sustainability, Industrial Symbiosis (IS) offers a powerful approach, facilitating the shift toward a circular economic model. IS has gained prominence in the European Union's policy framework as crucial enabler of resource efficiency and circular economy practices. The essence of IS lies in the collaborative sharing of resources such as energy, material by-products, waste, and water, thanks to geographic proximity. It can be exemplified by eco-industrial parks (EIPs), which are natural environments for boosting cooperation and resource sharing between businesses. EIPs are characterized by group of businesses situated in proximity, connected by a network of both cooperative and competitive interactions. They represent a sustainable industrial model aimed at reducing resource use, waste, and environmental impact while fostering economic and social wellbeing. IS, combined with Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven technologies, can further optimize resource sharing and efficiency within EIPs. This research, supported by the “CE_IPs” project, aims to analyze the potential for IS and AI, in advancing circularity and sustainability at Fosso Imperatore. The Fosso Imperatore Industrial Park in Nocera Inferiore, Italy, specializes in agriculture and the industrial transformation of agricultural products, particularly tomatoes, tobacco, and textile fibers. This unique industrial cluster, centered around tomato cultivation and processing, also includes mechanical engineering enterprises and agricultural packaging firms. To stimulate the shift from a traditional to a circular economic model, an AI-powered Local Development Plan (LDP) is developed for Fosso Imperatore. It can leverage data analytics, predictive modeling, and stakeholder engagement to optimize resource utilization, reduce waste, and promote sustainable industrial practices. A comprehensive SWOT analysis of the AI-powered LDP revealed several key factors influencing its potential success and challenges. Among the notable strengths and opportunities arising from AI implementation are reduced processing times, fewer human errors, and increased revenue generation. Furthermore, predictive analytics minimize downtime, bolster productivity, and elevate quality while mitigating workplace hazards. However, the integration of AI also presents potential weaknesses and threats, including significant financial investment, since implementing and maintaining AI systems can be costly. The widespread adoption of AI could lead to job losses in certain sectors. Lastly, AI systems are susceptible to cyberattacks, posing risks to data security and operational continuity. Moreover, an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis was employed to yield a prioritized ranking of the outlined AI-driven LDP practices based on the stakeholder input, ensuring a more comprehensive and representative understanding of their relative significance for achieving sustainability in Fosso Imperatore Industrial Park. While this study provides valuable insights into the potential of AIpowered LDP at the Fosso Imperatore, it is important to note that the findings may not be directly applicable to all industrial parks, particularly those with different sizes, geographic locations, or industry compositions. Additional study is necessary to scrutinize the generalizability of these results and to identify best practices for implementing AI-driven LDP in diverse contexts.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, climate change, Fosso Imperatore, industrial park, industrial symbiosis

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Authors: Gleda Kutrolli, Maksi Kutrolli, Etjon Meco

Abstract:

SARS-CoV-2 virus is currently one of the most infectious pathogens for humans. It started in China at the end of 2019 and now it is spread in all over the world. The origin and diffusion of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, is analysed based on the discussion of viral phylogeny theory. With the aim of understanding the spread of infection in the affected countries, it is crucial to modelize the spread of the virus and simulate its activity. In this paper, the prediction of coronavirus outbreak is done by using SIR model without vital dynamics, applying different numerical technique solving ordinary differential equations (ODEs). We find out that ABM and MRT methods perform better than other techniques and that the activity of the virus will decrease in April but it never cease (for some time the activity will remain low) and the next cycle will start in the middle July 2020 for Norway and Denmark, and October 2020 for Sweden, and September for Finland.

Keywords: forecasting, ordinary differential equations, SARS-COV-2 epidemic, SIR model

Procedia PDF Downloads 154