Search results for: collective strategy

Authors: Elina Bakhtieva

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The variety of available digital tools, strategies and activities might confuse and disorient even an experienced marketer. This applies in particular to B2B companies, which are usually less flexible in uptaking of digital technology than B2C companies. B2B companies are lacking a framework that corresponds to the specifics of the B2B business, and which helps to evaluate a company’s capabilities and to choose an appropriate path. A B2B digital marketing maturity model helps to fill this gap. However, modern marketing offers no widely approved digital marketing maturity model, and thus, some marketing institutions provide their own tools. The purpose of this paper is building an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model based on a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of existing models. The current study provides an analytical review of the existing digital marketing maturity models with open access. The results of the research are twofold. First, the provided SWOT analysis outlines the main advantages and disadvantages of existing models. Secondly, the strengths of existing digital marketing maturity models, helps to identify the main characteristics and the structure of an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model. The research findings indicate that only one out of three analyzed models could be used as a separate tool. This study is among the first examining the use of maturity models in digital marketing. It helps businesses to choose between the existing digital marketing models, the most effective one. Moreover, it creates a base for future research on digital marketing maturity models. This study contributes to the emerging B2B digital marketing literature by providing a SWOT analysis of the existing digital marketing maturity models and suggesting a structure and main characteristics of an optimized B2B digital marketing maturity model.

Keywords: B2B digital marketing strategy, digital marketing, digital marketing maturity model, SWOT analysis

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Authors: Ebrahim Sabermaash Eshghi, Donna Sandsmark

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Nowadays, successful companies try to create a reliable and unique competitive position in the market. It is important to consider that only choosing and codifying a competitive strategy appropriate with the market conditions does not have any influence on the final performance of the company by itself, but it is the connection and interaction between upstream level strategies and functional level strategies which leads to development of company performance in its operating environment. Given the importance of the subject, this study tries to investigate effective factors on product performance and prioritize them. This study was done with quantitative-qualitative approach (interview and questionnaire). In sum, 103 informed managers and experts of Pars-Khazar Company were investigated in a census. Validity of measure tools was approved through experts’ judgments. Reliability of the tools was also gained through Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient as 0.930 and in sum, validity and reliability of the tools was approved generally. Analysis of collected data was done through Spearman Correlation Test and Friedman Test using SPSS software. The results showed that management of distribution and demand process (0.675), management of Product Pre-test (0.636) and Manufacturing and inventory management(0.628) had the highest correlation with product performance. Prioritization of factors of structure of launching new products based on the average showed that management of volume of launched products and Manufacturing and inventory management had the most importance.

Keywords: product performance, home appliances, market, case study

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Authors: Zunaira Asif, Zhi Chen

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The sustainable measures on air quality management are recognized as one of the most serious environmental concerns in the mining region. The mining operations emit various types of pollutants which have significant impacts on the environment. This study presents a stochastic control strategy by developing the air pollution control model to achieve a cost-effective solution. The optimization method is formulated to predict the cost of treatment using linear programming with an objective function and multi-constraints. The constraints mainly focus on two factors which are: production of metal should not exceed the available resources, and air quality should meet the standard criteria of the pollutant. The applicability of this model is explored through a case study of an open pit metal mine, Utah, USA. This method simultaneously uses meteorological data as a dispersion transfer function to support the practical local conditions. The probabilistic analysis and the uncertainties in the meteorological conditions are accomplished by Monte Carlo simulation. Reasonable results have been obtained to select the optimized treatment technology for PM_2.5, PM₁₀, NO_x, and SO₂. Additional comparison analysis shows that baghouse is the least cost option as compared to electrostatic precipitator and wet scrubbers for particulate matter, whereas non-selective catalytical reduction and dry-flue gas desulfurization are suitable for NO_x and SO₂ reduction respectively. Thus, this model can aid planners to reduce these pollutants at a marginal cost by suggesting control pollution devices, while accounting for dynamic meteorological conditions and mining activities.

Keywords: air pollution, linear programming, mining, optimization, treatment technologies

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Authors: Homa Torabizadeh, Mohaddeseh Mikani

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Inulinase from Aspergillus niger was covalently immobilized on magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs/Fe₃O₄) covered with soy protein isolate (SPI/Fe₃O₄) functionalized by bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles. MNPs are promising enzyme carriers because they separate easily under external magnetic fields and have enhanced immobilized enzyme reusability. As MNPs aggregate simply, surface coating strategy was employed. SPI functionalized by BSA was a suitable candidate for nanomagnetite coating due to its superior biocompatibility and hydrophilicity. Fe₃O₄@SPI-BSA nanoparticles were synthesized as a novel carrier with narrow particle size distribution. Step by step fabrication monitoring of Fe₃O₄@SPI-BSA nanoparticles was performed using field emission scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. The results illustrated that nanomagnetite with the spherical morphology was well monodispersed with the diameter of about 35 nm. The average size of the SPI-BSA nanoparticles was 80 to 90 nm, and their zeta potential was around −34 mV. Finally, the mean diameter of fabricated Fe₃O₄@SPI-BSA NPs was less than 120 nm. Inulinase enzyme from Aspergillus niger was covalently immobilized through gluteraldehyde on Fe₃O₄@SPI-BSA nanoparticles successfully. Fourier transform infrared spectra and field emission scanning electron microscopy images provided sufficient proof for the enzyme immobilization on the nanoparticles with 80% enzyme loading.

Keywords: high fructose syrup, inulinase immobilization, functionalized magnetic nanoparticles, soy protein isolate

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Authors: Y. Ghiassi-Farrokhfal

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The number of electric vehicles (EVs) is increasing worldwide. Replacing gas fueled cars with EVs reduces carbon emission. However, the extensive energy consumption of EVs stresses the energy systems, requiring non-green sources of energy (such as gas turbines) to compensate for the new energy demand caused by EVs in the energy systems. To make EVs even a greener solution for the future energy systems, new EV charging stations are equipped with solar PV panels and batteries. This will help serve the energy demand of EVs through the green energy of solar panels. To ensure energy availability, solar panels are combined with batteries. The energy surplus at any point is stored in batteries and is used when there is not enough solar energy to serve the demand. While EV charging stations equipped with solar panels and batteries are green and ecologically optimal, they might not be financially viable solutions, due to battery prices. To make the system viable, we should size the battery economically and operate the system optimally. This is, in general, a challenging problem because of the stochastic nature of the EV arrivals at the charging station, the available solar energy, and the battery operating system. In this work, we provide a mathematical model for this problem and we compute the return on investment (ROI) of such a system, which is designed to be ecologically and financially optimal. We also quantify the minimum required investment in terms of battery and solar panels along with the operating strategy to ensure that a charging station has enough energy to serve its EV demand at any time.

Keywords: solar energy, battery storage, electric vehicle, charging stations

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Authors: Nitin Dewangan, Nitin Kattula, Megha Anawat

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Hydraulic reservoir is the key component in the mobile construction vehicles; most of the off-road earth moving construction machinery requires bigger side hydraulic reservoirs. Their reservoir construction is very much non-uniform and designers used such design to utilize the space available under the vehicle. There is no way to find out the space utilization of the reservoir by oil and validity of design except virtual simulation. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) helps to predict the reservoir space utilization by vortex mapping, path line plots and dwell time prediction to make sure the design is valid and efficient for the vehicle. The dwell time acceptance criteria for effective reservoir design is 15 seconds. The paper will describe the hydraulic reservoir simulation which is carried out using CFD tool acuSolve using automated mesh strategy. The free surface flow and moving reference mesh is used to define the oil flow level inside the reservoir. The first baseline design is not able to meet the acceptance criteria, i.e., dwell time below 15 seconds because the oil entry and exit ports were very close. CFD is used to redefine the port locations for the reservoir so that oil dwell time increases in the reservoir. CFD also proposed baffle design the effective space utilization. The final design proposed through CFD analysis is used for physical validation on the machine.

Keywords: reservoir, turbulence model, transient model, level set, free-surface flow, moving frame of reference

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Authors: Zhehao Zhang

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Walking has become an indispensable and sustainable way of travel for college students in their daily lives; campus street is an important carrier for students to walk and take part in a variety of activities, improving the walkability of campus streets plays an important role in optimizing the quality of campus space environment, promoting the campus walking system and inducing multiple walking behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of campus layout, facility distribution, and location site selection on the walkability of campus streets, and assess the street design qualities from the elements of imageability, enclosure, complexity, transparency, and human scale, and further examines the relationship between street-level urban design perceptual qualities and walkability and its effect on walking behavior in the campus. Taking Tianjin University as the research object, this paper uses the optimized walk score method based on walking frequency, variety, and distance to evaluate the walkability of streets from a macro perspective and measures the urban design qualities in terms of the calculation of street physical environment characteristics, as well as uses behavior annotation and street image data to establish temporal and spatial behavior database to analyze walking activity from the microscopic view. In addition, based on the conclusions, the improvement and design strategy will be presented from the aspects of the built walking environment, street vitality, and walking behavior.

Keywords: walkability, streetscapes, pedestrian activity, walk score

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Authors: Mushtaq H. Khan, Antonio Andreoni, Pallavi Roy

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Developing countries are characterized by political settlements where formal rules are generally weakly enforced and widely violated. Conventional anti-corruption strategies that focus on improving the general enforcement of a rule of law and raising the costs of corruption facing individual public officials have typically delivered poor results in these contexts. Our alternative approach is to identify anti-corruption strategies that have a high impact and that are feasible to implement in these contexts. Our alternative approach identifies anti-corruption strategies from the bottom up. This involves identifying the characteristics of the corruption constraining particular development outcomes. By drawing on theories of rents and rent seeking, and theories of political settlements, we can assess the developmental impact of particular anti-corruption strategies and the feasibility of implementing these strategies. We argue that feasible anti-corruption in these contexts cannot be solely based on conventional anti-corruption strategies. In societies that have widespread rule violations, high-impact anti-corruption is only likely to be feasible if the overall strategy succeeds in aligning the interests and capabilities of powerful organizations at the sectoral level to support the enforcement of particular sets of rules. We examine four related strategies for changing these incentives and capabilities of critical stakeholders at the local or sectoral level, and we argue that this can provide a framework for organizing research on the impact and feasibility of anti-corruption activities in different priority areas in particular countries.

Keywords: anti-corruption, development, political settlements analysis, rule of law

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Authors: Feng Zisu

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Community is the basic unit of the city, community pedestrian space is also an important part of the urban public space, and its quality improvement is also closely related to the residents' happiness and sense of belonging. Domestic and international research perspectives on community pedestrian space have gradually changed to inclusive design for the whole population, paying more attention to the equitable accessibility of urban space and the multiple composite enhancement of spatial connotation. In order to realize the inclusive and sustainable development of pedestrian space in old communities, this article selects Cao Yang New Village in Shanghai as a practice case, and based on the connotation of inclusiveness, the four dimensions of space, traffic, function and emotion are selected as the layers of inclusive connotation of pedestrian space in old communities. This article identifies the objective social needs, dynamic activity characteristics and subjective feelings of multiple subjects, and reconstructs the structural hierarchy of “spatial perception - behavioral characteristics - subjective feelings” of walking. It also proposes a governance strategy of “reconfiguring the pedestrian network, optimizing street quality, integrating ecological space and reshaping the community scene” from the aspects of quality of physical environment and quality of behavioral perception, aiming to provide new ideas for promoting the inclusive and sustainable development of pedestrian space in old communities.

Keywords: inclusivity, old community, pedestrian space, spatial quality, sustainable renovation

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Authors: Amalka Nawarathna, Nirodha Fernando, Zaid Alwan

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Global carbon reduction is not merely a responsibility of environmentally advanced developed countries, but also a responsibility of developing countries regardless of their less impact on global carbon emissions. In recognition of that, Sri Lanka as a developing country has initiated promoting green building construction as one reduction strategy. However, notwithstanding the increasing attention on Embodied Carbon (EC) reduction in the global building sector, they still mostly focus on Operational Carbon (OC) reduction (through improving operational energy). An adequate attention has not yet been given on EC estimation and reduction. Therefore, this study aims to identify the reasons for the slow uptake of EC estimation in the Sri Lankan building sector. To achieve this aim, 16 numbers of global barriers to estimate EC were identified through existing literature. They were then subjected to a pilot survey to identify the significant reasons for the slow uptake of EC estimation in the Sri Lankan building sector. A questionnaire with a three-point Likert scale was used to this end. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed that 11 out of 16 challenges/ barriers are highly relevant as reasons for the slow uptake in estimating EC in buildings in Sri Lanka while the other five challenges/ barriers remain as moderately relevant reasons. Further, the findings revealed that there are no low relevant reasons. Eventually, the paper concluded that all the known reasons are significant to the Sri Lankan building sector and it is necessary to address them in order to upturn the attention on EC reduction.

Keywords: embodied carbon emissions, embodied carbon estimation, global carbon reduction, Sri Lankan building sector

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Authors: Alex Hughes

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Patients with advanced heart failure develop specific palliative care needs due to the progressive symptom burden and unpredictable disease trajectory. NICE guidance advises that palliative care should be provided to patients with both cancer and non-cancer conditions as and when required. However, there is some way to go before this guidance is consistently and effectively implemented nationwide in conditions such as heart failure. The Ambitions for Palliative and End of Life Care: A national framework for local action in England provides a set of foundations and ambitions which outline a vision for what high-quality palliative and end-of-life care look like in England. This poster aims to critically consider how to improve access to palliative care for heart failure patients in England by analysing the foundations taken from this framework to generate specific recommendations using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). The eight foundations analysed are: ‘Personalised care planning’, ‘Shared records’, ‘Evidence and information’, ‘Involving, supporting and caring for those important to the dying Person’, ‘Education and training’, ‘24/7 access’, ‘Co-design’ and ‘Leadership.’ A number of specific recommendations have been generated which highlight a need to close the evidence-policy gap and implement policy with sufficient evidence. These recommendations, alongside the creation of an evidence-based national strategy for palliative care and heart failure, should improve access to palliative care for heart failure patients in England. Once implemented, it will be necessary to evaluate the effect of these proposals to understand if access to palliative care for heart failure patients actually improves.

Keywords: access, health systems, heart failure, palliative care

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Authors: Varshith Kotagiri, Lei Li

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Fluorescent sensors are organic fluorophores that detect specific analytes with quantitative fluorescence intensity changes. They have offered impressive benefits compared with instrumental techniques, such as low cost, high selectivity, and rapid responses. One issue that limits the fluorescent sensors for further application is their poor solubility in the aqueous medium, where most targeted analytes, including metal ions, inorganic anions, and neutral biomolecules, are readily soluble. When fluorescent sensors are utilized to detect these analytes, a heterogeneous phase is formed. In most cases, an extra water-miscible organic solvent is needed as an additive to facilitate the sensing process, which complicates the measurement operations and produces more organic waste. We aim to resolve this issue by skillful molecular design to introduce a hydrophilic side chain to the fluorescent sensor, increasing its water solubility and facilitating its sensing process to analytes, like various protons, fluoride ions, and copper ions, in an aqueous medium. Simultaneously, its sensitivity and selectivity will be retained. This work will simplify the sensing operations and reduce the amount of organic waste produced during the measurement. This strategy will additionally be of broad interest to the chemistry community, as it introduces the idea of modifying the molecular structure to apply an initial hydrophobic compound under hydrophilic conditions in a feasible way.

Keywords: organic fluorescent sensor, analytes, sensing, aqueous medium, phenanthroimidazole, hydrophilic side chain

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Authors: Reza Rezaeipour Honarmandzad

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This paper introduces an aircraft cable fault detection and location method in light of TFDR keeping in mind the end goal to recognize the intermittent faults adequately and to adapt to the serial and after-connector issues being hard to be distinguished in time domain reflection. In this strategy, the correlation function of reflected and reference signal is used to recognize and find the airplane fault as per the qualities of reflected and reference signal in time-frequency domain, so the hit rate of distinguishing and finding intermittent faults can be enhanced adequately. In the work process, the reflected signal is interfered by the noise and false caution happens frequently, so the threshold de-noising technique in light of wavelet decomposition is used to diminish the noise interference and lessen the shortcoming alert rate. At that point the time-frequency cross connection capacity of the reference signal and the reflected signal based on Wigner-Ville appropriation is figured so as to find the issue position. Finally, LabVIEW is connected to execute operation and control interface, the primary capacity of which is to connect and control MATLAB and LABSQL. Using the solid computing capacity and the bottomless capacity library of MATLAB, the signal processing turn to be effortlessly acknowledged, in addition LabVIEW help the framework to be more dependable and upgraded effectively.

Keywords: aircraft cable, fault location, TFDR, LabVIEW

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Authors: Rattanamanee Chomchan, Sunisa Siripongvutikorn, Panupong Puttarak

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Ricegrass or young rice sprouts can be introduced as one of functional product since cereal sprouts have been much interested in this era due to their high nutritive values. Bio-fortification of selenium is one strategy to improve plant bioactive compounds. However, the level of selenium used are varied among species of plants, hence, the proper level need to be investigated. In this current study, influence of selenium bio-fortification hydroponically in the form of sodium selenite following the range 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 mg Se/L on growth characteristics, selenium content, total extractable phenolic content (TPC) accumulation, lipid peroxidation and anti-oxidative properties of ricegrass were investigated. Results revealed that selenium bio-fortified exogenously increased the accumulation of selenium in ricegrass by 5.3 fold at 40 mg Se/L treatment without significant changes in leaves biomass at harvesting day while root part weight were slightly decreased when increased selenium level, respectively. Selenium at low concentration (10 and 20 mg Se/L) can stimulate the production of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activities in young ricegrass as measured by DPPH, ABTS and FRAP assay. Conversely, higher level of selenium fortification reduced the accumulation of phenolics in ricegrass afterward by acting as pro-oxidant. Moreover, highest significant reduction in oxidative stress, measured as malondialdehyde content was also observed at 20 mg Se/L treatment which in correlation to high TPC and antioxidant activities. In conclusion, selenium bio-fortification can be used as a technique to improve precious to ricegrass.

Keywords: antioxidant activities, bio-fortification, ricegrass, selenium

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Authors: Muhammad Habib, Xuefan Zhou, Lin Tang, Guoliang Xue, Fazli Akram, Dou Zhang

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Defect engineering approach is a well-established approach for the customization of functional properties of perovskite ceramics. In modern technology, the high multiferroic properties for elevated temperature applications are greatly demanding. In this work, the Bi-nonstoichiometric lead-free 0.67Biy-xSmxFeO3-0.33BaTiO3 ceramics (Sm-doped BF-BT for Bi-excess; y = 1.03 and Bi-deficient; y = 0.975 with x = 0.00, 0.04 and 0.08) were design for the high-temperature multiferroic property. Enhanced piezoelectric (d33  250 pC/N and d33* 350 pm/V) and magnetic properties (Mr  0.25 emu/g) with a high Curie temperature (TC  465 ℃) were obtained in the Bi-deficient pure BF-BT ceramics. With Sm-doping (x = 0.04), the TC decrease to 350 ℃ a significant improvement occurred in the d33* to 504 pm/V and 450 pm/V for Bi-excess and Bi-deficient compositions, respectively. The structural origin of the enhanced piezoelectric strain performance is related to the soft ferroelectric effect by Sm-doping and reversible phase transition from the short-range relaxor ferroelectric state to the long-range order under the applied electric field. However, a slight change occurs in the Mr 0.28 emu/g value with Sm-doping for Bi-deficient ceramics, whereas the Bi-excess ceramics shows completely paramagnetic behavior. Hence, the origin of high magnetic properties in the Bi-deficient BF-BT ceramics is mainly attributed to the proposed double exchange mechanism. We believe that this strategy will provide a new perspective for the development of lead-free multiferroic ceramics for high-temperature applications.

Keywords: BiFeO3-BaTiO3, lead-free piezoceramics, magnetic properties, defect engineering

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Authors: Anthony F. Peressini

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The concept of race has recently come prominently back into discussion in the context of medicine and medical science, along with renewed effort to biologize racial concepts. This paper argues that this renewed effort to biologize race by way of medicine and population genetics fail on their own terms, and more importantly, that the philosophical project of biologizing race ought to be recognized for what it is—a retrograde racial project—and abandoned. There is clear agreement that standard racial categories and concepts cannot be grounded in the old way of racial naturalism, which understand race as a real, interest-independent biological/metaphysical category in which its members share “physical, moral, intellectual, and cultural characteristics.” But equally clear is the very real and pervasive presence of racial concepts in individual and collective consciousness and behavior, and so it remains a pressing area in which to seek deeper understanding. Recent philosophical work has endeavored to reconcile these two observations by developing a “thin” conception of race, grounded in scientific concepts but without the moral and metaphysical content. Such “thin,” science-based analyses take the “commonsense” or “folk” sense of race as it functions in contemporary society as the starting point for their philosophic-scientific projects to biologize racial concepts. A “philosophic-scientific analysis” is a special case of the cornerstone of analytic philosophy: a conceptual analysis. That is, a rendering of a concept into the more perspicuous concepts that constitute it. Thus a philosophic-scientific account of a concept is an attempt to work out an analysis of a concept that makes use of empirical science's insights to ground, legitimate and explicate the target concept in terms of clearer concepts informed by empirical results. The focus in this paper is on three recent philosophic-scientific cases for retaining “race” that all share this general analytic schema, but that make use of “medical necessity,” population genetics, and human genetic clustering, respectively. After arguing that each of these three approaches suffers from internal difficulties, the paper considers the general analytic schema employed by such biologizations of race. While such endeavors are inevitably prefaced with the disclaimer that the theory to follow is non-essentialist and non-racialist, the case will be made that such efforts are not neutral scientific or philosophical projects but rather are what sociologists call a racial project, that is, one of many competing efforts that conjoin a representation of what race means to specific efforts to determine social and institutional arrangements of power, resources, authority, etc. Accordingly, philosophic-scientific biologizations of race, since they begin from and condition their analyses on “folk” conceptions, cannot pretend to be “prior to” other disciplinary insights, nor to transcend the social-political dynamics involved in formulating theories of race. As a result, such traditional philosophical efforts can be seen to be disciplinarily parochial and to address only a caricature of a large and important human problem—and thereby further contributing to the unfortunate isolation of philosophical thinking about race from other disciplines.

Keywords: population genetics, ontology of race, race-based medicine, racial formation theory, racial projects, racism, social construction

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Authors: Ani Kojoyan

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The Syrian refugee crisis has been a matter of worldwide concern during the recent years. And though refugees’ problems are contextualized in terms of time and space, the refugee crisis still remains a global issue to discuss. Since the start of the conflict, Armenia has welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees too. Taking into consideration Armenia’s current socio-economic and geopolitical situation, the flow of refugees is a challenge both for the country and for refugees themselves. However, these people are not simply refugees from Syria, they are Syrian-Armenian refugees; people whose ancestors were survivals of the Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks in 1915, people whose ancestors became refugees a century ago in Syria and now, ironically, a century later they follow their ancestors’ paths, turning into refugees themselves in their historical homeland, facing various difficulties, among them socio-economic, socio-ideological, and identity and gender issues, the latter being the main topic of discussion in the present paper. The situation presented above makes us discuss certain questions within this study: how do Syrian-Armenian refugees define themselves and their status? Which are their gender roles in the socio-economic context? How do social and economic challenges re-shape Syrian-Armenian women refugees’ identities? The study applies qualitative research methods of analysis, which includes semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 15 participants (18-25, 26-40 age groups), and two focus group works, involving 8 participants (18-35 age group) for each focus group activity. The activities were carried out in October 2016, Yerevan, Armenia. The study also includes Secondary Data Analysis. In addition, in order to centralize refugee women’s experiences and identity issues, the study adopts a qualitative lens from a feminist standpoint position. It is based on the assumption that human activity structures and limits understanding, and that the distorted comprehension of events or activities has emerged from the male-oriented dominant judgement which can be discovered through uncovering the understanding of the situation from women’s activity perspectives. The findings suggest that identity is dynamic, complex, over-changing and sensitive to time and space, gender and class. The process of re-shaping identity is even more complicated and multi-layered and is based on internal and external factors, conditioned by individual and collective needs and interests. Refugees are mostly considered as people who lost their identity in the past since they have no longer connection anywhere and try to find it in the present. In turn, female refugees, being a more vulnerable class, go through more complicated identity re-formulating discourse negotiations. They stand between the borders of the old and new, borders of lost and re-found selves, borders of creating and self-fashioning, between illusions and the challenging reality. Particularly, refugee women become more sensitive within the discourses of the private and the public domains: some of them try to create a ‘new-self’, creating their space in a new society, whereas others try to negotiate their affective/emotional labour within their own family domains.

Keywords: feminist standpoint position, gender, identity, refugee studies, Syrian-Armenian women refugees

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Authors: Aminu Musa Audu

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This paper examines the human resources management issues of the Nigeria Police and how it is impacting the community policing policy transfer. Nigeria Police Force is the organisation in the country with the constitutional responsibility of maintaining law and order. The high level of crime and other forms of insecurity called for the introduction of ‘police-community partnership’ strategy in 2003. The trend of events has suggested that the effort is not yielding result, partly because the police in Nigeria are facing human resources management challenges. For instance, the prospective candidates for the police jobs are usually not vetted a situation which provides the possibility of recruiting persons of low academic background and questionable character, or even criminal records. Moreover, the existing training, development infrastructure and other logistics for the job of policing are not in good condition. Consequently, the implementation of the ‘community policing’ policy for crime prevention and control in Nigeria stands to suffer setbacks. Adopting qualitative methods and with focus groups discussions and individual in-depth interviews for data collections, the findings from the views and perspectives of the participants were suggestive of poor handlings of human resources management of the Nigeria police organisation and with negative effect on the implementation of community policing policy. The paper therefore recommends that a total overhaul of the human resources component of the police organisation is necessary in the community policing policy transfer process for crime prevention and control in Nigeria.

Keywords: Nigeria Police Force, community policing policy transfer, human resources management, police-community partnership

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Authors: Hakam Alkhateeb

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Oleuropein, the main constituent of leaves and fruits of the olive tree, has been demonstrated to exert beneficial effects on parameters relevant to the normal homeostatic mechanisms of glucose regulation in rat skeletal muscle. However, the antidiabetic effect of oleuropein, to our knowledge, has not been examined. Therefore, in this study, we examined whether oleuropein ameliorated palmitate-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscle. To examine this question, insulin resistance was rapidly induced by incubating (12h) soleus muscle with a high concentration of palmitate(2mM). Subsequently, we attempted to restore insulin sensitivity by incubating (12h) muscles with oleuropien (1.5mM), while maintaining high concentrations of palmitate. Palmitate treatment for 12 h reduced insulin-stimulated glucose transport, GLUT4 translocationandAS160 phosphorylation. Oleuropein treatment (12 h) fully restoredinsulin-stimulated glucose transport, GLUT4translocationandAS160 phosphorylation. Inhibition of PI3K phosphorylation with wortmannin (1µM)did not affect the oleuropein-induced improvements in insulin-stimulated glucose transport, GLUT4 translocation, and AS160 phosphorylation. These results suggested that the improvements in these parameters cannot account for activating PI3K pathway. Taken altogether, it appears that oleuropein, through activation of another pathway like activated protein kinase (AMPK), may provide a possible strategy by which they ameliorate palmitate-induced insulin resistance in skeletal muscles.

Keywords: AS160, diabetes, GLUT4, oleuropein

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Authors: Ebru Genc, Shih-Ching Wang

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In today’s globalized world, while companies move their production centers to developing countries in order to gain cost advantage, they receive negative responses from consumers because of the weak image of those countries. In this study, we looked at this tradeoff faced by multinational companies. Some companies that have headquarters in developed countries have devised a strategy of manipulating country-of-origin (COO) information by introducing the concept of country of design (COD). We analyzed the impact of country-of-manufacturing (COM) information on consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intention in the presence of different levels of COD information, namely, in terms of developed and developing countries. We found that it is not advantageous for a firm to publish a design location with a strong image if the firm is producing in a country that has a weak image. On the other hand, revealing COD information has a reinforcing effect on consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intention if the firm is producing in a country with a strong image. Second, we studied the impact of consumption context on this relationship (in terms of public or private use) and found that for products that are typically used in public, COM has significantly shown higher importance on product evaluation and purchase intention, compared to products typically used in private. However, our results show that consumption context shows no effect of an impact resulting from COD information.

Keywords: consumption context, country of design, country of manufacturing, country of origin

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Authors: Marwa M. Abu-Serie, Marwa M. Eltarahony

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The search for reliable, effective, and safe nanoparticles (NPs) as a treatment for cancer is a pressing priority. In this study, Cu-NPs were fabricated by Streptomyces cyaneofuscatus through simultaneous bioreduction strategy of copper nitrate salt. The as-prepared Cu-NPs subjected to structural analysis; energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, elemental mapping, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and ζ-potential. These biological synthesized Cu-NPs were mixed with disulfiram (DS), forming a nanocomplex of Cu-DS with a size of ~135 nm. The prepared nanocomplex (nanoCu-DS) exhibited higher anticancer activity than that of free complex of DS-Cu, Cu-NPs, and DS alone. This was illustrated by the lowest IC50 of nanoCu-DS (< 4 µM) against human breast and liver cancer cell lines comparing with DS-Cu, Cu-NPs, and DS (~8, 22.98-33.51 and 11.95-14.86, respectively). Moreover, flow cytometric analysis confirmed that higher apoptosis percentage range of nanoCu-DS-treated in MDA-MB 231, MCF-7, Huh-7, and HepG-2 cells (51.24-65.28%) than free complex of Cu-DS ( < 4.5%). Regarding inhibition potency of liver and breast cancer cell migration, no significant difference was recorded between free and nanocomplex. Furthermore, nanoCu-DS suppressed gene expression of β-catenine, Akt, and NF-κB and upregulated p53 expression (> 3, >15, > 5 and ≥ 3 folds, respectively) more efficiently than free complex (all ~ 1 fold) in MDA-MB 231 and Huh-7 cells. Our finding proved this prepared nano complex has a powerful anticancer activity relative to free complex, thereby offering a promising cancer treatment.

Keywords: biologically prepared Cu-NPs, breast cancer cell lines, liver cancer cell lines, nanoCu- disulfiram

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Authors: Oktofa Y. Sudrajad, Didier V. Caillie

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Association of Southeast Asian Countries Nations (ASEAN) is moving forward to the next level of regional integration by the initiation of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) which is already started in 2015, 8 years after its declaration for the creation of AEC in 2007. This commitment imposes financial integration in the region is one of the main agenda which will be achieved until 2025. Therefore, the commitment to financial integration including banking integration will bring new landscape in the competition and business model in this region. This study investigates the effect of competition on bank business model using a sample of 324 banks from seven members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). We use market power approach and Boone indicator as competition measures, while income diversification and bank funding strategies are employed as bank business model representation. Moreover, we also evaluate bank business model based by grouping the banks based on the main banking characteristics. We use unbalanced bank-specific annual panel data over the period of 2003 – 2015. Our empirical analysis shows that the banking industries in ASEAN countries adapt their business model by increasing non-interest income proportion due to the level of competition increase in the sector.

Keywords: bank business model, banking competition, Boone indicator, market power

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Authors: Jutamas Wisansing, Thanakarn Vongvisitsin, Udom Hongchatikul

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Food could be used to open up a dialogue about local heritage. Contributing to the world sustainable consumption mission, this research aims to explore the linkages between agriculture, senses of place and performing arts. Thailand and its destination marketing ‘Discover Thainess’ was selected as a working principle, enabling a case example of how the three elements could be conceptualized. The model offered an integrated institutional arrangement where diverse entities could be formed to design how Thainess (local heritage) could be interpreted and embedded into an art of food. Using case study research approach, three areas (Chiangmai, Samutsongkram and Ban Rai Gong King) representing 3 different scales of tourism development were selected. Based on a theoretical analysis, a working model was formulated. An action research was then designed to experiment how the model could be materialized. Brainstorming elicitation and in-depth interview were employed to reflect on how each element could be integrated. The result of this study offered an innovation on how food tourism could be profoundly interpreted and how tourism development could enhance value creation for agricultural based community. The outcomes of the research present co-creative multi-stakeholder model and the value creation method through the whole supply chain of Thai gastronomy. The findings have been eventually incorporated into ‘gastro-diplomacy’ strategy for Thai tourism.

Keywords: community-based tourism, gastro-diplomacy, gastronomy tourism, sustainable tourism development

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Authors: Harish Rajak, Preeti Patel

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The application of histone deacetylase inhibitors is a well-known strategy in prevention of cancer which shows acceptable preclinical antitumor activity due to its ability of growth inhibition and apoptosis induction of cancer cell. Molecular docking were performed using Histone Deacetylase protein (PDB ID:1t69) and prepared series of hydroxamic acid based HDACIs. On the basis of docking study, it was predicted that compound 1 has significant binding interaction with HDAC protein and three hydrogen bond interactions takes place, which are essential for antitumor activity. On docking, most of the compounds exhibited better glide score values between -8 to -10 which is close to the glide score value of suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid. The pharmacophore hypotheses were developed using e-pharmacophore script and phase module. The 3D-QSAR models provided a good correlation between predicted and actual anticancer activity. Best QSAR model showed Q2 (0.7974), R2 (0.9200) and standard deviation (0.2308). QSAR visualization maps suggest that hydrogen bond acceptor groups at carbonyl group of cap region and hydrophobic groups at ortho, meta, para position of R9 were favorable for HDAC inhibitory activity. We established structure activity correlation using docking, pharmacophore modeling and atom based 3D QSAR model for hydroxamic acid based HDACIs.

Keywords: HDACIs, QSAR, e-pharmacophore, docking, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid

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Authors: Mohammad Muntasir Maruf, Muhammad Zillur Rahman Khan, Nasim Jahan, Md. Waziul Alam Chowdhury, Satparkash, Md. Nozrul Islam

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Background: Substance use disorders have become a major public health problem in Bangladesh. Objectives: The present study was designed to assess the pattern of substance use and factors related to it among the hospitalized patients. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. All the patients who were admitted in a private drug de-addiction clinic in the capital city (Dhaka) of Bangladesh during 1 July-31 December, 2013 and diagnosed as a case of substance use disorder by applying Structured Clinical Interview for DSM- Clinician Version were enrolled in the study. Data were collected through face to face interview by a semi-structured questionnaire and the information was complemented by the case-notes. Study subjects were 105 in number. Data analysis was performed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Results: Most (90.5%) of the respondents were male. The mean age of the respondents was 28.8 (± 8.0) years. Majority (91.4%) were poly-substance users. Most (27.6%) respondents used 3 types of substances. Smoking or inhalation was the route used by most (90.5%) respondents. More than three-fourth (81%) of the respondents used nicotine. Among the other substances, majority (79%) used opiates group, followed by cannabinoids group (55.2%) and alcohol (41%). Curiosity, peer pressure and to have enjoyment or fun were identified as the common reasons for initiating substance use. Conclusions: A high proportion of poly-substance use was found. The study findings would help in management and prevention strategy of substance use in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Bangladesh, de-addiction clinic, poly-substance users, substance use disorder

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Authors: Maaly Jarrah

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In a study abroad context, students have the advantage of immersing themselves in the environment of the target language and being exposed to it. However, in and a stay home context, where English is not the mother tongue, students’ exposure to the second language is often times restricted to the classroom. Although language teachers are keen to develop inside class room activities and practices that increase the suitability of students to acquire a second language (Cook & Singleton, 2014), many would agree that class time is too limited to enhance students’ oral fluency skills. Consequently, creating opportunities outside the classroom for students to speak English is an effective strategy in compensating for students’ limited use of the L2. In an argument by Ortega (2012) external classroom activities have equal significance in enabling students learn English as a second language. The author further asserts that the activities provide a non-educational environment from which a student may feel free and comfortable to acquire new language skills. This study investigates the significance of outside classroom activities in promoting students’ oral proficiency. In addition, it reports on students’ perceptions of such activities. 15 participants from the American University of Kuwait took part in this study. Open-ended interviews were done to find out what the participants thought of these activities, and what they gained from them. Interview results show that students found outside classroom activities very effective in improving not only their oral fluency skills, but their confidence and critical thinking skills as well. The implications of this research study are for language practitioners and language programs in the EFL context to be aware of the benefits of incorporating outside classroom activities in language teaching.

Keywords: language teaching, oral fluency, outside classroom activities

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Authors: Guangtong Xu, Yi He

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Like most historic and cultural cities in China, the historic urban area of Jingmen city is facing a typical spatial problem of fragmentation and fuzzification. This study focuses on exploring a method for evaluating the existing values of historic urban area based on spatial prototype, a concept introduced into urban morphology from 'Archetype' in architectural typology. As the spatial elements and built-up relationship of historic city, spatial prototype has habitual structural characteristics and formal modulus. It is the inherent logic and order rules behind the scattered historic environment, providing a clue to understand the spatial characteristics and a basis for guiding the construction and conservation in historic urban areas. Three criteria, the resolution of historical elements, the completeness of historical structure and the renewal potential of associated land, were selected to construct the integrated assessment system. These three dimensions are linked to the spatial prototype and its constituent elements, as well as the transformation relationship in ancient and present day. The results showed that historic urban areas have changed from a holistic city to different existing types dominated by their historic structure elements. It is necessary to improve the pertinence of planning strategies and develop diversified management measures in the conservation scope of historic urban area. Moreover, a constructive-conservation strategy should be put forward to enhance the integrity of historic urban area based on the trace of spatial prototype and evaluation results.

Keywords: constructive conservation, existing value, historic urban area, spatial prototype

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Authors: Saiyeed Jakaria Baksh Imran

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The earth is being endangered by many of the climate related issues today. The most serious issue for the world today is the global warming. Increase in Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions post-industrial revolution period is the prime reason for global warming. Shipping is the fifth largest GHG emitting sector worldwide. The key reason for this is because, over 90% of the world trade is conducted through ocean as the ocean alone covers 70% of the earth surface. While the countries continue to develop, trade and commerce continue to increase between them simultaneously. However, there is no sign of reduction in GHG emission from shipping because of many concerned issues. Firstly, there is technological barrier for which ships cannot just become environment friendly immediately. Secondly, there is no alternative fuel available as well. Thirdly, there is no proper mechanism to measure how much ships emit as emission from ships vary according to the size, engine type and loading capacity of ships. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) being the governing body of the international shipping has implemented MARPOL Annex VI. However, the policy alone is not enough unless there is a proper data available regarding ship emissions, which the IMO is yet to figure out. This paper will present a critical analysis of existing IMO policies such as the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI), Ship Energy Efficiency Management Plan (SEEMP), Data Collection System (SEEMP) and the IMO’s Initial Strategy on Reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions from shipping. Also, the challenges exist in implementing such policies have been presented in the paper.

Keywords: GHG, IMO, EEDI, SEEMP, DCS, greenhouse gas, decarbonization, shipping

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Authors: Fatemeh Torabi, Jamal El-Den, Narumon Sriratanviriyakul

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Perpetual changes in the workplace and daily business activities bring a need for imbedding organizational knowledge sharing within the organizations’ culture, routines and processes. Organizations should adapt to the changing in the environment in order to survive. Accordingly, the management should promote a knowledge sharing culture which might result in knowledge accumulation, hence better response to these changing environmental conditions. Researchers in the field of strategy and marketing stressed that employees’, as well as the overall performance of the organization, would improve as a result of implementing a knowledge-oriented culture. The research investigated the significant impact of knowledge sharing on market response and the competitiveness of organizations. A knowledge sharing framework was developed based on current literary frameworks with additional constructs such as employees’ learning commitments, experiences and prior knowledge. Linear regression was used to analyze the relationships among dependent and independent variables. The research’s results indicated strong positive correlation between the dependent and independent variables, especially in organizational market sharing. We anticipate that this correlation would improve organizational knowledge sharing related practices and the associated knowledge entities. The research posits the introduced framework could be a solid ground for further investigations on how some organizational factors would influence the organization’s response to the market as well as on competitiveness. Final results support all hypotheses. Finding of this research show that knowledge sharing intention had the significant and positive effect on market response and competitiveness of organizations.

Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge sharing, market response, organizational competitiveness

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Authors: Tiziana Ferrero-Regis, Marissa Lindquist

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Circular Economy (CE) is increasingly seen as the reorganisation of production and consumption, and cities are acknowledged as the sources of many ecological and social problems; at the same time, they can be re-imagined through an ecologically and socially resilient future. The concept of the CE has received pointed critiques for its techno-deterministic orientation, focus on science and transformation by the policy. At the heart of our local re-imagining of the CE into circularity through contact zones there is the acknowledgment of collective, spontaneous and shared imaginations of alternative and sustainable futures through the creation of networks of community initiatives that are transformative, creating opportunities that simultaneously make cities rich and enrich humans. This paper presents a mapping project of the fashion and textile ecosystem in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Brisbane is currently the most aspirational city in Australia, as its population growth rate is the highest in the country. Yet, Brisbane is considered the least “fashion city” in the country. In contrast, the project revealed a greatly enhanced picture of distinct fashion and textile clusters across greater Brisbane and the adjacency of key services that may act to consolidate CE community contact zones. Clusters to the north of Brisbane and several locales to the south are zones of a greater mix between public/social amenities, walkable zones and local transport networks with educational precincts, community hubs, concentration of small enterprises, designers, artisans and waste recovery centers that will help to establish knowledge of key infrastructure networks that will support enmeshing these zones together. The paper presents two case studies of independent designers who work on new and re-designed clothing through recovering pre-consumer textiles and that operate from within creative precincts. The first case is designer Nelson Molloy, who recently returned to the inner city suburb of West End with their Chasing Zero Design project. The area was known in the 1980s and 1990s for its alternative lifestyle with creative independent production, thrifty clothing shops, alternative fashion and a socialist agenda. After 30 years of progressive gentrification of the suburb, which has dislocated many of the artists, designers and artisans, West End is seeing the return and amplification of clusters of artisans, artists, designers and architects. The other case study is Practice Studio, located in a new zone of creative growth, Bowen Hills, north of the CBD. Practice Studio combines retail with a workroom, offers repair and remaking services, becoming a point of reference for young and emerging Australian designers and artists. The paper demonstrates the spatial politics of the CE and the way in which new cultural capital is produced thanks to cultural specificities and resources. It argues for the recognition of contact zones that are created by local actors, communities and knowledge networks, whose grass-roots agency is fundamental for the co-production of CE’s systems of local governance.

Keywords: contact zones, circular citities, fashion and textiles, circular neighbourhoods, australia

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