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Authors: Tae Young Jin, Jin Soo Kim

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Carbon emissions have emerged as global concerns. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) have published reports about Green House Gases (GHGs) emissions regularly. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have held a conference yearly since 1995. Especially, COP21 held at December 2015 made the Paris agreement which have strong binding force differently from former COP. The Paris agreement was ratified as of 4 November 2016, they finally have legal binding. Participating countries set up their own Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), and will try to achieve this. Thus, carbon emissions must be reduced. The energy sector is one of most responsible for carbon emissions and fossil fuels particularly are. Thus, this paper attempted to examine the relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth. To achieve this, we adopted the Cobb-Douglas production function that consists of natural gas consumption, economic growth, capital, and labor using dependent panel analysis. Data were preprocessed with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to remove cross-sectional dependency which can disturb the panel results. After confirming the existence of time-trended component of each variable, we moved to cointegration test considering cross-sectional dependency and structural breaks to describe more realistic behavior of volatile international indicators. The cointegration test result indicates that there is long-run equilibrium relationship between selected variables. Long-run cointegrating vector and Granger causality test results show that while natural gas consumption can contribute economic growth in the short-run, adversely affect in the long-run. From these results, we made following policy implications. Since natural gas has positive economic effect in only short-run, the policy makers in developing countries must consider the gradual switching of major energy source, from natural gas to sustainable energy source. Second, the technology transfer and financing business suggested by COP must be accelerated. Acknowledgement—This work was supported by the Energy Efficiency & Resources Core Technology Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) granted financial resource from the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Republic of Korea (No. 20152510101880) and by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-205S1A3A2046684).

Keywords: developing countries, economic growth, natural gas consumption, panel data analysis

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Authors: Venkata Buddharaju, Irene Mccarron, Hazel Alba

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Introduction: Male external catheters (MECs) are commonly used to collect and drain urine. MECs are increasingly used in acute care, long-term acute care hospitals, and nursing facilities, and in other patients as an alternative to invasive urinary catheters to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI).MECs are also used to avoid the need for incontinence pads and diapers. Most of the Male External Catheters are held in place by skin adhesive, with the exception of a few, which uses a foam strap clamp around the penile shaft. The adhesive condom catheters typically stay for 24 hours or less. It is also a common practice that extra skin adhesive tape is wrapped around the condom catheter for additional security of the device. The fixed nature of the adhesive will not allow the normal skin expansion of penile size over time. The adhesive can cause skin irritation, redness, erosion, and skin damage. Acanthus condom catheter (ACC) is a patented, specially designed, stretchable silicone catheter without adhesive, adapts to the size and contour of the penis. It is held in place with a single elastic strap that wraps around the lower back and tied to the opposite catheter ring holescriss cross. It can be reused for up to 5 days on the same patient after daily cleaning and washingpotentially reducing cost. Methods: The study was conducted from September 17th to October 8th, 2020. The nursing staff was educated and trained on how to use and reuse the catheter. After identifying five (5) appropriate patients, the catheter was placed and maintained by nursing staff. The data on the ease of use, leak, and skin damage were collected and reported by nurses to the nursing education department of the hospital for analysis. Setting: RML Chicago, long-term acute care hospital, an affiliate of Loyola University Medical Center, Chicago, IL USA. Results: The data showed that the catheter was easy to apply, remove, wash and reuse, without skin problems or urine infections. One patient had used for 16 days after wash, reuse, and replacement without any urine leak or skin issues. A minimal leak was observed on two patients. Conclusion: Acanthus condom catheter was easy to use, functioned well with minimal or no leak during use and reuse. The skin was intact in all patients studied. There were no urinary tract infections in any of the studied patients.

Keywords: CAUTI, male external catheter, reusable, skin adhesive

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Authors: Supunmali Ahangama, Danny Chiang Choon Poo

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Health analytics (HA) is used in healthcare systems for effective decision-making, management, and planning of healthcare and related activities. However, user resistance, the unique position of medical data content, and structure (including heterogeneous and unstructured data) and impromptu HA projects have held up the progress in HA applications. Notably, the accuracy of outcomes depends on the skills and the domain knowledge of the data analyst working on the healthcare data. The success of HA depends on having a sound process model, effective project management and availability of supporting tools. Thus, to overcome these challenges through an effective process model, we propose an HA process model with features from the rational unified process (RUP) model and agile methodology.

Keywords: agile methodology, health analytics, unified process model, UML

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Authors: Routsukol Sunalai

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This research purpose is to study and compare the administration of Buddhist monks at northeastern Thailand. The samples used in the study are the priest in the Northeast by simple random sampling for 190 sampling. The tools used in this study is questioner were created in the 40 question items. The statistics used for data analysis were percentage, average, and standard deviation. The research found that the human resources management for the Buddhist monks as a whole is moderate. But it was found that the highest average is the policy followed by the management information. The Buddhist monks aged less than 25 years old with the overall difference was not significant. The priests who are less than 10 years in the monk experience and the priest has long held in the position for 10 years are not different in the significant level.

Keywords: employee job-related outcomes, ethical institutionalization, quality of work life, stock exchange of Thailand

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Authors: Sonal Khosla

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A research is proposed in the present paper to explore the role of flow in coping with traumatic experiences and attaining post-traumatic growth. A grounded theory research is proposed to be carried by analyzing memoirs of people who have been through trauma. A pilot study was carried out on two memoirs of women who were held captive for over ten years and were sexually assaulted repeatedly. The role of flow in their coping experiences was explored by analyzing the books. Some of the flow activities that were used by them were- drawing and daydreaming. Their narratives show the evidence for flow as having cathartic and healing effects on them. Applicability of the findings can take two forms: 1. Flow can be applied as a preventive technique to help the people who are going through trauma, 2. Flow can be adopted into a positive intervention to help people suffering from PTSD.

Keywords: flow, positive intervention, PTSD, PTG

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Authors: Kittipong Tissayakorn, Fumio Akagi, Yu Song

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Logistics is the integrated management of all of the activities required to move products through the supply chain. For a typical product, this supply chain extends from a raw material source through the production and distribution system to the point of consumption and the associated reverse logistics. The logistical activities are comprised of freight transport, storage, inventory management, materials handling and all related information processing. This paper analyzes the green management system of logistics enterprise for Thailand and advances the concept of Green Logistics, which should be held by the public. In addition, it proposes that the government should strengthen its supervision and support for green logistics, and companies should construct self-disciplined green logistics management systems and corresponding processes, a reverse logistics management system and a modern green logistics information collection and management system.

Keywords: logistics, green logistics, management system, ecological economics

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Authors: Marzieh Talebzadeh Shoushtari

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The present study aimed to determine the effectiveness of Metaphor therapy on depression among female students. The sample included 60 female students with depression symptoms selected by simple sampling and randomly divided into two equal groups (experimental and control groups). Beck Depression Inventory was used to measure the variables. This was an experimental study with a pre-test/post-test design with control group. Eight metaphor therapy sessions were held for the experimental group. A post-test was administered to both groups. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Results showed that the Metaphor therapy decreased depression in the experimental group compared to the control group.

Keywords: metaphor therapy, depression, female, students

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Authors: Francisco Toledo-Castillo, María Josefa Sospedra-Baeza, Sergio Hidalgo-Fuentes

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Motorcycles constitute about 9% of all motorized vehicles in Spain and are generally overrepresented in traffic accidents, accounting for 21% of total accidents. Six years of motorcycle accident data were obtained through the national accident database of Spain (Dirección General de Tráfico). Some of the studied factors are age, gender, helmet wearing, alcohol consumption, speeding, subject’s driving license and for how long it has been held, the trip purpose, and the presence of a passenger on the vehicle. Key findings show helmet use, unsafe speed, the trip purpose, weather, distraction, collision type and other variables play significant roles in crash-injury outcomes. Finally, we examine evolution of mortality and severity from 2006 to 2011.

Keywords: motorcycle accidents, risk factors, statistics, Spain

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Authors: Aditi Madan, Jayant Kumar Routray

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Purpose: Over the years flood related risks have compounded due to increasing vulnerability caused by rapid urbanisation and growing population. This increase is an indication of the need for enhancing the preparedness of institutions to respond to floods. The study describes disaster management structure and its linkages with institutions involved in managing disasters. It addresses issues and challenges associated with readiness of disaster management institutions to respond to floods. It suggests policy options for enhancing the current state of readiness of institutions to respond by considering factors like institutional, manpower, financial, technical, leadership & networking, training and awareness programs, monitoring and evaluation. Methodology: The study is based on qualitative data with statements and outputs from primary and secondary sources to understand the institutional framework for disaster management in India. Primary data included field visits, interviews with officials from institutions managing disasters and the affected community to identify the challenges faced in engaging national, state, district and local level institutions in managing disasters. For focus group discussions, meetings were held with district project officers and coordinators, local officials, community based organisation, civil defence volunteers and community heads. These discussions were held to identify the challenges associated with preparedness to respond of institutions to floods. Findings: Results show that disasters are handled by district authority and the role of local institutions is limited to a reactive role during disaster. Data also indicates that although the existing institutional setup is well coordinated at the district level but needs improvement at the local level. Wide variations exist in awareness and perception among the officials engaged in managing disasters. Additionally, their roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined with adequate budget and dedicated permanent staff for managing disasters. Institutions need to utilise the existing manpower through proper delegation of work. Originality: The study suggests that disaster risk reduction needs to focus more towards inclusivity of the local urban bodies. Wide variations exist in awareness and perception among the officials engaged in managing disasters. In order to ensure community participation, it is important to address their social and economic problems since such issues can overshadow attempts made for reducing risks. Thus, this paper suggests development of direct linkages among institutions and community for enhancing preparedness to respond to floods.

Keywords: preparedness, response, disaster, flood, community, institution

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Authors: Ashwani Kumar

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GPS plays an important role in everyday life for safe and convenient transportation. While pedestrians use hand held devices to know their position in a city, vehicles in intelligent transport systems use relatively sophisticated GPS receivers for estimating their current position. However, in urban areas where the GPS satellites are occluded by tall buildings, trees and reflections of GPS signals from nearby vehicles, GPS position estimation becomes poor. In this work, an exhaustive GPS data is collected at a single point in urban area under different times of day and under dynamic environmental conditions. The data is analyzed and statistical refinement methods are used to obtain optimal position estimate among all the measured positions. The results obtained are compared with publically available datasets and obtained position estimation refinement results are promising.

Keywords: global positioning system, statistical approach, intelligent transport systems, least squares estimation

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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: Rutusha Bhutada, Gaurav Chavan, Sarvesh Kasat, Varsha Mujumdar

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This software system will be an Augmented Reality application designed to maximize the doctor’s productivity by providing tools to assist in automating the patient recognition and updating patient’s records using face and voice recognition features, which would otherwise have to be performed manually. By maximizing the doctor’s work efficiency and production, the application will meet the doctor’s needs while remaining easy to understand and use. More specifically, this application is designed to allow a doctor to manage his productive time in handling the patient without losing eye-contact with him and communicate with a group of other doctors for consultation, for in-place treatments through video streaming, as a video study. The system also contains a relational database containing a list of doctor, patient and display techniques.

Keywords: augmented reality, hand-held devices, head-mounted devices, marker based systems, speech recognition, face detection

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Authors: James E. Mahon

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This paper addresses the important question in the philosophy of lies and deception of whether all lying requires an intention to deceive. It does by examining a recent attempt by two philosophers to argue that Immanuel Kant abandoned the view that all lying requires an intention to deceive, in order to be able to claim that lying to God was possible. Ian Proops and Roy Sorensen have recently argued that although Kant always held that it was impossible for anyone to intend to deceive God, late in his life he came to believe that it was possible to lie to God. Kant came to believe that this was possible, they argue, because Kant came to believe that lying is not always deceptive, and that it was possible to tell non-deceptive lies, including non-deceptive lies to God. In this paper their arguments will be broken down and analyzed. Based on a close textual reading of the published works and the Kant’s lectures on ethics, it will be argued that Proops and Sorensen are wrong about what Kant believed about lying in general and lying to God in particular. This paper concludes that Kant never did abandon the Deceptionist position that all lying requires an intention to deceive.

Keywords: Kant, lie, deception, intention, God, ethics, belief, assertion

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Authors: Mohammad Ahmadi

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Argumentative writing is a highly opinion-based form of discourse that necessitates the ability to address commonly held opinions (endoxa). To enhance the development of persuasive, argumentative essays, the incorporation of classical rhetorical theory, with a specific focus on topics related to the canon of Invention (inventio), can be advantageous. This research investigates the practical application of rhetorical theory in teaching students how to construct compelling argumentative essays. The fundamental premise of this study is the limited familiarity of rhetoric and composition students with rhetorical theory. Consequently, this paper presents an effective pedagogical approach to introduce rhetorical theory to students, beginning from a foundational level. It delineates the procedures and progression that educators should adopt to elucidate and facilitate students' comprehension of rhetorical theory while demonstrating its utilization in the writing of an argumentative essay.

Keywords: argumentative essay, rhetorical theory, pedagogy, invention

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Authors: Langa Hendrick Musawenkosi, Twala Bhekisipho

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The success or failure of students is a concern for every academic institution, college, university, governments and students themselves. Several approaches have been researched to address this concern. In this paper, a view is held that when a student enters a university or college or an academic institution, he or she enters an academic environment. The academic environment is unique concept used to develop the solution for making predictions effectively. This paper presents a model to determine the propensity of a student to succeed or fail in the French South African Schneider Electric Education Center (FSASEC) at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT). The Decision Tree algorithm is used to implement the model at FSASEC.

Keywords: FSASEC, academic environment model, decision trees, k-nearest neighbor, machine learning, popularity index, support vector machine

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Authors: Gianna Zou

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Propensity score matching (PSM), introduced by Paul R. Rosenbaum and Donald Rubin in 1983, is a popular statistical matching technique which tries to estimate the treatment effects by taking into account covariates that could impact the efficacy of study medication in clinical trials. PSM can be used to reduce the bias due to confounding variables. However, PSM assumes that the response values are normally distributed. In some cases, this assumption may not be held. In this paper, a machine learning method - Bayesian Additive Regression Tree (BART), is used as a more robust method of matching. BART can work well when models are misspecified since it can be used to model heterogeneous treatment effects. Moreover, it has the capability to handle non-linear main effects and multiway interactions. In this research, a BART Matching Method (BMM) is proposed to provide a more reliable matching method over PSM. By comparing the analysis results from PSM and BMM, BMM can perform well and has better prediction capability when the response values are not normally distributed.

Keywords: BART, Bayesian, matching, regression

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Authors: Madhusudan Hamirwasia, Sarang Barbarwar, Arshleen Kaur

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The construction of memorials began thousands of years ago and the practice is still continuing. These memorials became a symbol to honor great people and events in the history. The aim of the study was to understand the evolution of memorials from an architectural design perspective. It is also concentrated on the similarities and differences between the memorials in Europe and those in the Indian subcontinent. The study shows how the design of a memorial has seen a considerable shift from the tribal Urasgattas to the contemporary commemorative structures. While they were somber symbolic gestures in the past, they have now transformed into a socio-cultural space in urban areas. Not only the memorials were inspired by the culture but the culture too got influenced by the memorials as with progressing time, they hold the vital link to our past. The study intends to encapsulate the essence of design elements in these memorials that convey the visitors the intangible messages held by the edifice in its tangible presence.

Keywords: evolution, emotion, memorials, symbolism

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Authors: Tomasz Lewinski

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The right to know becomes gradually recognised as an increasing number of states adopts national legislations regarding access to state-held information. Laws differ from each other in the scope of the right to information (hereinafter: RTI). In all regimes of RTI, there are exceptions from the general notion of the right. States’ authorities too often use exceptions to justify refusals to requests for state-held information. This paper sets out how states hamper RTI basing on the notion of exception and by not providing an effective procedure that could redress unlawful denials. This paper bases on two selected examples of RTI incorporation into the national legal regime, United Kingdom, and South Africa. It succinctly outlines the international standard given in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (hereinafter: ICCPR) and its influence on the RTI in selected countries. It shortly demonstrates as a background to further analysis the Human Rights Committee’s jurisprudence and standards articulated by successive Special Rapporteurs on freedom of opinion and expression. Subsequently, it presents a brief comparison of these standards with the regional standards, namely the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights. It critically discusses the regimes of exceptions in RTI legislations in respective national laws. It shows how excessive these regimes are, what implications they have for the transparency in general. Also, the objective is to divide exceptions enumerated in legislations of selected states in relation to exceptions provided in Article 19 of the ICCPR. Basing on the established division of exceptions by its natures, it compares both regimes of exceptions related to the principle of national security. That is to compare jurisprudence of domestic courts, and overview practices of states’ authorities applied to RTI requests. The paper evaluates remedies available in legislations, including contexts of the length and costs of the subsequent proceedings. This provides a general assessment of the given mechanisms and present potential risks of its ineffectiveness. The paper relies on examination of the national legislations, comments of the credible non-governmental organisations (e.g. The Public's Right to Know Principles on Freedom of Information Legislation by the Article 19, The Tshwane Principles on National Security and the Right to Information), academics and also the research of the relevant judgements delivered by domestic and international courts. Conclusion assesses whether selected countries’ legislations go in line with international law and trends, whether the jurisprudence of the regional courts provide appropriate benchmarks for national courts to address RTI issues effectively. Furthermore, it identifies the largest disadvantages of current legislations and to what outcomes it leads in domestic courts jurisprudences. In the end, it provides recommendations and policy arguments for states to improve transparency and support local organisations in their endeavours to establish more transparent states and societies.

Keywords: access to information, freedom of information, national security, right to know, transparency

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Authors: Kacper Tomasz Kröber-Mulawa

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This paper will address the topic of data ownership from an economic perspective, and examples of economic limitations of data property rights will be provided, which have been identified using methods and approaches of economic analysis of law. To properly build a background for the economic focus, in the beginning a short perspective of data and data ownership in the EU’s legal system will be provided. It will include a short introduction to its political and social importance and highlight relevant viewpoints. This will stress the importance of a Single Market for data but also far-reaching regulations of data governance and privacy (including the distinction of personal and non-personal data, data held by public bodies and private businesses). The main discussion of this paper will build upon the briefly referred to legal basis as well as methods and approaches of economic analysis of law.

Keywords: antitrust, data, data ownership, digital economy, property rights

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Authors: Avigail Moor

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Rape by an acquaintance is a prevalent type of sexual assault that is often misperceived and downplayed. To date, there has been no empirical investigation of the prevailing social attitudes towards this type of rape as compared to stranger rape. The present study seeks to address this issue by evaluating widely held attitudes towards these different types of rape. The mediating role of gender and rape myths acceptance is assessed as well. Three hundred and twenty participants, equally divided by gender, completed self-report questionnaires. The results indicate that sexual coercion by strangers is perceived as rape to a significantly greater degree than forced sex by an acquaintance, which in turn is believed to be more harmful than coercion within a steady relationship, particularly by men who view rape in accordance with prevailing rape-supportive attitudes. The same pattern of differentiation emerged in the participants' attitudes toward the psychological harm expected following each, as well as the advisability of reporting the incidents to the police. Implications for preventive efforts are discussed.

Keywords: rape supportive attitudes, acquaintance rape, sexual assault, gender differences

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Authors: Evalita Amrita, Abdurrokhim, Ildrem Syafri

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Research area is located in Pasedan District, Rembang Regency, Central Java Province. This research is being held for the purpose of microfacies and diagenetic study of carbonate rocks. The study area is dominated by deformed carbonate rocks, folded and faulted. The research method is petrographic analysis with red alizarin staining to differentiate mineral types. Microfacies types and diagenetic processes can be known from petrographic analysis of rock texture, rock structure, type of grain, and fossils. Carbonate rocks in the study area can be divided into 4 types of microfacies: Reef Microfacies (SMF 7), Shallow Water Microfacies (SMF 9), and Textural Inversion Microfacies (SMF 10). Diagenetic processes that take place in carbonate rocks are microbial micritization, compaction, neomorphism, cementation, and dissolution.

Keywords: diagenetic, limestone, microfacies, Rembang

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Authors: Mounir Adal, Baalal Azeddine, Afifi Moulay Larbi

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Numerical analysis is a branch of mathematics devoted to the development of iterative matrix calculation techniques. We are searching for operations optimization as objective to calculate and solve systems of equations of order n with time and energy saving for computers that are conducted to calculate and analyze big data by solving matrix equations. Furthermore, this scientific discipline is producing results with a margin of error of approximation called rates. Thus, the results obtained from the numerical analysis techniques that are held on computer software such as MATLAB or Simulink offers a preliminary diagnosis of the situation of the environment or space targets. By this we can offer technical procedures needed for engineering or scientific studies exploitable by engineers for water.

Keywords: numerical analysis methods, obstacles solving, engineering, simulation, numerical modeling, iteration, computer, MATLAB, water, underground, velocity

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Authors: Tahraoui Boualem

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The International Labor Organization is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations, and it is the only organization within the United Nations system that is distinguished by its tripartite legitimacy and which simultaneously includes governments, workers' and employers' organizations of its member states in a joint effort to set standards and policies Work to promote decent work in various parts of the world, and the expression of international labor standards basically means two types of documents, namely international labor agreements and international labor recommendations, and so far its general conference, which is held annually, has set a number of standards, the number of which has reached 184 agreements and 192 recommendations so far. For this reason, it is decided to clarify the International Labor Organization and the formulation of international labor standards within two sections. In the first topic, the researcher discusses the concept of the International Labor Organization, and in the second topic, it highlights the legal basis for the authority of the International Labor Organization in protecting the rights of workers.

Keywords: international labor, international labor standards, rights of workers, nation’s system

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Authors: A. M. Andriano, M. Lombardi, A. Lopolito, M. Prosperi, A. Stasi, E. Iannuzzi

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In according to the scientific debate on the definition of Social Innovation (SI), the present paper identifies SI as new ideas (products, services, and models) that simultaneously meet social needs and create new social relationships or collaborations. This concept offers important tools to unravel the difficult condition for the agricultural sector in marginalized areas, characterized by the abandonment of activities, low level of farmer education, and low generational renewal, hampering new territorial strategies addressed at and integrated and sustainable development. Models of SI in agriculture, starting from bottom up approach or from the community, are considered to represent the driving force of an ecological and digital revolution. A system based on SI may be able to grasp and satisfy individual and social needs and to promote new forms of entrepreneurship. In this context, Vazapp ('Go Hoeing') is an emerging SI model in southern Italy that promotes solutions for satisfying needs of farmers and facilitates their relationships (creation of network). The Vazapp’s initiative, considered in this study, is the Contadinners ('Farmer’s dinners'), a dinner held at farmer’s house where stakeholders living in the surrounding area know each other and are able to build a network for possible future professional collaborations. The aim of the paper is to identify the evolution of farmers’ relationships, both quantitatively and qualitatively, because of the Contadinner’s initiative organized by Vazapp. To this end, the study adopts the Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology by using UCINET (Version 6.667) software to analyze the relational structure. Data collection was realized through a questionnaire distributed to 387 participants in the twenty 'Contadinners', held from February 2016 to June 2018. The response rate to the survey was about 50% of farmers. The elaboration data was focused on different aspects, such as: a) the measurement of relational reciprocity among the farmers using the symmetrize method of answers; b) the measurement of the answer reliability using the dichotomize method; c) the description of evolution of social capital using the cohesion method; d) the clustering of the Contadinners' participants in followers and not-followers of Vazapp to evaluate its impact on the local social capital. The results concern the effectiveness of this initiative in generating trustworthy relationships within the rural area of southern Italy, typically affected by individualism and mistrust. The number of relationships represents the quantitative indicator to define the dimension of the network development; while the typologies of relationships (from simple friendship to formal collaborations, for branding new cooperation initiatives) represents the qualitative indicator that offers a diversified perspective of the network impact. From the analysis carried out, Vazapp’s initiative represents surely a virtuous SI model to catalyze the relationships within the rural areas and to develop entrepreneurship based on the real needs of the community.

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Authors: Esther Baldwin

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It is well settled that the use of solitary confinement can cause psychological and physical harm to detainees. For juveniles, who are more susceptible to irreparable harm due to their underdeveloped psyches, the risks are exacerbated. Despite these risks, across the United States juvenile detainees are regularly held in isolation for prolonged periods of time. This essay will examine the broad impact of solitary confinement on juvenile detainees while giving particular focus to the story of Kalief Browder, a juvenile awaiting trial on Rikers Island in New York for a period of three years, nearly two years of which were spent in solitary confinement. Although sadly, his story is not uncommon, Kalief’s story offers a unique perspective in that it provides first-hand insight on the effects of solitary confinement on juveniles. It is our hope that by sharing his story, we will demand better detention practices and policies for juveniles under correctional control in the United States.

Keywords: criminal justice system, juveniles, Kalief browder, solitary confinement

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Authors: Chima Onwukwe

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This study examined perceptions on the effectiveness, attendant challenges and remedies of community media for effective acculturation in Nigerian languages. The qualitative survey design was adopted with Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) of 50 purposively chosen informants. It was perceived that community media could serve as veritable platform for effective acculturation in Nigerian languages since they would engender the setting of acculturation in Nigerian languages as national objective or goal. It was further held that the strengths of community media for acculturation were in being goal-defined, ensuring local content and diversification. The study identified that as palatable as the proposal for community media for effective acculturation in Nigerian languages is; it would be fraught with some set-backs or challenges that were very much surmountable. Perceptions pointed towards transient nature of community media and funding as challenges, as well as multi-based funding as one remedy. Immediate establishment of community media for the purpose of acculturation in Nigerian languages was recommended.

Keywords: perception, community media, acculturation, indigenous language

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Authors: Anu Soikkeli

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Early 20th century functionalism aimed at generalising living and rationalising construction, thus laying the foundation for the standardisation of construction components and products. From the 1930s onwards, all measurement and quality instructions for building products, different types of building components, descriptions of working methods complying with advisable building practises, planning, measurement and calculation guidelines, terminology, etc. were called standards. Standardisation was regarded as a necessary prerequisite for the mass production of housing. This article examines the early stages of standardisation in Finland in the 1940s and 1950s, as reflected on the working history of an individual architect, Erkki Koiso-Kanttila (1914-2006). In 1950 Koiso-Kanttila was appointed the Head of Design of the Finnish Association of Architects’ Building Standards Committee, a position which he held until 1958. His main responsibilities were the development of the RT Building Information File and compiling of the files.

Keywords: architecture, post WWII period, reconstruction, standardisation

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Authors: Tasawar Nawaz

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Migration has once again become a lively topic in Europe and UK, in particular. A burgeoning concern in the public debate, however, is driven by the fear that migrants are fiscal burden because they drain public resources by drawing on the generous social transfers introduced in Europe to prevent social exclusion. This study challenges these beliefs by gathering empirical evidence through a qualitative research approach on the subject matter. The analysis suggests that UK provides a rich social and economic environment for intellectual profiles especially, human intellectual capital of migrants to flourish and add value to the exchequer. Contrary to the beliefs held by politicians and general public, the empirical evidence suggests that migrants add higher fiscal contribution by working longer hours, paying consistent taxes, and bringing skills which UK may lack thus, are not fiscal burdens on the UK exchequer.

Keywords: austerity, European union, human intellectual capital, migrants, social welfare, United Kingdom

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Authors: Ozlem Kaya

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21st-century learners are energetic and tech-savvy, and the skills and the knowledge required in this century are complex and challenging. Therefore, teachers need to find new ways to appeal to the needs and interests of their students and meet the demands of the 21st century at the same time. One way to do so in English language learning has been to incorporate various technology tools into classroom practices. Although teachers think these practices are effective and their students enjoy them, students may have different perceptions. To find out what students think about the use of technology tools in terms of developing 21st-century skills and knowledge, this study was conducted at Anadolu University School of Foreign Languages. A questionnaire was administered to 40 students at elementary level. Afterward, semi-structured interviews were held with 8 students to provide deeper insight into their perceptions. The details of the findings of the study will be presented and discussed during the presentation.

Keywords: 21st century skills, technology tools, perception, English Language Learning

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Authors: Yingjeng James Li, Lung-Yu Sung, Huan-Jyun Ciou

Abstract:

Durability of Membrane Electrode Assembly for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells was evaluated in both steady state and accelerated decay modes. Steady state mode was carried out at constant current of 800mA / cm2 for 2500 hours using air as cathode feed and pure hydrogen as anode feed. The degradation of the cell voltage was 0.015V after such 2500 hrs operation. The degradation rate was therefore calculated to be 6uV / hr. Accelerated mode was carried out by switching the voltage of the single cell between OCV and 0.2V. The durations held at OCV and 0.2V were 20 and 40 seconds, respectively, meaning one minute per cycle. No obvious change in performance of the MEA was observed after 10000 cycles of such operation.

Keywords: durability, lifetime, membrane electrode assembly, proton exchange membrane fuel cells

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