Search results for: Green marketing awareness

Authors: Esraa A. Khalil, Mohamed N. AbouZeid

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Building materials selection is critical for the sustainability of any project. The choice of building materials has a huge impact on the built environment and cost of projects. Building materials emit huge amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) due to the use of cement as a basic component in the manufacturing process and as a binder, which harms our environment. Energy consumption from buildings has increased in the last few years; a huge amount of energy is being wasted from using unsustainable building and finishing materials, as well as from the process of heating and cooling of buildings. In addition, the construction sector in Egypt is taking a good portion of the economy; however, there is a lack of awareness of buildings environmental impacts on the built environment. Using advanced building materials and different wall systems can help in reducing heat consumption, the project’s initial and long-term costs, and minimizing the environmental impacts. Red Bricks is one of the materials that are being used widely in Egypt. There are many other types of bricks such as Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC); however, the use of Red Bricks is dominating the construction industry due to its affordability and availability. This research focuses on the New Egyptian Administrative Capital as a case study to investigate the potential of the influence of using different wall systems such as AAC on the project’s cost and the environment. The aim of this research is to conduct a comparative analysis between the traditional and most commonly used bricks in Egypt, which is Red Bricks, and AAC wall systems. Through an economic and environmental study, the difference between the two wall systems will be justified to encourage the utilization of uncommon techniques in the construction industry to build more affordable, energy efficient and sustainable buildings. The significance of this research is to show the potential of using AAC in the construction industry and its positive influences. The study analyzes the factors associated with choosing suitable building materials for different projects according to the need and criteria of each project and its nature without harming the environment and wasting materials that could be saved or recycled. The New Egyptian Administrative Capital is considered as the country’s new heart, where ideas regarding energy savings and environmental benefits are taken into consideration. Meaning that, Egypt is taking good steps to move towards more sustainable construction. According to the analysis and site visits, there is a potential in reducing the initial costs of buildings by 12.1% and saving energy by using different techniques up to 25%. Interviews with the mega structures project engineers and managers reveal that they are more open to introducing sustainable building materials that will help in saving the environment and moving towards green construction as well as to studying more effective techniques for energy conservation.

Keywords: AAC blocks, building material, environmental impact, modern construction, New Egyptian Administrative Capital.

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Authors: Hira Lal Gope, Hidekazu Fukai

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The aim of this study is to develop a system which can identify and sort peaberries automatically at low cost for coffee producers in developing countries. In this paper, the focus is on the classification of peaberries and normal coffee beans using image processing and machine learning techniques. The peaberry is not bad and not a normal bean. The peaberry is born in an only single seed, relatively round seed from a coffee cherry instead of the usual flat-sided pair of beans. It has another value and flavor. To make the taste of the coffee better, it is necessary to separate the peaberry and normal bean before green coffee beans roasting. Otherwise, the taste of total beans will be mixed, and it will be bad. In roaster procedure time, all the beans shape, size, and weight must be unique; otherwise, the larger bean will take more time for roasting inside. The peaberry has a different size and different shape even though they have the same weight as normal beans. The peaberry roasts slower than other normal beans. Therefore, neither technique provides a good option to select the peaberries. Defect beans, e.g., sour, broken, black, and fade bean, are easy to check and pick up manually by hand. On the other hand, the peaberry pick up is very difficult even for trained specialists because the shape and color of the peaberry are similar to normal beans. In this study, we use image processing and machine learning techniques to discriminate the normal and peaberry bean as a part of the sorting system. As the first step, we applied Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) as machine learning techniques to discriminate the peaberry and normal bean. As a result, better performance was obtained with CNN than with SVM for the discrimination of the peaberry. The trained artificial neural network with high performance CPU and GPU in this work will be simply installed into the inexpensive and low in calculation Raspberry Pi system. We assume that this system will be used in under developed countries. The study evaluates and compares the feasibility of the methods in terms of accuracy of classification and processing speed.

Keywords: Convolutional neural networks, coffee bean, peaberry, sorting, support vector machine.

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Authors: Omneya Messallam

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Technology has been developed dramatically in most of the educational disciplines. For instance, digital rendering subject, which is being taught in both Interior and Architecture fields, is witnessing almost annually updated software versions. A lot of students and educators argued that there will be no need for manual rendering techniques to be learned. Therefore, the Interior Design Visual Presentation 1 course (ID133) has been chosen from the first level of the Interior Design (ID) undergraduate program, as it has been taught for six years continually. This time frame will facilitate sound observation and critical analysis of the use of appropriate teaching methodologies. Furthermore, the researcher believes in the high value of the manual rendering techniques. The course objectives are: to define the basic visual rendering principles, to recall theories and uses of various types of colours and hatches, to raise the learners’ awareness of the value of studying manual render techniques, and to prepare them to present their work professionally. The students are female Arab learners aged between 17 and 20. At the outset of the course, the majority of them demonstrated negative attitude, lacking both motivation and confidence in manual rendering skills. This paper is a reflective appraisal of deploying two student-centred teaching pedagogies which are: Project-based learning (PBL) and Outcome-based education (OBE) on ID133 students. This research aims of developing some teaching strategies to enhance the quality of teaching in this given course over an academic semester. The outcome of this research emphasized the positive influence of applying such educational methods on improving the quality of students’ manual rendering skills in terms of: materials, textiles, textures, lighting, and shade and shadow. Furthermore, it greatly motivated the students and raised the awareness of the importance of learning the manual rendering techniques.

Keywords: Manual renders, outcome-based education, project-based learning, personal competences, and visual presentation.

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Authors: Jaouadi Imen, Ben Djemaa Raoudha, Ben Abdallah Hanene

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The access to relevant information that is adapted to user’s needs, preferences and environment is a challenge in many applications running. That causes an appearance of context-aware systems. To facilitate the development of this class of applications, it is necessary that these applications share a common context metamodel. In this article, we will present our context metamodel that is defined using the OMG Meta Object facility (MOF).This metamodel is based on the analysis and synthesis of context concepts proposed in literature.

Keywords: Context, metamodel, Meta Object Facility (MOF), awareness system.

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Authors: Joanna Peksa, Faith Dillon-Lee

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Current developments in the Western economies have turned some universities into corporate institutions driven by practices of production and commodity. Academia is increasingly becoming integrated into national economies as a result of students paying fees and is consequently using business practices in student retention and engagement. With these changes, pedagogy status as a priority within the institution has been changing in light of these new demands. New strategies have blurred the boundaries that separate a student from a client. This led to a change of the dynamic, disrupting the traditional idea of the knowledge market, and emphasizing the corporate aspect of universities. In some cases, where students are seen primarily as a customer, the purpose of academia is no longer to educate but sell a commodity and retain fee-paying students. This paper considers opposing viewpoints on the commodification of higher education, reflecting on the reality of maintaining a pedagogic grounding in an increasingly commercialized sector. By analysing a case study of the Student Success Festival, an event that involved academic and marketing teams, the differences are considered between the respective visions of the pedagogic arm of the university and the corporate. This study argues that the initial concept of the event, based on the principles of gamification, independent learning, and cognitive criticality, was more clearly linked to a grounded pedagogic approach. However, when liaising with the marketing team in a crucial step in the creative process, it became apparent that these principles were not considered a priority in terms of their remit. While the study acknowledges in the power of pedagogy, the findings show that a pact of concord is necessary between different stakeholders in order for students to benefit fully from their learning experience. Nevertheless, while issues of power prevail and whenever power is unevenly distributed, reaching a consensus becomes increasingly challenging and further research should closely monitor the developments in pedagogy in the UK higher education.

Keywords: Economic pressure, commodification, pedagogy, gamification, public service, marketization.

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Authors: T. Niracharapa

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The research studied and examined the competitiveness of the animation industry in Thailand. Data were collected based on articles, related reports and websites, news, research, and interviews of key persons from both public and private sectors. The diamond model was used to analyze the study. The major factor driving the Thai animation industry forward includes a quality workforce, their creativity and strong associations. However, discontinuity in government support, infrastructure, marketing, IP creation and financial constraints were factors keeping the Thai animation industry less competitive in the global market.

Keywords: Animation, competitiveness, digital content, Thailand.

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Authors: M. Chumburidze, D. Lekveishvili

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We have considered the harmonic oscillations and general dynamic (pseudo oscillations) systems of theory generalized Green-Lindsay of couple-stress thermo-elasticity for isotropic, homogeneous elastic media. Approximate solution of some mixed boundary value problems for finite domain, bounded by the some closed surface are constructed.

Keywords: The couple-stress thermo-elasticity, boundary value problems.

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Authors: Angelo Corallo, Maria Elena Latino, Marta Menegoli

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Agri-food value chain involves various stakeholders with different roles. All of them abide by national and international rules and leverage marketing strategies to advance their products. Food products and related processing phases carry with it a big mole of data that are often not used to inform final customer. Some data, if fittingly identified and used, can enhance the single company, and/or the all supply chain creates a math between marketing techniques and voluntary traceability strategies. Moreover, as of late, the world has seen buying-models’ modification: customer is careful on wellbeing and food quality. Food citizenship and food democracy was born, leveraging on transparency, sustainability and food information needs. Internet of Things (IoT) and Analytics, some of the innovative technologies of Industry 4.0, have a significant impact on market and will act as a main thrust towards a genuine ‘4.0 change’ for agriculture. But, realizing a traceability system is not simple because of the complexity of agri-food supply chain, a lot of actors involved, different business models, environmental variations impacting products and/or processes, and extraordinary climate changes. In order to give support to the company involved in a traceability path, starting from business model analysis and related business process a Framework to Manage Product Data in Agri-Food Supply Chain for Voluntary Traceability was conceived. Studying each process task and leveraging on modeling techniques lead to individuate information held by different actors during agri-food supply chain. IoT technologies for data collection and Analytics techniques for data processing supply information useful to increase the efficiency intra-company and competitiveness in the market. The whole information recovered can be shown through IT solutions and mobile application to made accessible to the company, the entire supply chain and the consumer with the view to guaranteeing transparency and quality.

Keywords: Agriculture 4.0, agri-food supply chain, Industry 4.0, voluntary traceability.

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Authors: F. A. M. Safwan, H. N. N. Dilrukshi, P. U. S. Peiris

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Less availability of high quality green forages leads to low productivity of national dairy herd of Sri Lanka. Growing grass and fodder to suit the production system is an efficient and economical solution for this problem. CO-3 is placed in a higher category, especially on tillering capacity, green forage yield, regeneration capacity, leaf to stem ratio, high crude protein content, resistance to pests and diseases and free from adverse factors along with other fodder varieties grown within the country. An experiment was designed to determine the effect of organic sheep manure, inorganic fertilizers and liquid sheep manure on growth, yield and nutritive value of CO-3. The study was consisted with three treatments; sheep manure (T1), recommended inorganic fertilizers (T2) and liquid sheep manure (T3) which was prepared using bucket fermentation method and each treatment was consisted with three replicates and those were assigned randomly. First harvest was obtained after 40 days of plant establishment and number of leaves (NL), leaf area (LA), tillering capacity (TC), fresh weight (FW) and dry weight (DW) were recorded and second harvest was obtained after 30 days of first harvest and same set of data were recorded. SPSS 16 software was used for data analysis. For proximate analysis AOAC, 2000 standard methods were used. Results revealed that the plants treated with T1 recorded highest NL, LA, TC, FW and DW and were statistically significant at first and second harvest of CO-3 (p˂ 0.05) and it was found that T1 was statistically significant from T2 and T3. Although T3 was recorded higher than the T2 in almost all growth parameters; it was not statistically significant (p ˃0.05). In addition, the crude protein content was recorded highest in T1 with the value of 18.33±1.61 and was lowest in T2 with the value of 10.82±1.14 and was statistically significant (p˂ 0.05). Apart from this, other proximate composition crude fiber, crude fat, ash, moisture content and dry matter were not statistically significant between treatments (p ˃0.05). In accordance with the results, it was found that the organic fertilizer is the best fertilizer for CO-3 in terms of growth parameters and crude protein content.

Keywords: Fertilizer, growth parameters, Hybrid Napier CO-3, proximate composition.

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Authors: Khosro Mohammadi, Amir Ghalavand, Majid Aghaalikhani

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In order to evaluation the effects of soil organic matter and biofertilizer on chickpea quality and biological nitrogen fixation, field experiments were carried out in 2007 and 2008 growing seasons. In this research the effects of different strategies for soil fertilization were investigated on grain yield and yield component, minerals, organic compounds and cooking time of chickpea. Experimental units were arranged in split-split plots based on randomized complete blocks with three replications. Main plots consisted of (G1): establishing a mixed vegetation of Vicia panunica and Hordeum vulgare and (G2): control, as green manure levels. Also, five strategies for obtaining the base fertilizer requirement including (N1): 20 t.ha-1 farmyard manure; (N2): 10 t.ha-1 compost; (N3): 75 kg.ha-1 triple super phosphate; (N4): 10 t.ha-1 farmyard manure + 5 t.ha-1 compost and (N5): 10 t.ha-1 farmyard manure + 5 t.ha-1 compost + 50 kg.ha-1 triple super phosphate were considered in sub plots. Furthermoree four levels of biofertilizers consisted of (B1): Bacillus lentus + Pseudomonas putida; (B2): Trichoderma harzianum; (B3): Bacillus lentus + Pseudomonas putida + Trichoderma harzianum; and (B4): control (without biofertilizers) were arranged in sub-sub plots. Results showed that integrating biofertilizers (B3) and green manure (G1) produced the highest grain yield. The highest amounts of yield were obtained in G1×N5 interaction. Comparison of all 2-way and 3-way interactions showed that G1N5B3 was determined as the superior treatment. Significant increasing of N, P2O5, K2O, Fe and Mg content in leaves and grains emphasized on superiority of mentioned treatment because each one of these nutrients has an approved role in chlorophyll synthesis and photosynthesis abilities of the crops. The combined application of compost, farmyard manure and chemical phosphorus (N5) in addition to having the highest yield, had the best grain quality due to high protein, starch and total sugar contents, low crude fiber and reduced cooking time.

Keywords: chickpea, biofertilizer, nitrogen fixation.

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Authors: Tatyana A. Karpenyuk, Saltanat B. Orazova, Saule A. Dzhokebaeva, Alla V. Goncharova, Yana S. Tzurkan, Alya M. Kalbaeva

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It was analyzed of fatty acid composition of 16 strains of microalgae lipid fractions isolated from different basins of Kazakhstan and characterized by stable active growth in the laboratory. Three species of green microalgae (Oocystis rhomboideus, Chlorococcum infusionum, Dictyochlorella globosa) and three species of diatoms (Synedra sp., Nitzshia sp., Pleurosigma attenuatum) are characterized by a high content of lipids and are promising for further study as a source of polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Keywords: Fatty acids, lipids, microalgae.

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Authors: M. Dachyar, Fatkhurrohman

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Innovation is being view from four areas of innovation, product, service, technology, and marketing. Whereas customer loyalty is composed of customer expectation, perceived quality, perceived value, corporate image, customer satisfaction, customer trust/confidence, customer commitment, customer complaint, and customer loyalty. This study aimed to investigate the influence of innovation factors to customer loyalty to GSM in the telecom companies where use of products and services. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using to analyze innovation factors. It was found the factor of innovation have significant influence on customer loyalty.

Keywords: Innovation, telecommunication, customer loyalty, SEM

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Authors: Yan Shuang Zhang, Taehan Lee, Byung Ho Jeong

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A DEA model can generally evaluate the performance using multiple inputs and outputs for the same period. However, it is hard to avoid the production lead time phenomenon some times, such as long-term project or marketing activity. A couple of models have been suggested to capture this time lag issue in the context of DEA. This paper develops a dual-MPO model to deal with time lag effect in evaluating efficiency. A numerical example is also given to show that the proposed model can be used to get efficiency and reference set of inefficient DMUs and to obtain projected target value of input attributes for inefficient DMUs to be efficient.

Keywords: DEA, efficiency, time lag, dual problem.

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Authors: Farhad F. Yusifov

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With the explosive growth of data available on the Internet, personalization of this information space become a necessity. At present time with the rapid increasing popularity of the WWW, Websites are playing a crucial role to convey knowledge and information to the end users. Discovering hidden and meaningful information about Web users usage patterns is critical to determine effective marketing strategies to optimize the Web server usage for accommodating future growth. The task of mining useful information becomes more challenging when the Web traffic volume is enormous and keeps on growing. In this paper, we propose a intelligent model to discover and analyze useful knowledge from the available Web log data.

Keywords: Clustering, Self organizing map, Web log files, Web traffic.

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Authors: Linda, Sau-ling LAI

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This paper compares the search engine marketing strategies adopted in China and the Western countries through two illustrative cases, namely, Google and Baidu. Marketers in the West use search engine optimization (SEO) to rank their sites higher for queries in Google. Baidu, however, offers paid search placement, or the selling of engine results for particular keywords to the higher bidders. Whereas Google has been providing innovative services ranging from Google Map to Google Blog, Baidu remains focused on search services – the one that it does best. The challenges and opportunities of the Chinese Internet market offered to global entrepreneurs are also discussed in the paper

Keywords: Search Engine, Web analytics, Google, Baidu

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Authors: E. Happ, A. Albert Tóth

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The aim of the research is to investigate the forms of the demands of leisure tourism in a West-Hungarian industrial city, Győr. Today, Győr is still a traditional industrial city, its industry is mainly based on vehicle industry, but the role of tourism is increasing in the life of the city as well. Because of the industrial nature and the strong economy of the city, the ratio of business tourists is high. It can be stated that MICE tourism is dominating in Győr. Developments of the last decade can help the city with new tourism products to increase the leisure tourism. The new types of tourism – besides business tourism – can help the providers to increase the occupancy rates and the demand at the weekends. The research demonstrates the theoretical background of the topic, and it shows the present situation of the tourism in Győr with secondary data. The secondary research contains statistical data from the Hungarian Statistical Office and the city council, and it is based on the providers’ data. The next part of the paper shows the potential types of leisure tourism with the help of primary research. The primary research contains the results of an online questionnaire with a sample of 1000 potential customers. It is completed with 10 in-depth interviews with tourism experts, who explained their opinions about the opportunities of leisure tourism in Győr from the providers’ side. The online questionnaire was filled out in spring 2017 by customers, who have already stayed in Győr or plan to visit the city. At the same time in-depth interviews were made with hotel managers, head of touristic institutions and employees at the council. Based on the research it can be stated that the touristic supply of Győr allows the increase of the leisure tourism ratio in the city. Primarily, the cultural and health tourism show potential development, but the supply side of touristic services can be developed in order to increase the number of guest nights. The tourism marketing needs to be strengthened in the city, and a distinctive marketing activity - from other cities - is needed as well. To conclude, although Győr is an industrial city, it has a transforming industrial part, and tourism is also strongly present in its economy. Besides the leading role of business tourism, different types of leisure tourism have the opportunity to take place in the city.

Keywords: Business Tourism, Győr, industrial city, leisure tourism, touristic demand.

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Authors: Nahed Ayedh Al-Hajeri

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In a world of climate change and limited fossil fuel resources, renewable energy sources are playing an increasingly important role. Due to industrializations and population growth our economy and technologies today largely depend upon natural resources, which are not replaceable. Approximately 90% of our energy consumption comes from fossil fuels (viz. coal, oil and natural gas). The irony is that these resources are depleting. Also, the huge consumption of fossil fuels has caused visible damage to the environment in various forms viz. global warming, acid rains etc.

Keywords: Kilo watt, kilo watt hour, carbon di-oxide, photovoltaic, environmental protection agency, Kwaiti dinar.

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Authors: Ejaz Ashraf, Raheel Babar, Muhammad Yaseen, Hafiz Khurram Shurjeel, Nosheen Fatima

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Main purpose of this study was to assess adoption level of farmers for quinoa cultivation after they had been taught through training and visit extension approach. At this time of the 21^st century, population structure, climate change, food requirements and eating habits of people are changing rapidly. In this scenario, farmers must play their key role in sustainable crop development and production through adoption of new crops that may also be helpful to overcome the issue of food insecurity as well as reducing poverty in rural areas. Its cultivation in Pakistan is at the early stages and there is a need to raise awareness among farmers to grow quinoa crops. In the middle of the 2015, a training and visit extension approach was used to raise awareness and convince farmers to grow quinoa in the area. During training and visit extension program, 80 farmers were randomly selected for the training of quinoa cultivation. Later on, these farmers trained 60 more farmers living into their neighborhood. After six months, a survey was conducted with all 140 farmers to assess the impact of the training and visit program on adoption level of respondents for the quinoa crop. The survey instrument was developed with the help of literature review and other experts of the crop. Validity and reliability of the instrument were checked before complete data collection. The data were analyzed by using SPSS. Multiple regression analysis was used for interpretation of the results from the survey, which indicated that factors like information/ training, change in agronomic and plant protection practices play a key role in the adoption of quinoa cultivation by respondents. In addition, the model explains more than 50% of variation in the adoption level of respondents. It is concluded that farmers need timely information for improved knowledge of agronomic and plant protection practices to adopt cultivation of the quinoa crop in the area.

Keywords: Farmers, quinoa, adoption, contact, training and visit.

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Authors: Paul Y. Oh, William E. Green

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This paper describes a prototype aircraft that can fly slowly, safely and transmit wireless video for tasks like reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition. The aircraft is designed to fly in closed quarters like forests, buildings, caves and tunnels which are often spacious but GPS reception is poor. Envisioned is that a small, safe and slow flying vehicle can assist in performing dull, dangerous and dirty tasks like disaster mitigation, search-and-rescue and structural damage assessment.

Keywords: Unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous collisionavoidance, optic flow, near-Earth environments

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Authors: Kirsi Korkealehto

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In Finland the transformation from homogenous culture into multicultural one as a result of heavy immigration has been rapid in the recent decades. As multilingualism and multiculturalism are growing features in our society, teachers in all educational levels need to be competent for encounters with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. Consequently, also the number of multicultural and multilingual vocational school students has increased which has not been taken into consideration in teacher education enough. To bridge this gap between teachers’ competences and the requirements of the contemporary school world, Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education established the DivEd-project. The aim of the project is to prepare all teachers to work in the linguistically and culturally diverse world they live in, to develop and increase culturally sustaining and linguistically responsive pedagogy in Finland, increase awareness among Teacher Educators working with preservice teachers and to increase awareness and provide specific strategies to in-service teachers. The partners in the nationwide project are 6 universities and 2 universities of applied sciences. In this research, the linguistically and culturally sustainable teaching practices developed within the DivEd-project are tested in practice. This research aims to explore vocational teachers’ perceptions of these multilingualism and multilingual educational practices. The participants of this study are vocational teachers in of different fields. The data were collected by individual, face-to-face interviews. The data analysis was conducted through content analysis. The findings indicate that the vocational teachers experience that they lack knowledge on linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy. Moreover, they regard themselves in some extent incompetent in incorporating multilingually and multiculturally sustainable pedagogy in everyday teaching work. Therefore, they feel they need more training pertaining multicultural and multilingual knowledge, competences and suitable pedagogical methods for teaching students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Keywords: Multicultural, multilingual, teacher competences, vocational school.

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Authors: Zeynep Şahin, Züleyha Yılmaz, Fikret Çankaya

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In today's business world, in which it is difficult to survive, the economic life of products, services or knowledge is considerably reduced. Competitors produce similar products or extra-featured ones instantly. In this environment, the contribution of companies to the social and economic environment is a preferred criterion by consumers alongside products or services. Therefore, consumers need to obtain more detailed information about companies. Besides, this drastic change in the market encourages companies to become sustainable. Sustainable business means the company puts consumed products back. Corporate sustainability, corresponds to sustainability at the level of the company, and gives equal importance to company growth and profitability together with environmental and social issues. The BIST Sustainability Index started to be calculated by the Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) in 2014 to evaluate the sustainability performance of companies in Turkey. The main objective of this study is to present the importance of sustainability reports in Turkey. To this aim, the performances of 15 companies in the BIST Sustainability Index were compared the periods before and after entering the index. On the other hand, sustainability reporting practices should be encouraged to increase studies on this issue. In this context, to remain on the agenda of the issue is a further objective of this study. To achieve these objectives, the financial data of the companies in the period before and after entering to the BIST Sustainability Index were analyzed using t-test in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) package. The results of the study showed that no significant difference between the performances of the companies in terms of the net profit margin, the return on assets and equity capital in these periods could be found. Therefore, it can be said that insufficient importance is given to sustainability issues in Turkey. The reasons for this situation might be considered as a lack of awareness due to the recent introduction and calculation of the index. It is expected that the awareness of firms and investors about sustainability will increase, and that they will demonstrate the necessary importance to this issue over time.

Keywords: BIST sustainability index, firm performance, sustainability, sustainability reporting.

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Authors: N. Scheidegger, A. Mueller

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Job preferences are a well-developed research field. Many studies analyze the preferences using simple ratings with a sample of university graduates. The current study analyzes the preferences with a mixed method approach of a qualitative preliminary study and adaptive conjoint-analysis. Preconditions of accepting job offers are clarified for professionals in the industrial sector. It could be shown that, e.g. wages above the average are critical and that career opportunities must be seen broader than merely a focus on formal personnel development programs. The results suggest that, to be effective with their recruitment efforts, employers must take into account key desirable job attributes of their target group.

Keywords: Conjoint analysis, employer attractiveness, job preferences, personnel marketing.

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Authors: M. Yoo-iam, R. Chaichana, T. Satapanaiaru

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The research objective was to study the toxicity of silver nanoparticles in aquatic organisms. Three forms of free silver ion nanoparticles (Ag+), silver nano particles (nano-Ag0) and silver oxide nanoparticles (nano Ag2O) were examined for toxic effects with Chlorella sp. and Moina macrocopa. The results showed that the toxicity of three silver ion forms to both organisms was examined

Keywords: Chlorella sp, moina nanomacrocopa, silver nanoparticles, toxicity

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Authors: D. Artamonov, A. Tsibulnikova, I. Samusev, V. Bryukhanov, A. Kozhevnikov

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The synthesis and luminescent properties of Yb2O3,Nd2O3@Bi2O3 complex with upconversion generation are discussed in this work. The obtained samples were measured in the visible region of the spectrum under excitation with a wavelength of 980 nm. The studies showed that the obtained complexes have a high degree of stability and intense luminescence in the wavelength range of 400-750 nm. Consideration of the time dependence of the intensity of the upconversion luminescence allowed us to conclude that the enhancement of the intensity occurs in the time interval from 5 to 30 min, followed by the appearance of a stationary mode.

Keywords: Lasers, luminescence, upconversion photonics, rare earth metals.

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Authors: A. Atli, K. Candelier, J. Alteyrac

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Environmental and sustainability concerns push the industries to manufacture alternative materials having less environmental impact. The Wood Plastic Composites (WPCs) produced by blending the biopolymers and natural fillers permit not only to tailor the desired properties of materials but also are the solution to meet the environmental and sustainability requirements. This work presents the elaboration and characterization of the fully green WPCs prepared by blending a biopolymer, BIOPLAST® GS 2189 and spruce sawdust used as filler with different amounts. Since both components are bio-based, the resulting material is entirely environmentally friendly. The mechanical, thermal, structural properties of these WPCs were characterized by different analytical methods like tensile, flexural and impact tests, Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). Their water absorption properties and resistance to the termite and fungal attacks were determined in relation with different wood filler content. The tensile and flexural moduli of WPCs increased with increasing amount of wood fillers into the biopolymer, but WPCs became more brittle compared to the neat polymer. Incorporation of spruce sawdust modified the thermal properties of polymer: The degradation, cold crystallization, and melting temperatures shifted to higher temperatures when spruce sawdust was added into polymer. The termite, fungal and water absorption resistance of WPCs decreased with increasing wood amount in WPCs, but remained in durability class 1 (durable) concerning fungal resistance and quoted 1 (attempted attack) in visual rating regarding to the termites resistance except that the WPC with the highest wood content (30 wt%) rated 2 (slight attack) indicating a long term durability. All the results showed the possibility to elaborate the easy injectable composite materials with adjustable properties by incorporation of BIOPLAST® GS 2189 and spruce sawdust. Therefore, lightweight WPCs allow both to recycle wood industry byproducts and to produce a full ecologic material.

Keywords: Biodegradability, durability, mechanical properties, melt flow index, spectrophotometry, structural properties, thermal properties, wood-plastic composites.

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Authors: Chuang-Hung Lin, Cheng-Yuan Hsu, Jia-Yan Lin

Abstract:

It is an indispensible strategy to adopt greenery approach on architectural bases so as to improve ecological habitats, decrease heat-island effect, purify air quality, and relieve surface runoff as well as noise pollution, all of which are done in an attempt to achieve sustainable environment. How we can do with plant design to attain the best visual quality and ideal carbon dioxide fixation depends on whether or not we can appropriately make use of greenery according to the nature of architectural bases. To achieve the goal, it is a need that architects and landscape architects should be provided with sufficient local references. Current greenery studies focus mainly on the heat-island effect of urban with large scale. Most of the architects still rely on people with years of expertise regarding the adoption and disposition of plantation in connection with microclimate scale. Therefore, environmental design, which integrates science and aesthetics, requires fundamental research on landscape environment technology divided from building environment technology. By doing so, we can create mutual benefits between green building and the environment. This issue is extremely important for the greening design of the bases of green buildings in cities and various open spaces. The purpose of this study is to establish plant selection and allocation strategies under different building sunshade levels. Initially, with the shading of sunshine on the greening bases as the starting point, the effects of the shades produced by different building types on the greening strategies were analyzed. Then, by measuring the PAR (photosynthetic active radiation), the relative DLI (daily light integral) was calculated, while the DLI Map was established in order to evaluate the effects of the building shading on the established environmental greening, thereby serving as a reference for plant selection and allocation. The discussion results were to be applied in the evaluation of environment greening of greening buildings and establish the “right plant, right place” design strategy of multi-level ecological greening for application in urban design and landscape design development, as well as the greening criteria to feedback to the eco-city greening buildings.

Keywords: Daily light integral, plant design, urban open space.

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Authors: Roland Lang, Dietmar Bruckner, Rosemarie Velik, Tobias Deutsch

Abstract:

Modern building automation needs to deal with very different types of demands, depending on the use of a building and the persons acting in it. To meet the requirements of situation awareness in modern building automation, scenario recognition becomes more and more important in order to detect sequences of events and to react to them properly. We present two concepts of scenario recognition and their implementation, one based on predefined templates and the other applying an unsupervised learning algorithm using statistical methods. Implemented applications will be described and their advantages and disadvantages will be outlined.

Keywords: Building automation, ubiquitous computing, scenariorecognition, surveillance system.

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Authors: Patrycja J. Haupt

Abstract:

Today we tend to go back to the past to our root relation to nature. Therefore in search of friendly spaces there are elements of natural environment introduced as elements of spatial composition. Though reinvented through the use of the new substance such as greenery, water etc. made possible by state of the art technologies, still, in principal, they remain the same. As a result, sustainable design, based upon the recognized means of composition in addition to the relation of architecture and urbanism vs. nature introduces a new aesthetical values into architectural and urban space.

Keywords: architectural composition, biodiversity, elements of composition, green architecture, sustainable design, urban composition, water management.

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Authors: Mohammad R. Jalali, Mohammad M. Jalali

Abstract:

The earliest theories of sloshing waves and solitary waves based on potential theory idealisations and irrotational flow have been extended to be applicable to more realistic domains. To this end, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods are widely used. Three-dimensional CFD methods such as Navier-Stokes solvers with volume of fluid treatment of the free surface and Navier-Stokes solvers with mappings of the free surface inherently impose high computational expense; therefore, considerable effort has gone into developing depth-averaged approaches. Examples of such approaches include Green–Naghdi (GN) equations. In Cartesian system, GN velocity profile depends on horizontal directions, x-direction and y-direction. The effect of vertical direction (z-direction) is also taken into consideration by applying weighting function in approximation. GN theory considers the effect of vertical acceleration and the consequent non-hydrostatic pressure. Moreover, in GN theory, the flow is rotational. The present study illustrates the application of GN equations to propagation of sloshing waves and solitary waves. For this purpose, GN equations solver is verified for the benchmark tests of Gaussian hump sloshing and solitary wave propagation in shallow basins. Analysis of the free surface sloshing of even harmonic components of an initial Gaussian hump demonstrates that the GN model gives predictions in satisfactory agreement with the linear analytical solutions. Discrepancies between the GN predictions and the linear analytical solutions arise from the effect of wave nonlinearities arising from the wave amplitude itself and wave-wave interactions. Numerically predicted solitary wave propagation indicates that the GN model produces simulations in good agreement with the analytical solution of the linearised wave theory. Comparison between the GN model numerical prediction and the result from perturbation analysis confirms that nonlinear interaction between solitary wave and a solid wall is satisfactorilly modelled. Moreover, solitary wave propagation at an angle to the x-axis and the interaction of solitary waves with each other are conducted to validate the developed model.

Keywords: Even harmonic components of sloshing waves, Green–Naghdi equations, nonlinearity, solitary waves.

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Authors: Rebecca Angeles

Abstract:

This qualitative case study seeks to understand and explain the deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) systems in two countries (i.e., in Taiwan for the adoption of electric scooters and in Finland for supporting glass bottle recycling) using the “Technology-Organization-Environment” theoretical framework. This study also seeks to highlight the relevance and importance of pursuing environmental sustainability in firms and in society in general due to the social urgency of the issues involved.

Keywords: Environmental sustainability, radio frequency identification, technology-organization-environment framework

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