Search results for: developmental social work

Authors: Shattyk Aliyev, Zhakypbek Altayev, Zuchra Ismagambetova, Yerkin Massanov

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Information society is an absolutely new public formation at which the infrastructure and the social relations correspond to the socialized essence of «information genotype» mankind. Information society is a natural social environment which allows the person to open completely the information nature, to use intelligence for joint creation with other people of new information on the basis of knowledge earlier saved up by previous generations.

Keywords: Information society, Philosophy, Education, Globalization and innovation.

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Authors: Anishya Obhrai Madan

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In an increasingly connected world, where speed of communication attempts to match the speed of thought and thus intentions; conflict gets actioned faster using media like the internet and telecommunication technology. This has led to a new form of aggression: “cyber bullying”. The present paper attempts to integrate existing theory on bullying, and the dark triad personality traits in a work environment and extrapolate it to the cyber context.

Keywords: Conflict at Work, Cyber bullying, Dark Triad of Personality, Toxic Employee.

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Authors: Roman Asatryan

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The decision-making processes in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) among firms in the airlines industry borders on the benefits that accrue to firms through those investments. The crux of the matter is how firms can quantify the benefits derived from such investments. This paper analyses the cost benefit adjustment strategies for firms in the airline industry in their CSR strategy adoption and implementation. The paper discusses the CBA model in order to understand the ways airlines can reduce costs and increase returns on CSR, or balance the cost and benefits. The analysis indicates that, economic concepts especially the CBA are useful, though they are not without challenges. This paper concludes that the CBA model gives a basic understanding of the motivations for investing in intangible assets like CSR. It sets the tone for formulating relevant hypothesis in empirical studies in investment in CSR and other intangible assets in business operations.

Keywords: Cost Benefit Analysis, Corporate Social Responsibility, airline industry.

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Authors: Messaouda Annab

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The rapid development of technology has led to an important context in which different languages and structures are used in the same conversations. This paper investigates the practice of language borrowing within social media platform, namely, Facebook among Algerian Vernacular Arabic (AVA) students. In other words, this study will explore how Algerian students have incorporated lexical English borrowing in their online conversations. This paper will examine the relationships between language, culture and identity among a multilingual group. The main objective is to determine the cultural and linguistic functions that borrowing fulfills in social media and to explain the possible factors underlying English borrowing. The nature of the study entails the use of an online research method that includes ten online Facebook conversations in the form of private messages collected from Bachelor and Masters Algerian students recruited from the English department at the University of Oum El-Bouaghi. The analysis of data revealed that social media platform provided the users with opportunities to shift from one language to another. This practice was noticed in students’ online conversations. English borrowing was the most relevant language performance in accordance with Arabic which is the mother tongue of the chosen sample. The analysis has assumed that participants are skilled in more than one language.

Keywords: Borrowing, language performance, linguistic background, social media.

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Authors: Roya Morad, W. Eirik Heintz

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The identity of a neighborhood is inevitably shaped by the architecture and the people of that place. Conventionally the streets within each neighborhood served as a semi-public-private extension of the private living spaces. The street as a design element formed a hybrid condition that was neither totally public nor private, and it encouraged social interactions. Thus through creating a sense of community, one of the most basic human needs of belonging was achieved. Similar to major global cities, Tehran has undergone serious urbanization. Developing into a capital city of high rises has resulted in an increase in urban density. Although allocating more residential units in each neighborhood was a critical response to the population boom and the limited land area of the city, it also created a crisis in terms of social communication and place attachment. District 10 in Tehran is a neighborhood that has undergone the most urban transformation among the other 22 districts in the capital and currently has the highest population density. This paper will explore how the active streets in district 10 have changed into their current condition of high rises with a lack of meaningful social interactions amongst its inhabitants. A residential building can be thought of as a large group of people. One would think that as the number of people increases, the opportunities for social communications would increase as well. However, according to the survey, there is an indirect relationship between the two. As the number of people of a residential building increases, the quality of each acquaintance reduces, and the depth of relationships between people tends to decrease. This comes from the anonymity of being part of a crowd and the lack of social spaces characterized by most high-rise apartment buildings. Without a sense of community, the attachment to a neighborhood is decreased. This paper further explores how the neighborhood participates to fulfill ones need for social interaction and focuses on the qualitative aspects of alternative spaces that can redevelop the sense of place attachment within the community.

Keywords: High density, place attachment, social communication, street life, urban transformation.

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Authors: Tunjo Peric, Zoran Babic

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The authors of this work indicate by means of a concrete example that it is possible to apply efficaciously the method of multiple criteria programming in dealing with the problem of determining the optimal production plan for a certain period of time. The work presents: (1) the selection of optimization criteria, (2) the setting of the problem of determining an optimal production plan, (3) the setting of the model of multiple criteria programming in finding a solution to a given problem, (4) the revised surrogate trade-off method, (5) generalized multicriteria model for solving production planning problem and problem of choosing technological variants in the metal manufacturing industry. In the final part of this work the authors reflect on the application of the method of multiple criteria programming while determining the optimal production plan in manufacturing enterprises.

Keywords: multi-criteria programming, production planning, technological variant, Surrogate Worth Trade-off Method.

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Authors: Tomas Duranik, Juraj Ruzbarsky, Markus Stopper

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CONWIP (constant work-in-process) as a pull production system have been widely studied by researchers to date. The CONWIP pull production system is an alternative to pure push and pure pull production systems. It lowers and controls inventory levels which make the throughput better, reduces production lead time, delivery reliability and utilization of work. In this article a CONWIP pull production system was simulated. It was simulated push and pull planning system. To compare these systems via a production planning system (PPS) game were adjusted parameters of each production planning system. The main target was to reduce the total WIP and achieve throughput and delivery reliability to minimum values. Data was recorded and evaluated. A future state was made for real production of plastic components and the setup of the two indicators with CONWIP pull production system which can greatly help the company to be more competitive on the market.

Keywords: CONWIP, constant work in process, delivery reliability, hybrid production planning, PPS.

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Authors: Abdurazzag Ali Aburas, Indira Rustempasic, Indira Muhic, Busra Gheith Yildiz

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At present time, competition, unpredictable fluctuations have made communication engineering education in the global sphere really difficult. Confront with new situation in the engineering education sector. Communication engineering education has to be reformed and ready to use more advanced technologies. We realized that one of the general problems of student`s education is that after graduating from their universities, they are not prepared to face the real life challenges and full skilled to work in industry. They are prepared only to think like engineers and professionals but they also need to possess some others non-technical skills. In today-s environment, technical competence alone is not sufficient for career success. Employers want employees (graduate engineers) who have good oral and written communication (soft) skills. It does require for team work, business awareness, organization, management skills, responsibility, initiative, problem solving and IT competency. This proposed curriculum brings interactive, creative, interesting, effective learning methods, which includes online education, virtual labs, practical work, problem-based learning (PBL), and lectures given by industry experts. Giving short assignments, presentations, reports, research papers and projects students can significantly improve their non-technical skills. Also, we noticed the importance of using ICT technologies in engineering education which used by students and teachers, and included that into proposed teaching and learning methods. We added collaborative learning between students through team work which builds theirs skills besides course materials. The prospective on this research that we intent to update communication engineering curriculum in order to get fully constructed engineer students to ready for real industry work.

Keywords: communication engineering, curriculum education, ICT, industry

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Authors: L. C. H. Jayarathna, W. M. N. Fernando

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Academics and researchers are interested in the effects of social media on college students, with a specific focus on the most popular social media website; Facebook. Previous studied have found contradictory result on the relationship between Facebook usage and the student engagement with positive, detrimental and no significant relationships. However, these studies were limited to western higher education system. This paper fills a gap in the literature by using a sample (300) of Sri Lankan management undergraduates to examine the relationship between Facebook usage and student engagement. Student engagement was measured 35 item scale based on the National Survey of Student Engagement and Facebook usage by Facebook intensity scale. Descriptive statistics, path analysis and structural equation modeling were applied as statistical tools and techniques. Results indicate that student engagement scale was significantly negatively related with the Facebook usage with the influence from student engagement on Facebook usage.

Keywords: Facebook Intensity, Social Networking Sites, Student Engagement.

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Authors: Yoojin Chung

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Compare to western cultures, women who smoke in Korea are not tolerated. Korean people are prejudiced against women smoking. In spite of the relative prevalence of sexual equality in South Korea, women too often feel obliged to confine their smoking to only a few public spaces, such as designated smoking rooms, coffee shops or pubs. Korean Confucianism classifies people according to gender and social status. According to Confucian culture, cigarettes convey clear social meanings as well as reinforcing status, age and gender, beyond personal preferences. For these reasons, the significant of people smoking in Korea varies according to their gender. This study will determine reasons for the ongoing sexual discrimination against female Korean smokers thorough analyzing Korean films. Since film is a medium reflects social phenomenon. Roland Barthes- Mythology Theory will be used to analyze films.

Keywords: Korean films, Mythology, Sexual discrimination, Women Smoking

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Authors: Beata Czarnacka-Chrobot

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Majority of Business Software Systems (BSS) Development and Enhancement Projects (D&EP) fail to meet criteria of their effectiveness, what leads to the considerable financial losses. One of the fundamental reasons for such projects- exceptionally low success rate are improperly derived estimates for their costs and time. In the case of BSS D&EP these attributes are determined by the work effort, meanwhile reliable and objective effort estimation still appears to be a great challenge to the software engineering. Thus this paper is aimed at presenting the most important synthetic conclusions coming from the author-s own studies concerning the main factors of effective BSS D&EP work effort estimation. Thanks to the rational investment decisions made on the basis of reliable and objective criteria it is possible to reduce losses caused not only by abandoned projects but also by large scale of overrunning the time and costs of BSS D&EP execution.

Keywords: Benchmarking data, business software systems development and enhancement projects, effort estimation, software engineering economics, software functional size measurement.

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Authors: Paul Prior, Frank Keenan

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The importance of good requirements engineering is well documented. Agile practices, promoting collaboration and communications, facilitate the elicitation and management of volatile requirements. However, current Agile practices work in a well-defined environment. It is necessary to have a co-located customer. With distributed development it is not always possible to realize this co-location. In this environment a suitable process, possibly supported by tools, is required to support changing requirements. This paper introduces the issues of concern when managing requirements in a distributed environment and describes work done at the Software Technology Research Centre as part of the NOMAD project.

Keywords: Agile, Distributed, Requirements Management, XP.

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Authors: Siyanee Hirunsalee, Hidehiko Kanegae

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This paper aims to study at the use of local knowledge to develop community self-protection in flood prone residential area, Ayutthaya Island has been chosen as a case study. This study tries to examine the strength of local knowledge which is able to develop community self-protection and cope with flood disaster. In-depth, this paper focuses on the influence of social network on knowledge transfer. After conducted the research, authors reviewed the strength of local knowledge and also mentioned the obstacles of community to use and also transfer local knowledge. Moreover, the result of the study revealed that local knowledge is not always transferred by the strongest-tie social network (family or kinship) as we used to believe. Surprisingly, local knowledge could be also transferred by the weaker-tie social network (teacher/ monk) with the better effectiveness in some knowledge.

Keywords: Community Self-Protection Development, FloodRisk Reduction, Knowledge Transfer, Local Knowledge

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Authors: Fathi M. O. Hamed, Salma F. Elkofhaifee

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The aim of this work is to detect geometrical shape objects in an image. In this paper, the object is considered to be as a circle shape. The identification requires find three characteristics, which are number, size, and location of the object. To achieve the goal of this work, this paper presents an algorithm that combines from some of statistical approaches and image analysis techniques. This algorithm has been implemented to arrive at the major objectives in this paper. The algorithm has been evaluated by using simulated data, and yields good results, and then it has been applied to real data.

Keywords: Image processing, median filter, projection, scalespace, segmentation, threshold.

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Authors: R. K. D. G. Kaluarachchi

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The generation of solid waste and its effective management are debated topics in Sri Lanka as well as in the global environment. It was estimated that the most of the waste generated in global was originated from construction and demolition of buildings. Thus, the proportion of construction waste in solid waste generation cannot be underestimated. The construction waste, which is the by-product generated and removed from work sites is collected in direct and indirect processes. Hence, the objectives of this research are to identify the proportion of construction waste which can be reused and identify the methods to reduce the waste generation without reducing the quality of the process. A 6-storey building construction site was selected for this research. The site was divided into six zones depending on the process. Ten waste materials were identified by considering the adverse effects on safety and health of people and the economic value of them. The generated construction waste in each zone was recorded per week for a period of five months. The data revealed that sand, cement, wood used for form work and rusted steel rods were the generated waste which has higher economic value in all zones. Structured interviews were conducted to gather information on how the materials are categorized as waste and the capability of reducing, reusing and recycling the waste. It was identified that waste is generated in following processes; ineffective storage of material for a longer time and improper handling of material during the work process. Further, the alteration of scheduled activities of construction work also yielded more waste. Finally, a proper management of construction waste is suggested to reduce and reuse waste.

Keywords: Construction waste, effective management, reduce, reuse.

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Authors: Thu Le Thi Bao

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Industrial parks have both active roles in promoting economic development, and source of appearance of boarding houses and slums in the adjacent area, lacking infrastructure, causing many social matters. The context of recent pandemic and climate change on a global scale pose issues that need to be resolved for sustainable development. Ho Chi Minh city aims to develop housing for migrant workers to stabilize human resources and at the same time, solve problems of social evils caused by poor living conditions. The paper focuses on the content of renovating existing industrial parks and worker accommodation in Ho Chi Minh city to propose appropriate models, contributing to the goal of urban embellishment and solutions for industrial parks to adapt to decree 29/2008/ND-CP abnormal impact conditions such as pandemics, climate change, crises.

Keywords: Industrial park, social housing, accommodation, distribution centre.

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Authors: Danielle Sandler dos Passos, Helder Coelho, Flávia Mori Sarti

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Complexity science seeks the understanding of systems adopting diverse theories from various areas. Network analysis has been gaining space and credibility, namely with the biological, social and economic systems. Significant part of the literature focuses only monolayer representations of connections among agents considering one level of their relationships, and excludes other levels of interactions, leading to simplistic results in network analysis. Therefore, this work aims to demonstrate the advantages of the use of multilayer networks for the representation and analysis of networks. For this, we analyzed an interbank network, composed of 42 banks, comparing the centrality measures of the agents (degree and PageRank) resulting from each method (monolayer x multilayer). This proved to be the most reliable and efficient the multilayer analysis for the study of the current networks and highlighted JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank as the most important banks of the analyzed network.

Keywords: Complexity, interbank networks, multilayer networks, network analysis.

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Authors: Jana Teplá

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This text focuses on the visual construction of youth in press photographs in socialist Czechoslovakia. It deals with photographs in a magazine for young readers, Mladý svět, published by the Socialist Union of Youth of Czechoslovakia. The aim of this study was to develop a methodological tool for uncovering the values and the ideological messages in the strategies used in the visual construction of reality in the socialist press. Two methods of visual analysis were applied to the photographs, a quantitative content analysis and a social semiotic analysis. The social semiotic analysis focused on images representing youth in their free time. The study shows that the meaning of a socialist press photograph is a result of a struggle for ideological power between formal and informal ideologies. This struggle takes place within the process of production of the photograph and also within the process of interpretation of the photograph.

Keywords: Ideology, press photography, socialist regime, social semiotics, youth.

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Authors: Mevlüt Gül, Hilal Yılmaz, M. Göksel Akpınar, Ayse Karadağ Gürsoy, Özge Bayındır

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Milk is a very important nutrient. Low productivity is a problem of Turkish dairy farming. During recent years, Turkish government has supported cooperatives that assist milk producers and encouraged farmers to become cooperative members. Turkish government established several ways to support specially smallholders. For example Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) provided two to four cows to villagers on a grant or loan basis with a long repayment period at low interest rates by cooperatives. Social Support Project in Rural Areas (SSPRA) is another support program targeting only disadvantaged people, especially poor villager. Both programs have a very strong social support component and similar objectives. But there are minor differences between them in terms of target people, terms and conditions of the credit supplied Isparta province in Mediterranean region of Turkey is one of the supported regions. MARA distributed dairy cows to 1072 farmers through 16 agricultural cooperatives in Isparta province in the context of SSPRA. In this study, economic-social impacts on dairy cattle project implemented through cooperatives were examined in Isparta. Primary data were collected from 12 cooperatives- president. The data were obtained by personal interview through a questionnaire and to cooperatives and given to farms benefiting from the project in order to reveal the economic and social developments. Finding of the study revealed that project provided new job opportunities and improved quality of livestock. It was found that producers who benefited from the project were more willing to participate in cooperative or other producer organizations.

Keywords: ooperative, Dairy Cattle, Economic Impact, Livestock Support Project, Social Impact.

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Authors: Zulhisyam Salleh, Fizatul Aini Patakor, Rosilah Wahab, Awangku Khairul Ridzwan Awangku Jaya

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Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how people perceive the world and interact with others. Most of these children have difficulty with fine motor skills which typically struggle with handwriting and fine activities in their routine life such as getting dressed and controlled use of the everyday tool. Because fine motor activities encompass so many routine functions, a fine motor delay can have a measurable negative impact on a person's ability to handle daily practical tasks. This project proposed a simple fine motor exercise aid plus the game (exergame) for autistic children who discover from fine motor difficulties. The proposed exergame will be blinking randomly and user needs to bend their finger accordingly. It will notify the user, whether they bend the right finger or not. The system is realized using Arduino, which is programmed to control all the operated circuit. The feasibility studies with six autistic children were conducted and found the child interested in using exergame and could quickly get used to it. This study provides important guidance for future investigations of the exergame potential for accessing and improving fine motor skill among autistic children.

Keywords: Autism children, Arduino project, fine motor skill, finger exergame.

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Authors: Ali Lemouari, Mohamed Benmohamed

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Biological evolution has generated a rich variety of successful solutions; from nature, optimized strategies can be inspired. One interesting example is the ant colonies, which are able to exhibit a collective intelligence, still that their dynamic is simple. The emergence of different patterns depends on the pheromone trail, leaved by the foragers. It serves as positive feedback mechanism for sharing information. In this paper, we use the dynamic of TASEP as a model of interaction at a low level of the collective environment in the ant-s traffic flow. This work consists of modifying the movement rules of particles “ants" belonging to the TASEP model, so that it adopts with the natural movement of ants. Therefore, as to respect the constraints of having no more than one particle per a given site, and in order to avoid collision within a bidirectional circulation, we suggested two strategies: decease strategy and waiting strategy. As a third work stage, this is devoted to the study of these two proposed strategies- stability. As a final work stage, we applied the first strategy to the whole environment, in order to get to the emergence of traffic flow, which is a way of learning.

Keywords: Ants system, emergence, exclusion process, pheromone.

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Authors: C. Bay, A. Mahr, H. Groneberg, F. Döpper

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Additive Manufacturing processes are becoming increasingly established in the industry for the economic production of complex prototypes and functional components. Laser beam melting (LBM), the most frequently used Additive Manufacturing technology for metal parts, has been gaining in industrial importance for several years. The LBM process chain – from material storage to machine set-up and component post-processing – requires many manual operations. These steps often depend on the manufactured component and are therefore not standardized. These operations are often not performed in a standardized manner, but depend on the experience of the machine operator, e.g., levelling of the build plate and adjusting the first powder layer in the LBM machine. This lack of standardization limits the reproducibility of the component quality. When processing metal powders with inhalable and alveolar particle fractions, the machine operator is at high risk due to the high reactivity and the toxic (e.g., carcinogenic) effect of the various metal powders. Faulty execution of the operation or unintentional omission of safety-relevant steps can impair the health of the machine operator. In this paper, all the steps of the LBM process chain are first analysed in terms of their influence on the two aforementioned challenges: reproducibility and work safety. Standardization to avoid errors increases the reproducibility of component quality as well as the adherence to and correct execution of safety-relevant operations. The corresponding lean method 5S will therefore be applied, in order to develop approaches in the form of recommended actions that standardize the work processes. These approaches will then be evaluated in terms of ease of implementation and their potential for improving reproducibility and work safety. The analysis and evaluation showed that sorting tools and spare parts as well as standardizing the workflow are likely to increase reproducibility. Organizing the operational steps and production environment decreases the hazards of material handling and consequently improves work safety.

Keywords: Additive manufacturing, lean production, reproducibility, work safety.

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Authors: C. O’Brien, Chloe Reiss

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While South Africa has been the chosen host country for over 1,2 million asylum seekers/refugees it has at the same time, been struggling to address the needs of its own people who are still trapped in poverty with little prospects of employment. This limited exploratory, qualitative study was undertaken in Cape Town with a purposive sample of 21 key personnel from various NPOs providing a service to asylum seekers/refugees. Individual in-depth face to face interviews were carried out and the main findings were: Some of the officials at the Department of Home Affairs, health personnel, landlords, school principals, employers, bank officials and police officers were prejudicial in their practices towards asylum seekers/ refugees. The major constraints experienced by NPOs in this study were linked to a lack of funding and minimal government support, strained relationship with the Department of Home Affairs and difficulties in accessing refugees. And finally, the strategies adopted by these NPOs included networking with other service providers, engaging in advocacy, raising community awareness and liaising with government. Thus, more focused intervention strategies are needed to build social cohesion, address prejudices which fuels xenophobic attacks and raise awareness/educate various sectors about refugee rights. Given this burgeoning global problem, social work education and training should include curriculum content on migrant issues. Furthermore, larger studies using mixed methodology approaches would yield more nuanced data and provide for more strategic interventions.

Keywords: Refugees and asylum seekers, non-profit organisations, refugee challenges, constraints of service delivery.

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Authors: M. Jazouli, S. Elhoufi, A. Majda, A. Zarghili, R. Aalouane

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Autism spectrum disorder is a complex developmental disability. It is defined by a certain set of behaviors. Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) frequently engage in stereotyped and repetitive motor movements. The objective of this article is to propose a method to automatically detect this unusual behavior. Our study provides a clinical tool which facilitates for doctors the diagnosis of ASD. We focus on automatic identification of five repetitive gestures among autistic children in real time: body rocking, hand flapping, fingers flapping, hand on the face and hands behind back. In this paper, we present a gesture recognition system for children with autism, which consists of three modules: model-based movement tracking, feature extraction, and gesture recognition using artificial neural network (ANN). The first one uses the Microsoft Kinect sensor, the second one chooses points of interest from the 3D skeleton to characterize the gestures, and the last one proposes a neural connectionist model to perform the supervised classification of data. The experimental results show that our system can achieve above 93.3% recognition rate.

Keywords: ASD, stereotypical motor movements, repetitive gesture, kinect, artificial neural network.

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Authors: Alessandra Battisti, Silvia Cimini

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This article stands in the context of rural communities in Brazil, where, like many others emerging countries, the overwhelming increasing markets and the overcrowded cities are leaving behind informal settlements based on obsolete agricultural economies and techniques. The pilot project for the community of Goiabeira reflects the attempt to imagine a development model that privileges the actual improvement of living conditions, the education and training, the social inclusion and participation of the dwellers of rural communities. Through the inclusion of operative public space, the aim is for them to become self-sustaining, encouraging the use of local resources for appropriate architectural, ecological and energy technologies and devices, that are efficient, affordable and foster community participation, in the respect of the surrounding environment.

Keywords: Economical development, environment conservation, local resources, participation and social inclusion.

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Authors: Hsiu-Pi Lin, Wen-Chen Huang, Hui-Fang Chen, Yan-Pin Ke

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a new trend of business governance. Few research studies on CSR published in Taiwanese academia, especially for medical settings, we were interested in probing the relationship of CSR and financial performance in medical settings in Taiwan. The results illustrate that: (1) a time delay effect exists with a lag between CSR effort and its performance in the hospital foundation, (2) input into the internal domains of CSR will be helpful to improve employee productivity in the hospital foundation, and (3) input into the external domains of CSR will be helpful in improving financial performance in the hospital foundation. This study overviews CSR in the medical industry in Taiwan and the relationship of CSR and financial performance. Discussions of possible implications from the study results are applied to consult the CSR concept that will be transferred into a business strategy for the organization manager.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), financialperformance, hospital foundation,

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Authors: Juris Porozovs, Daina Voita, Anda Kauliņa, Toms Voits, Evita Vaļēviča

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Integrative teaching methodology is based on connecting and summarizing knowledge from different subjects in order to create better understanding of different disciplines and improvement of competences in general. Integrative teaching methodology was implemented and realised during one academic year in 17 Latvian schools according with specially worked out programme by specialists of different fields for adaptation in social environment of children and young people with learning, cognitive functions and motor disorders. Implemented integrative teaching methodology consisted from three subsections which were specialised for adaptation in social environment, improvement of cognitive functions and improvement and harmonization of personality. The results of investigation showed that the use of integrative teaching methodology is an effective way for improvement of learning motivation and negotiation of learning disorders of different age schoolchildren.

Keywords: Adaptation in social environment, integrative teaching methodology, learning disorders, learning motivation.

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Authors: Rana M. Zeina, Laila Al-Ayadhi, Shahid Bashir

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Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are characterized by abnormalities in social interaction and communication, as well as repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. Although various studies have been conducted in ASDs etiology across the world, it seems that they are still unknown in Middle East. Some scientific researches have been conducted on ASDs in Middle East (ME) especially in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). A systematic literature review was performed to identify the ASDs studies in KSA. Accordingly, PubMed, ISI web of Science and Google were searched to find KSA and ME studies in ASDs. The main focus of this review work is to outline an improved understanding of the underpinnings of ASD in order to achieve therapeutic interventions and we will discuss the main problem we waiting for solution with reference with role of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to modulate cortical activity improve understanding ASD.

Keywords: Autism, Neurodevelopmental disorder

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Authors: Yasmeen Bassas, Sandra Kuebler, Allen Riddell

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Native Language Identification is one of the growing subfields in Natural Language Processing (NLP). The task of Native Language Identification (NLI) is mainly concerned with predicting the native language of an author’s writing in a second language. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two types of features; content-based features vs. content independent features when they are evaluated on a different corpus (using social media data “Reddit”). In this NLI task, the predefined models are trained on one corpus (TOEFL) and then the trained models are evaluated on a different data using an external corpus (Reddit). Three classifiers are used in this task; the baseline, linear SVM, and Logistic Regression. Results show that content-based features are more accurate and robust than content independent ones when tested within corpus and across corpus.

Keywords: NLI, NLP, content-based features, content independent features, social media corpus, ML.

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Authors: James Moir

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The emergence of person-centred discourse based around notions of 'personal development planning- and 'work'life balance' has taken hold in education and the workplace in recent years. This paper examines this discourse with regard to recent developments in higher education as well as the inter-related issue of work-life balance in occupational careers. In both cases there have been national and trans-national policy initiatives directed towards improving both personal opportunities and competitive advantage in a global knowledge-based economy. However, despite an increasing concern with looking outward at this globalised educational and employment marketplace, there is something of a paradox in encouraging people to look inward at themselves in order to become more self-determined. This apparent paradox is considered from a discourse analytic perspective in terms of the ideological effects of an increasing concern with the personal world. Specifically, it is argued that there are tensions that emerge from a concern with an innerdirected process of self-reflection that dissolve any engagement with wider political issues that impact upon educational and career development.

Keywords: Personal development planning, higher education, work-life balance, career.

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