Search results for: Social Impact.

Authors: Chris Landorf, Stephen Ward

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This paper addresses a virtual environment approach to work integrated learning for students in construction-related disciplines. The virtual approach provides a safe and pedagogically rigorous environment where students can apply theoretical knowledge in a simulated real-world context. The paper describes the development of a 4-dimensional digital construction environment and associated learning activities funded by the Australian Office for Learning and Teaching. The environment was trialled with over 1,300 students and evaluated through questionnaires, observational studies and coursework analysis. Results demonstrate a positive impact on students’ technical learning and collaboration skills, but there is need for further research in relation to critical thinking skills and work-readiness.

Keywords: Architectural education, construction industry, digital learning environments, immersive learning.

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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: B. F. Oliveira, T. I. Gonçalves, M. M. Sousa, S. M. Pimenta, O. F. Ramalho, J. B. Cruz, F. V. Barbosa

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The EU Circular Economy action plan, launched in 2020, is one of the major initiatives to promote the transition into a more sustainable industry. The circular economy is a popular concept used by many companies nowadays. Some industries are better forwarded to this reality than others, and the tannery industry is a sector that needs more attention due to its strong environmental impact caused by its dimension, intensive resources consumption, lack of recyclability, and second use of its products, as well as the industrial effluents generated by the manufacturing processes. For these reasons, the zero-waste goal and the European objectives are further being achieved. In this context, a need arises to provide an effective methodology that allows to determine the level of circularity of tannery companies. Regarding the complexity of the circular economy concept, few factories have a specialist in sustainability to assess the company’s circularity or have the ability to implement circular strategies that could benefit the manufacturing processes. Although there are several methodologies to assess circularity in specific industrial sectors, there is not an easy go-to methodology applied in factories aiming for cleaner production. Therefore, a straightforward methodology to assess the level of circularity, in this case of a tannery industry, is presented and discussed in this work, allowing any company to measure the impact of its activities. The methodology developed consists in calculating the Overall Circular Index (OCI) by evaluating the circularity of four key areas -energy, material, economy and social- in a specific factory. The index is a value between 0 and 1, where 0 means a linear economy, and 1 is a complete circular economy. Each key area has a sub-index, obtained through key performance indicators (KPIs) regarding each theme, and the OCI reflects the average of the four sub-indexes. Some fieldwork in the appointed company was required in order to obtain all the necessary data. By having separate sub-indexes, one can observe which areas are more linear than others. Thus, it is possible to work on the most critical areas by implementing strategies to increase the OCI. After these strategies are implemented, the OCI is recalculated to check the improvements made and any other changes in the remaining sub-indexes. As such, the methodology in discussion works through continuous improvement, constantly reevaluating and improving the circularity of the factory. The methodology is also flexible enough to be implemented in any industrial sector by adapting the KPIs. This methodology was implemented in a selected Portuguese small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) tannery industry and proved to be a relevant tool to measure the circularity level of the factory. It was witnessed that it is easier for non-specialists to evaluate circularity and identify possible solutions to increase its value, as well as learn how one action can impact their environment. In the end, energetic and environmental inefficiencies were identified and corrected, increasing the sustainability and circularity of the company. Through this work, important contributions were provided, helping the Portuguese SMEs to achieve the European and UN 2030 sustainable goals.

Keywords: Circular economy, circularity index, sustainability, tannery industry, zero-waste.

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Authors: Ekesa B. Nakhauka, De Lange M., Macharia I., Garming H., Ouma E., Birachi E., Van Asten P., Van-Lauwe B., Blomme G.

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Impact of adopting products promoted by the Consortium for Improving Agriculture-based livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA) on food and nutrition security was tested. Multi-stage sampling was used to select 7 project mandate areas, 5 villages/mandate area (stratified into action, satellite and control sites) and 913 households. Structured questionnaires were administered; analysis of impact based on comparison between stratums, differences in means tested by ANOVA and significance of difference obtained by Tukey's HSD multiple rank tests. Perception of adequate food sufficiency received a higher rating in action and satellite sites compared to control sites reason being improved agricultural technologies. For >60% of households, worsened food security was due to climatic conditions. Although a higher proportion of households in action and satellite was meeting calorie RDIs in DRC and Burundi the difference was insignificant from control sites. 53% of respondents in control sites indicated a decrease in intake of protein rich foods, this was significantly higher than the proportion in the action (46%) and satellite (41%) sites.

Keywords: Food security, Farmer-households, Nutrition security

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Authors: N.K.K. Welgama, W.A.D.P. Wanigasundera

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Small tanks, the ancient man-made rain water storage systems, support the pheasant life and agriculture of the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Many small tanks were abandoned with time due to various reasons. Such tanks, rehabilitated in the recent past, were found to be less sustainable and most of these rehabilitation approaches have failed. The objective of this research is to assess the impact of the rehabilitation approaches in the management of small tanks in the Kurunegala District of Sri Lanka with respect to eight small tanks. A Sustainability index was developed using seven indicators representing the ability and commitment of the villagers to maintain these tanks. The sustainability index of the eight tanks varied between 79.2 and 47.2 out of a total score of 100. The conclusion is that, the approaches used for tank rehabilitation have a significant effect on the sustainability of the management of these small tanks.

Keywords: Minor irrigation schemes, Participatory, Small Tanks, Sustainable, Water resource management.

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Authors: Said Abdullah Al Saifi

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The goal of this research is to examine the impact of trust, motivation, and national culture on knowledge sharing within the context of electronic mail. This study is quantitative and survey based. In order to conduct the research, 200 students from a leading university in New Zealand were chosen randomly to participate in a questionnaire survey. Motivation and trust were found to be significantly and positively related to knowledge sharing. The research findings illustrated that face saving, face gaining, and individualism positively moderates the relationship between motivation and knowledge sharing. In addition, collectivism culture negatively moderates the relationship between motivation and knowledge sharing. Moreover, the research findings reveal that face saving, individualism, and collectivism culture positively moderate the relationship between trust and knowledge sharing. In addition, face gaining culture negatively moderates the relationship between trust and knowledge sharing. This study sets out several implications for researchers and practitioners. The study produces an integrative model that shows how attributes of national culture impact knowledge sharing through the use of emails. A better understanding of the relationship between knowledge sharing and trust, motivation, and national culture differences will increase individuals’ ability to make wise choices when sharing knowledge with those from different cultures.

Keywords: Knowledge sharing, motivation, national culture, trust.

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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: G. Jelic Mrcelic, M. Sliskovic

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In Croatia, the majority of cultured marine fish species are reared in net cages. The intensive production of the fish in net cages may generate the considerable amount of bio waste and change water quality especially in enclosed and semi-enclosed coastal areas. The aim of this paper is to assess the potential impact of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) cage farm on water quality. The weak relationship between food supply and water quality parameters (nutrient content and phytoplankton biomass) was found, but significant changes in oxygen saturation was observed in the cages during the warmer period of a year especially in the morning (occasionally it dropped below 70 %). Despite of, satisfactory results of water quality parameters, it is necessary to establish comprehensive monitoring process, especially to include quality assessment of fouling communities.

Keywords: Mariculture, monitoring, fish cages, water quality parameters.

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Authors: Mohamed A. Elsherif, A. Malekmohammadi

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An exploration in the competency of the optical multilevel Mapping Multiplexing Technique (MMT) system in tolerating to the impact of nonlinearities as Self Phase Modulation (SPM) during the presence of dispersion compensation methods. The existence of high energy pulses stimulates deterioration in the chirp compression process attained by SPM which introduces an upper power boundary limit. An evaluation of the post and asymmetric prepost fiber compensation methods have been deployed on the MMT system compared with others of the same bit rate modulation formats. The MMT 40 Gb/s post compensation system has 1.4 dB enhancements to the 40 Gb/s 4-Arysystem and less than 3.9 dB penalty compared to the 40 Gb/s OOK-RZsystem. However, the optimized Pre-Post asymmetric compensation has an enhancement of 4.6 dB compared to the Post compensation MMT configuration for a 30% pre compensation dispersion.

Keywords: Dispersion compensation, mapping multiplexing technique, self-phase modulation.

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Authors: Andrej Miklošík, Petra Horváthová, Štefan Žák

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Nowadays companies in all sectors are looking for the sources of competitive advantages. Holistic marketing approach searches for their emergence based on the integration of all components and elements across the organization. Modern marketing sees the sources of competitive advantage in implementing the latest managerial practices, motivation, intelligent project management, knowledge management, collaborative marketing, CSR and, in the recent years, also in the business process optimization. With the use of modern tools including business process management and business process modelling the company can markedly increase its internal efficiency which can lead not only to lowering the costs but to creating the environment for optimal customer care, positive corporate culture and for origination of innovations as well. In the article the authors analyze the recent trend in this area and introduce suggestions to companies to identify and optimize the key processes that have a significant impact of the company´s competitiveness.

Keywords: business process optimization, competitive advantage, corporate social responsibility, knowledge management

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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: S. R. De Oliveira, A. De Almeida, I. M. Dal Fabbro

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Residues are produced in all stages of human activities in terms of composition and volume which vary according to consumption practices and to production methods. Forms of significant harm to the environment are associated to volume of generated material as well as to improper disposal of solid wastes, whose negative effects are noticed more frequently in the long term. The solution to this problem constitutes a challenge to the government, industry and society, because they involve economic, social, environmental and, especially, awareness of the population in general. The main concerns are focused on the impact it can have on human health and on the environment (soil, water, air and sights). The hazardous waste produced mainly by industry, are particularly worrisome because, when improperly managed, they become a serious threat to the environment. In view of this issue, this study aimed to evaluate the management system of solid waste of a coprocessing industrial waste company, to propose improvements to the rejects generation management in a specific step of the Blending production process.

Keywords: Blending, environment, industrial residues.

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Authors: Edison E. Haro, Akindele G. Odeshi, Jerzy A. Szpunar

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Hybrid bio-composites are developed for use in protective armor through positive hybridization offered by reinforcement of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with Kevlar short fibers and palm wood micro-fillers. The manufacturing process involved a combination of extrusion and compression molding techniques. The mechanical behavior of Kevlar fiber reinforced HDPE with and without palm wood filler additions are compared. The effect of the weight fraction of the added palm wood micro-fillers is also determined. The Young modulus was found to increase as the weight fraction of organic micro-particles increased. However, the flexural strength decreased with increasing weight fraction of added micro-fillers. The interfacial interactions between the components were investigated using scanning electron microscopy. The influence of the size, random alignment and distribution of the natural micro-particles was evaluated. Ballistic impact and dynamic shock loading tests were performed to determine the optimum proportion of Kevlar short fibers and organic micro-fillers needed to improve impact strength of the HDPE. These results indicate a positive hybridization by deposition of organic micro-fillers on the surface of short Kevlar fibers used in reinforcing the thermoplastic matrix leading to enhancement of the mechanical strength and dynamic impact behavior of these materials. Therefore, these hybrid bio-composites can be promising materials for different applications against high velocity impacts.

Keywords: Hybrid bio-composites, organic nano-fillers, dynamic shocking loading, ballistic impacts, energy absorption.

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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: Charru Malhotra, Girija Krishnaswamy

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Setting up of rural telecentres, popularly referred to as Common Service Centres (CSCs), are considered one of the initial forerunners of rural e-Governance initiatives under the Government of India-s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). CSCs are implemented on public-private partnership (PPP) – where State governments play a major role in facilitating the establishment of CSCs and investments are made by private companies referred to as Service Centre Agencies (SCAs). CSC implementation is expected to help in improving public service delivery in a transparent and efficient manner. However, there is very little research undertaken to study the actual impact of CSC implementation at the grassroots level. This paper addresses the gap by identifying the circumstances, concerns and expectations from the point-of-view of citizens and examining the finer aspects of social processes in the context of rural e-Governance.

Keywords: Capacity Building, Citizens' Participation, e- Government, NeGP, PPP, Rural Telecentres

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Authors: Libena Cernohorska, Jan Cernohorsky

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This article aims to evaluate the impact of loans provided within the Czech banking sector on the growth of the Czech economy. The article is based on research of current scientific findings in respect to bank loans and economic development. The paper is based on data taken from the Czech Statistical Office on the development of the gross domestic product and data from the Czech National Bank on the development of loans from the period 2004-2015. Links between selected variables are tested using Granger causality tests. The results calculated confirm the hypothesis of the impact of the loans on economic growth, with a six-month delay. The results thus correspond to the standard economic findings and results of most previous studies.

Keywords: Bank, business cycle, economic growth, loans.

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Authors: Patrick B. Cobbinah, Clifford Amoako

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Kumasi is Ghana’s second largest and fastest growing city with an annual population growth rate of 5.4 percent. A major result of this phenomenon is a growing sprawl at the fringes of the city. This paper assesses the nature, extent and impact of sprawl on Kumasi and examines urban planning efforts at addressing this phenomenon. Both secondary and empirical data were collected from decentralized government departments of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly and residents of some sprawling communities. The study reveals that sprawl in the metropolis is rapidly consuming fringe rural communities. This situation has weakened effective management of the metropolis causing problems such as congestion and conversion of peri-urban land into residential use without ancillary infrastructure and social services. The paper recommends effective and timely planning and provision of services as well as an overall economic development and spatial integration through regional planning as a way of achieving a long term solution to sprawl.

Keywords: Kumasi, peri-urban, urban planning, urban sprawl.

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Authors: J. Sakano, Y. Yajima, W. Ono, Y. Yamazaki, S. Sasahara, Y. Tomotsune, Y. Ohi, S. Suzuki, A. Seki, I. Matsuzaki

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The study aimed to verify a hypothesis that a sense of fulfillment in student life and perceived stress in training in the facilities could affect vocational identity among social welfare university students, in order to acquire implications for enhancing the vocational consciousness. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 388 third- and fourth-year students of training course for certified social workers in three universities in A prefecture in Japan. The questionnaire was returned by 338 students, and 288 responses (85.2%) were valid and used for the analysis. As a SEM result, the hypothesized model proved to be fit to the data. Path coefficient of sense of fulfillment of student life to vocational identity was statistically positive. Path coefficient of training stress to vocational identity was statistically negative.

Keywords: Training stress, Physical health, Sense of fulfillment of student life, structural equation modeling (SEM)

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Authors: Salma Siddika, Fayeka Mansura, Mahbub Hasan

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The term hybrid composite refers to the composite containing more than one type of fiber material as reinforcing fillers. It has become attractive structural material due to the ability of providing better combination of properties with respect to single fiber containing composite. The eco-friendly nature as well as processing advantage, light weight and low cost have enhanced the attraction and interest of natural fiber reinforced composite. The objective of present research is to study the mechanical properties of jute-coir fiber reinforced hybrid polypropylene (PP) composite according to filler loading variation. In the present work composites were manufactured by using hot press machine at four levels of fiber loading (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt %). Jute and coir fibers were utilized at a ratio of (1:1) during composite manufacturing. Tensile, flexural, impact and hardness tests were conducted for mechanical characterization. Tensile test of composite showed a decreasing trend of tensile strength and increasing trend of the Young-s modulus with increasing fiber content. During flexural, impact and hardness tests, the flexural strength, flexural modulus, impact strength and hardness were found to be increased with increasing fiber loading. Based on the fiber loading used in this study, 20% fiber reinforced composite resulted the best set of mechanical properties.

Keywords: Mechanical Properties; Coir, Jute, Polypropylene, Hybrid Composite.

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Authors: Edlira Kalemi, Sule Yildirim-Yayilgan

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Online Social Networks (OSNs) are nowadays being used widely and intensively for crime investigation and prevention activities. As they provide a lot of information they are used by the law enforcement and intelligence. An extensive review on existing solutions and models for collecting intelligence from this source of information and making use of it for solving crimes has been presented in this article. The main focus is on smart solutions and models where ontologies have been used as the main approach for representing criminal domain knowledge. A framework for a prototype ontology named SC-Ont will be described. This defines terms of the criminal domain ontology and the relations between them. The terms and the relations are extracted during both this review and the discussions carried out with domain experts. The development of SC-Ont is still ongoing work, where in this paper, we report mainly on the motivation for using smart ontology models and the possible benefits of using them for solving crimes.

Keywords: Criminal digital evidence, social media, ontologies, reasoning.

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Authors: Shahrina Md Nordin, Zulhamri Abdullah, Yuhanis Abdul Aziz

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the current state of corporate social responsibility statements on corporate websites of Malaysian and Singaporean corporations and analyze how the CSR statements contribute in building a unique corporate identity of corporations. Content analysis is employed to examine the websites of Malaysian and Singaporean consumer corporations. It is believed that generally most companies tend to publish and communicate their CSR statements visibly to general stakeholders. However, there is a significantly different outcome of the articulation of CSR on practices on websites between Malaysian and Singaporean consumer corporations. A number of Singaporean organizations were found less concerned with CSR practices as compared to Malaysian organizations. The findings indicate a need for corporations in Malaysia and Singapore to orchestrate their core competence of CSR activities in order to develop a unique corporate identity in a global business environment.

Keywords: Corporate identity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Asian country.

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Authors: Iau-Teh Wang, Chin-Yu Lee

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Rockfall is a kind of irregular geological disaster. Its destruction time, space and movements are highly random. The impact force is determined by the way and velocity rocks move. The movement velocity of a rockfall depends on slope gradient of its moving paths, height, slope surface roughness and rock shapes. For effectively mitigate and prevent disasters brought by rockfalls, it is required to precisely calculate the moving paths of a rockfall so as to provide the best protective design. This paper applies Colorado Rockfall Simulation Program (CRSP) as our study tool to discuss the impact of slope shape and surface roughness on the moving paths of a single rockfall. The analytical results showed that the slope, m=1:1, acted as the threshold for rockfall bounce height on a monoclinal slight slope. When JRC ´╝£ 1.2, movement velocity reduced and bounce height increased as JCR increased. If slope fixed and JRC increased, the bounce height of rocks increased gradually with reducing movement velocity. Therefore, the analysis on the moving paths of rockfalls with CRSP could simulate bouncing of falling rocks. By analyzing moving paths, velocity, and bounce height of falling rocks, we could effectively locate impact points of falling rocks on a slope. Such analysis can be served as a reference for future disaster prevention and control.

Keywords: Rockfall, Slope Shape, Moving Path, SurfaceRoughness.

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Authors: F. Pagliara, F. Mauriello

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The objective of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the increase of accessibility brought by high speed rail (HSR) systems and the tourism market in Italy. The impacts of HSR projects on tourism can be quantified in different ways. In this manuscript, an empirical analysis has been carried out with the aid of a dataset containing information both on tourism and transport for 99 Italian provinces during the 2006-2016 period. Panel data regression models have been considered, since they allow modelling a wide variety of correlation patterns. Results show that HSR has an impact on the choice of a given destination for Italian tourists while the presence of a second level hub mainly affects foreign tourists. Attraction variables are also significant for both categories and the variables concerning security, such as number of crimes registered in a given destination, have a negative impact on the choice of a destination.

Keywords: Tourists, overnights, high speed rail, attractions, security.

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Authors: P. Mbecke

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The role of the government to tangibly alleviate poverty, improve and sustain the quality of people’s lives remains a “work in progress” twenty-two years after the dawn of democracy in South Africa despite a host of socio-economic programs and pro-poor policies and legislations. This paper assesses the development process and the implementation of the White Paper on Families in South Africa as one of the pro-poor policies intended to curb poverty and redress the imbalances of the apartheid regime. The paper is the result of a qualitative implementation research theory facilitated through in-depth interviews with social work managers complemented by literature and policy review techniques. It investigates the level of basic knowledge and understanding as well as the implementation challenges of the White Paper on Families as causes of its failure. The paper emphasizes the importance of the family-centered approach in the implementation of pro-poor policies. To facilitate the understanding of the White Paper on Families by its users, the Department of Social Development needs take stock of the identified challenges of its implementation so as to facilitate its success in fostering positive family well-being that will directly contributes to the overall socio-economic development of South Africa.

Keywords: Poverty alleviation, pro-poor policy, social development, social welfare, South Africa.

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Authors: Soon-Tai Park, Jong-Whoi Shin, Bog-Ki Min, Ik-Sub Lee, Gang-Shin Lee, Jae-Il Lee

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As the information age matures, major social infrastructures such as communication, finance, military and energy, have become ever more dependent on information communication systems. And since these infrastructures are connected to the Internet, electronic intrusions such as hacking and viruses have become a new security threat. Especially, disturbance or neutralization of a major social infrastructure can result in extensive material damage and social disorder. To address this issue, many nations around the world are researching and developing various techniques and information security policies as a government-wide effort to protect their infrastructures from newly emerging threats. This paper proposes an evaluation method for information security levels of CIIP (Critical Information Infrastructure Protection), which can enhance the security level of critical information infrastructure by checking the current security status and establish security measures accordingly to protect infrastructures effectively.

Keywords: Information Security Evaluation Methodology, Critical Information Infrastructure Protection.

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Authors: Mosses E. Lufuke

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This paper attempted to investigate whether there is Granger-causality running from trade to environment as evidenced in the changing climatic condition and land degradation. Using Tanzania as the reference, VAR-Granger-causality test was employed to rationalize the conundrum of causal-effect relationship between trade and environment. The changing climatic condition, as the proxy of both nitrous oxide emissions (in thousand metric tons of CO₂ equivalent) and land degradation measured by the size of arable land were tested against trade using both exports and imports variables. The result indicated that neither of the trade variables Granger-cause the variability on gas emissions and arable land size. This suggests the possibility that all trade concerns in relation to environment to have been internalized in domestic policies to offset any likely negative consequence.

Keywords: Trade, growth, impact, environment.

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Authors: Emilia Nercissians

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The paper attempts to contribute to the largely neglected social and anthropological discussion of technology development on the one hand, and to redirecting the emphasis in anthropology from primitive and exotic societies to problems of high relevance in contemporary era and how technology is used in everyday life. It draws upon multidimensional models of intelligence and ideal type formation. It is argued that the predominance of computational and cognitive cosmovisions have led to technology alienation. Injection of communicative competence in artificially intelligent systems and identity technologies in the coming information society are analyzed

Keywords: convergence, nomadic computing, solidarity, status.

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Authors: Mina Fenercioglu

Abstract:

This study discusses a Turkish music education model similar to its Venezuelan counterpart El Sistema, in which socialization and human development are the main goals. The Music for Peace (Baris Icin Muzik) model, founded in 2005 by an idealist humanitarian in Istanbul, started as a pilot project with accordion and today makes symphonic music education. The program aims to offer social change through free-of-charge. In such a big city like Istanbul, in a deprived inner city center people have poor economic, social and cultural conditions. In that Edirnekapi district people don’t have opportunities to join the cultural and social life, like music or sports. It is believed that this initiative covered a part of this gap by giving children the opportunities to participate in social and cultural life. In this study it is planned to understand what social changes could music education could make in children’s lives. In the complimentary music lessons children works in groups, which helps them to learn the feelings of solidarity, friendship, communion and sharing. By Music for Peace project children connect with the community, they have the belief to succeed in life because they feel that they are loved by their friends, instructors and families. In short they feel that they are important, thus brings the success in life. Additionally, it is believed that, this program has achieved success. Today approximately 400 children participate in this programs orchestras and choirs. Some of the students get into the conservatories. And the center is not just a place where they get music lessons but also a place where they get socialized. And music education helps children to have strong sense of identity, self-confidence and self-esteem.

Keywords: El Sistema, music education, Music for Peace, socialization.

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