Search results for: learner support

Authors: Kejun Zhuang

Abstract:

In this paper, a delayed physiological control system is investigated. The sufficient conditions for stability of positive equilibrium and existence of local Hopf bifurcation are derived. Furthermore, global existence of periodic solutions is established by using the global Hopf bifurcation theory. Finally, numerical examples are given to support the theoretical analysis.

Keywords: Physiological control system, global Hopf bifurcation, periodic solutions.

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Authors: Hasanul Ferdaus, Sazzadur Rahman, Kamrul Islam

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With the rapid usage of portable devices mobility in IP networks becomes more important issue in the recent years. IETF standardized Mobile IP that works in Network Layer, which involves tunneling of IP packets from HA to Foreign Agent. Mobile IP suffers many problems of Triangular Routing, conflict with private addressing scheme, increase in load in HA, need of permanent home IP address, tunneling itself, and so on. In this paper, we proposed mobility management in Application Layer protocol SIP and show some comparative analysis between Mobile IP and SIP in context of mobility.

Keywords: Mobility, mobile IP, SIP, tunneling.

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Authors: Dhany Saputra, Dayang R. A. Rambli, Oi Mean Foong

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose an improvement of pattern growth-based PrefixSpan algorithm, called I-PrefixSpan. The general idea of I-PrefixSpan is to use sufficient data structure for Seq-Tree framework and separator database to reduce the execution time and memory usage. Thus, with I-PrefixSpan there is no in-memory database stored after index set is constructed. The experimental result shows that using Java 2, this method improves the speed of PrefixSpan up to almost two orders of magnitude as well as the memory usage to more than one order of magnitude.

Keywords: ArrayList, ArrayIntList, minimum support, sequence database, sequential patterns.

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Authors: Prisa Damrongsiri, Kittinan Pongpianskul, Mario Kubek, Herwig Unger

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Apps are today the most important possibility to adapt mobile phones and computers to fulfill the special needs of their users. Location- and context-sensitive programs are hereby the key to support the interaction of the user with his/her environment and also to avoid an overload with a plenty of dispensable information. The contribution shows, how a trusted, secure and really bi-directional communication and interaction among users and their environment can be established and used, e.g. in the field of home automation.

Keywords: Apps, context-sensitive, location-sensitive, selfconfiguration, mobile computing, smart home.

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Authors: Ahmad Alshammari, Abdulaziz Bagabas

Abstract:

Rhodamine B (RB) is a toxic dye used extensively in textile industry, which must be remediated before its drainage to environment. In the present study, supported gold nanoparticles on commercially available titania and zincite were successfully prepared and then their activity on the photodegradation of RB under UV A light irradiation were evaluated. The synthesized photocatalysts were characterized by ICP, BET, XRD, and TEM. Kinetic results showed that Au/TiO2 was an inferior photocatalyst to Au/ZnO. This observation could be attributed to the strong reflection of UV irradiation by gold nanoparticles over TiO2 support.

Keywords: Supported AuNPs, Semiconductor photocatalyst, Photodegradation, Rhodamine B.

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Authors: S. H. J. Liu

Abstract:

This paper aims to explore the role of peer Corrective Feedback (CF) in improving written productions by English-as-a- foreign-language (EFL) learners who work together via Wikispaces. It attempted to determine the effect of peer CF on form accuracy in English, such as grammar and lexis. Thirty-four EFL learners at the tertiary level were randomly assigned into the experimental (with peer feedback) or the control (without peer feedback) group; each group was subdivided into small groups of two or three. This resulted in six and seven small groups in the experimental and control groups, respectively. In the experimental group, each learner played a role as an assessor (providing feedback to others), as well as an assessee (receiving feedback from others). Each participant was asked to compose his/her written work and revise it based on the feedback. In the control group, on the other hand, learners neither provided nor received feedback but composed and revised their written work on their own. Data collected from learners’ compositions and post-task interviews were analyzed and reported in this study. Following the completeness of three writing tasks, 10 participants were selected and interviewed individually regarding their perception of collaborative learning in the Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) environment. Language aspects to be analyzed included lexis (e.g., appropriate use of words), verb tenses (e.g., present and past simple), prepositions (e.g., in, on, and between), nouns, and articles (e.g., a/an). Feedback types consisted of CF, affective, suggestive, and didactic. Frequencies of feedback types and the accuracy of the language aspects were calculated. The results first suggested that accurate items were found more in the experimental group than in the control group. Such results entail that those who worked collaboratively outperformed those who worked non-collaboratively on the accuracy of linguistic aspects. Furthermore, the first type of CF (e.g., corrections directly related to linguistic errors) was found to be the most frequently employed type, whereas affective and didactic were the least used by the experimental group. The results further indicated that most participants perceived that peer CF was helpful in improving the language accuracy, and they demonstrated a favorable attitude toward working with others in the CMC environment. Moreover, some participants stated that when they provided feedback to their peers, they tended to pay attention to linguistic errors in their peers’ work but overlook their own errors (e.g., past simple tense) when writing. Finally, L2 or FL teachers or practitioners are encouraged to employ CMC technologies to train their students to give each other feedback in writing to improve the accuracy of the language and to motivate them to attend to the language system.

Keywords: Peer corrective feedback, computer-mediated communication, second or foreign language learning, Wikispaces.

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Authors: Pongthep Bunrueng

Abstract:

This action research accentuates the outcome of a development in English pronunciation, using principles of phonetics for English major students at Loei Rajabhat University. The research is split into 5 separate modules: 1) Organs of Speech and How to Produce Sounds, 2) Monopthongs, 3) Diphthongs, 4) Consonant sounds, and 5) Suprasegmental Features. Each module followed a 4 step action research process, 1) Planning, 2) Acting, 3) Observing, and 4) Reflecting. The research targeted 2nd year students who were majoring in English Education at Loei Rajabhat University during the academic year of 2011. A mixed methodology employing both quantitative and qualitative research was used, which put theory into action, taking segmental features up to suprasegmental features. Multiple tools were employed which included the following documents: pre-test and post-test papers, evaluation and assessment papers, group work assessment forms, a presentation grading form, an observation of participants form and a participant self-reflection form.

All 5 modules for the target group showed that results from the post-tests were higher than those of the pre-tests, with 0.01 statistical significance. All target groups attained results ranging from low to moderate and from moderate to high performance. The participants who attained low to moderate results had to re-sit the second round. During the first development stage, participants attended classes with group participation, in which they addressed planning through mutual co-operation and sharing of responsibility. Analytic induction of strong points for this operation illustrated that learner cognition, comprehension, application, and group practices were all present whereas the participants with weak results could be attributed to biological differences, differences in life and learning, or individual differences in responsiveness and self-discipline.

Participants who were required to be re-treated in Spiral 2 received the same treatment again. Results of tests from the 5 modules after the 2^nd treatment were that the participants attained higher scores than those attained in the pre-test. Their assessment and development stages also showed improved results. They showed greater confidence at participating in activities, produced higher quality work, and correctly followed instructions for each activity. Analytic induction of strong and weak points for this operation remains the same as for Spiral 1, though there were improvements to problems which existed prior to undertaking the second treatment.

Keywords: Action research, English pronunciation, phonetics, segmental features, suprasegmental features.

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Authors: Chun-Lang Chang

Abstract:

According to the statistics, the prevalence of congenital hearing loss in Taiwan is approximately six thousandths; furthermore, one thousandths of infants have severe hearing impairment. Hearing ability during infancy has significant impact in the development of children-s oral expressions, language maturity, cognitive performance, education ability and social behaviors in the future. Although most children born with hearing impairment have sensorineural hearing loss, almost every child more or less still retains some residual hearing. If provided with a hearing aid or cochlear implant (a bionic ear) timely in addition to hearing speech training, even severely hearing-impaired children can still learn to talk. On the other hand, those who failed to be diagnosed and thus unable to begin hearing and speech rehabilitations on a timely manner might lose an important opportunity to live a complete and healthy life. Eventually, the lack of hearing and speaking ability will affect the development of both mental and physical functions, intelligence, and social adaptability. Not only will this problem result in an irreparable regret to the hearing-impaired child for the life time, but also create a heavy burden for the family and society. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a set of computer-assisted predictive model that can accurately detect and help diagnose newborn hearing loss so that early interventions can be provided timely to eliminate waste of medical resources. This study uses information from the neonatal database of the case hospital as the subjects, adopting two different analysis methods of using support vector machine (SVM) for model predictions and using logistic regression to conduct factor screening prior to model predictions in SVM to examine the results. The results indicate that prediction accuracy is as high as 96.43% when the factors are screened and selected through logistic regression. Hence, the model constructed in this study will have real help in clinical diagnosis for the physicians and actually beneficial to the early interventions of newborn hearing impairment.

Keywords: Data mining, Hearing impairment, Logistic regression analysis, Support vector machines

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Authors: Ling-fei Xu, Qi Zhao, Yan-ru Chen, Mu-chun Zhou, Meng Zhang, Shi-xue Xu

Abstract:

SVM ( Support Vector Machine ) is a new method in the artificial neural network ( ANN ). In the steel making, how to use computer to predict the end point of BOF accuracy is a great problem. A lot of method and theory have been claimed, but most of the results is not satisfied. Now the hot topic in the BOF end point predicting is to use optical way the predict the end point in the BOF. And we found that there exist some regular in the characteristic curve of the flame from the mouse of pudding. And we can use SVM to predict end point of the BOF, just single spectrum intensity should be required as the input parameter. Moreover, its compatibility for the input space is better than the BP network.

Keywords: SVM, predict, BOF, single spectrum intensity.

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Authors: Swathi Ganesan, Nalinda Somasiri, Rebecca Jeyavadhanam, Gayathri Karthick

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The COVID-19 crisis presents a substantial and critical hazard to worldwide health. Since the occurrence of the disease in late January 2020 in the UK, the number of infected people confirmed to acquire the illness has increased tremendously across the country, and the number of individuals affected is undoubtedly considerably high. The purpose of this research is to figure out a predictive machine learning (ML) archetypal that could forecast the COVID-19 cases within the UK. This study concentrates on the statistical data collected from 31st January 2020 to 31st March 2021 in the United Kingdom. Information on total COVID-19 cases registered, new cases encountered on a daily basis, total death registered, and patients’ death per day due to Coronavirus is collected from World Health Organization (WHO). Data preprocessing is carried out to identify any missing values, outliers, or anomalies in the dataset. The data are split into 8:2 ratio for training and testing purposes to forecast future new COVID-19 cases. Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and linear regression (LR) algorithms are chosen to study the model performance in the prediction of new COVID-19 cases. From the evaluation metrics such as r-squared value and mean squared error, the statistical performance of the model in predicting the new COVID-19 cases is evaluated. RF outperformed the other two ML algorithms with a training accuracy of 99.47% and testing accuracy of 98.26% when n = 30. The mean square error obtained for RF is 4.05e11, which is lesser compared to the other predictive models used for this study. From the experimental analysis, RF algorithm can perform more effectively and efficiently in predicting the new COVID-19 cases, which could help the health sector to take relevant control measures for the spread of the virus.

Keywords: COVID-19, machine learning, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, linear regression, support vector machine, random forest.

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Authors: V. Holeva, V. Aliki Nikopoulou, P. Kechayas, M. Dialechti Kerasidou, M. Papadopoulou, G. A. Papakostas, V. G. Kaburlasos, A. Evangeliou

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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has been proven an effective tool to address anger and anxiety issues in children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Robot-enhanced therapy has been used in psychosocial and educational interventions for children with ASD with promising results. Whenever CBT-based techniques were incorporated in robot-based interventions, they were mainly performed in group sessions. Objectives: The study’s main objective was the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of a relaxation training intervention for children with ASD, delivered by the social robot NAO. Methods: 20 children (aged 7–12 years) were randomly assigned to 16 sessions of relaxation training implemented twice a week. Two groups were formed: the NAO group (children participated in individual sessions with the support of NAO) and the control group (children participated in individual sessions with the support of the therapist only). Participants received three different relaxation scenarios of increasing difficulty (a breathing scenario, a progressive muscle relaxation scenario and a body scan medication scenario), as well as related homework sheets for practicing. Pre- and post-intervention assessments were conducted using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire for parents (SDQ-P). Participants were also asked to complete an open-ended questionnaire to evaluate the effectiveness of the training. Parents’ satisfaction was evaluated via a questionnaire and children satisfaction was assessed by a thermometer scale. Results: The study supports the use of relaxation training with the NAO robot as instructor for children with ASD. Parents of enrolled children reported high levels of satisfaction and provided positive ratings of the training acceptability. Children in the NAO group presented greater motivation to complete homework and adopt the learned techniques at home. Conclusions: Relaxation training could be effectively integrated in robot-assisted protocols to help children with ASD regulate emotions and develop self-control.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorders, CBT, children relaxation training, robot-assisted therapy.

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Authors: Nebi Gedik, Ayten Atasoy

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This paper investigates successful sub-bands of wave atom transform via classification of mammograms, when the coefficients of sub-bands are used as features. A computer-aided diagnosis system is constructed by using wave atom transform, support vector machine and k-nearest neighbor classifiers. Two-class classification is studied in detail using two data sets, separately. The successful sub-bands are determined according to the accuracy rates, coefficient numbers, and sensitivity rates.

Keywords: Breast cancer, wave atom transform, SVM, k-NN.

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Authors: Ivana Nacinovic, Lovorka Galetic, Nevenka Cavlek

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Continuous innovation is becoming a necessity if firms want to stay competitive. Different factors influence the rate of innovation in a firm, among which corporate culture has often been recognized among the most important factors. In this paper we argue that the development of corporate culture that will support and foster innovation must be accompanied with an appropriate reward system. A research conducted among Croatian firms showed that a statistically significant relationship exists among corporate culture that supports innovations and reward system features.

Keywords: Corporate culture, innovation, reward systems, Croatia.

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Authors: M. R. Yadav, A. K. Sharma, B. S. Thakur

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The purpose of this paper is to present a best proximity point theorems through rational expression for a combination of contraction condition, Kannan and Chatterjea nonlinear cyclic contraction in what we call MT-K and MT-C rational cyclic contraction. Some best proximity point theorems for a mapping satisfy these conditions have been established in metric spaces. We also give some examples to support our work.

Keywords: Cyclic contraction, rational cyclic contraction, best proximity point and complete metric space.

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Authors: T. Niracharapa

Abstract:

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: Rekha V. Dundur , M.V.Latte, S.Y. Kulkarni, M.K.Venkatesha

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The advent of multi-million gate Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) with hardware support for multiplication opens an opportunity to recreate a significant portion of the front end of a human cochlea using this technology. In this paper we describe the implementation of the cochlear filter and show that it is entirely suited to a single device XC3S500 FPGA implementation .The filter gave a good fit to real time data with efficiency of hardware usage.

Keywords: Cochlea, FPGA, IIR (Infinite Impulse Response), Multiplier.

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Authors: Kamarularifin Abd Jalil, John Dunlop

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A Personal Distributed Environment (PDE) is an example of an IP-based system architecture designed for future mobile communications. In a single PDE, there exist several Subnetworks hosting devices located across the infrastructure, which will inter-work with one another through the coordination of a Device Management Entity (DME). Some of these Sub-networks are fixed and some are mobile. In order to support Mobile Sub-networks mobility in the PDE, the PDE-NEMO protocol was proposed. This paper discussed the signalling cost analysis of PDE-NEMO by use of a detailed simulation model. The paper started with the introduction of the protocol, followed by the experiments and results and then followed by discussions.

Keywords: Mobile Network, PDE-NEMO, Signallling Cost.

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Authors: Antonella Bandiera

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A new sythetic gene coding for a Human Elastin-Like Polypeptide was constructed and expressed. The recombinant product was tested as coating agent to realize a surface suitable for cell growth. Coatings showed peculiar features and different human cell lines were seeded and cultured. All cell lines tested showed to adhere and proliferate on this substrate that has been shown also to exert a specific effect on cells, depending on cell type.

Keywords: elastin, recombinant protein, coating, cell adhesion.

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Authors: Mbala Mukenga, Edison Muzenda, Kalala Jalama, Reinout Meijboom

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TiO2 supported nano-ZnO catalyst was prepared by deposition-precipitation and tested for the trans-esterification reaction of soybean oil to biodiesel. The TiO2 support stabilized the nano-ZnO in a dispersed form with limited crystallite size compared to the unsupported ZnO. The final ZnO dispersion and crystallite size and the material transfer resistance in the catalyst significantly influenced the supported nano-ZnO catalyst performance.

Keywords: nano-ZnO, soybean oil, TiO2, trans-esterification

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Authors: Ghassan Kbar, Shady Aly, Ibraheem Elsharawy, Akshay Bhatia, Nur Alhasan, Ronaldo Enriquez

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The Smart Help for persons with disability (PWD) is a part of the project SMARTDISABLE which aims to develop relevant solution for PWD that target to provide an adequate workplace environment for them. It would support PWD needs smartly through smart help to allow them access to relevant information and communicate with other effectively and flexibly, and smart editor that assist them in their daily work. It will assist PWD in knowledge processing and creation as well as being able to be productive at the work place. The technical work of the project involves design of a technological scenario for the Ambient Intelligence (AmI) - based assistive technologies at the workplace consisting of an integrated universal smart solution that suits many different impairment conditions and will be designed to empower the Physically disabled persons (PDP) with the capability to access and effectively utilize the ICTs in order to execute knowledge rich working tasks with minimum efforts and with sufficient comfort level. The proposed technology solution for PWD will support voice recognition along with normal keyboard and mouse to control the smart help and smart editor with dynamic auto display interface that satisfies the requirements for different PWD group. In addition, a smart help will provide intelligent intervention based on the behavior of PWD to guide them and warn them about possible misbehavior. PWD can communicate with others using Voice over IP controlled by voice recognition. Moreover, Auto Emergency Help Response would be supported to assist PWD in case of emergency. This proposed technology solution intended to make PWD very effective at the work environment and flexible using voice to conduct their tasks at the work environment. The proposed solution aims to provide favorable outcomes that assist PWD at the work place, with the opportunity to participate in PWD assistive technology innovation market which is still small and rapidly growing as well as upgrading their quality of life to become similar to the normal people at the workplace. Finally, the proposed smart help solution is applicable in all workplace setting, including offices, manufacturing, hospital, etc.

Keywords: Ambient Intelligence, ICT, Persons with disability PWD, Smart application.

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Authors: Thomas Meier

Abstract:

One of the major challenges for sustainable smart building systems is to support device interoperability, i.e. connecting sensor or actuator devices from different vendors, and present their functionality to the external applications. Furthermore, smart building systems are supposed to connect with devices that are not available yet, i.e. devices that become available on the market sometime later. It is of vital importance that a sustainable smart building platform provides an appropriate external interface that can be leveraged by external applications and smart services. An external platform interface must be stable and independent of specific devices and should support flexible and scalable usage scenarios. A typical approach applied in smart home systems is based on a generic device interface used within the smart building platform. Device functions, even of rather complex devices, are mapped to that generic base type interface by means of specific device drivers. Our new approach, presented in this work, extends that approach by using the smart building system’s rule engine to create complex virtual devices that can represent the most diverse properties of real devices. We examined and evaluated both approaches by means of a practical case study using a smart building system that we have developed. We show that the solution we present allows the highest degree of flexibility without affecting external application interface stability and scalability. In contrast to other systems our approach supports complex virtual device configuration on application layer (e.g. by administration users) instead of device configuration at platform layer (e.g. platform operators). Based on our work, we can show that our approach supports almost arbitrarily flexible use case scenarios without affecting the external application interface stability. However, the cost of this approach is additional appropriate configuration overhead and additional resource consumption at the IoT platform level that must be considered by platform operators. We conclude that the concept of complex virtual devices presented in this work can be applied to improve the usability and device interoperability of sustainable intelligent building systems significantly.

Keywords: Complex virtual devices, device integration, device interoperability, Internet of Things, smart building platform.

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Authors: A. Faro, D. Giordano, M. Pennisi, G. Scarciofalo, C. Spampinato, F. Tramontana

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The paper proposes a methodology to process the signals coming from the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) in order to identify the pathology and evaluate the therapy to treat the patients affected by demency diseases. In particular, a fuzzy model is developed to identify the demency of the patients affected by Subcortical Ischemic Vascular Dementia (SIVD) and to measure the effect of a repetitive TMS on their motor performances. A tool is also presented to support the mentioned analysis.

Keywords: TMS, EMG, fuzzy logic, transcranial magnetic stimulation.

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Authors: Hassan Haghighi, Seyedeh Zahra Hosseini, Seyedeh Elahe Jalambadani

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ERP systems are often supposed to be implemented and deployed in multi-national companies. On the other hand, an ERP developer may plan to market and sale its product in various countries. Therefore, an EPR system should have the ability to communicate with its users, who usually have different languages and cultures, in a suitable way. EPR support of Multilanguage capability is a solution to achieve this objective. In this paper, an agent oriented architecture including several independent but cooperative agents has been suggested that helps to implement Multilanguage EPR systems.

Keywords: enterprise resource planning, Multilanguage, software architecture, agent oriented architecture, intelligence, learning, translation.

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Authors: Olivier Mills, Bernard McDonell, Laura A. S. MacDonald

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The increasing availability and quality of internet access throughout the developing world provides an opportunity to utilize online spaces to disseminate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) knowledge to practitioners. Since 2001, CAWST has provided in-person education, training and consulting services to thousands of WASH practitioners all over the world, supporting them to start, troubleshoot, improve and expand their WASH projects. As CAWST continues to grow, the organization faces challenges in meeting demand from clients and in providing consistent, timely technical support. In 2012, CAWST began utilizing online spaces to expand its reach by developing a series of resources websites and webinars. CAWST has developed a WASH Education and Training resources website, a Biosand Filter (BSF) Knowledge Base, a Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage Knowledge Base, a mobile app for offline users, a live chat support tool, a WASH e-library, and a series of webinar-style online training sessions to complement its in-person capacity development services. In order to determine the preliminary outcomes of providing these online services, CAWST has monitored and analyzed registration to the online spaces, downloads of the educational materials, and webinar attendance; as well as conducted user surveys. The purpose of this analysis was to find out who was using the online spaces, where users came from, and how the resources were being used. CAWST’s WASH Resources website has served over 5,800 registered users from 3,000 organizations in 183 countries. Additionally, the BSF Knowledge Base has served over 1000 registered users from 68 countries, and over 540 people from 73 countries have attended CAWST’s online training sessions. This indicates that the online spaces are effectively reaching a large numbers of users, from a range of countries. A 2016 survey of the Biosand Filter Knowledge Base showed that approximately 61% of users are practitioners, and 39% are either researchers or students. Of the respondents, 46% reported using the BSF Knowledge Base to initiate a BSF project and 43% reported using the information to train BSF technicians. Finally, 61% indicated they would like even greater support from CAWST’s Technical Advisors going forward. The analysis has provided an encouraging indication that CAWST’s online spaces are contributing to its objective of engaging and supporting WASH practitioners to start, improve and expand their initiatives. CAWST has learned several lessons during the development of these online spaces, in particular related to the resources needed to create and maintain the spaces, and respond to the demand created. CAWST plans to continue expanding its online spaces, improving user experience of the sites, and involving new contributors and content types. Through the use of online spaces, CAWST has been able to increase its global reach and impact without significantly increasing its human resources by connecting WASH practitioners with the information they most need, in a practical and accessible manner. This paper presents on CAWST’s use of online spaces through the CAWST-developed platforms discussed above and the analysis of the use of these platforms.

Keywords: Education and training, knowledge sharing, online resources, water and sanitation.

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Authors: Sandhya Rijal, Saroj Adhikari, Ramesh R. Pant

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Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) have attracted substantial interest in the recent years with the increasing recognition that these can provide essential community needs for improved and diversified rural livelihood and support the objectives of biodiversity conservation. Nevertheless, various challenges are witnessed in their sustainable harvest and management. Assuming that sustainable management with community stewardship can offer one of the solutions to existing challenges, the study assesses the linkages between NTFPs and rural livelihood in Lamabagar village of Dolakha, Nepal. The major objective was to document the status of NTFPs and their contributions in households of Lamabagar. For status documentation, vegetation sampling was done using systematic random sampling technique. 30 plots of 10 m × 10 m were laid down in six parallel transect lines at horizontal distance of 160 m in two different community forests. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted in 76 households (excluding non-response rate) using stratified random sampling technique for contribution analysis. Likewise, key informant interview and focus group discussions were also conducted for data triangulations. 36 different NTFPs were recorded from the vegetation sample in two community forests of which 50% were used for medicinal purposes. The other uses include fodder, religious value, and edible fruits and vegetables. Species like Juniperus indica, Daphne bholua Aconitum spicatum, and Lyonia ovalifolia were frequently used for trade as a source of income, which was sold in local market. The protected species like Taxus wallichiana and Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora were also recorded in the area for which the trade is prohibited. The protection of these species urgently needs community stewardship. More than half of the surveyed households (55%) were depending on NTFPs for their daily uses, other than economic purpose whereas 45% of them sold those products in the market directly or in the form of local handmade products as a source of livelihood. NTFPs were the major source of primary health curing agents especially for the poor and unemployed people in the study area. Hence, the NTFPs contributed to livelihood under three different categories: subsistence, supplement income and emergency support, depending upon the economic status of the households. Although the status of forest improved after handover to the user group, the availability of valuable medicinal herbs like Rhododendron anthopogon, Swertia nervosa, Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora, and Aconitum spicatum were declining. Inadequacy of technology, lack of easy transport access, and absence of good market facility were the major limitations for external trade of NTFPs in the study site. It was observed that people were interested towards conservation only if they could get some returns: economic in terms of rural settlements. Thus, the study concludes that NTFPs could contribute rural livelihood and support conservation objectives only if local communities are provided with the easy access of technology, market and capital.

Keywords: Contribution, medicinal, subsistence, sustainable harvest.

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Authors: Agata Niewiadomska, Adam Niewiadomski

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The research objective of the project and article “The impact of Structural Funds on the growth of competitiveness of Polish agriculture" is to assess competitiveness of regions in Poland from the perspective of Polish agriculture by analysing the efficiency of the use of Structural Funds, the economic procedure of their distribution and the regulatory and organisational framework under the Rural Development Programme (RDP). It must be stressed that defining the scope of research in the above manner limits the analysis only to the part of Structural Funds directed to support Polish agriculture.

Keywords: Structural Funds, Polish agriculture, Rural Development Programme.

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Authors: Aizzat Mohd. Nasurdin, Noor Hazlina Ahmad, Cheng Ling Tan

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This study aims to examine the role of career advancement and job security as predictors of employee commitment to their organization. Data was collected from 580 frontline employees attached to two departments of 29 luxury hotels in Peninsular Malaysia. Statistical results using Partial Least Squares technique provided support for the proposed hypotheses. In view of the findings, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: Organizational commitment, career advancement, job security, frontline employees, luxury hotels, Malaysia.

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Authors: Claudiu N.Musat

Abstract:

Due to the constant increase in the volume of information available to applications in fields varying from medical diagnosis to web search engines, accurate support of similarity becomes an important task. This is also the case of spam filtering techniques where the similarities between the known and incoming messages are the fundaments of making the spam/not spam decision. We present a novel approach to filtering based solely on layout, whose goal is not only to correctly identify spam, but also warn about major emerging threats. We propose a mathematical formulation of the email message layout and based on it we elaborate an algorithm to separate different types of emails and find the new, numerically relevant spam types.

Keywords: Clustering, layout, k-means, spam.

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Authors: József Valyon, Gábor Horváth

Abstract:

In comparison to the original SVM, which involves a quadratic programming task; LS–SVM simplifies the required computation, but unfortunately the sparseness of standard SVM is lost. Another problem is that LS-SVM is only optimal if the training samples are corrupted by Gaussian noise. In Least Squares SVM (LS–SVM), the nonlinear solution is obtained, by first mapping the input vector to a high dimensional kernel space in a nonlinear fashion, where the solution is calculated from a linear equation set. In this paper a geometric view of the kernel space is introduced, which enables us to develop a new formulation to achieve a sparse and robust estimate.

Keywords: Support Vector Machines, Least Squares SupportVector Machines, Regression, Sparse approximation.

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Authors: Barbara Covarrubias Venegas, Sabine Groblschegg, Bernhard Klaus, Julia Domnanovich

Abstract:

Research Objectives: The roles and activities of Human Resource Management (HRM) have changed a lot in the past years. Driven by a changing environment and therefore new business requirements, the scope of human resource (HR) activities has widened. The extent to which these activities should focus on strategic issues to support the long term success of a company has been discussed in science for many years. As many economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) experienced a phase of transition after the socialist era and are now recovering from the 2008 global crisis it is needed to examine the current state of HR positioning. Furthermore a trend in HR work developing from rather administrative units to being strategic partners of management can be noticed. This leads to the question of better understanding the underlying competencies which are necessary to support organisations. This topic was addressed by the international study “HR Competencies in international comparison”. The quantitative survey was conducted by the Institute for Human Resources & Organisation of FHWien University of Applied Science of WKW (A) in cooperation with partner universities in the countries Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. Methodology: Using the questionnaire developed by Dave Ulrich we tested whether the HR Competency model can be used for Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. After performing confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis for the whole data set containing all five countries we could clearly distinguish between four competencies. In a further step our analysis focused on median and average comparisons between the HR competency dimensions. Conclusion: Our literature review, in alignment with other studies, shows a relatively rapid pace of development of HR Roles and HR Competencies in BCSS in the past decades. Comparing data from BCSS and Austria we still can notice that regards strategic orientation there is a lack in BCSS countries, thus competencies are not as developed as in Austria. This leads us to the tentative conclusion that HR has undergone a rapid change but is still in a State of Transition from being a rather administrative unit to performing the role of a strategic partner.

Keywords: Comparative study, HR competencies, HRM, HR Roles.

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