Search results for: discussions.

Authors: Okechukwu Odinaka Ajaegbu

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In the recent past, discussing about sex among children and youths was frowned at by traditional norms and as such sexual discussions and behavior were approached with great respect. Things are actually falling apart with the increasing number of young people that engage in premarital sex. Due to lack of experience and sex education, many young people are becoming increasingly exposed to the risk of HIV infection. In the light of the above, this study discussed premarital sex, HIV, and use of condom among youths in Nigeria. Data for this study came from 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and other secondary data. The survey revealed that only 18.5 percent of young women that had sex in the 12 months preceding the survey used condom. Out of 3306 never-married sexually active men and women, 1728 representing 52 percent live in urban areas and 43 percent of them did not use condom during sexual intercourse in the 12 months preceding the survey. This study concludes that for there to be reduction in prevalence of HIV/AIDS among Nigerian youths, there is need for concerted effort to be made towards educating youths on the expedient of the use of condom during sexual intercourse.

Keywords: Condom, HIV, Nigeria, Premarital sex, Youths.

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Authors: Sui Xin, Li Chunsheng, Tian Di

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Short message integrated distributed monitoring systems (SM-DMS) are growing rapidly in wireless communication applications in various areas, such as electromagnetic field (EMF) management, wastewater monitoring, and air pollution supervision, etc. However, delay in short messages often makes the data embedded in SM-DMS transmit unreliably. Moreover, there are few regulations dealing with this problem in SMS transmission protocols. In this study, based on the analysis of the command and data requirements in the SM-DMS, we developed a processing model for the control center to solve the delay problem in data transmission. Three components of the model: the data transmission protocol, the receiving buffer pool method, and the timer mechanism were described in detail. Discussions on adjusting the threshold parameter in the timer mechanism were presented for the adaptive performance during the runtime of the SM-DMS. This model optimized the data transmission reliability in SM-DMS, and provided a supplement to the data transmission reliability protocols at the application level.

Keywords: Delay, SMS, reliability, distributed monitoringsystem (DMS), wireless communication.

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Authors: Sandija Zeverte-Rivza, Irina Pilvere, Baiba Rivza

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The use of renewable energy sources incl. biogas has become topical in accordance with the increasing demand for energy, decrease of fossil energy resources and the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well as to increase energy independence from the territories where fossil energy resources are available.

As the technologies of biogas production from agricultural biomass develop, risk assessment and risk management become necessary for farms producing such a renewable energy. The need for risk assessments has become particularly topical when discussions on changing the biogas policy in the EU take place, which may influence the development of the sector in the future, as well as the operation of existing biogas facilities and their income level.

The current article describes results of the risk assessment for farms producing biomass from agriculture biomass in Latvia, the risk assessment system included 24 risks, that affect the whole biogas production process and the obtained results showed the high significance of political and production risks.

Keywords: Biogas production, risks, risk assessment.

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Authors: N. Mantalay, N. Chakpitak, W. Janchai, P. Sureepong

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Work stress causes the organizational work-life imbalance of employees. Because of this imbalance, workers perform with lower effort to finish assignments and thus an organization will experience reduced productivity. In order to investigate the problem of an organizational work-life imbalance, this qualitative case study focuses on an organizational work-life imbalance among Thai software developers in a German-owned company in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In terms of knowledge management, fishbone diagram is useful analysis tool to investigate the root causes of an organizational work-life imbalance systematically in focus-group discussions. Furthermore, fishbone diagram shows the relationship between causes and effects clearly. It was found that an organizational worklife imbalance among Thai software developers is influenced by management team, work environment, and information tools used in the company over time.

Keywords: knowledge management, knowledge worker, worklife imbalance, fishbone diagram

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Authors: Chartree Sithananun, Teekayu Limchamroon, Tanawat Limwathanagura, Thanyarat Singhanart

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The objective of this paper is to present the development of the frame of Chulalongkorn University team in TSAE Auto Challenge Student Formula and Student Formula SAE Competition of Japan. Chulalongkorn University's SAE team, has established since year 2003, joined many competitions since year 2006 and became the leading team in Thailand. Through these 5 years, space frame was the most selected and developed year by year through six frame designs. In this paper, the discussions on the conceptual design of these frames are introduced, focusing on the mass and torsional stiffness improvement. The torsional stiffness test was performed on the real used frames and the results are compared. It can be seen that the 2010-2011 frame is firstly designed based on the analysis and experiment that considered the required mass and torsional stiffness. From the torsional stiffness results, it can be concluded that the frames were developed including the decreasing of mass and the increasing torsional stiffness by applying many techniques.

Keywords: SAE Student Formula, Space Frame, Torsional Stiffness

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Authors: Sanjoy Mukherjee

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Discussions on concepts of Single Axis Tracker (SAT) are becoming more and more apt for developing countries like India not just as an advancement in racking technology but due to the utmost necessity of reaching at the lowest Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) targets. With this increasing competition and significant fall in feed-in tariffs of solar PV projects, developers are under constant pressure to secure investment for their projects and eventually earn profits from them. Moreover, being the second largest populated country, India suffers from scarcity of land because of higher average population density. So, to mitigate the risk of this dual edged sword with reducing trend of unit (kWh) cost at one side and utilization of land on the other, tracking evolved as the call of the hour. Therefore, the prime objectives of this paper are not only to showcase how STT proves to be an effective mechanism to get more gain in Global Incidence in collector plane (G_inc) with respect to traditional mounting systems but also to introduce Seasonally Tilted Tracker (STT) technology as a possible option for high latitude locations.

Keywords: Tracking system, grid-connected PV systems, cost reduction.

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Authors: Perminderjit Singh, Sukhvir Singh

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Total Quality Management (TQM) refers to management methods used to enhance quality and productivity in business organizations. Total Quality Management (TQM) has become a frequently used term in discussions concerning quality. Total Quality management has brought rise in demands on the organizations policy and the customers have gained more importance in the organizations focus. TQM is considered as an important management tool, which helps the organizations to satisfy their customers. In present research critical success factors includes management commitment, customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, work culture and environment, supplier quality management, training and development, employee satisfaction and product/process design are studied. A questionnaire is developed to implement these critical success factors in implementation of total quality management in Indian industry. Questionnaires filled by consulting different industrial organizations. Data collected from questionnaires is analyzed by descriptive and importance indexes. 

Keywords: Total quality management, critical success factor, employee satisfaction.

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Authors: Malik Ghulam Behlol, Alison Fox, Faiza Masood, Sabiha Arshad

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This paper explores the barriers to the application of learning-supportive assessment at teaching practicum while investigating the role of university teachers (UT), cooperative teachers (CT), prospective teachers (PT) and heads of the practicum schools (HPS) in the selected universities of Pakistan and the UK. It is a qualitative case study and data were collected through the lesson observation of UT in the pre-service teacher education setting and PT in practicum schools. Interviews with UT, HPS, and Focus Group Discussions with PT were conducted too. The study has concluded that as compared to the UK counterpart, PTs in Pakistan face significant barriers in applying learning-supportive assessment in the school practicum settings because of large class sizes, lack of institutionalised collaboration between universities and schools, poor modelling of the lesson, ineffective feedback practices, lower order thinking assignments, and limited opportunities to use technology in school settings.

Keywords: Learning supportive assessment, pre-service teacher education, theory-practice gap, teacher education.

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Authors: Chin-Pin Chen, David W.S. Tai, Wen-Jong Chen, Hui-Min Lai

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This study aims to analyze the effect of e-learning on photonics technology and daily livings among college students. The course contents of photonics technology and daily livings are first drafted based on research discussions and expert interviews. Having expert questionnaires with Delphi Technique for three times, the knowledge units and items for the course of photonics technology and daily livings are established. The e-learning materials and the drafts of instructional strategies, academic achievement, and learning attitude scales are then developed. With expert inspection, reliability and validity test, and experimental instructions, the scales and the material are further revised. Finally, the formal instructions are implemented to test the effect of different instructional methods on the academic achievement of photonics technology and daily livings among students in universities of technology. The research results show that e-learning could effectively promote academic achievement and learning attitude, and the students with e-learning obviously outperform the ones with trandition instructions.

Keywords: E-learning, Photonics Technology and Daily Livings, Academic Achievement

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Authors: C. Treerattanaphan, P. Boonpramuk, P. Singla

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Frequent, continuous speech training has proven to be a necessary part of a successful speech therapy process, but constraints of traveling time and employment dispensation become key obstacles especially for individuals living in remote areas or for dependent children who have working parents. In order to ameliorate speech difficulties with ample guidance from speech therapists, a website has been developed that supports speech therapy and training for people with articulation disorders in the standard Thai language. This web-based program has the ability to record speech training exercises for each speech trainee. The records will be stored in a database for the speech therapist to investigate, evaluate, compare and keep track of all trainees’ progress in detail. Speech trainees can request live discussions via video conference call when needed. Communication through this web-based program facilitates and reduces training time in comparison to walk-in training or appointments. This type of training also allows people with articulation disorders to practice speech lessons whenever or wherever is convenient for them, which can lead to a more regular training processes.

Keywords: Web-Based Remote Training Program, Thai Speech Therapy, Articulation Disorders.

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Authors: Y.C. Liu, S.J. Lu, Y.C. Weng, H. Su

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The objective of this paper is to investigate a new approach based on the idea of pictograms for food portion size. This approach adopts the model of the United States Pharmacopeia- Drug Information (USP-DI). The representation of each food portion size composed of three parts: frame, the connotation of dietary portion sizes and layout. To investigate users- comprehension based on this approach, two experiments were conducted, included 122 Taiwanese people, 60 male and 62 female with ages between 16 and 64 (divided into age groups of 16-30, 31-45 and 46-64). In Experiment 1, the mean correcting rate of the understanding level of food items is 48.54% (S.D.= 95.08) and the mean response time 2.89sec (S.D.=2.14). The difference on the correct rates for different age groups is significant (P*=0.00<0.05). In Experiment 2, the correcting rate of selecting the right life-size measurement aid is 65.02% (S.D.=21.31). The result showed the potential of the approach for certain food potion sizes. Issues raised for discussions including comprehension on numerous food varieties in an open environment, selection of photograph or drawing, reasons of different correcting rates for the measurement aid. This research also could be used for those interested in systematic and pictorial representation of dietary portion size information.

Keywords: Comprehension, Food Portion Size, Model of DietaryInformation, Pictogram Design, USP-DI.

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Authors: A. Bahar Ganiyeva, M. Sabuhi Tanriverdiyev

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The article analyzes state support and policy mechanisms aimed at driving tourism as one of the vibrant and rapidly developing economies. State programs and long-range strategic roadmaps and previous programs execution, results and their impact on the particular countries economy have been raised during the research. This theme provides a useful framework for discussions with a wider range of stakeholders as the implications arising are of importance both for academics and practitioners engaged in hospitality and tourism development and research. The impact that tourism has on sustainable regional development in emerging markets is highly substantial. For Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, and Russia, with their rich natural resources and cultural heritage, tourism can be an important basis for economic expansion, and a way to form an acceptable image of the countries as safe, open, hospitable, and complex.

Keywords: Sustainable tourism, hospitality, destination, strategic roadmap, tourism, economy, growth, state support, mechanism, policy formation, state program.

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Authors: Ihuarulam Ambrose Ikenna

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In the past few decades, the field of chemistry education has grown tremendously and researches indicated that after traditional chemistry instruction students often lacked deep conceptual understanding and failed to integrate their ideas into coherent conceptual framework. For several concepts in chemistry, students at all levels have demonstrated difficulty in changing their initial perceptions. Their perceptions are most often wrong and don't agree with correct scientific concepts. This study explored the effectiveness of intervention discussion sections for a college general chemistry course designed to apply research on students preconceptions, knowledge integration and student explanation. Three interventions discussions lasting three hours on bond energy and spontaneity were done tested and intervention (treatment) students’ performances were compared with that of control group which did not use the experimental pedagogy. Results indicated that this instruction which was capable of identifying students' misconceptions, initial conceptions and integrating those ideas into class discussion led to enhanced conceptual understanding and better achievement for the experimental group.

Keywords: Intervention Discussion Learning Model, Learning, Remedying, Students’ misconceptions.

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Authors: Chin Chin Wong, Chor Min Tan, Pang Leang Hiew

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Business scenario is an important technique that may be used at various stages of the enterprise architecture to derive its characteristics based on the high-level requirements of the business. In terms of wireless deployments, they are used to help identify and understand business needs involving wireless services, and thereby to derive the business requirements that the architecture development has to address by taking into account of various wireless challenges. This study assesses the deployment of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) solutions for several business scenarios in Asia Pacific region. This paper focuses on the overview of the business and technology environments, whereby examples of existing (or suggested) wireless solutions (to be) adopted in Asia Pacific region will be discussed. Interactions of several players, enabling technologies, and key processes in the wireless environments are studied. The analysis and discussions associated to this study are divided into two divisions: healthcare and education, where the merits of wireless solutions in improving living quality are highlighted.

Keywords: Broadband Wireless Access, business scenarios, network deployment, Wireless Local Area Network.

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Authors: Kamalendu Pal

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This paper describes the main features of a knowledge-based system evaluation method. System evaluation is placed in the context of a hybrid legal decision-support system, Advisory Support for Home Settlement in Divorce (ASHSD). Legal knowledge for ASHSD is represented in two forms, as rules and previously decided cases. Besides distinguishing the two different forms of knowledge representation, the paper outlines the actual use of these forms in a computational framework that is designed to generate a plausible solution for a given case, by using rule-based reasoning (RBR) and case-based reasoning (CBR) in an integrated environment. The nature of suitability assessment of a solution has been considered as a multiple criteria decision-making process in ASHAD evaluation. The evaluation was performed by a combination of discussions and questionnaires with different user groups. The answers to questionnaires used in this evaluations method have been measured as a fuzzy linguistic term. The finding suggests that fuzzy linguistic evaluation is practical and meaningful in knowledge-based system development purpose. 

Keywords: Case-based reasoning, decision-support system, fuzzy linguistic term, rule-based reasoning, system evaluation.

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Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Mary L. G. S. Senna

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The principle of sustainability has been studied by different sciences with the purpose of formulating clear and concrete models. Much has been discussed about sustainability, and several points of view have been used to try to explain it; environmental science emerges from various environmental discourses that are willing to establish a new concept for understanding this complexity. This way, we focus on the activity of ecotourism as a way to integrate sustainable practices proposed by environmental science, and thus, make it possible to create a new perspective for eco-tourists and the managers of tourist destinations towards nature. The aim of this study was to suggest a direction for environmental awareness, based on environmental science, to change the eco-tourist's view of nature in ecotourism tours. The methodology used was based on a case study concerning the Jalapão State Park - JSP, located in the State of Tocantins, Northern Brazil. The study was based on discussions, theoretical studies, bibliographical research and on-site research. We have identified that to incite the tourists’ awareness, they need to visit nature to understand the environmental problems and promote actions for its preservation. We highlight in this study actions to drive their human perception through environmental science, so that the ecotourism itinerary tours to the JSP, promote a balance between the natural environment and the tourist, making them, in this way, environmental tourists.

Keywords: Science, environmental, ecotourism, Jalapão.

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Authors: Michelle Zeyuan Ma, Hermann Heilmeier

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Recently, meat production ecosystem impacts initiated many hot discussions and researchers, and it is a difficult implementation to reduce such impacts due to the demand of meat products. It calls for better management and control of ecosystem impacts from every aspects of meat production. This article analyzes the ecosystem impacts of meat production based on meat products life cycle. The analysis shows that considerable ecosystem impacts are caused by different meat production steps: initial establishment phase, animal raising, slaughterhouse processing, meat consumption, and wastes management. Based on this analysis, the impacts are summarized as: leading factor for biodiversity loss; water waste, land use waste and land degradation; greenhouse gases emissions; pollution to air, water, and soil; related major diseases. The article also provides a discussion on a solution-sustainable food system, which could help in reducing ecosystem impacts. The analysis method is based on the life cycle level, it provides a concept of the whole meat industry ecosystem impacts, and the analysis result could be useful to manage or control meat production ecosystem impacts from investor, producer and consumer sides.

Keywords: Eutrophication, life cycle based analysis, sustainable food, waste management.

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Authors: Yi Yu, Vu Xuan Nguyen, Gaoxi Xiao

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Opinion formation in complex social networks may exhibit complex system dynamics even when based on some simplest system evolution models. An interesting and important issue is the effects of the initial state on the final steady-state opinion distribution. By carrying out extensive simulations and providing necessary discussions, we show that, while different initial opinion distributions certainly make differences to opinion evolution in social systems without noises, in systems with noises, given enough time, different initial states basically do not contribute to making any significant differences in the final steady state. Instead, it is the basal distribution of the preferred opinions that contributes to deciding the final state of the systems. We briefly explain the reasons leading to the observed conclusions. Such an observation contradicts with a long-term belief on the roles of system initial state in opinion formation, demonstrating the dominating role that opinion mutation can play in opinion formation given enough time. The observation may help to better understand certain observations of opinion evolution dynamics in real-life social networks.

Keywords: Opinion formation, Deffuant model, opinion mutation, consensus making.

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Authors: Anita Kéri

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Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in teaching methodologies and practices. Gamification is fast becoming a key instrument in the education of new generations and besides other methods, serious games have become the center of attention. Ready-built serious games are available for most higher education institutions to buy and implement. However, monetary restraints and the unalterable nature of the games might deter most higher education institutions from the application of these serious games. Therefore, there is a continuously growing need for a customizable serious game that has been developed based on a concrete need analysis and experts’ opinion. There has been little evidence so far of serious games that have been created based on relevant and current need analysis from higher education institution teachers, professional practitioners and students themselves. Therefore, the aim of this current paper is to analyze the needs of higher education institution educators with special emphasis on their needs, the applicability of serious games in their classrooms, and exploring options for the development of a customizable serious game framework. The paper undertakes to analyze workshop discussions on implementing serious games in education and propose a customizable serious game framework applicable in the education of the new generation. Research results show that the most important feature of a serious game is its customizability. The fact that practitioners are able to manage different scenarios and upload their own content to a game seems to be a key to the increasingly widespread application of serious games in the classroom.

Keywords: Education, gamification, game-based learning, serious games.

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Authors: Chak Kwong Lau

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Many buildings in Hong Kong are graced with enchanting works of Chinese calligraphy. An excellent example is Tao Fong Shan Christian Center founded by a Norwegian missionary, Karl Ludvig Reichelt (1877-1952) in 1930. Adorned with many inspiring works of Chinese calligraphy, the center functions as a place for the study of Christianity where people of different religions can meet to have religious discussions and intellectual exchanges. This paper examines the pivotal role played by Chinese calligraphy in creating a significant context for the center to fulfill her visions and missions. The methodology of this research involves stylistic and textual analyses of works of calligraphy, in particular through an examination and interpretation of their extended meanings in terms of architectural symbology and social and cultural contexts. Findings showed that Chinese calligraphy was effectively used as a powerful vehicle for a purposeful development of contextual Christian spirituality in Hong Kong.

Keywords: Chinese calligraphy, Hong Kong architecture, Hong Kong calligraphy, Johannes Prip-Møller, Karl Ludvig Reichelt, Norwegian missionary, Tao Fong Shan Christian Center, traditional Chinese architecture, contextual Christian spirituality, Chinese arts and culture.

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Authors: Ahmed T. Alahmar

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There is an increasing trend toward student-centred interactive e-learning methods and students’ feedback is a valuable tool for improving learning methods. The aim of this study was to explore the attitude of second year pharmacy students at the University of Babylon, Iraq, towards lectures, exams and e-learning. Materials and methods: Ninety pharmacy students were surveyed by paper questionnaire about their preference for lecture format, use of e-files, theoretical lectures versus practical experiments, lecture and lab time. Students were also asked about their predilection for Moodle-based online exams, different types of exam questions, exam time and other extra academic activities. Results: Students prefer to read lectures on paper (73.3%), use of PowerPoint file (76.7%), short lectures of less than 10 pages (94.5%), practical experiments (66.7%), lectures and lab time of less than two hours (89.9% and 96.6 respectively) and intra-lecture discussions (68.9%). Students also like to have paper-based exam (73.3%), short essay (40%) or MCQ (34.4%) questions and also prefer to do extra activities like reports (22.2%), seminars (18.6%) and posters (10.8%). Conclusion: Second year pharmacy students have different attitudes toward traditional and electronic leaning and assessment methods. Using multimedia, e-learning and Moodle are increasingly preferred methods among some students.

Keywords: Pharmacy, students, lecture, exam, e-learning, Moodle.

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Authors: S. Assi, M. Haffar

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Teaching statistics is a critical and challenging issue especially to students from multidisciplinary and diverse postgraduate backgrounds. Postgraduate research students require statistics not only for the design of experiments; but also for data analysis. Students often perceive statistics as a complex and technical subject; thus, they leave data analysis to the last moment. The lecture needs to be simple and inclusive at the same time to make it comprehendible and address the learning needs of each student. Therefore, the aim of this work was to design a simple and comprehendible statistics lecture to postgraduate research students regarding ‘Research plan, design and data collection’. The lecture adopted the constructive alignment learning theory which facilitated the learning environments for the students. The learning environment utilized a student-centered approach and used interactive learning environment with in-class discussion, handouts and electronic voting system handsets. For evaluation of the lecture, formative assessment was made with in-class discussions and poll questions which were introduced during and after the lecture. The whole approach showed to be effective in creating a learning environment to the students who were able to apply the concepts addressed to their individual research projects.

Keywords: Teaching, statistics, lecture, multidisciplinary, postgraduate, learning theory, learning environment, student-centered approach, data analysis.

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Authors: Wang Liguang, Zhang Xueqing

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The build-operate-transfer (BOT) project delivery system has provided effective routes to mobilize private sector funds, innovative technologies, management skills and operational efficiencies for public infrastructure development and have been widely used in China during the last 20 years. Many BOT projects in China will be smoothly transferred to the government soon and the transfer stage, which is considered as the last stage, must be studied carefully and handled well to achieve the overall success of BOT projects. There will be many issues faced by both the public sector and private sector in the transfer stage of BOT projects, including project post-assessment, technology and documents transfer, personal training and staff transition, etc. and sometimes additional legislation is needed for future operation and management of facilities. However, most previous studies focused on the bidding, financing, and building and operation stages instead of transfer stage. This research identifies nine key issues in the transfer stage of BOT projects through a comprehensive study on three cases in China, and the expert interview and expert discussion meetings are held to validate the key issues and give detail analysis. A proposed framework of transfer management is prepared based on the experiences derived and lessons drawn from the case studies and expert interview and discussions, which is expected to improve the transfer management of BOT projects in practice.

Keywords: BOT project, key issues, transfer management transfer stage.

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Authors: Mihai Liviu Despa

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The paper tackles the topic of determining the cost of innovation in software development projects. Innovation can be achieved either in a planned or unplanned manner. The paper approaches the scenarios were innovation is planned for. As a starting point an innovative software development project is analyzed. The project is depicted step by step as it was implemented, from inception to delivery. Costs that are proprietary to innovation in software development are isolated based on the author’s personal experience in managing the above mentioned project. Innovation costs components identified by the author are then validated using open discussions with software development professionals and projects managers on LinkedIn groups. In order to receive relevant feedback only groups that focus on software development and innovation management are targeted. Additional innovation cost components suggested by software development professionals and projects managers are also considered. Based on the identified cost components an indicator is built. The indicator is meant to formalize the process of determining the cost of innovation in a software development project. The indicator aggregates all the innovation cost components that are identified in the research process. The process of calculating each cost component is also described. Conclusions are formulated and new related research topics are submitted for debate.

Keywords: Innovation cost, IT project management, software development.

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Authors: William Xiu Shun Wong, Myungsu Lim, Yoonjin Hyun, Chen Liu, Seongi Choi, Dasom Kim, Kee-Young Kwahk, Namgyu Kim

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Recently, many users have begun to frequently share their opinions on diverse issues using various social media. Therefore, numerous governments have attempted to establish or improve national policies according to the public opinions captured from various social media. In this paper, we indicate several limitations of the traditional approaches to analyze public opinion on science and technology and provide an alternative methodology to overcome these limitations. First, we distinguish between the science and technology analysis phase and the social issue analysis phase to reflect the fact that public opinion can be formed only when a certain science and technology is applied to a specific social issue. Next, we successively apply a start list and a stop list to acquire clarified and interesting results. Finally, to identify the most appropriate documents that fit with a given subject, we develop a new logical filter concept that consists of not only mere keywords but also a logical relationship among the keywords. This study then analyzes the possibilities for the practical use of the proposed methodology thorough its application to discover core issues and public opinions from 1,700,886 documents comprising SNS, blogs, news, and discussions.

Keywords: Big data, social network analysis, text mining, topic modeling.

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Authors: Malin Isaksson

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Teaching French as a foreign language usually implies teaching French literature, especially in higher education. Training university students in literary reading in a foreign language requires addressing several aspects at the same time: the (foreign) language, the poetic language, the aesthetic aspects of the studied works, and various interpretations of them. A pilot study sought to test a teaching model that would support students in learning to perform competent readings and short analyses of French literary works, in a rather independent manner. This shared practice paper describes the use of a flipped classroom method in two French literature courses, a campus course and an online course, and suggests that the teaching model may provide efficient tools for teaching literary reading and analysis in a foreign language. The teaching model builds on a high level of student activity and focuses on attentive reading, meta-perspectives such as theoretical concepts, individual analyses by students where said concepts are applied, and group discussions of the studied texts and of possible interpretations.

Keywords: Shared practice, flipped classroom, literature in foreign language studies, teaching literature analysis.

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Authors: Jude A. Mbanasor, Chigozirim N. Onwusiribe

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The enigma climate change is no longer an illusion but a reality. In the recent years, the Nigeria climate has changed and the changes are shown by the changing patterns of rainfall, the sunshine, increasing level carbon and nitrous emission as well as deforestation. This study analyzed the behavioural response of bee keepers to variations in the climate and the adaptation techniques developed in response to the climate variation. Beekeeping is a viable economic activity for the alleviation of poverty as the products include honey, wax, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, venom, queens, bees and their larvae and are all marketable. The study adopted the multistage sampling technique to select 120 beekeepers from the five states of Southeast Nigeria. Well-structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were adopted to collect the required data. Statistical tools like the Principal component analysis, data envelopment models, graphs, and charts were used for the data analysis. Changing patterns of rainfall and sunshine with the increasing rate of deforestation had a negative effect on the habitat of the bees. The bee keepers have adopted the Kenya Top bar and Langstroth hives and they establish the bee hives on fallow farmland close to the cultivated communal farms with more flowering crops.

Keywords: Climate, smart, smallholder, farmer, socioeconomic, response.

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Authors: Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino, Veruska C. Dutra, Carlos H. C. Tolentino

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The quality of life index, despite elucidating many discussions, the conceptual subjectivity of the term does not show precision, and consequently, many researchers seek to develop methods aiming to measure this concept, bringing it to a more concrete approach. In this study, the quality of life index method was used to analyze the population of Mateiros, Tocantins, Brazil for quality of life. After data collection, it was compared the quality of life index between the population and the group of beneficiaries of the Brazilian government assistance program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Some of the people interviewed receive financial aid from the federal government program Bolsa Família (22%). Comparisons were made among the final score of the quality of life index of the Mateiros population and the following factors: Gender, age, education, those working or not with tourism and those who receive or do not receive the Bolsa Família. It was observed that only the factor, Bolsa Família (p-score 0.0138), shows an association with quality of life improvement, noticing that those who have financial aid had a higher quality of life improvement than the rest of the population. It was concluded that, government assistance has shown a decisive element on the enhancement of Mateiros population quality of life, indicating that similar actions should be maintained.

Keywords: Quality of life index, government aid to families, sustainable tourism, Bolsa Familia.

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Authors: Francis Z. Naab, Abraham M. Nunbogu, Romanus D. Dinye, Alfred Dongzagla

Abstract:

The study assesses the effectiveness of the Bui Dam resettlement scheme in the Tain and the Bole districts in Ghana. The study adopted a mixed approach in its data collection and analyses. Of the eight communities affected by Bui hydropower project, and thus require resettlement, four were purposively selected for primary data collection. Primary data was gathered through questionnaire administration to 157 heads of resettled households, focus group discussions with men and women and in-depth interviews with key informants. The findings indicated that the affected people had been sufficiently contacted at all levels of their resettlement. In particular, the Ghana Dams Dialogue, which served as a liaison entity between the government and the resettlement communities came up for praise for its usefulness. Many tangible policies were put in place to address the socio-cultural differences of traditional authorities. The Bui Dam Authority also rigorously followed national and international laws and protocols in the design and implementation of the resettlement scheme.  In assessing the effectiveness of the resettlement scheme, it was clear that there had been a great appreciation of the compensation regarding infrastructural development, but much more would have to be done to satisfy livelihood empowerment requirements. It was recommended that candid efforts be made to restore the lost identities of the communities resettled, and more dialogue is encouraged among communities living together.

Keywords: Resettlement, livelihood, hydro-power project, Bui Dam, Ghana.

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Authors: K. Durairaj, I. N. Umar

Abstract:

Lately, asynchronous discussion forum is integrated in higher educational institutions as it may increase learning process, learners’ understanding, achievement and knowledge construction. The asynchronous discussion forum is used to complement the traditional, face-to-face learning session in hybrid learning courses. However, studies have proven that students’ engagement in online forums is still unconvincing. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the motivating factors and obstacles that affect the learners’ engagement in asynchronous discussion forum. This study is carried out in one of the public higher educational institutions in Malaysia with 18 postgraduate students as samples. The authors have developed a 40-items questionnaire based on literature review. The results indicate several factors that have encouraged or limited students’ engagement in asynchronous discussion forum: (a) the practices or behaviors of peers, or instructors, (b) the needs for the discussions, (c) the learners’ personalities, (d) constraints in continuing the discussion forum, (e) lack of ideas, (f) the level of thoughts, (g) the level of knowledge construction, (h) technical problems, (i) time constraints and (j) misunderstanding. This study suggests some recommendations to increase the students’ engagement in online forums. Finally, based upon the findings, some implications are proposed for further research.

Keywords: Asynchronous Discussion Forum, Engagement, Factors, Motivating, Limiting.

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