Search results for: international organizations

Authors: Aisha Tarek Noour, Nick Hubbard

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Learner motivation is considered to be an important component for the Blended e-Learning (BL) Method. BL is an effective learning method in multiple domains, which opens several opportunities for its participants to engage in the learning environment. This research explores the learners’ perspective of BL according to the Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It identifies the opportunities and challenges for using the BL in Logistics Education (LE) in Egyptian Higher Education (HE). SDT is approached from different perspectives within the relationship between Intrinsic Motivation (IM), Extrinsic Motivation (EM) and Amotivation (AM). A self-administered face-to-face questionnaire was used to collect data from learners who were geographically widely spread around three colleges of International Transport and Logistics (CILTs) at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AAST&MT) in Egypt. Six hundred and sixteen undergraduates responded to a questionnaire survey. Respondents were drawn from three branches in Greater Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said. The data analysis used was SPSS 22 and AMOS 18.

Keywords: Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Amotivation, Blended e-Learning, Self Determination Theory.

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Authors: Seyed Azizollah Ghotb, Mohammad Chamani, Elmira Abdollahzadeh Esmaeili, Farhad Foroudi

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the objective of this study is to measure the levels of cellulas activity of ostrich GI microorganisms, and comparing it with the levels of cellulas activity of rumen-s microorganisms, and also to estimate the probability of increasing enzyme activity with injecting different dosages (30%, 50% and 70%) of pure anaerobic goat rumen fungi. The experiment was conducted in laboratory and under a complete anaerobic condition (in vitro condition). 40 ml of “CaldWell" medium and 1.4g wheat straw were placed in incubator for an hour. The cellulase activity of ostrich microorganisms was compared with other treatments, and then different dosages (30%, 50% and 70%) of pure anaerobic goat rumen fungi were injected to ostrich microorganism-s media. Due to the results, cattle and goat with 2.13 and 2.08 I.U (international units) respectively showed the highest activity and ostrich with 0.91 (I.U) had the lowest cellulose activity (p < 0.05). Injecting 30% and 50% of anaerobic fungi had no significant incensement in enzyme activity, but with injecting 70% of rumen fungi to ostrich microorganisms culture a significant increase was observed 1.48 I.U. (p < 0.05).

Keywords: Cellulase enzyme, Microorganisms, Ostrich, Ruminants

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Authors: Tang Mui Joo, Chan Eang Teng

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The use of social media has become more defined. It has been widely used for the purpose of business. More marketers are now using social media as tools to enhance their businesses. Whereas on the other hand, there are more and more people spending their time through mobile apps to be engaged in the social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and others. Social media has even become common in Public Relations (PR). It has become number one platform for creating and sharing content. In view to this, social media has changed the rules in PR where it brings new challenges and opportunities to the profession. Although corporate websites, chat-rooms, email customer response facilities and electronic news release distribution are now viewed as standard aspects of PR practice, many PR practitioners are still struggling with the impact of new media though the implementation of social media is potentially reducing the cost of communication. It is to the point that PR practitioners are not fully embracing new media, they are ill-equipped to do so and they have a fear of the technology. Somehow that social media has become a new style of communication that is characterized by conversation and community. It has become a platform that allows individuals to interact with one another and build relationship among each other. Therefore, in the use of business world, consumers are able to interact with those companies that have joined any social media. Based on their experiences with social networking site interactions, they are also exposed to personal interaction while communicating. This paper is to study the impact of social media to PR. This paper discovers the potential changes of PR practices in a developing country like Malaysia. Eventually the study reflects on how PR practitioners are actually using social media in the country. This paper is based on two theories in its development of this research foundation. Media Ecology Theory is to support the impact and changes to PR. Social Penetration Theory is to reflect on how the use of social media is among PRs. This research is using survey with PR practitioners in its data collection. The results have shown that PR professionals value social media more than they actually use it and the way of organizations communicate had been changed due to the transformation of social media.

Keywords: New media, social media, PR.

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Authors: Amira Abbes Kheriji, Faouzi Bouani, Mekki Ksouri, Mohamed Ben Ahmed

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Model Predictive Control (MPC) is increasingly being proposed for real time applications and embedded systems. However comparing to PID controller, the implementation of the MPC in miniaturized devices like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and microcontrollers has historically been very small scale due to its complexity in implementation and its computation time requirement. At the same time, such embedded technologies have become an enabler for future manufacturing enterprises as well as a transformer of organizations and markets. Recently, advances in microelectronics and software allow such technique to be implemented in embedded systems. In this work, we take advantage of these recent advances in this area in the deployment of one of the most studied and applied control technique in the industrial engineering. In fact in this paper, we propose an efficient framework for implementation of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) in the performed STM32 microcontroller. The STM32 keil starter kit based on a JTAG interface and the STM32 board was used to implement the proposed GPC firmware. Besides the GPC, the PID anti windup algorithm was also implemented using Keil development tools designed for ARM processor-based microcontroller devices and working with C/Cµ langage. A performances comparison study was done between both firmwares. This performances study show good execution speed and low computational burden. These results encourage to develop simple predictive algorithms to be programmed in industrial standard hardware. The main features of the proposed framework are illustrated through two examples and compared with the anti windup PID controller.

Keywords: Embedded systems, Model Predictive Control, microcontroller, Keil tool.

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Authors: Paula A. Cruise, Carvell McLeary

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Employee turnover leads to lowered productivity, decreased morale and work quality, and psychological effects associated with employee separation and replacement. Yet, it remains unknown why talented employees willingly withdraw from organizations. This uncertainty is worsened as studies; a) priorities organizational over individual predictors resulting in restriction in range in turnover measurement; b) focus on actual rather than intended turnover thereby limiting conceptual understanding of the turnover construct and its relationship with other variables and; c) produce inconsistent findings across cultures, contexts and industries despite a clear need for a unified perspective. The current study addressed these gaps by adopting the theory of planned behavior (TPB) framework to examine socio-cognitive factors in organizational trust and individual turnover intentions among bankers and energy employees in Jamaica. In a comparative study of n=369 [n_bank= 264; male=57 (22.73%); n_energy =105; male =45 (42.86)], it was hypothesized that organizational trust was a predictor of employee turnover intention, and the effect of individual, group, cognitive and socio-affective variables varied across industry. Findings from structural equation modelling confirmed the hypothesis, with a model of both cognitive and socio-affective variables being a better fit [CMIN (χ²) = 800.067, df = 364, p ≤ .000; CFI = 0.950; RMSEA = 0.057 with 90% C.I. (0.052 - 0.062); PCLOSE = 0.016; PNFI = 0.818 in predicting turnover intention. The findings are discussed in relation to socio-cognitive components of trust models and predicting negative employee behaviors across cultures and industries.

Keywords: Context-specific organizational trust, cross-cultural psychology, theory of planned behavior, employee turnover intention.

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Authors: Jerneja Žganec Gros, Aleš Mihelič, Nikola Pavešić, Mario Žganec, Stanislav Gruden

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The paper presents the design concept of a unitselection text-to-speech synthesis system for the Slovenian language. Due to its modular and upgradable architecture, the system can be used in a variety of speech user interface applications, ranging from server carrier-grade voice portal applications, desktop user interfaces to specialized embedded devices. Since memory and processing power requirements are important factors for a possible implementation in embedded devices, lexica and speech corpora need to be reduced. We describe a simple and efficient implementation of a greedy subset selection algorithm that extracts a compact subset of high coverage text sentences. The experiment on a reference text corpus showed that the subset selection algorithm produced a compact sentence subset with a small redundancy. The adequacy of the spoken output was evaluated by several subjective tests as they are recommended by the International Telecommunication Union ITU.

Keywords: text-to-speech synthesis, prosody modeling, speech user interface.

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Authors: Richa Grover, Rahul Grover, V. Balaji Rao, Kavish Kejriwal

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Selection of suppliers is a crucial problem in the supply chain management. On top of that, sustainable supplier selection is the biggest challenge for the organizations. Environment protection and social problems have been of concern to society in recent years, and the traditional supplier selection does not consider about this factor; therefore, this research work focuses on introducing sustainable criteria into the structure of supplier selection criteria. Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) is the management and administration of material, information, and money flows, as well as coordination among business along the supply chain. All three dimensions - economic, environmental, and social - of sustainable development needs to be taken care of. Purpose of this research is to maximize supply chain profitability, maximize social wellbeing of supply chain and minimize environmental impacts. Problem statement is selection of suppliers in a sustainable supply chain network by ranking the suppliers against sustainable criteria identified. The aim of this research is twofold: To find out what are the sustainable parameters that can be applied to the supply chain, and to determine how these parameters can effectively be used in supplier selection. Multicriteria decision making tools will be used to rank both criteria and suppliers. AHP Analysis will be used to find out ratings for the criteria identified. It is a technique used for efficient decision making. TOPSIS will be used to find out rating for suppliers and then ranking them. TOPSIS is a MCDM problem solving method which is based on the principle that the chosen option should have the maximum distance from the negative ideal solution (NIS) and the minimum distance from the ideal solution.

Keywords: Sustainable supply chain management, supplier selection, MCDM tools, AHP analysis, TOPSIS method.

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Authors: Dibya Jivan Pati, Kazuhisa Iki, Riken Homma

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Unlike other metro cities of India, Bhubaneswar–the capital city of Odisha, is expected to reach 1-million-mark population by now. The demands of dwelling unit requirement mostly among urban poor belonging to Economically Weaker section (EWS) and Low Income groups (LIG) is becoming a challenge due to high housing cost and rents. As a matter of fact, it’s also noted that, with increase in population, the solid waste generation also increases subsequently affecting the environment due to inefficiency in collection of waste by local government bodies. Methods of utilizing Solid Waste - especially in form of Plastic bottles, Glass bottles and Metal cans (PGM) are now widely used as an alternative material for construction of low-cost building by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in developing countries like India to help the urban poor afford a shelter. The application of disposed plastic bottle used in construction of single dwelling significantly reduces the overall cost of construction to as much as 14% compared to traditional construction material. Therefore, considering its cost-benefit result, it’s possible to provide housing to EWS and LIGs at an affordable price. In this paper, we estimated the quantity of plastic bottles generated in Bhubaneswar which further helped to estimate the possible number of single dwelling unit that can be constructed on yearly basis so as to refrain from further housing shortage. The estimation results will be practically used for planning and managing low-cost housing business by local government and NGOs.

Keywords: Construction, dwelling unit, plastic bottle, solid waste generation, groups.

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Authors: Chandan Deep Singh

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In present days, companies are facing the rapid competition in terms of customer requirements to be satisfied, new technologies to be integrated into future products, new safety regulations to be followed, new computer-based tools to be introduced into design activities that becomes more scientific. In today’s highly competitive market, survival focuses on various factors such as quality, innovation, adherence to standards, and rapid response as the basis for competitive advantage. For competitive advantage, companies have to produce various competencies: for improving the capability of suppliers and for strengthening the process of integrating technology. For more competitiveness, organizations should operate in a strategy driven way and have a strategic architecture for developing core competencies. Traditional ways to take such experience and develop competencies tend to take a lot of time and they are expensive. A new learning environment, which is built around a gaming engine, supports the development of competences in specific subject areas. Technology competencies have a significant role in firm innovation and competitiveness; they interact with the competitive environment. Technological competencies vary according to the type of competitive environment, thus enhancing firm innovativeness. Technological competency is gained through extensive experimentation and learning in its research, development and employment in manufacturing. This is a review paper based on competency and strategic success of automobile industry. The aim here is to study strategy formulation and competency tools in the industry. This work is a review of literature related to competency and strategy in automobile industry. This study involves review of 34 papers related to competency and strategy.

Keywords: Competency, competitiveness, manufacturing competency, strategic formulation.

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Authors: Chien-Hui Yang, Che-Yang Lin, Ya-Chen Hsu

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Gold passbook is an investing tool that is especially suitable for investors to do small investment in the solid gold. The gold passbook has the lower risk than other ways investing in gold, but its price is still affected by gold price. However, there are many factors can cause influences on gold price. Therefore, building a model to predict the price of gold passbook can both reduce the risk of investment and increase the benefits. This study investigates the important factors that influence the gold passbook price, and utilize the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) to build the predictive model. This method can not only obtain the significant variables but also perform well in prediction. Finally, the significant variables of gold passbook price, which can be predicted by GMDH, are US dollar exchange rate, international petroleum price, unemployment rate, whole sale price index, rediscount rate, foreign exchange reserves, misery index, prosperity coincident index and industrial index.

Keywords: Gold price, Gold passbook price, Group Method ofData Handling (GMDH), Regression.

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Authors: G. Erkomaishvili, M. Kobalava, T. Lazariashvili, M. Saghareishvili

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The article discusses the consumer market of agricultural products and agricultural policy in Georgia. It is noted that development of the strategic areas of the agricultural sector needs a special support. These strategic areas should create the country's major export potential. It is important to develop strategies to access to the international markets, form extensive marketing network etc., which will become the basis for the promotion and revenue growth of the country. The Georgian agricultural sector, with the right state policy and support, can achieve success and gain access to the world market with competitive agricultural products. The paper discusses the current condition of agriculture, export and import of agricultural products and agricultural policy in Georgia. The conducted research concludes the information that there is an increasing demand on the green goods in the world market. Natural and climatic conditions of Georgia give a serious possibility of implementing it. The research presents an agricultural development strategy in Georgia and the findings and based on them recommendations are proposed.

Keywords: Agriculture, agricultural cooperative society agricultural insurance, agricultural policy, export-import of agricultural products.

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Authors: Yuan-Yu Chiang, Yu-Han Tseng, Chin-Chen Wen

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In the last few decades, many southeast-Asia women migrate to Taiwan by marriage, and it usually takes several years for them to acquire Taiwanese citizenship. This study investigates the relationship between their citizenship acquisition and whether they develop Taiwanese identities, and how does it affect their ethnical identity towards their original ethnics. Furthermore, the present study also explores that whether citizenship acquisition help the immigrant women to explore the host society further and make commitment to it, or the identification towards mainstream Taiwanese society is only symbolic and superficial? One hundred and ninety-two immigrant women were measured using Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure-Revised and a global 10-point ethnic identity question. Correlation tests, t-test, and hierarchical regression were performed to answer the above questions. The results revealed that citizenship acquisition does help immigrant women to identify with Taiwanese society, but it does not affect how they identify with their own ethnics. Furthermore, the results also indicated that acquiring citizenship would not help these immigrant women become involved in deeper cultural exploration of Taiwan nor would it encourage them to make commitments to the host society.

Keywords: Immigrants, international marriage, ethnic identity, Taiwan.

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Authors: S. Di Benedetto, M. P. Di Donato, A. Rispoli, S. Cardone, J. Riehmer, J. Steelant, L. Vecchione

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Thanks to a coordinated funding by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission (EC) within the 7th framework program, the High-Speed Experimental Fly Vehicles – International (HEXAFLY-INT) project is aimed at the flight validation of hypersonics technologies enabling future trans-atmospheric flights. The project, which is currently involving partners from Europe, Russian Federation and Australia operating under ESA/ESTEC coordination, will achieve the goal of designing, manufacturing, assembling and flight testing an unpowered high speed vehicle in a glider configuration by 2018. The main technical challenges of the project are specifically related to the design of the vehicle gliding configuration and to the complexity of integrating breakthrough technologies with standard aeronautical technologies, e.g. high temperature protection system and airframe cold structures. Also, the sonic boom impact, which is one of the environmental challenges of the high speed flight, will be assessed. This paper provides a comprehensive and detailed update on all the current projects activities carried out to date on both the vehicle and mission design.

Keywords: Design, flight testing, hypersonics, integration.

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Authors: Emmanuel O.O. Ojakominor, Tian F. Lai

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A handful of propagation textbooks that discuss radio frequency (RF) propagation models merely list out the models and perhaps discuss them rather briefly; this may well be frustrating for the potential first time modeller who's got no idea on how these models could have been derived. This paper fundamentally provides an overture in modelling the radio channel. Explicitly, for the modelling practice discussed here, signal strength field measurements had to be conducted beforehand (this was done at 469 MHz); to be precise, this paper primarily concerns empirically/statistically modelling the radio channel, and thus provides results obtained from empirically modelling the environments in question. This paper, on the whole, proposes three propagation models, corresponding to three experimented environments. Perceptibly, the models have been derived by way of making the most use of statistical measures. Generally speaking, the first two models were derived via simple linear regression analysis, whereas the third have been originated using multiple regression analysis (with five various predictors). Additionally, as implied by the title of this paper, both indoor and outdoor environments have been experimented; however, (somewhat) two of the environments are neither entirely indoor nor entirely outdoor. The other environment, however, is completely indoor.

Keywords: RF propagation, radio channel modelling, statistical methods.

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Authors: Khaled Elbehiery, Hussam Elbehiery

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The success of education is dependent on evolution and adaptation, while the traditional system has worked before, one type of education evolved with the digital age is virtual education that has influenced efficiency in today’s learning environments. Virtual learning has indeed proved its efficiency to overcome the drawbacks of the physical environment such as time, facilities, location, etc., but despite what it had accomplished, the educational system over all is not adequate for being a productive system yet. Earning a degree is not anymore enough to obtain a career job; it is simply missing the skills and creativity. There are always two sides of a coin; a college degree or a specialized certificate, each has its own merits, but having both can put you on a successful IT career path. For many of job-seeking individuals across world to have a clear meaningful goal for work and education and positively contribute the community, a productive correlation and cooperation among employers, universities alongside with the individual technical skills is a must for generations to come. Fortunately, the proposed research “Entrepreneur Universal Education System” is an evolution to meet the needs of both employers and students, in addition to gaining vital and real-world experience in the chosen fields is easier than ever. The new vision is to empower the education to improve organizations’ needs which means improving the world as its primary goal, adopting universal skills of effective thinking, effective action, effective relationships, preparing the students through real-world accomplishment and encouraging them to better serve their organization and their communities faster and more efficiently.

Keywords: Virtual education, academic degree, certificates, internship, amazon web services, Microsoft Azure, Google cloud platform, hybrid models.

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Authors: Artur Krukowski, Emmanouela Vogiatzaki

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The article presents an ongoing work in research projects such as SCAN4RECO or ARCH, both funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020 program. The former one concerns multimodal and multispectral scanning of Cultural Heritage assets for their digitization and conservation via spatiotemporal reconstruction and 3D printing, while the latter one aims to better preserve areas of cultural heritage from hazards and risks. It co-creates tools that would help pilot cities to save cultural heritage from the effects of climate change. It develops a disaster risk management framework for assessing and improving the resilience of historic areas to climate change and natural hazards. Tools and methodologies are designed for local authorities and practitioners, urban population, as well as national and international expert communities, aiding authorities in knowledge-aware decision making. In this article we focus on 3D modelling of object geometry using primarily photogrammetric methods to achieve very high model accuracy using consumer types of devices, attractive both to professions and hobbyists alike.

Keywords: 3D modeling, UAS, cultural heritage, preservation.

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Authors: P. I. Adzongo, O. A. Aloga

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The purpose of the study was to examine lifelong education for teachers as a tool for achieving effective teaching and learning. Lifelong education enhances social inclusion, personal development, citizenship, employability, teaching and learning, community and the nation. It is imperative that the teacher needs to update his knowledge regularly to be able to perform optimally, since he has a major position in the inculcation of desirable elements in students, and the challenges of lifelong education were also discussed. Descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 80 teachers as sample from a population of 105 senior secondary school teachers in Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State. A 20-item self designed questionnaire subjected to expert validation and reliability was used to collect data. The reliability Alpha coefficient of 0.87 was established using Cronbach’s Alpha technique, mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the 2 research questions while chi-square was used to analyse data for the 2 null hypotheses, which states that lifelong education for teachers is not a significant tool for achieving effective teaching and lifelong education for teachers does not significantly impact on effective learning. The findings of the study revealed that, lifelong education for teachers can be used as a tool for achieving effective teaching and learning, and the study recommended among others that government, organizations and individuals should in collaboration put lifelong education programmes for teachers on the priority list. The paper concluded that the strategic position of lifelong education for teachers towards enhanced teaching, learning and the production of quality manpower in the society makes it imperative for all hands to be on “deck” to support the programme financially and otherwise.

Keywords: Lifelong Education, Tool, Effective Teaching and Learning.

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Authors: Cleopatra Gittens

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It has been recognized that some social security and national insurance systems in the Eastern Caribbean are experiencing ageing populations and economic and other crises that will present a financial challenge of being unable to pay pension benefits in fifteen to twenty years. This has implications for the fiscal and economic positions of the countries themselves. Hence, organizations would need to address the issue urgently. The study adds to the body of knowledge on social security systems and social security reforms in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It also makes recommendations for the types of reforms that social security systems in other SIDS can implement given their special circumstances. Secondary research is used to gather financial and other related information on three social security schemes in the Eastern Caribbean. Actuarial and financial reports and other documents of the social security systems are analysed to obtain financial and static data on each of the schemes. The findings show that the three schemes studied are experiencing steady increases in benefit expenditure versus contributions and increasing pensioner to insured ratios. The schemes will deplete their reserves between 2038 and 2050. Two of the schemes have increased their retirement age while the other has not embarked on any reforms. One scheme has made changes to its contribution percentages. Due to their small size, small populations and other unique circumstances, the social security schemes in the identified territories are not likely to be able to take advantage of all of the reform initiatives that the developed world embarked on when faced with similar problems. These schemes will need to make incremental changes that align with the timeframes recommended by the actuarial studies.

Keywords: Pension benefits, pension, Small Island Developing States, Social Security Reform.

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Authors: K. N. Penna, J. P. English

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The destruction of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters in 2020 has catalysed impetus within Australian society for a significant change in engagement with Indigenous Peoples, and the approach to Indigenous cultural heritage, both within the Pilbara region and more broadly across Australia. Culture-based and people-centred approaches are inherent to inclusive sustainable development and Free, Prior, Informed Consent, outcomes encouraged by international and local recommendations on the human rights and cultural heritage preservation of Indigenous peoples. In this paper, we present an interpretive model of an evolved process for mining project development, incorporating culture-based and people-centred approaches, based on the Theory U system change method. The evolved process advocates a change in organisational mindset and culture, and a comprehensive understanding of Indigenous Peoples’ culture and values, as the foundations for increasing their influence and achieving mutually beneficial developments.

Keywords: Indigenous Engagement, mining industry, culture-based approach, people-centred approach, Theory U.

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Authors: Sajjad A. Memon, Sadaf T. Qureshi, Naeem A. Laghari, Noor M. Khuhro

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The present study represents the occupational radiation doses received by selected workers of Nuclear Institute of Medicine and Radiotherapy (NIMRA) Jamshoro Pakistan and conducted to discuss about how we be careful and try to avoid make ourselves overconscious. Film badges with unique identification number were issued to radiation worker to detect occupational radiation doses. In this study, only 08 workers with high radiation doses were assessed amongst 35 radiation workers during the period of January 2012 to December 2012. The selected radiation workers’ occupational doses were according to designated work areas and in the range of 1.21 to 7.78 mSv (mili Sieveret) out of the annual dose limit of 20 mSv. By the comparison of different studies and earth’s HNBR (High Natural Background Radiation) locations’ doses, it is concluded that the worker’s high doses are of magnitude of HNBR Regions and were in the acceptable range of National and International regulatory bodies so we must not to show any type of overconsciousness but be careful in handling the radioactive sources.

Keywords: Natural background radiation, Occupational dose, Overconscious, Personal monitoring.

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Authors: Manoj Sarda, Abhishek Agarwal, Juhi Kaushik, Vatsal Sanjay, Arup Kumar Das

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Railways in India remain primary mode of transport having one of the largest networks in the world and catering to billions of transits yearly. Catastrophic economic damage and loss to life is encountered over the past few decades due to fire to locomotives. Study of fire dynamics and fire propagation plays an important role in evacuation planning and reducing losses. Simulation based study of propagation of fire and soot inside an air conditioned coach of Indian locomotive is done in this paper. Finite difference based solver, Fire Dynamic Simulator (FDS) version 6 has been used for analysis. A single air conditioned 3 tier coupe closed to ambient surroundings by glass windows having occupancy for 8 people is the basic unit of the domain. A system of three such coupes combined is taken to be fundamental unit for the entire study to resemble effect to an entire coach. Analysis of flame and soot contours and concentrations is done corresponding to variations in heat release rate per unit volume (HRRPUA) of fire source, variations in conditioned air velocity being circulated inside coupes by vents and an alternate fire initiation and propagation mechanism via ducts. Quantitative results of fractional area in top and front view of the three coupes under fire and smoke are obtained using MATLAB (IMT). Present simulations and its findings will be useful for organizations like Commission of Railway Safety and others in designing and implementing safety and evacuation measures.

Keywords: Air-conditioned coaches, fire propagation, flame contour, soot flow, train fire.

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Authors: Alicia Heraz, Claude Frasson

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This paper investigates how the use of machine learning techniques can significantly predict the three major dimensions of learner-s emotions (pleasure, arousal and dominance) from brainwaves. This study has adopted an experimentation in which participants were exposed to a set of pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) while their electrical brain activity was recorded with an electroencephalogram (EEG). The pictures were already rated in a previous study via the affective rating system Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) to assess the three dimensions of pleasure, arousal, and dominance. For each picture, we took the mean of these values for all subjects used in this previous study and associated them to the recorded brainwaves of the participants in our study. Correlation and regression analyses confirmed the hypothesis that brainwave measures could significantly predict emotional dimensions. This can be very useful in the case of impassive, taciturn or disabled learners. Standard classification techniques were used to assess the reliability of the automatic detection of learners- three major dimensions from the brainwaves. We discuss the results and the pertinence of such a method to assess learner-s emotions and integrate it into a brainwavesensing Intelligent Tutoring System.

Keywords: Algorithms, brainwaves, emotional dimensions, performance.

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Authors: Daniel Puciato, Piotr Oleśniewicz, Julita Markiewicz-Patkowska, Krzysztof Widawski, Michał Rozpara, Władysław Mynarski, Agnieszka Gawlik, Małgorzata Dębska, Soňa Jandová

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Physical activity as a part of people’s everyday life reduces the risk of many diseases, including those induced by lifestyle, e.g. obesity, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, coronary heart disease, degenerative arthritis, and certain types of cancer. That refers particularly to professionally active people, including the early senior group working on non-manual positions. The aim of the study is to evaluate the relationship between physical activity and the socio-economic status of non-manual workers from Wroclaw—one of the biggest cities in Poland, a model setting for such investigations in this part of Europe. The crucial problem in the research is to find out the percentage of respondents who meet the health-related recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning the volume, frequency, and intensity of physical activity, as well as to establish if the most important socio-economic factors, such as gender, age, education, marital status, per capita income, savings and debt, determine the compliance with the WHO physical activity recommendations. During the research, conducted in 2013, 1,170 people (611 women and 559 men) aged 21–60 years were examined. A diagnostic poll method was applied to collect the data. Physical activity was measured with the use of the short form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire with extended socio-demographic questions, i.e. concerning gender, age, education, marital status, income, savings or debts. To evaluate the relationship between physical activity and selected socio-economic factors, logistic regression was used (odds ratio statistics). Statistical inference was conducted on the adopted ex ante probability level of p<0.05. The majority of respondents met the volume of physical effort recommended for health benefits. It was particularly noticeable in the case of the examined men. The probability of compliance with the WHO physical activity recommendations was highest for workers aged 21–30 years with secondary or higher education who were single, received highest incomes and had savings. The results indicate the relations between physical activity and socio-economic status in the examined women and men. People with lower socio-economic status (e.g. manual workers) are physically active primarily at work, whereas those better educated and wealthier implement physical effort primarily in their leisure time. Among the investigated subjects, the youngest group of non-manual workers have the best chances to meet the WHO standards of physical activity. The study also confirms that secondary education has a positive effect on the public awareness on the role of physical activity in human life. In general, the analysis of the research indicates that there is a relationship between physical activity and some socio-economic factors of the respondents, such as gender, age, education, marital status, income per capita, and the possession of savings. Although the obtained results cannot be applied for the general population, they show some important trends that will be verified in subsequent studies conducted by the authors of the paper.

Keywords: International physical activity questionnaire, non-manual workers, physical activity, socio-economic factors, WHO.

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Authors: Buse A. Ataç, Doğan K. Cenan, Arda Çetinkaya, Naz D. Şahin, Köksal Sanlı, Zeynep Koç, Akın Kısa

Abstract:

With its spatial data reliability, interpretation and questioning capabilities, Geographical Information Systems make significant contributions to scientists, planners and practitioners. Geographic information systems have received great attention in today's digital world, growing rapidly, and increasing the efficiency of use. Access to and use of current and accurate geographical data, which are the most important components of the Geographical Information System, has become a necessity rather than a need for sustainable and economic development. This project aims to enable sharing of data collected by public institutions and organizations on a web-based platform. Within the scope of the project, INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) data specifications are considered as a road-map. In this context, Turkey's National Geographic Information System (TUCBS) Integration Project supports sharing spatial data within 61 pilot public institutions as complied with defined national standards. In this paper, which is prepared by the project team members in the TUCBS Integration Project, the technical process with a detailed methodology is explained. In this context, the main technical processes of the Project consist of Geographic Data Analysis, Geographic Data Harmonization (Standardization), Web Service Creation (WMS, WFS) and Metadata Creation-Publication. In this paper, the integration process carried out to provide the data produced by 61 institutions to be shared from the National Geographic Data Portal (GEOPORTAL), have been trying to be conveyed with a detailed methodology.

Keywords: Data specification, geoportal, GIS, INSPIRE, TUCBS, Turkey’s National Geographic Information System.

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Authors: Fatih Eren

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This research aims to find an answer to the question of which knowledge and skills do the Turkish urban planners need in their business practice. Understanding change in cities, making a prediction, making an urban decision and putting it into practice, working together with actors from different organizations from various academic disciplines, persuading people to accept something and developing good personal and professional relationships have become very complex and difficult in today’s world. The truth is that urban planners work in many institutions under various positions which are not similar to each other by field of activity and all planners are forced to develop some knowledge and skills for success in their business in Turkey. This study targets to explore what urban planners do in the global information age. The study is the product of a comprehensive nation-wide research. In-depth interviews were conducted with 174 experienced urban planners, who work in different public institutions and private companies under varied positions in the Turkish Planning System, to find out knowledge and skills needed by next-generation urban planners. The main characteristics of next-generation urban planners are defined; skills that planners needed today are explored in this paper. Findings show that the positivist (traditional) planning approach has given place to anti-positivist planning approaches in the Turkish Planning System so next-generation urban planners who seek success and want to carve out a niche for themselves in business life have to equip themselves with innovative skills. The result section also includes useful and instructive findings for planners about what is the meaning of being an urban planner and what is the ideal content and context of planning education at universities in the global age.

Keywords: The global information age, urban planners, innovative job skills, planning education.

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Authors: E. N. Hasanov, K. Y. Yusifova, M. A. Ali

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Rabies is a zoonotic disease that causes acute encephalitis in domestic and wild carnivores. The goal of this investigation was to analyze the data on oral vaccination of wild canids and stray dogs in Azerbaijan. Before the start of vaccination campaign conducted by the IDEA (International Dialogue for Environmental Action) Animal Care Center (IACC), all rabies cases in Azerbaijan for the period of 2017-2020 were analyzed. So, 30 regions for oral immunization with the Rabadrop vaccine were selected. In total, 95.9 thousand doses of baits were scattered in 30 regions, 970 (0.97%) remained intact. In addition, a campaign to sterilize and vaccinate stray dogs and cats undoubtedly had a positive impact on reducing the dynamics of rabies incidence. During the period 2017-2020, 2,339 dogs and 2,962 cats were sterilized and vaccinated under this program. It can be noted that the risk of rabies infection can be reduced through special preventive measures against disease reservoirs, which include oral immunization of wild and stray animals.

Keywords: Rabies, vaccination, oral immunization, wild canids, stray dogs, vaccine, disease reservoirs.

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Authors: Antoni Grau, Yolanda Bolea, Alberto Sanfeliu

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Embedding Sustainability in technological curricula has become a crucial factor for educating engineers with competences in sustainability. The Technical University of Catalonia UPC, in 2008, designed the Sustainable Technology Excellence Program STEP 2015 in order to assure a successful Sustainability Embedding. This Program takes advantage of the opportunity that the redesign of all Bachelor and Master Degrees in Spain by 2010 under the European Higher Education Area framework offered. The STEP program goals are: to design compulsory courses in each degree; to develop the conceptual base and identify reference models in sustainability for all specialties at UPC; to create an internal interdisciplinary network of faculty from all the schools; to initiate new transdisciplinary research activities in technology-sustainability-education; to spread the know/how attained; to achieve international scientific excellence in technology-sustainability-education and to graduate the first engineers/architects of the new EHEA bachelors with sustainability as a generic competence. Specifically, in this paper authors explain their experience in leading the STEP program, and two examples are presented: Industrial Robotics subject and the curriculum for the School of Architecture.

Keywords: Sustainability, curricula improvement, robotics.

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Authors: Sawcen Chebaane, Hakim Ben Othman

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This paper investigates the effect of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption on the frequency of earnings managements towards small positive profits. We focus on two emerging markets IFRS adopters: South Africa and Turkey. We tested our logistic regression using appropriate panelestimation techniques over a sample of 330 South African and 210 Turkish firm-year observations over the period 2002-2008. Our results document that mandatory adoption of IFRS is not associated with a reduction in earnings management towards small positive profits in emerging markets. These results contradict most of the previous findings of the studies conducted in developed countries. Based on the legal system factor, we compare the intensity of earnings management between a code law country (Turkey) and a common law country (South Africa) over the pre and post-adoption periods. Our findings show that the frequency of such earnings management practice increases significantly for the code law country.

Keywords: Civil law, common law, emerging markets, Mandatory IFRS adoption, small positive profits.

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Authors: L. Koštić, P. Karaman

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Society has a lot of diversities according to sex, age, religion, abilities or disabilities, education, etc. According to differences, everybody needs to be tolerated and equally included in society. In order to provide quality inclusion, society needs to tolerate differences. This study relates to the differences in disability. To examine tolerance towards disability and inclusion, this study was conducted with students attending regular elementary and high school. The main goal was to examine their attitudes towards their classmates and elderly people with disabilities. The study begins with the hypothesis that the environment has a highly developed tolerance towards people with disabilities, regardless of age. The sample was divided according to tasks and methodology analysis. Students attending regular elementary school were asked to make drawings of their classmates with disabilities. The drawings were analyzed using quantitative methodology according to the colors children used and the position of character on the paper. Students attending high school and members of general population were asked to complete a questionnaire designed for this study during a workshop held on the International Day for Tolerance. Responses were analyzed using qualitative methodology. The hypothesis was confirmed.

Keywords: Classmates, disability, students, tolerance.

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Authors: F. Rezaie Moghaddam, T. Rezaie Moghaddam, M. Pasbani Khiavi, M. Ali Ghorbani

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Identifying and classifying intersections according to severity is very important for implementation of safety related counter measures and effective models are needed to compare and assess the severity. Highway safety organizations have considered intersection safety among their priorities. In spite of significant advances in highways safety, the large numbers of crashes with high severities still occur in the highways. Investigation of influential factors on crashes enables engineers to carry out calculations in order to reduce crash severity. Previous studies lacked a model capable of simultaneous illustration of the influence of human factors, road, vehicle, weather conditions and traffic features including traffic volume and flow speed on the crash severity. Thus, this paper is aimed at developing the models to illustrate the simultaneous influence of these variables on the crash severity in urban highways. The models represented in this study have been developed using binary Logit Models. SPSS software has been used to calibrate the models. It must be mentioned that backward regression method in SPSS was used to identify the significant variables in the model. Consider to obtained results it can be concluded that the main factor in increasing of crash severity in urban highways are driver age, movement with reverse gear, technical defect of the vehicle, vehicle collision with motorcycle and bicycle, bridge, frontal impact collisions, frontal-lateral collisions and multi-vehicle crashes in urban highways which always increase the crash severity in urban highways.

Keywords: Backward regression, crash severity, speed, urbanhighways.

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