Search results for: Establishment of technical/ vocational/ health care centre

Authors: B. Parchem, M. Watanabe, D. Modrakovic, L. Mathew, A. Franklin, M. Cao, R. E. Broudy

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Objective: Executive functioning (EF) deficits underlie several mental health diagnoses including ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Community mental health clinics face extensive waitlists for services with many referrals involving EF deficits. A pilot trial of a four-week group therapy was developed using key components from Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and mindfulness with an aim to improve EF skills and offer low-fee services. Method: Eight adults (M = 34.5) waiting for services at a community clinic were enrolled in a four-week group therapy at an in-house training clinic for doctoral trainees. Baseline EF, pre-/post-intervention ADHD and distress symptoms, group satisfaction, and curriculum helpfulness were assessed. Results: Downward trends in ADHD and distress symptoms pre/post-intervention were not significant. Favorable responses on group satisfaction and helpfulness suggest clinical utility. Conclusion: Preliminary pilot data from a brief group therapy to improve EF may be an efficacious, acceptable, and feasible intervention for adults waiting for services at community mental health and training clinics where there are high demands and limits to services and staffs.

Keywords: Executive functioning, cognitive-behavioral therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfulness, adult group therapy.

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Authors: D. Danesh, M. J. Ryan, A. Abbasi

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Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is an essential component of an organisation’s strategic procedures, which requires attention of several factors to envisage a range of long-term outcomes to support strategic project portfolio decisions. To evaluate overall efficiency at the portfolio level, it is essential to identify the functionality of specific projects as well as to aggregate those findings in a mathematically meaningful manner that indicates the strategic significance of the associated projects at a number of levels of abstraction. PPM success is directly associated with the quality of decisions made and poor judgment increases portfolio costs. Hence, various Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques have been designed and employed to support the decision-making functions. This paper reviews possible options to enhance the decision-making outcomes in organisational portfolio management processes using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) both from academic and practical perspectives and will examine the usability, certainty and quality of the technique. The results of the study will also provide insight into the technical risk associated with current decision-making model to underpin initiative tracking and strategic portfolio management.

Keywords: Analytic hierarchy process, decision support systems, multi-criteria decision-making, project portfolio management.

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Authors: Tamara Anderson, Neela Badrie

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Consumers are demanding novel beverages that are healthier, convenient and have appealing consumer acceptance. The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of adding grape polyphenols and the influence of presenting health claims on the sensory acceptability of wines. Fresh red sorrel calyces were fermented into wines. The total soluble solids of the pectinase-treated sorrel puree were from 4°Brix to 23.8°Brix. Polyphenol in the form of grape pomace extract was added to sorrel wines (w/v) in specified levels to give 0. 25. 50 and 75 ppm. A focus group comprising of 12 panelists was use to select the level of polyphenol to be added to sorrel wines for sensory preference The sensory attributed of the wines which were evaluated were colour, clarity, aroma, flavor, mouth-feel, sweetness, astringency and overall preference. The sorrel wine which was most preferred from focus group evaluation was presented for hedonic rating. In the first stage of hedonic testing, the sorrel wine was served chilled at 7°C for 24 h prior to sensory evaluation. Each panelist was provided with a questionnaire and was asked to rate the wines on colour, aroma, flavor, mouth-feel, sweetness, astringency and overall acceptability using a 9-point hedonic scale. In the second stage of hedonic testing, the panelist were instructed to read a health abstract on the health benefits of polyphenolic compounds and again to rate sorrel wine with added 25 ppm polyphenol. Paired t-test was used for the analysis of the influence of presenting health information on polyphenols on hedonic scoring of sorrel wines. Focus groups found that the addition of polyphenol addition had no significant effect on sensory color and aroma but affected clarity and flavor. A 25 ppm wine was liked moderately in overall acceptability. The presentation of information on the health benefit of polyphenols in sorrel wines to panelists had no significant influence on the sensory acceptance of wine. More than half of panelists would drink this wine now and then. This wine had color L 19.86±0.68, chroma 2.10±0.12, hue° 16.90 ±3.10 and alcohol content of 13.0%. The sorrel wine was liked moderately in overall acceptability with the added polyphenols.

Keywords: Sorrel wines, Roselle Hibiscus sabdariffa L, novel wine, polyphenols, health benefits, physicochemical properties.

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Authors: B.-Y.-S. Lau, Y.-C.-T. Jonathan, M.-S. Alias

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Heritage trees are natural large, individual trees with exceptionally value due to association with age or event or distinguished people. In Malaysia, there is an abundance of tropical heritage trees throughout the country. It is essential to set up a repository of heritage trees to prevent valuable trees from being cut down. In this cross domain study, a web-based online expert system namely the Heritage Tree Expert Assessment and Classification (HTEAC) is developed and deployed for public to nominate potential heritage trees. Based on the nomination, tree care experts or arborists would evaluate and verify the nominated trees as heritage trees. The expert system automatically rates the approved heritage trees according to pre-defined grades via Delphi technique. Features and usability test of the expert system are presented. Preliminary result is promising for the system to be used as a full scale public system.

Keywords: Arboriculture, Delphi, expert system, heritage tree, urban forestry.

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Authors: Mehrdad Abkenari, Alireza Rezaei, Naghmeh Pournayeb

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There have recently been many studies and investments in developed and developing countries regarding the possibility of recycling construction waste, which are still ongoing. Since the term 'construction waste' covers a vast spectrum of materials in constructing buildings, roads and etc., many investigations are required to measure their technical performance in use as well as their time and place of use. Concrete is among the major and fundamental materials used in current construction industry. Along with the rise of population in developing countries, it is desperately required to meet the people's primary need in construction industry and on the other hand, dispose existing wastes for reducing the amount of environmental pollutants. Restrictions of natural resources and environmental pollution are the most important problems encountered by civil engineers. Reusing construction waste is an important and economic approach that not only assists the preservation of environment but also, provides us with primary raw materials. In line with consistent municipal development in disposal and reuse of construction waste, several approaches including, management of construction waste and materials, materials recycling and innovation and new inventions in materials have been predicted. This article has accordingly attempted to study the activities related to recycling of construction wastes and then, stated the economic, quantitative, qualitative and environmental results obtained.

Keywords: Civil engineering, environment, recycling, construction waste.

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Authors: Guyue Zhu, Liangping Hong

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Chinese overall urban design faces a large number of problems such as the neglect of urban characteristics, generalization of content, and difficulty in implementation. Focusing on these issues, this paper proposes the main points of shaping urban characteristics in overall urban design: focuses on core problems in city function and scale, landscape pattern, historical culture, social resources and modern city style and digs the urban characteristic genes. Then, we put forward “core problem location and characteristic gene enhancement” as a kind of overall urban design technical method. Firstly, based on the main problems in urban space as a whole, for the operability goal, the method extracts the key genes and integrates into the multi-dimension system in a targeted manner. Secondly, hierarchical management and guidance system is established which may be in line with administrative management. Finally, by converting the results, action plan is drawn up that can be dynamically implemented. Based on the above idea and method, a practical exploration has been performed in the case of Xiangyang central city.

Keywords: City characteristics, overall urban design, planning implementation, Xiangyang central city.

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Authors: Yuki Irie, Shota Ogawa, Hitomi Kosugi, Hiromitsu Shinozaki

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Dropout rates in higher educational institutions pose significant challenges for both students and institutions, with poor mental health (MH) emerging as a key risk factor. Healthcare college students, including medical students, are particularly vulnerable to MH issues due to the demanding academic schedules they face. Poor mental health (MH) would be considered as a key risk factor for dropout from higher educational institutions that pose significant challenges for both students and institutions. And, inadequate food access (FA) has been related to poor MH. Given that targeted students may experience multiple risk factors for poor MH and vulnerable FA, the study aims to clarify the relationship between MH and FA to enhance student well-being. A cross-sectional design was used to explore the association between MH status and FA among 421 students (147 male, 274 female). Participants completed two questionnaires assessing MH and FA during winter 2022. The mean MH score was 6.7 ± 4.6, with higher scores indicating worse MH (max. score 27). While year-round FA showed no significant association with MH, FA during winter was significantly associated with MH (p = 0.01). Although car ownership did not directly impact MH, it was significantly associated with FA (p < 0.01), thus indirectly influencing MH. Our findings underscore the importance of FA in promoting MH, particularly during winter. Adopting a lifestyle that facilitates easier FA may be beneficial for MH, given its indirect association with MH outcomes. These insights emphasize the significance of addressing FA-related challenges to enhance student’s mental well-being.

Keywords: Mental health, food access, co-medical students, lifestyle.

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Authors: Yun-Yao Chi, Chieh-Kai Tsai, Dai-Ling Li

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In this paper, a method of fast 3D topography modeling using the high-resolution camera images is studied based on the characteristics of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) system for low altitude aerial photogrammetry and the need of three dimensional (3D) urban landscape modeling. Firstly, the existing high-resolution digital camera with special design of overlap images is designed by reconstructing and analyzing the auto-flying paths of UAVs, which improves the self-calibration function to achieve the high precision imaging by software, and further increased the resolution of the imaging system. Secondly, several-angle images including vertical images and oblique images gotten by the UAV system are used for the detail measure of urban land surfaces and the texture extraction. Finally, the aerial photography and 3D topography construction are both developed in campus of Chang-Jung University and in Guerin district area in Tainan, Taiwan, provide authentication model for construction of 3D topography based on combined UAV-based camera images from system. The results demonstrated that the UAV system for low altitude aerial photogrammetry can be used in the construction of 3D topography production, and the technology solution in this paper offers a new, fast, and technical plan for the 3D expression of the city landscape, fine modeling and visualization.

Keywords: 3D, topography, UAV, images.

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Authors: Juan David Arango, Alejandro Restrepo-Martinez

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The Rolling Element Bearing (REB) vibration diagnosis is worth of special interest by the variety of REB and the wide necessity of those elements in industrial applications. The presence of a localized fault in a REB gives rise to a vibrational response, characterized by the modulation of a carrier signal. Frequency content of carrier signal (Spectral Frequency –f) is mainly related to resonance frequencies of the REB. This carrier signal is modulated by another signal, governed by the periodicity of the fault impact (Cyclic Frequency –α). In this sense, REB fault vibration response gives rise to a second-order cyclostationary signal. Second order cyclostationary signals could be represented in a bi-spectral map, where Spectral Coherence –SCoh are plotted against f and α. The Improved Envelope Spectrum –IES, is a useful approach to execute REB fault diagnosis. IES could be applied by the integration of SCoh over a predefined bandwidth on the f axis. Approaches to select f-bandwidth have been recently exposed by the definition of a metric which intends to evaluate the magnitude of the IES at the fault characteristics frequencies. This metric is represented in a 1/3-binary tree as a function of the frequency bandwidth and centre. Based on this binary tree the optimal frequency band is selected. However, some advantages have been seen if the metric is changed, which in fact tends to dictate different optimal f-bandwidth and so improve the IES representation. This paper evaluates the behaviour of the IES from a different metric optimization. This metric is based on the sample correlation coefficient, detecting high peaks in the selected frequencies while penalizing high peaks in the neighbours of the selected frequencies. Prior results indicate an improvement on the signal-noise ratio (SNR) on around 86% of samples analysed, which belong to IMS database.

Keywords: Sample Correlation IESFOgram, cyclostationary analysis, improved envelope spectrum, IES, rolling element bearing diagnosis, spectral coherence.

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Authors: Bouttout Abdelouahab, Amara Mohamed, Djakabe Saad, Remram Youcef

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This paper presents the results of an evaluation of acoustic comfort such as background noise and reverberation time in teaching rooms in Height National School of Civil Engineering, Algeria. Four teaching rooms are evaluated: conference room, two classroom and amphitheatre. The acoustic quality of the classrooms has been analyzed based on measurements of sound pressure level inside room and reverberations time. The measurement results show that impulse decays dependent on the position of the microphone inside room and the background noise is with agreement of National Official Journal of Algeria published in July 1993. Therefore there exists a discrepancy between the obtained reverberation time value and recommended reverberation time in some classrooms. Three methods have been proposed to reduce the reverberation time values in such room. We developed a program with FORTRAN 6.0 language based on the absorption acoustic values of the Technical Document Regulation (DTR C3.1.1). The important results of this paper can be used to regulate the construction and execute the acoustic rehabilitations of teaching room in Algeria, especially the classrooms of the pupils in primary and secondary schools.

Keywords: Room acoustic, reverberation time, background noise, absorptions materials.

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Authors: Tao Yin, Zeqiang Zhang, Wei Liang, Yanqing Zeng, Yu Zhang

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To accelerate the remanufacturing process of electronic waste products, this study designs a partial disassembly line with the multi-robotic station to effectively dispose of excessive wastes. The multi-robotic partial disassembly line is a technical upgrade to the existing manual disassembly line. Balancing optimization can make the disassembly line smoother and more efficient. For partial disassembly line balancing with the multi-robotic station (PDLBMRS), a mixed-integer programming model (MIPM) considering the robotic efficiency differences is established to minimize cycle time, energy consumption and hazard index and to calculate their optimal global values. Besides, an enhanced NSGA-II algorithm (HNSGA-II) is proposed to optimize PDLBMRS efficiently. Finally, MIPM and HNSGA-II are applied to an actual mixed disassembly case of two types of computers, the comparison of the results solved by GUROBI and HNSGA-II verifies the correctness of the model and excellent performance of the algorithm, and the obtained Pareto solution set provides multiple options for decision-makers.

Keywords: Waste disposal, disassembly line balancing, multi-robot station, robotic efficiency difference, HNSGA-II.

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Authors: N. Das, N. Samanta, L. Pandey, C. Roy Chaudhuri

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Early diagnosis of infection like Hep-B virus in blood is important for low cost medical treatment. For this purpose, it is desirable to develop a point of care device which should be able to detect trace quantities of the target molecule in blood. In this paper, we report a nanoporous silicon oxide sensor which is capable of detecting down to 1fM concentration of Hep-B surface antigen in blood without the requirement of any centrifuge or pre-concentration. This has been made possible by the presence of resonant peak in the sensitivity characteristics. This peak is observed to be dependent only on the concentration of the specific antigen and not on the interfering species in blood serum. The occurrence of opposite impedance change within the pores and at the bottom of the pore is responsible for this effect. An electronic interface has also been designed to provide a display of the virus concentration.

Keywords: Impedance spectroscopy, Ultrasensitive detection in blood, Peak frequency, Electronic interface.

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Authors: Fatemeh Afsharnia, Mohammad Amin Asoodar, Abbas Abdeshahi, Afshin Marzban

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A repairable mechanical system (as agricultural tractor) is subject to deterioration or repeated failure and needs a repair shops and also operator’s capability for the repair and maintenance operations. Data are based on field visits and interviews with 48MF 285 tractor operators from 14 villages collected in north of Khouzestan province. The results showed that most operators were lack the technical skill to service and repair tractors due to insufficient training, specific education and work experience. Inadequate repair and maintenance facilities, such as workshops, mechanics and spare parts depots cause delays in repair work in the survey areas. Farmers do not keep accurate service records and most of them disregard proper maintenance and service of their tractors, such as changing engine oil without following the manufacturer’s recommendations. Since, Repair and maintenance facilities should be established in village areas to guarantee timely repair in case of breakdowns and to make spare parts available at low price. The operators should keep service records accurately and adhere to maintenance and service schedules according to the manufacturer’s instructions. They should also be encouraged to do the service and maintain their tractors properly.

Keywords: Operators’ capability, Facilities availability, Repair and maintenance, MF 285 tractors.

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Authors: Zamri Noranai, Mohammad Zainal Md Yusof

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Sustainable energy usage has been recognized as one of the important measure to increase the competitiveness of the nation globally. Many strong emphases were given in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (RMK9) to improve energy efficient especially to government buildings. With this in view, a project to investigate the potential of energy saving in selected building in Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) was carried out. In this project, a case study involving electric energy consumption of the academic staff office building was conducted. The scope of the study include to identify energy consumption in a selected building, to study energy saving opportunities, to analyse cost investment in term of economic and to identify users attitude with respect to energy usage. The MS1525:2001, Malaysian Standard -Code of practice on energy efficiency and use of renewable energy for non-residential buildings was used as reference. Several energy efficient measures were considered and their merits and priority were compared. Improving human behavior can reduce energy consumption by 6% while technical measure can reduce energy consumption by 44%. Two economic analysis evaluation methods were applied; they are the payback period method and net present value method.

Keywords: office building, energy, efficiency, economic analyses

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Authors: Duangsamorn Rungsawanpho

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The objectives of this paper are to explore the corporate cultures management as determinants of employee retention company in Thailand. This study using mixed method methodology. Data collection using questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The statistics used for data analysis were percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics will include. The results show that the corporate management culture is perfect for any organization but it depends on the business and the industry because the situations or circumstances that corporate executives are met is different. Because the finding explained that the employees of the company determine the achievement of value-oriented by the corporate culture and international relations is perceived most value for their organizations. In additional we found the employees perceiving with participation can be interpreted as a positive example, many employees feel that they are part of management because they care about their opinions or ideas related with their work.

Keywords: Corporate culture, employee retention, retention of employees, management approaches.

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Authors: Wen Zhang

Abstract:

The smartphone plays a significant role in media convergence, and smartphone photography is reconstructing the way we communicate and think. This article aims to explore the smartphone photography practices of urban Chinese smartphone users and images produced by smartphones from a techno-cultural perspective. The analysis consists of two types of data: One is a semi-structured interview of 21 participants, and the other consists of the images created by the participants. The findings are organised in two parts. The first part summarises the current tendencies of capturing, editing, sharing and archiving digital images via smartphones. The second part shows that food and selfie/anti-selfie are the preferred subjects of smartphone photographic images from a technical and multi-purpose perspective and demonstrates that screenshots and image texts are new genres of non-photographic images that are frequently made by smartphones, which contributes to improving operational efficiency, disseminating information and sharing knowledge. The analyses illustrate the positive impacts between smartphones and photography enthusiasm and practices based on the diffusion of innovation theory, which also makes us rethink the value of photographs and the practice of ‘photographic seeing’ from the screen itself.

Keywords: Digital photography, photographic-seeing, media convergence, technological innovation, smartphone, selfie/anti-selfie, image-text.

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Authors: A. Abdulla Khairi Mohamed, Mohamed Gamal Abdelmonem, Gehan Selim

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Walkability in civic and public spaces in Libyan cities is challenging due to the lack of accessibility design, informal merging into car traffic, and the general absence of adequate urban and space planning. The lack of accessible and pedestrian-friendly public spaces in Libyan cities has emerged as a major concern for the government if it is to develop smart and sustainable spaces for the 21st century. A walkable urban space has become a driver for urban development and redistribution of land use to ensure pedestrian and walkable routes between sites of living and workplaces. The characteristics of urban open space in the city centre play a main role in attracting people to walk when attending their daily needs, recreation and daily sports. There is significant gap in the understanding of perceptions, feasibility and capabilities of Libyan urban space to accommodate enhance or support the smart design of a walkable pedestrian-friendly environment that is safe and accessible to everyone. The paper aims to undertake observations of walkability and walkable space in the city of Tripoli as a benchmark for Libyan cities; assess the validity and consistency of the seven principal aspects of smart design, safety, accessibility and 51 factors that affect the walkability in open urban space in Tripoli, through the analysis of 10 local urban spaces experts (town planner, architect, transport engineer and urban designer); and explore user groups’ perceptions of accessibility in walkable spaces in Libyan cities through questionnaires. The study sampled 200 respondents in 2015-16. The results of this study are useful for urban planning, to classify the walkable urban space elements which affect to improve the level of walkability in the Libyan cities and create sustainable and liveable urban spaces.

Keywords: Walkability, sustainability, liveability, accessibility, safety.

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Authors: Eakong Atiptamvaree, Twittie Senivongse

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Process-oriented software development is a new software development paradigm in which software design is modeled by a business process which is in turn translated into a process execution language for execution. The building blocks of this paradigm are software units that are composed together to work according to the flow of the business process. This new paradigm still exhibits the characteristic of the applications built with the traditional software component technology. This paper discusses an approach to apply a traditional technique for software component fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called process components. These process components result from decomposing a business process of a particular application domain into subprocesses, and these process components can be reused to design the business processes of other application domains. The decomposition considers five managerial goals, namely cost effectiveness, ease of assembly, customization, reusability, and maintainability. The paper presents how to design or decompose process components from a business process model and measure some technical features of the design that would affect the managerial goals. A comparison between the measurement values from different designs can tell which process component design is more appropriate for the managerial goals that have been set. The proposed approach can be applied in Web Services environment which accommodates process-oriented software development.

Keywords: Business Process Model, Managerial Goals, ProcessComponent.

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Authors: Serdar Öge, Pınar Erdogan

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The main objective of this research is to describe the relationship between organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior. In order to examine this relationship, a research is intended to be carried out in relevant institutions and organizations operating in the health sector in Turkey. It will be researched that whether there is a statistically significant relationship between organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior through elated scientific research methods and statistical analysis. In addition, relationships between the dimensions of organizational climate and organizational citizenship behavior subscales will be questioned statistically.

Keywords: Organizational climate, organizational citizenship, organizational citizenship behavior, climate.

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Authors: Lukáš Mazánek, Zdeňka Konečná

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The article is devoted to the area of personnel marketing. A comprehensive review of scientific literature and articles published predominantly in personnel-oriented journals was carried out, followed by a qualitative exploratory research with the aim to explore and explain the perception of personnel marketing. Due to the lack of research in this field in Czech Republic, we have focused on Czech HR managers, more specifically, on how they understand the tasks of personnel marketing, which tools they use and whether the companies they work for try to be a preferred employer. The answers from our respondents were used to help us determine what is important within this field. All of the respondents strive to be a preferred employer and try to achieve it by using an extensive range of marketing tools. The most frequently used tools are advertising, job fairs presentations, employee care and employer brand promotion.

Keywords: Czech Republic, personnel marketing, preferred employer, qualitative research study.

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Authors: Martin Kendra, Tomas Skrucany, Jaroslav Masek

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The noise is one of the negative elements which affects the human health. This article presents the measurement of emitted noise by road vehicle and its parts during the operation. Measurement was done in the interior of common passenger cars with a digital sound meter. The results compare the noise value in different cars with different body shape, which influences the driver’s health. Transport has considerable ecological effects; many of them are detrimental to environmental sustainability. Roads and traffic exert a variety of direct and mostly detrimental effects on nature.

Keywords: Driver, noise measurement, passenger road vehicle, road transport.

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Authors: Ada Yurman

Abstract:

Using the case of Israeli Atomic Spy Mordechai Vanunu as an example, this study sought to examine social response to political deviance whereby social response can be mobilized in order to achieve social control. Mordechai Vanunu, a junior technician in the Dimona Atomic Research Center, played a normative role in the militaristic discourse while working in the “holy shrine” of the Israeli defense system for many years. At a certain stage, however, Vanunu decided to detach himself from this collective and launched an assault on this top-secret circle. Israeli society in general and the security establishment in particular found this attack intolerable and unforgivable. They presented Vanunu as a ticking time bomb, delegitimized him and portrayed him as “other”. In addition, Israeli enforcement authorities imposed myriad prohibitions and sanctions on Vanunu even after his release from prison – “as will be done to he who desecrates holiness.” Social response to Vanunu at the time of his capture and trial was studied by conducting a content analysis of six contemporary daily newspapers. The analysis focused on use of language and forms of expression. In contrast with traditional content analysis methodology, this study did not just look at frequency of expressions of ideas and terms in the text and covert content; rather, the text was analyzed as a structural whole, and included examination of style, tone and unusual use of imagery, and more, in order to uncover hidden messages within the text. The social response to this case was extraordinarily intense, not only because in this case of political deviance, involving espionage and treason, Vanunu’s actions comprised a real potential threat to the country, but also because of the threat his behavior posed to the symbolic universe of society. Therefore, the response to this instance of political deviance can be seen as being part of a mechanism of social control aiming to protect world view of society as a whole, as well as to punish the criminal.

Keywords: Militarism, political deviance, social construction, social control.

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Authors: H. Shayeghi, M. Mahdavi, H. Haddadian

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Transmission network expansion planning (TNEP) is an important component of power system planning that its task is to minimize the network construction and operational cost while satisfying the demand increasing, imposed technical and economic conditions. Up till now, various methods have been presented to solve the static transmission network expansion planning (STNEP) problem. But in all of these methods, the lines adequacy rate has not been studied after the planning horizon, i.e. when the expanded network misses its adequacy and needs to be expanded again. In this paper, in order to take transmission lines condition after expansion in to account from the line loading view point, the adequacy of transmission network is considered for solution of STNEP problem. To obtain optimal network arrangement, a decimal codification genetic algorithm (DCGA) is being used for minimizing the network construction and operational cost. The effectiveness of the proposed idea is tested on the Garver's six-bus network. The results evaluation reveals that the annual worth of network adequacy has a considerable effect on the network arrangement. In addition, the obtained network, based on the DCGA, has lower investment cost and higher adequacy rate. Thus, the network satisfies the requirements of delivering electric power more safely and reliably to load centers.

Keywords: STNEP Problem, Network Adequacy, DCGA.

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Authors: Excellence Favor, Bakari M. M. Mwinyiwiwa, Damian D. Haule, Fakih H. Omar

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Access to information is the key to the empowerment of everybody despite where they are living. This research is to be carried out in respect of the people living in developing countries, considering their plight and complex geographical, demographic, social-economic conditions surrounding the areas they live, which hinder access to information and of professionals providing services such as medical workers, which has led to high death rates and development stagnation. Research on Unified Communications and Integrated Collaborations (UCIC) system in the health sector of developing countries comes in to create a possible solution of bridging the digital canyon among the communities. The aim is to deliver services in a seamless manner to assist health workers situated anywhere to be accessed easily and access information which will help in service delivery. The proposed UCIC provides the most immersive Telepresence experience for one-to-one or many-tomany meetings. Extending to locations anywhere in the world, the transformative platform delivers Ultra-low operating costs through the use of general purpose networks and using special lenses and track systems.

Keywords: Developing countries, Unified communications and integrated collaborations.

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Authors: Manisha Rathi, Thierry Chaussalet

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Hospital staff and managers are under pressure and concerned for effective use and management of scarce resources. The hospital admissions require many decisions that have complex and uncertain consequences for hospital resource utilization and patient flow. It is challenging to predict risk of admissions and length of stay of a patient due to their vague nature. There is no method to capture the vague definition of admission of a patient. Also, current methods and tools used to predict patients at risk of admission fail to deal with uncertainty in unplanned admission, LOS, patients- characteristics. The main objective of this paper is to deal with uncertainty in health system variables, and handles uncertain relationship among variables. An introduction of machine learning techniques along with statistical methods like Regression methods can be a proposed solution approach to handle uncertainty in health system variables. A model that adapts fuzzy methods to handle uncertain data and uncertain relationships can be an efficient solution to capture the vague definition of admission of a patient.

Keywords: Admission, Fuzzy, Regression, Uncertainty

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Authors: Ekow A. Kwofie, Emmanuel K. Anto, Godfred Mensah

Abstract:

In this paper, CYME Distribution software has been used to assess the impacts of solar Photovoltaic (PV) distributed generation (DG) plant on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) 33 kV sub-transmission network at different PV penetration levels. As ECG begins to encourage DG PV interconnections within its network, there has been the need to assess the impacts on the sub-transmission losses and voltage contribution. In Tema, a city in Accra - Ghana, ECG has a 33 kV sub-transmission network made up of 20 No. 33 kV buses that was modeled. Three different locations were chosen: The source bus, a bus along the sub-transmission radial network and a bus at the tail end to determine the optimal location for DG PV interconnection. The optimal location was determined based on sub-transmission technical losses and voltage impact. PV capacities at different penetration levels were modeled at each location and simulations performed to determine the optimal PV penetration level. Interconnection at a bus along (or in the middle of) the sub-transmission network offered the highest benefits at an optimal PV penetration level of 80%. At that location, the maximum voltage improvement of 0.789% on the neighboring 33 kV buses and maximum loss reduction of 6.033% over the base case scenario were recorded. Hence, the optimal location for DG PV integration within the 33 kV sub-transmission utility network is at a bus along the sub-transmission radial network.

Keywords: Distributed generation photovoltaic, DG PV, optimal location, penetration level, sub-transmission network.

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Authors: Elijah Acquah-Andoh

Abstract:

The UK has had its fair share of the shale gas revolutionary waves blowing across the global oil and gas industry at present. Although, its exploitation is widely agreed to have been delayed, shale gas was looked upon favorably by the UK Parliament when they recognized it as genuine energy source and granted licenses to industry to search and extract the resource. This, although a significant progress by industry, there yet remains another test the UK fracking resource must pass in order to render shale gas extraction feasible – it must be economically extractible and sustainably so. Developing unconventional resources is much more expensive and risky, and for shale gas wells, producing in commercial volumes is conditional upon drilling horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing, techniques which increase CAPEX. Meanwhile, investment in shale gas development projects is sensitive to gas price and technical and geological risks. Using a Two-Factor Model, the economics of the Bowland shale wells were analyzed and the operational conditions under which fracking is profitable in the UK was characterized. We find that there is a great degree of flexibility about Opex spending; hence Opex does not pose much threat to the fracking industry in the UK. However, we discover Bowland shale gas wells fail to add value at gas price of $8/ Mmbtu. A minimum gas price of $12/Mmbtu at Opex of no more than $2/ Mcf and no more than $14.95M Capex are required to create value within the present petroleum tax regime, in the UK fracking industry.

Keywords: Capex, economical, investment, profitability, shale gas development, sustainable.

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Authors: Jeroen S. de Bruin, Karin Schindler, Christian Schuh

Abstract:

With increasingly more mobile health applications appearing due to the popularity of smartphones, the possibility arises that these data can be used to improve the medical diagnostic process, as well as the overall quality of healthcare, while at the same time lowering costs. However, as of yet there have been no reports of a successful combination of patient-generated data from smartphones with data from clinical routine. In this paper we describe how these two types of data can be combined in a secure way without modification to hospital information systems, and how they can together be used in a medical expert system for automatic nutritional classification and triage.

Keywords: Data integration, disease-related malnutrition, expert systems, mobile health.

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Authors: A. Bayaga

Abstract:

This research provides a technical account of estimating Transition Probability using Time-homogeneous Markov Jump Process applying by South African HIV/AIDS data from the Statistics South Africa. It employs Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) model to explore the possible influence of Transition Probability of mortality cases in which case the data was based on actual Statistics South Africa. This was conducted via an integrated demographic and epidemiological model of South African HIV/AIDS epidemic. The model was fitted to age-specific HIV prevalence data and recorded death data using MLE model. Though the previous model results suggest HIV in South Africa has declined and AIDS mortality rates have declined since 2002 – 2013, in contrast, our results differ evidently with the generally accepted HIV models (Spectrum/EPP and ASSA2008) in South Africa. However, there is the need for supplementary research to be conducted to enhance the demographic parameters in the model and as well apply it to each of the nine (9) provinces of South Africa.

Keywords: AIDS mortality rates, Epidemiological model, Time-homogeneous Markov Jump Process, Transition Probability, Statistics South Africa.

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Authors: Azher H. Qamar

Abstract:

Pregnancy is considered a special period in a woman’s life. There are myths about pregnancy that describe gender predictions, dietary beliefs, pregnancy signs, and risk of magic or witchcraft. Majority of these myths is in connection with the early childcare. In traditional societies midwives and experienced women practice and teach these myths to young mothers. Mother who feel special and vulnerable, at the same time feel secure in following these socially transmitted myths. Rural Punjab, a province of Pakistan has a culture rich with beliefs and myths. Myths about pregnancy are significant in rural culture and pregnancy care is seen as mother and childcare. This paper presents my research reflections that I did as a part of my Ph.D studies about early childcare beliefs and rituals practiced in rural Punjab, Pakistan.

Keywords: Myths, Pregnancy, BabyCare, Culture

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