Search results for: private data

Authors: Roya Morad, W. Eirik Heintz

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The identity of a neighborhood is inevitably shaped by the architecture and the people of that place. Conventionally the streets within each neighborhood served as a semi-public-private extension of the private living spaces. The street as a design element formed a hybrid condition that was neither totally public nor private, and it encouraged social interactions. Thus through creating a sense of community, one of the most basic human needs of belonging was achieved. Similar to major global cities, Tehran has undergone serious urbanization. Developing into a capital city of high rises has resulted in an increase in urban density. Although allocating more residential units in each neighborhood was a critical response to the population boom and the limited land area of the city, it also created a crisis in terms of social communication and place attachment. District 10 in Tehran is a neighborhood that has undergone the most urban transformation among the other 22 districts in the capital and currently has the highest population density. This paper will explore how the active streets in district 10 have changed into their current condition of high rises with a lack of meaningful social interactions amongst its inhabitants. A residential building can be thought of as a large group of people. One would think that as the number of people increases, the opportunities for social communications would increase as well. However, according to the survey, there is an indirect relationship between the two. As the number of people of a residential building increases, the quality of each acquaintance reduces, and the depth of relationships between people tends to decrease. This comes from the anonymity of being part of a crowd and the lack of social spaces characterized by most high-rise apartment buildings. Without a sense of community, the attachment to a neighborhood is decreased. This paper further explores how the neighborhood participates to fulfill ones need for social interaction and focuses on the qualitative aspects of alternative spaces that can redevelop the sense of place attachment within the community.

Keywords: High density, place attachment, social communication, street life, urban transformation.

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Authors: Masahiro Kuzunishi, Tetsuya Furukawa, Ke Lu

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Classifying data hierarchically is an efficient approach to analyze data. Data is usually classified into multiple categories, or annotated with a set of labels. To analyze multi-labeled data, such data must be specified by giving a set of labels as a semantic range. There are some certain purposes to analyze data. This paper shows which multi-labeled data should be the target to be analyzed for those purposes, and discusses the role of a label against a set of labels by investigating the change when a label is added to the set of labels. These discussions give the methods for the advanced analysis of multi-labeled data, which are based on the role of a label against a semantic range.

Keywords: Classification Hierarchies, Data Analysis, Multilabeled Data, Orders of Sets of Labels

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Authors: Wang Liguang, Zhang Xueqing

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

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

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Authors: Mia Wimala, Emma Akmalah, Ira Irawati, M. Rangga Sururi

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One way that has been aggressively implemented in creating a sustainable environment nowadays is through the implementation of green building concept. In order to ensure the success of its implementation, the support and initiation from educational institutions, especially higher education institutions are indispensable. This research was conducted to figure out the obstacles restraining the success of green campus implementation in Indonesia, as well as to propose strategies to overcome those obstacles. The data presented in this paper are mainly derived from interview and questionnaire distributed randomly to the staffs and students in 10 (ten) major institutions around Jakarta and West Java area. The data were further analyzed using ANOVA and SWOT analysis. According to 182 respondents, it is found that resistance to change, inadequate knowledge, information and understanding, no penalty for any environmental violation, lack of reward for green campus practices, lack of stringent regulations/laws, lack of management commitment, insufficient funds are the obstacles to the green campus movement in Indonesia. In addition, out of 6 criteria considered in UI GreenMetric World Ranking, education was the only criteria that had no significant difference between public and private universities in generating the green campus performance. The work concludes with recommendation of strategies to improve the implementation of green campus in the future.

Keywords: Green campus, obstacles, sustainable, higher education institutions.

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Authors: N. N. Nkomo, M. L. Mayanchi

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The present study investigated various forms of disciplinary procedures or punishment used by teachers in secondary schools in Calabar Municipality, Nigera. There are agitations amongst parents and educators on the use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure against children. Those against the use of corporal punishment argue that this form of punishment does not teach, it only terminates behaviour temporarily and inculcates violence. Those in support are of the view that corporal punishment serves as a deterrent to others. This study sought to find out the most common measure of discipline employed by teachers in private and public schools. The study had three objectives, three research questions and two hypotheses. The design of the present study was the ex-post facto descriptive survey, since variables under study were not manipulated by the researcher. Teachers in Calabar Municipal Secondary Schools formed the population. A sample of 160 teachers was used for the study. The data collection instrument was a facts finding questionnaire titled Disciplinary Procedures Inventory. Data collected were analyzed using simple percentages and chi-square. The major findings were that physical measures such as flogging, exercise/drills, and painful postures were commonly used by teachers in secondary schools. It was also found that these measures were more often used in public schools. It was recommended that teachers should rather employ non-violent techniques of discipline than physical punishment.

Keywords: Discipline, non-violent punishment, physical punishment.

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Authors: Sobhy Fathy A. Hashesh

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This study aimed at investigating the effect of Andalus Knowledge Phases and Times (ANPT) model of learning and the effect of 'Intel Education Contribution in ANPT' on the development of students’ academic performance and emotional quotient. The society of the study composed of Andalus Private Schools, elementary school students (N=700), while the sample of the study composed of four randomly assigned groups (N=80) with one experimental group and one control group to study "ANPT" effect and the "Intel Contribution in ANPT" effect respectively. The study followed the quantitative and qualitative approaches in collecting and analyzing data to answer the study questions. Results of the study revealed that there were significant statistical differences between students’ academic performances and emotional quotients for the favor of the experimental groups. The study recommended applying this model on different educational variables and on other age groups to generate more data leading to more educational results for the favor of students’ learning outcomes.

Keywords: ANPT, Flipped Classroom, 5Es learning Model, Kagan structures.

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Authors: M. Aslan, A. Karaaslan, S. Selcuk

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The research was conducted in order to determine the organizational socialization levels of nurses working in hospitals in the form of a descriptive study. The research population was composed of nurses employed in public and private sector hospitals in the province of Konya with 0-3 years of professional experience in the hospitals (N=1200); and the sample was composed of 495 nurses that accepted to take part in the study voluntarily. Statistical evaluation of data was conducted in SPSS.16 software. The results of the study revealed that the total score taken by nurses at the organizational socialization scale was 262.95; and this was close to the maximum score. Particularly the departmental socialization sub-dimension proved to be higher in comparison to the other two dimensions (organization socialization and task socialization). Statistically meaningful differences were found in the levels of organization socialization in relation to the status of organizational orientation training, level of education and age group.

Keywords: Nurses, Newcomers, Organizational Socialization.

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Authors: Somtop Keawchuer

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The objective of this research was to study the factors related to the satisfaction of consumers who purchased a Toyota SUV Fortuner. This paper was a survey data which collected 400 samples from 65 car dealerships. The survey was conducted mainly in Bangkok, Thailand. The statistics utilized in this paper included percentage, mean, standard deviation and Pearson Product-Moment. The findings revealed that the majority of respondent were male with an undergraduate degree, married and live together. The average income of the respondents was between 20,001 - 30,000 baht. Most of them worked for private companies. Most of them had a family with the average of 4 members. The hypotheses testing revealed that the factors of marketing mix in terms of product (ability, gas mileage, and safety) were related to overall satisfaction at the medium level. However, the findings also revealed that the factors of marketing mix in terms of product (image), price, and promotion, and service center were related to the overall satisfaction at the low level.

Keywords: Car Consumers, Factors related, Overall Satisfaction.

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Authors: Woong Hee Kim, Ilhwan Park

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Steganography is the art of hiding and transmitting data through apparently innocuous carriers in an effort to conceal the existence of the data. A lot of steganography algorithms have been proposed recently. Many of them use the digital image data as a carrier. In data hiding scheme of halftoning and coordinate projection, still image data is used as a carrier, and the data of carrier image are modified for data embedding. In this paper, we present three features for analysis of data hiding via halftoning and coordinate projection. Also, we present a classifier using the proposed three features.

Keywords: Steganography, steganalysis, digital halftoning, data hiding.

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Authors: Noura Meshaan Al-Otaibi, Amin Yousef Noaman

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Nowadays scientific data is inevitably digital and stored in a wide variety of formats in heterogeneous systems. Scientists need to access an integrated view of remote or local heterogeneous data sources with advanced data accessing, analyzing, and visualization tools. This research suggests the use of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to integrate biological data from different data sources. This work shows SOA will solve the problems that facing integration process and if the biologist scientists can access the biological data in easier way. There are several methods to implement SOA but web service is the most popular method. The Microsoft .Net Framework used to implement proposed architecture.

Keywords: Bioinformatics, Biological data, Data Integration, SOA and Web Services.

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Authors: S. Sarumathi, N. Shanthi, S. Vidhya, P. Ranjetha

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Data mining idea is mounting rapidly in admiration and also in their popularity. The foremost aspire of data mining method is to extract data from a huge data set into several forms that could be comprehended for additional use. The data mining is a technology that contains with rich potential resources which could be supportive for industries and businesses that pay attention to collect the necessary information of the data to discover their customer’s performances. For extracting data there are several methods are available such as Classification, Clustering, Association, Discovering, and Visualization… etc., which has its individual and diverse algorithms towards the effort to fit an appropriate model to the data. STATISTICA mostly deals with excessive groups of data that imposes vast rigorous computational constraints. These results trials challenge cause the emergence of powerful STATISTICA Data Mining technologies. In this survey an overview of the STATISTICA software is illustrated along with their significant features.

Keywords: Data Mining, STATISTICA Data Miner, Text Miner, Enterprise Server, Classification, Association, Clustering, Regression.

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Authors: M. Kebisek, L. Spendla, M. Kopcek, T. Skulavik

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In our paper we describe the security capabilities of data collection. Data are collected with probes located in the near and distant surroundings of the company. Considering the numerous obstacles e.g. forests, hills, urban areas, the data collection is realized in several ways. The collection of data uses connection via wireless communication, LAN network, GSM network and in certain areas data are collected by using vehicles. In order to ensure the connection to the server most of the probes have ability to communicate in several ways. Collected data are archived and subsequently used in supervisory applications. To ensure the collection of the required data, it is necessary to propose algorithms that will allow the probes to select suitable communication channel.

Keywords: Communication, computer network, data collection, probe.

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Authors: E. Y. Igde, S. Aydogan, F. E. Boran, D. Akay

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Patent data have an increasingly important role in economic growth, innovation, technical advantages and business strategies and even in countries competitions. Analyzing of patent data is crucial since patents cover large part of all technological information of the world. In this paper, we have used the linguistic summarization technique to prove the validity of the hypotheses related to patent data stated in the literature.

Keywords: Data mining, fuzzy sets, linguistic summarization, patent data.

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Authors: S. Farokhzad, M. Reza Salehnamadi

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Grid environments include aggregation of geographical distributed resources. Grid is put forward in three types of computational, data and storage. This paper presents a research on data grid. Data grid is used for covering and securing accessibility to data from among many heterogeneous sources. Users are not worry on the place where data is located in it, provided that, they should get access to the data. Metadata is used for getting access to data in data grid. Presently, application metadata catalogue and SRB middle-ware package are used in data grids for management of metadata. At this paper, possibility of updating, streamlining and searching is provided simultaneously and rapidly through classified table of preserving metadata and conversion of each table to numerous tables. Meanwhile, with regard to the specific application, the most appropriate and best division is set and determined. Concurrency of implementation of some of requests and execution of pipeline is adaptability as a result of this technique.

Keywords: Grids, data grid, metadata, update.

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Authors: Ahmed Mateen, Zhu Qingsheng, Ahmad Bilal

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In the current age of technology, information is the most precious asset of a company. Today, companies have a large amount of data. As the data become larger, access to data for some particular information is becoming slower day by day. Faster data processing to shape it in the form of information is the biggest issue. The major problems in distributed databases are the efficiency of data distribution and response time of data distribution. The security of data distribution is also a big issue. For these problems, we proposed a strategy that can maximize the efficiency of data distribution and also increase its response time. This technique gives better results for secure data distribution from multiple heterogeneous sources. The newly proposed technique facilitates the companies for secure data sharing efficiently and quickly.

Keywords: ER-schema, electronic record, P2P framework, API, query formulation.

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Authors: Mohd Noah A. Rahman, Afzaal H. Seyal, Sharul T. Tajuddin, Hartiny Md Azmi

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Taking into consideration the real time situation specifically the higher academic institutions, small, medium to large companies, public to private sectors and the remaining sectors, do experience the inventory or asset shrinkages due to theft, loss or even inventory tracking errors. This happening is due to a zero or poor security systems and measures being taken and implemented in their organizations. Henceforth, implementing the Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology into any manual or existing web-based system or web application can simply deter and will eventually solve certain major issues to serve better data retrieval and data access. Having said, this manual or existing system can be enhanced into a mobile-based system or application. In addition to that, the availability of internet connections can aid better services of the system. Such involvement of various technologies resulting various privileges to individuals or organizations in terms of accessibility, availability, mobility, efficiency, effectiveness, real-time information and also security. This paper will look deeper into the integration of mobile devices with RFID technologies with the purpose of asset tracking and control. Next, it is to be followed by the development and utilization of MongoDB as the main database to store data and its association with RFID technology. Finally, the development of a web based system which can be viewed in a mobile based formation with the aid of Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), MongoDB, Hyper-Text Markup Language 5 (HTML5), Android, JavaScript and AJAX programming language.

Keywords: RFID, asset tracking system, MongoDB, NoSQL.

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Authors: Fahad Shahbaz Khan, Rao Muhammad Anwer, Olof Torgersson

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The vast amount of information hidden in huge databases has created tremendous interests in the field of data mining. This paper examines the possibility of using data clustering techniques in oral medicine to identify functional relationships between different attributes and classification of similar patient examinations. Commonly used data clustering algorithms have been reviewed and as a result several interesting results have been gathered.

Keywords: Oral Medicine, Cluto, Data Clustering, Data Mining.

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Authors: Liang Zhao, Jili Zhang, Chongquan Zhong

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Energy consumption data, in particular those involving public buildings, are impacted by many factors: the building structure, climate/environmental parameters, construction, system operating condition, and user behavior patterns. Traditional methods for data analysis are insufficient. This paper delves into the data mining technology to determine its application in the analysis of building energy consumption data including energy consumption prediction, fault diagnosis, and optimal operation. Recent literature are reviewed and summarized, the problems faced by data mining technology in the area of energy consumption data analysis are enumerated, and research points for future studies are given.

Keywords: Data mining, data analysis, prediction, optimization, building operational performance.

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Authors: Ei Ei Myat, Ni Lar Thein

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With the tremendous growth of World Wide Web (WWW) data, there is an emerging need for effective information retrieval at the document level. Several query languages such as XML-QL, XPath, XQL, Quilt and XQuery are proposed in recent years to provide faster way of querying XML data, but they still lack of generality and efficiency. Our approach towards evolving a framework for querying semistructured documents is based on formal query algebra. Two elements are introduced in the proposed framework: first, a generic and flexible data model for logical representation of semistructured data and second, a set of operators for the manipulation of objects defined in the data model. In additional to accommodating several peculiarities of semistructured data, our model offers novel features such as bidirectional paths for navigational querying and partitions for data transformation that are not available in other proposals.

Keywords: Algebra, Semistructured data, Query Algebra.

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Authors: Ali Jafari, Hatam Godini, Saed Hamed Mirhousaini

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This paper presents an overview of current municipal solid waste management in Khoram Abad city. According to data collected by the local authorities, the waste generation rate is estimated to be 800 g/cap.d with density of 243 kg/m3. Solid waste is stored in different types of containers at the source of generation in different areas of the city. Local Authority is responsible for waste collection, transportation. Municipality is responsible for waste collection, using private sector contracts. At present, both mechanical and manual methods are used to collect residential waste. Manual methods of collection are the most commonly used for waste collection in most parts of the city. Land filling is the main disposal method in this city. But it has some obvious problem and deficiencies The current state of solid waste management has been improved slightly in the last decade. By more actions can reduce the human and environmental risks.

Keywords: Disposal, Landfill, management, solid waste.

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Authors: Jing Zhao, Yoshiharu Ishikawa, Chuan Xiao, Kento Sugiura

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In order to analyze large-scale scientific data, research on data exploration and visualization has gained popularity. In this paper, we focus on the exploration and visualization of scientific simulation data, and define a spatial V-Optimal histogram for data summarization. We propose histogram construction algorithms based on a general binary hierarchical partitioning as well as a more specific one, the l-grid partitioning. For effective data summarization and efficient data visualization in scientific data analysis, we propose an optimal algorithm as well as a heuristic algorithm for histogram construction. To verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed methods, we conduct experiments on the massive evacuation simulation data.

Keywords: Simulation data, data summarization, spatial histograms, exploration and visualization.

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Authors: Reza Nadimi, Fariborz Jolai

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This article combines two techniques: data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Factor analysis (FA) to data reduction in decision making units (DMU). Data envelopment analysis (DEA), a popular linear programming technique is useful to rate comparatively operational efficiency of decision making units (DMU) based on their deterministic (not necessarily stochastic) input–output data and factor analysis techniques, have been proposed as data reduction and classification technique, which can be applied in data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique for reduction input – output data. Numerical results reveal that the new approach shows a good consistency in ranking with DEA.

Keywords: Effectiveness, Decision Making, Data EnvelopmentAnalysis, Factor Analysis

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Authors: Glenn M. Calaguas, Carmela S. Dizon

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This study aimed to develop and initially validate an instrument that measures social competency among tertiary level faculty members. A review of extant literature on social competence was done. The review of extant literature led to the writing of the items in the initial instrument which was evaluated by 11 Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). The SMEs were either educators or psychologists. The results of the evaluations done by the SMEs served as bases for the creation of the pre-try-out instrument used in the first trial-run. Insights from the first trial-run participants led to the development of the main try-out instrument used in the final test administration. One Hundred Forty-one participants from five private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and five private HEIs in Central Luzon in the Philippines participated in the final test administration. The reliability of the instrument was evaluated using Cronbach-s Coefficient Alpha formula and had a Cronbach-s Alpha of 0.92. On the other hand, Factor Analysis was used to evaluate the validity of the instrument and six factors were identified. The development of the final instrument was based on the results of the evaluation of the instrument-s reliability and validity. For purposes of recognition, the instrument was named “Social Competency Inventory for Tertiary Level Faculty Members (SCI-TLFM)."

Keywords: development, initial validation, social competency, tertiary level faculty members

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Authors: Pongsiri K.

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This research aimed to study the market feasibility for new brand coffee house, the case study of Thailand.. This study is a mixed methods research combining quantitative research and the qualitative research. Primary data 350 sets of questionnaires were distributed, and the high quality completed questionnaires of 320 sets returned. Research samples are identified as customers’ of Hi-end department stores in Thailand. The sources of secondary data were critical selected from highly reliable sources, both from public and private sectors. The results were used to classify the customer group into two main groups, the younger than 25 and the older than 25years old. Results of the younger group, are give priority to the dimension of coffee house and its services dimension more than others, then branding dimension and the product dimension respectively. On the other hand, the older group give the difference result as they rate the important of the branding, coffee house and its services, then the product respectively. Coffee consuming is not just the trend but it has become part of people lifestyle. And the new cultures also created by the wise businessman. Coffee was long produced and consumed in Thailand. But it is surprisingly the hi-end brand coffee houses in Thai market are mostly imported brands. The café business possibility for Thai brand coffee house in Thai market were discussed in the paper.

Keywords: Coffee House, Café, Coffee Consuming and new entry branding, market feasibility

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Authors: N. Paparisteidi, D. Rodamitou

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This article focuses on the skills development and path planning of students studying computer science at EPITECH: French private institute of higher education. We examine students’ points of view and experience in a blended learning model based on a skills development curriculum. The study is based on the collection of four main categories of data: semi-participant observation, distribution of questionnaires, interviews, and analysis of internal school databases. The findings seem to indicate that a skills-based program on active learning enables students to develop their learning strategies as well as their personal skills and to actively engage in the creation of their career path and contribute to providing additional information to curricula planners and decision-makers about learning design in higher education.

Keywords: Active learning, blended learning, higher education, skills development.

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Authors: Areej Azhar, Peter Duncan, David Edgar

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Due to a high unemployment rate among local people and a high reliance on expatriate workers, the governments in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries have been implementing programmes of localisation (replacing foreign workers with GCC nationals). These programmes have been successful in the public sector but much less so in the private sector. However, there are now insufficient jobs for locals in the public sector and the onus to provide employment has fallen on the private sector. This paper is concerned with a study, which is a work in progress (certain elements are complete but not the whole study), investigating the effective implementation of localisation policies in four- and five-star hotels in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The purpose of the paper is to identify the research gap, and to present the need for the research. Further, it will explain how this research was conducted. Studies of localisation in the GCC countries are under-represented in scholarly literature. Currently, the hotel sectors in KSA and UAE play an important part in the countries’ economies. However, the total proportion of Saudis working in the hotel sector in KSA is slightly under 8%, and in the UAE, the hotel sector remains highly reliant on expatriates. There is therefore a need for research on strategies to enhance the implementation of the localisation policies in general and in the hotel sector in particular. Further, despite the importance of the hotel sector to their economies, there remains a dearth of research into the implementation of localisation policies in this sector. Indeed, as far as the researchers are aware, there is no study examining localisation in the hotel sector in KSA, and few in the UAE. This represents a considerable research gap. Regarding how the research was carried out, a multiple case study strategy was used. The four- and five-star hotel sector in KSA is one of the cases, while the four- and five-star hotel sector in the UAE is the other case. Four- and five-star hotels in KSA and the UAE were chosen as these countries have the longest established localisation policies of all the GCC states and there are more hotels of these classifications in these countries than in any of the other Gulf countries. A literature review was carried out to underpin the research. The empirical data were gathered in three phases. In order to gain a pre-understanding of the issues pertaining to the research context, Phase I involved eight unstructured interviews with officials from the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (three interviewees); the Saudi Human Resources Development Fund (one); the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (three); and the Abu Dhabi Development Fund (one).

In Phase II, a questionnaire was administered to 24 managers and 24 employees in four- and five-star hotels in each country to obtain their beliefs, attitudes, opinions, preferences and practices concerning localisation. Unstructured interviews were carried out in Phase III with six managers in each country in order to allow them to express opinions that may not have been explored in sufficient depth in the questionnaire. The interviews in Phases I and III were analysed using thematic analysis and SPSS will be used to analyse the questionnaire data. It is recommended that future research be undertaken on a larger scale, with a larger sample taken from all over KSA and the UAE rather than from only four cities (i.e., Riyadh and Jeddah in KSA and Abu Dhabi and Sharjah in the UAE), as was the case in this research.

Keywords: KSA, UAE, localisation, hotels, Human Resource Management.

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Authors: Siyathorn Khunon, Thanawit Buafai

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This paper aims to investigate management of beach safety with a focus on tourist drownings in Samui. The data collected in this investigation will then lead to the proposal of a practical management model suitable for use in Samui. Qualitative research was conducted in the following manner: nine stakeholders from local government organizations and tourism businesses were interviewed in-depth. Additionally, a best practice case study from Phuket was applied to analyze beach safety. Twelve foreign tourists were also interviewed. Then, a focus group comprised of 32 people was used to determine practical solutions for enhancing tourists’ safety on the beach in Samui. A steering committee to coordinate between public and private organizations was proposed to manage and enhance tourists’ safety. A practical model is proposed to increase the safety level of tourists in Samui

Keywords: Beach safety, drowning, tourists, Samui.

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Authors: Agneta Sundström, Zahra Ahmadi, Akmal Hyder

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The purpose of this paper is to develop a typology based on market orientation (MO) and innovation orientation (IO), and to illustrate to what extent housing companies in Sweden fit within this framework. A qualitative study on 11 public housing companies in the central part of Sweden has been conducted by the help of open and semi-structured questions for data collection. Four public housing company types- i.e. reactive prospector, proactive prospector, reactive defender and proactive defender have been identified by the combination of MO-IO dimensions. Future research can include other dimensions like entrepreneurship and network to observe how it particularly affects MO. An empirical study can compare public and private housing companies on the basis of MO and IO dimensions. One major contribution of the paper is the proposition of typology which can be used to describe public housing companies and deciding their future course of actions.

Keywords: Customer-led, economy, innovativeness, market orientation.

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Authors: Anocha Kimkong

Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to study the behavior trend factors of consumers to roasted coffee at the petrol station on the route of Rangsit to Nakhon Nayok. The research drew upon data collected from the regular consumers of roasted coffee stands. The majority of respondents was male, 33-39 years old, and holding a bachelor degree. The majority of respondents considered themselves private business proprietors or entrepreneurs and had a monthly income of between 10,000-16,000 baht. The regular coffee consumers spent a minimum coffee expense of between 45 and 300 baht per day. These consumers also displayed good attitude and good motivation which can be ranked as very high. From the hypothesis testing of the behavior trend for the roasted coffee consumers in repurchasing coffee and recommended the coffee to others, the findings revealed that it had a significant correlation. Moreover, the overall attitude towards the marketing mix factors also had a significant correlation with the behavior trend consumers.

Keywords: Factors Related, Consuming Behaviour, Coffee Consumers.

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Authors: Farid Ezanee Mohamed Ghazali

Abstract:

The Malaysia Highway Authority (MHA) was established by the Government in 1980 for the purpose of designing, constructing and maintaining toll highways in Malaysia that include the North-South Expressway and the Penang Bridge, which were procured using the publicly-funded traditional procurement. However following a recession in the mid 80-s, the operations of these tolledhighways had been privatized to ensure that their operational services continue through private financing as a result of long-term concession agreement concurred between the Malaysian Government and private operators. The change in the contract strategy for highway projects in Malaysia would have a great tendency to dictate a significant risk exposure towards the key parties involved, particularly the Malaysian Government as project principal, unless operational risks are clearly identified and managed via appropriate mitigation measures prior to a contract signing. This research identifies potential operational risks that have a possibility to occur in highway projects in Malaysia from the perspective of public sector clients. Since this research focuses on the operational risks for highway projects in Malaysia, the initial results acquired from literature review on the operational risks of highway projects in some Asian countries are then justified by a number of key individuals from the MHA through interviews. As a result, among key operational risks that have possibility to occur in the highway projects in Malaysia include initial toll-tariff decided by the Government, traffic congestion, change of road network and overloaded freight transportation, which could cause damage to the road surface and hence affecting the operation of a particular highway.

Keywords: Malaysia, operating highway project, operational risk.

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