Search results for: social work practice

Authors: Othmane Fahim, Naoual Belouaggadia. Charifa David, Mohamed Ezzine

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To make better use of cooling resources, systems have been derived on the basis of the use of night radiator systems for heat pumping. Using the TRNSYS tool we determined the influence of the climatic characteristics of the two zones in Morocco on the temperature of the outer surface of a Photovoltaic Thermal Panel “PVT” made of aluminum. The proposal to improve the performance of the panel allowed us to have little heat absorption during the day and give the same performance of a panel made of aluminum at night. The variation in the granite-based panel temperature recorded a deviation from the other materials of 0.5 °C, 2.5 °C on the first day respectively in Marrakech and Casablanca, and 0.2 °C and 3.2 °C on the second night. Power varied between 110.16 and 32.01 W/m² marked in Marrakech, to be the most suitable area to practice night cooling by night radiation.

Keywords: Morocco, TRANSYS, radiative cooling.

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Authors: Vladimir Simovic, Matija Varga, Tonco Marusic

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This research paper shows matrix technology models and examples of information systems in education (in the Republic of Croatia and in the Germany) in support of business, education (when learning and teaching) and e-learning. Here we researched and described the aims and objectives of the main process in education and technology, with main matrix classes of data. In this paper, we have example of matrix technology with detailed description of processes related to specific data classes in the processes of education and an example module that is support for the process: ‘Filling in the directory and the diary of work’ and ‘evaluation’. Also, on the lower level of the processes, we researched and described all activities which take place within the lower process in education. We researched and described the characteristics and functioning of modules: ‘Fill the directory and the diary of work’ and ‘evaluation’. For the analysis of the affinity between the aforementioned processes and/or sub-process we used our application model created in Visual Basic, which was based on the algorithm for analyzing the affinity between the observed processes and/or sub-processes.

Keywords: Designing, education management, information systems, matrix technology, process affinity.

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Authors: Panida Jongsuksomsakul

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This study of the ‘happiness’ and ‘sustainability’ in the community of Donkeaw, Amphoe Mae Rim, Chiang Mai Province during the non-election period in Thailand, noted that their happiness levels are in the middle-average range. This was found using a mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative methods (N = 386, α = 0.05). The study explores indicators for six aspects of well-being and happiness, including, good local governance, administrative support for the health system that maintains people’s mental and physical health, environment and weather, job security and a regular income aids them in managing a sustainable lifestyle. The impact of economic security and community relationships on social and cultural capital, and the way these aspects impact on the life style of the community, affects the sustainable well-being of people. Moreover, living with transparency and participatory communication led to diverse rewards in many areas.

Keywords: Communication, happiness, well-being, Donkeaw community, social and cultural capital.

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Authors: A. T. M. Shahjahan, M. D. Kamrul Islam, Saikat Mitra, Kutub Uddin Chisty

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Due to rapid pressured of population growth, city has started to lose its old tradition. City becomes congested with uncomfortably living. Urban renewal refers orderly development of settlements as well as land redevelopment. For this paper Chittagong city has been selected as study area. It had a great tradition but it has been losing its concord. Land use pattern of this place is also haphazard due to lack of planning intervention. Renewal plan is needed to ascertain suitable redevelopment and to recommend on preservation of city heritage structure. The goal of this study is to prepare a renewal plan using local planning approach. Social impact methods have been used to achieve this goal. Both primary and secondary data are used to achieve the goal. This study may find out a complete solution for healthy living in old Part of city. This study will help to preserve its tradition and makes urban lives more livable.

Keywords: Renewal Plan, Social Impact.

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Authors: P. Fazel

Abstract:

These days we face with so many advertisements in magazines, those mentioned coaching is pragmatic specialties which help people make change in their lives. Up to know Specialty coaches are not necessarily therapists, consultants or psychologist, thus they may not know psychological theories. The International Coach Federation identifies "facilitating learning and results" as one of its four core coach competencies, without understanding learning theories coaching practice hangs in theoretical abyss. Thus the aim of this article is investigating learning theories within coaching process. Therefore, I reviewed some cognitive and behavioral learning theories and analyzed their contribution with coaching process which has been introduced in mentor coaches and ICF certified coaches' papers and books. The result demonstrated that coaching profession is strongly grounded in learning theories, and it will be strengthened by the validation of theories and evidence-based research as we move forward. Thus, it needs more research in order to applying effective theoretical frameworks.

Keywords: Coaching, Learning theories. Cognitive learning theories, behavioral learning theories.

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Authors: Yee Yee Htun, Dr. Khaing Khaing Aye

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Morphological operators transform the original image into another image through the interaction with the other image of certain shape and size which is known as the structure element. Mathematical morphology provides a systematic approach to analyze the geometric characteristics of signals or images, and has been applied widely too many applications such as edge detection, objection segmentation, noise suppression and so on. Fuzzy Mathematical Morphology aims to extend the binary morphological operators to grey-level images. In order to define the basic morphological operations such as fuzzy erosion, dilation, opening and closing, a general method based upon fuzzy implication and inclusion grade operators is introduced. The fuzzy morphological operations extend the ordinary morphological operations by using fuzzy sets where for fuzzy sets, the union operation is replaced by a maximum operation, and the intersection operation is replaced by a minimum operation. In this work, it consists of two articles. In the first one, fuzzy set theory, fuzzy Mathematical morphology which is based on fuzzy logic and fuzzy set theory; fuzzy Mathematical operations and their properties will be studied in details. As a second part, the application of fuzziness in Mathematical morphology in practical work such as image processing will be discussed with the illustration problems.

Keywords: Binary Morphological, Fuzzy sets, Grayscalemorphology, Image processing, Mathematical morphology.

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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: Jipeng Yan, Xingchen Yang, Xiaowei Zhou, Mengxing Tang, Honghai Liu

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Shear elastic modulus of skeletal muscles can be obtained by shear wave elastography (SWE) and has been linearly related to muscle force. However, SWE is currently implemented using array probes. Price and volumes of these probes and their driving equipment prevent SWE from being used in wearable human-machine interfaces (HMI). Moreover, beamforming processing for array probes reduces the real-time performance. To achieve SWE by wearable HMIs, a customized three-element probe is adopted in this work, with one element for acoustic radiation force generation and the others for shear wave tracking. In-phase quadrature demodulation and 2D autocorrelation are adopted to estimate velocities of tissues on the sound beams of the latter two elements. Shear wave speeds are calculated by phase shift between the tissue velocities. Three agar phantoms with different elasticities were made by changing the weights of agar. Values of the shear elastic modulus of the phantoms were measured as 8.98, 23.06 and 36.74 kPa at a depth of 7.5 mm respectively. This work verifies the feasibility of measuring shear elastic modulus by wearable devices.

Keywords: Shear elastic modulus, skeletal muscle, ultrasound, wearable human-machine interface.

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Authors: W. Wanmolee, W. Sornlake, N. Laosiripojana, V. Champreda

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Conversion of lignocellulosic biomass is the basis process for production of fuels, chemicals and materials in the sustainable biorefinery industry. Saccharification of lignocellulosic biomass is an essential step which produces sugars for further conversion to target value-added products e.g. bio-ethanol, bio-plastic, g-valerolactone (GVL), 5-hydroxymethylfuroic acid (HMF), levulinic acid, etc. The goal of this work was to develop an efficient enzyme for conversion of biomass to reducing sugar based on crude fungal enzyme from Chaetomium globosum BCC5776 produced by submerged fermentation and evaluate its activity comparing to a commercial Acremonium cellulase. Five local biomasses in Thailand: rice straw, sugarcane bagasse, corncobs, corn stovers, and palm empty fruit bunches were pretreated and hydrolyzed with varying enzyme loadings. Saccharification of the biomass led to different reducing sugar levels from 115 mg/g to 720 mg/g from different types of biomass using cellulase dosage of 9 FPU/g. The reducing sugar will be further employed as sugar feedstock for production of ethanol or commodity chemicals. This work demonstrated the use of promising enzyme candidate for conversion of local lignocellulosic biomass in biorefinery industry.

Keywords: Biomass, Cellulase, Chaetomiun glubosum, Saccharification.

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Authors: Mnisi Blessing, Christopher Amoah

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The usage of modern technology is widespread in industrialised nations. The issue still pertains to developing countries since they struggle to use technology in the building sector. The study aims to identify the barriers to technology usage in quantity surveying firms. Quantity Surveyors were interviewed via Microsoft teams due to the dispersed nature of the participants. However, where the interview was not possible, the interview guide was emailed to the participants to fill in. In all, 12 participants were interviewed out of the 25 participants contacted. The data received were analysed using the content analysis process. The study's findings demonstrate that quantity surveyors have access to a wide range of technology that significantly enhances their project activities. However, quantity surveying companies are hesitant to use technology for several reasons, including the cost and maintenance associated with it. Other obstacles include a lack of knowledge, poor market acceptance, legal obstacles, and budgetary constraints. Despite the advantages associated with modern technology applications, quantity surveying firms are not using them, which may ultimately affect their work output. Therefore, firms need to re-examine these obstacles, inhibiting their adoption of technology in the work process to enhance their production. The study reveals the main hindrances to technology usage, which may help firms institute measures to address them.

Keywords: Technology usage barriers, technology implementation, technology acceptance, quantity surveying.

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Authors: Caihong Sun, Xizi Zhang

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Rating prediction is an important problem for recommender systems. The task is to predict the rating for an item that a user would give. Most of the existing algorithms for the task ignore the effect of negative ratings rated by users on items, but the negative ratings have a significant impact on users’ purchasing decisions in practice. In this paper, we present a rating prediction algorithm based on factorization machines that consider the effect of negative ratings inspired by Loss Aversion theory. The aim of this paper is to develop a concave and a convex negative disgust function to evaluate the negative ratings respectively. Experiments are conducted on MovieLens dataset. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods by comparing with other four the state-of-the-art approaches. The negative ratings showed much importance in the accuracy of ratings predictions.

Keywords: Factorization machines, feature engineering, negative ratings, recommendation systems.

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Authors: N. Zhang, J. S. Kuang, S. Mogili

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To investigate seismic performance of beam-column knee joints, four full-scale reinforced concrete beam-column knee joints, which were fabricated to simulate those in as-built RC frame buildings designed to ACI 318-14 and ACI-ASCE 352R-02, were tested under reversed cyclic loading. In the experimental programme, particular emphasis was given to the effect of horizontal reinforcement (in format of inverted U-shape bars) on the shear strength and ductility capacity of knee joints. Test results are compared with those predicted by four seismic design codes, including ACI 318-14, EC8, NZS3101 and GB50010. It is seen that the current design codes of practice cannot accurately predict the shear strength of seismically designed knee joints.

Keywords: Large-scale tests, RC beam-column knee joints, seismic performance, shear strength.

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Authors: Ruth Lijtmaer, Roy Moodley, Shafik Sunderani

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The argument that self-disclosure will change the psychoanalytic process into a socio-cultural niche distorting the therapeutic alliance and compromise therapeutic effectiveness is still the widely held belief amongst many psychotherapists. This paper considers the issues surrounding culture, disclosure and concealment since they remain largely untheorized and clinically problematic. The first part of the paper will critically examine the theory and practice of psychoanalysis across cultures, and explore the reasons for culturally diverse patients to conceal rather than disclose their feelings and thoughts in the transference. This is followed by a discussion on how immigrant analysts- anonymity is difficult to maintain since diverse nationalities, language and accents provide clues to the therapist-s and patient-s origins. Through personal clinical examples of one the author-s (who is an immigrant) the paper analyses the transference-countertransference paradigm and how it reflects in the analyst-s self-revelation.

Keywords: Self-disclosure, cross-cultural, transferencecountertransference, immigrant therapist.

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Authors: Yu-Chen Lin, Tzong-Yeang Lee

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This study aims to assess the vulnerability and risk of the coastal areas of Taijiang to abnormal oceanographic phenomena. In addition, this study aims to investigate and collect data regarding the disaster losses, land utilization, and other social, economic, and environmental issues in these coastal areas to construct a coastal vulnerability and risk map based on the obtained climate-change risk assessment results. Considering the indexes of the three coastal vulnerability dimensions, namely, man-made facilities, environmental geography, and social economy, this study adopted the equal weighting process and Analytic Hierarchy Process to analyze the vulnerability of these coastal areas to disasters caused by climatic changes. Among the areas with high coastal vulnerability to climatic changes, three towns had the highest coastal vulnerability and four had the highest relative vulnerability. Areas with lower disaster risks were found to be increasingly vulnerable to disasters caused by climatic changes as time progresses.

Keywords: Climate change, coastal disaster, risk, vulnerability

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Authors: Wang Zhenzhen, Wang Xu, Hong Liangping

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The construction of thematic commercial streets has been on the hotspot with the rapid development of cities. In order to improve the image and competitiveness of cities, many cities are building or rebuilding thematic commercial streets. However, many contradictions and problems have emerged during this process. Therefore, it is significant, for both the practice and the research, to analyze the development of thematic commercial streets and provide some useful suggestions. Through the deep research and comparative study of the eight typical thematic commercial streets in Harbin, this paper summarize the current situations, laws and influencing factors of the development of these streets, and then put forward some suggestions about the plan, constructions and developments of the thematic commercial streets.

Keywords: Thematic commercial streets, laws of the development, influence factors, the constructions and developments, degrees of aggregation.

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Authors: Khaled M. EL-Naggar

Abstract:

This paper presents a new method for estimating the mean curve of impulse voltage waveforms that are recorded during impulse tests. In practice, these waveforms are distorted by noise, oscillations and overshoot. The problem is formulated as an estimation problem. Estimation of the current signal parameters is achieved using a fast and accurate technique. The method is based on discrete dynamic filtering algorithm (DDF). The main advantage of the proposed technique is its ability in producing the estimates in a very short time and at a very high degree of accuracy. The algorithm uses sets of digital samples of the recorded impulse waveform. The proposed technique has been tested using simulated data of practical waveforms. Effects of number of samples and data window size are studied. Results are reported and discussed.

Keywords: Digital Filtering, Estimation, Impulse wave, Stochastic filtering.

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Authors: Harald Rojacz, Markus Varga, Horst Winkelmann

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Within this work High Temperature Single Impact Studies were performed to evaluate deformation mechanisms at different energy and momentum levels. To show the influence of different microstructures and hardness levels and their response to single impacts four different materials were tested at various temperatures up to 700°C. One carbide reinforced NiCrBSi based Metal Matrix Composite and three different steels were tested. The aim of this work is to determine critical energies for fracture appearance and the materials response at different energy and momenta levels. Critical impact loadings were examined at elevated temperatures to limit operating conditions in impact dominated regimes at elevated temperatures. The investigations on the mechanisms were performed using different means of microscopy at the surface and in metallographic cross sections. Results indicate temperature dependence of the occurrence of cracks in hardphase rich materials, such as Metal Matrix Composites High Speed Steels and the influence of different impact momenta at constant energies on the deformation of different steels.

Keywords: Deformation, High Temperature, Metal Matrix Composite, Single Impact Test, Steel.

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Authors: Bharti B. Parmar, Vivek J. Pandya

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The issue of unintentional islanding detection of grid connected synchronous distributed generation (SDG) remains the most challenging task faced by the distributed generation (DG) industry as SDG is highly capable of prolonging an island. This paper gives an insight of anti-islanding detection techniques mainly applied for SDG. Different techniques conclude that it is challenging to point out a generic method for a distinct purpose as the application of particular practice depends on nature of the end use and system dependent elements. Also, the setup and operational cost affect the selection of anti-islanding technique to achieve minimal compromising between cost and system quality. A test bench is created in the MATLAB/Simulink^® to demonstrate the results of a 33 kV system. The results are highly satisfactory and they are according to the current practices.

Keywords: Synchronous distributed generation, islanding, point of common coupling, loss of grid.

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Authors: Amit Kumar Jakhar, Kumar Rajnish

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Inherited complexity is one of the difficult tasks in software engineering field. Further, it is said that there is no physical laws or standard guidelines suit for designing different types of software. Hence, to make the software engineering as a matured engineering discipline like others, it is necessary that it has its own theoretical frameworks and laws. Software designing and development is a human effort which takes a lot of time and considers various parameters for successful completion of the software. The cognitive informatics plays an important role for understanding the essential characteristics of the software. The aim of this work is to consider the fundamental characteristics of the source code of Object-Oriented software i.e. complexity and understandability. The complexity of the programs is analyzed with the help of extracted important attributes of the source code, which is further utilized to evaluate the understandability factor. The aforementioned characteristics are analyzed on the basis of 16 C++ programs by distributing them to forty MCA students. They all tried to understand the source code of the given program and mean time is taken as the actual time needed to understand the program. For validation of this work, Briand’s framework is used and the presented metric is also evaluated comparatively with existing metric which proves its robustness.

Keywords: Software metrics, object-oriented, complexity, cognitive weight, understandability, basic control structures.

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Authors: A. T. Zaki

Abstract:

The flipped classroom approach as a mode of blended learning was formally introduced to students of the English language modules at the British University in Egypt (BUE) at the start of the academic year 2015/2016. This paper aims to study the impact of the flipped classroom approach after three semesters of implementation. It will restrict itself to the examination of students’ achievement rates, student satisfaction, and how different student cohorts have benefited differently from the flipped practice. The paper concludes with recommendations of how the experience can be further developed.

Keywords: Achievement rates, developmental experience, Egypt, flipped classroom, higher education, student cohorts, student satisfaction.

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Authors: Carlos A. D. Torres, Antonio D. Delgado

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In this work we study the thermodynamic behavior of some ventilated facades under summer operating conditions in Southern Spain. Under these climatic conditions, indoor comfort implies a high energetic demand due to high temperatures that usually are reached in this season in the considered geographical area.

The aim of this work is to determine if during summer operating conditions in Southern Spain, ventilated façades provide some energy saving compared to the non-ventilated façades and to deduce their behavior patterns in terms of energy efficiency.

The modelization of the air flow in the channel has been performed by using Navier-Stokes equations for thermodynamic flows. Numerical simulations have been carried out with a 2D Finite Element approach.

This way, we analyze the behavior of ventilated façades under different weather conditions as variable wind, variable temperature and different levels of solar irradiation.

CFD computations show the combined effect of the shading of the external wall and the ventilation by the natural convection into the air gap achieve a reduction of the heat load during the summer period. This reduction has been evaluated by comparing the thermodynamic performances of two ventilated and two unventilated façades with the same geometry and thermophysical characteristics.

Keywords: Passive cooling, ventilated façades, energy-efficient building, CFD, FEM.

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Authors: L. Dahmani, S. Drizi, M. Djemai, A. Boudjemia, M. O. Mechiche

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Channel sections are widely used in practice as beams. However, design rules for eccentrically loaded (not through shear center) beams with channel cross- sections are not available in Eurocode 3. This paper compares the ultimate loads based on the adjusted design rules for lateral torsional buckling of eccentrically loaded channel beams in bending to the ultimate loads obtained with Finite Element (FE) simulations on the basis of a parameter study. Based on the proposed design rule, this study has led to a new design rule which conforms to Eurocode 3.

Keywords: ANSYS, Eurocode 3, finite element method, lateral torsional buckling, steel channel beam.

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Authors: Nurliani, Ida Rosada

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The national rice consumption keeps increasing along with raising income of the households and the rapid growth of population. However, food availability, particularly rice, is limited. Impacts of rice-field conversion have run cumulatively, as we can see on potential losses of rice and crops production, as well as work opportunity that keeps increasing year-by-year. Therefore, it requires policy recommendation to control rice-field conversion through economic, social, and ecological approaches. The research was a survey method intended to: (1) Identify internal factors; quality and productivity of the land as the cause of land conversion, (2) Identify external factors of land conversion, value of the rice-field and the competitor’s land, workforce absorption, and regulation, as well as (3) Formulate strategies in controlling rice-field conversion. Population of the research was farmers who applied land conversion at Pangkep Regency, South Sulawesi. Samples were determined using the incidental sampling method. Data analysis used productivity analysis, land quality analysis, total economic value analysis, and SWOT analysis. Results of the research showed that the quality of rice-field was low as well as productivity of the grains (unhulled-rice). So that, average productivity of the grains and quality of rice-field were low as well. Total economic value of rice-field was lower than the economic value of the embankment. Workforce absorption value on rice-field was higher than on the embankment. Strategies in controlling such rice-field conversion can be done by increasing rice-field productivity, improving land quality, applying cultivation technique of specific location, improving the irrigation lines, and socializing regulation and sanction about the transfer of land use.

Keywords: Land conversion, quality of rice-field, land economic value, strategy in controlling.

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Authors: Leila Mohammadi

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This paper presents the impact of persuasive communication implemented by fertility clinics websites, and how this information influences women at their decision-making for undertaking this procedure. The influential factors for women decisions to do social egg freezing (SEF) are analyzed from a framing theory perspective, with a specific focus on the impact of persuasive information on women’s decision making. This study follows a quantitative approach. A two-phase survey has been conducted to examine the interest rate to undertake SEF. In the first phase, a questionnaire was available during a month (May 2015) to women to answer whether or not they knew enough information of this process, with a total of 230 answers. The second phase took place in the two last weeks of July 2015. All the respondents were invited to a seminars called ‘All about egg freezing’ and afretwards they were requested to answer the second questionnaire. After the seminar, in which they were given an extensive amount of information about egg freezing, a total of 115 women replied the questionnaire. The collected data during this process were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Most of the respondents changed their opinion in the second questionaire which was after receiving information. Although in the first questionnaire their self-evaluation of having knowledge about this process and the implemented technologies was very high, they realized that they still need to access more information from different sources in order to be able to make a decision. The study reached the conclusion that persuasive and framed information by clinics would affect the decisions of these women. Despite the reasons women have to do egg freezing and their motivations behind it, providing people necessary information and unprejudiced data about this process (such as its positive and negative aspects, requirements, suppositions, possibilities and consequences) would help them to make a more precise and reasonable decision about what they are buying.

Keywords: Decision making, fertility clinics, framing theory, persuasive information, social egg freezing.

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Authors: M. Zeegers, D. Barron

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In this paper we canvass three case studies of unique research partnerships between universities and schools in the wider community. In doing so, we consider those areas of indeterminate zones of professional practice explored by academics in their research activities within the wider community. We discuss three cases: an artist-in-residence program designed to engage primary school children with new understandings about local Indigenous Australian issues in their pedagogical and physical landscapes; an assessment of pedagogical concerns in relation to the use of physical space in classrooms; and the pedagogical underpinnings of a costumed museum school program. In doing so, we engage issues of research as playing an integral part in the development, implementation and maintenance of academic engagements with wider community issues.

Keywords: communities of interest, universities, schools, partnerships

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Authors: Chien-Hung Chen, Yan-Chun Hsing, Yung-Chun Chang

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The Internet has grown into a powerful medium for information dispersion and social interaction that leads to a rapid growth of social media which allows users to easily post their emotions and perspectives regarding certain topics online. Our research aims at using natural language processing and text mining techniques to explore the public emotions expressed on Twitter by analyzing the sentiment behind tweets. In this paper, we propose a composite kernel method that integrates tree kernel with the linear kernel to simultaneously exploit both the tree representation and the distributed emotion keyword representation to analyze the syntactic and content information in tweets. The experiment results demonstrate that our method can effectively detect public emotion of tweets while outperforming the other compared methods.

Keywords: Public emotion recognition, natural language processing, composite kernel, sentiment analysis, text mining.

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Authors: Eileen M. J. Knight

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This study examines the structural and systematic processes of the Human Resources Division at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago for evidence of incorporation of the University's 2012- 2017 Strategic Plan. In conducting the study the structure of the Human Resources Management Division and its functions were carefully reviewed and measured against the strategic direction of the organisation. Findings indicate disconnect between these areas as there is apparent failure of the Human Resources Division to totally align its mandate with that of the organisation-s strategic direction. This action serves to threaten the viability of the organisation and its efficiency and effectiveness as an institution. The recommendations being put forward are for the realignment of the Human Resources Management Division and for its focus to mirror that of the organisation and the organisation-s goals and objectives. This may entail a restructuring of the Division.

Keywords: Commonwealth Caribbean, Realignment, Region, Strategic Plan.

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Authors: Jana Puchyova

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In recent years a number of applications with multirobot systems (MRS) is growing in various areas. But their design is in practice often difficult and algorithms are proposed for the theoretical background and do not consider errors and noise in real conditions, so they are not usable in real environment. These errors are visible also in task of target localization enough, when robots try to find and estimate the position of the target by the sensors. Localization of target is possible also with one robot but as it was examined target finding and localization with group of mobile robots can estimate the target position more accurately and faster. The accuracy of target position estimation is made by cooperation of MRS and particle filtering. Advantage of usage the MRS with particle filtering was tested on task of fixed target localization by group of mobile robots.

Keywords: Multi-robot system, particle filter, position estimation, target localization.

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Authors: S. Bahadır Yüksel, Alptuğ Ünal

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The Composite Shear Walls (CSW) with steel encased profiles can be used as lateral-load resisting systems for buildings that require considerable large lateral-load capacity. The aim of this work is to propose the experimental work conducted on CSW having L section folded plate (L shape steel made-up sections) as longitudinal reinforcement in boundary regions. The study in this paper present the experimental test conducted on CSW having L section folded plate as longitudinal reinforcement in boundary regions. The tested 1/3 geometric scaled CSW has aspect ratio of 3.2. L-shape structural steel materials with 2L-19x57x7mm dimensions were placed in shear wall boundary zones. The seismic behavior of CSW test specimen was investigated by evaluating and interpreting the hysteresis curves, envelope curves, rigidity and consumed energy graphs of this tested element. In addition to this, the experimental results, deformation and cracking patterns were evaluated, interpreted and suggestions of the design recommendations were proposed.

Keywords: Shear wall, composite shear wall, boundary reinforcement, earthquake resistant structural design, L section.

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Authors: Azher H. Qamar

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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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