Search results for: state social policy

Authors: C. Barreto Carvalho, C. da Motta, J. Pinto-Gouveia, E. B. Peixoto

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Auditory hallucinations among the most invalidating and distressing experiences reported by patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, leading to feelings of powerlessness and helplessness towards their illness. In more severe cases, these auditory hallucinations can take the form of commanding voices, which are often related to high suicidality rates in these patients. Several authors propose that the meanings attributed to the hallucinatory experience, rather than characteristics like form and content, can be determinant in patients’ reactions to hallucinatory activity, particularly in the case of voice-hearing experiences. In this study, 48 patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia presenting auditory hallucinations were studied. Multiple regression analyses were computed to study the influence of several developmental aspects, such as family and social dynamics, bullying, depression, and sociocognitive variables on the auditory hallucinations, on patients’ attributions and relationships with their voices, and on the resulting invalidation of hallucinatory experience. Overall, results showed how relationships with voices can mirror several aspects of interpersonal relationship with others, and how self-schemas, depression and actual social relationships help shaping the voice-hearing experience. Early experiences of victimization and submission help predict the attributions of omnipotence of the voices, and increased hostility from parents seems to increase the malevolence of the voices, suggesting that socio-cognitive factors can significantly contribute to the etiology and maintenance of auditory hallucinations. The understanding of the characteristics of auditory hallucinations and the relationships patients established with their voices can allow the development of more promising therapeutic interventions that can be more effective in decreasing invalidation caused by this devastating mental illness.

Keywords: Auditory hallucinations, beliefs, life events, schizophrenia.

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Authors: Tuisem Shimrah

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One general agreement on climate change is that its causes may be local but the effects are global. Indigenous people are subscribed to “low-carbon” traditional ways of life and as such they have contributed little to causes of climate change. On the contrary they are the most adversely affected by climate change due to their dependence on surrounding rich biological wealth as a source of their livelihood, health care, entertainment and cultural activities This paper deals with the results of the investigation of various adaptation strategies adopted to combat climate change by traditional community. The result shows effective ways of application of traditional knowledge and wisdom applied by Tangkhul traditional community at local and community level in remote areas in Northeast India. Four adaptation measures are being presented in this paper.

Keywords: Climate change, adaptation, Tangkhul, traditional community, policy, Northeast India.

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Authors: Yiorgos Hadjichristou

Abstract:

The paper will focus on the strategic development deriving from the evolution of the traditional courtyard spatial organization towards a new, contemporary sustainable way of living. New sustainable approaches that engulf the social issues, the notion of place, the understanding of weather architecture blended together with the bioclimatic behavior will be seen through a series of experimental case studies in the island of Cyprus, inspired and originated from its traditional wisdom, ranging from small scale of living to urban interventions. Weather and nature will be seen as co-architectural authors with architects. Furthermore, the building will be seen not as an object but rather as a vessel of human activities. This will further enhance the notion of merging the material and immaterial, the built and unbuilt, subject-human, and the object-building. This eventually will enable to generate the discussion of the understanding of the building in relation to the place and its inhabitants, where the human topography is more important than the material topography. The specificities of the divided island and the dealing with sites that are in vicinity with the diving Green Line will further trigger explorations dealing with the regeneration issues and the social sustainability offering unprecedented opportunities for innovative sustainable ways of living. Opening up a discourse with premises of weather-nature, materialimmaterial, human-material topographies in relation to the contested sites of the borders will lead us to develop innovative strategies for a profound, both technical and social sustainability, which fruitfully yields to innovative living built environments, responding to the ever changing environmental and social needs. As a starting point, a case study in Kaimakli in Nicosia, a refurbishment with an extension of a traditional house, already engulfs all the traditional/ vernacular wisdom of the bioclimatic architecture. The project focusses on the direct and quite obvious bioclimatic features such as south orientation and cross ventilation. Furthermore, it tries to reinvent the adaptation of these parameters in order to turn the whole house to a contemporary living environment. In order to succeed this, evolutions of traditional architectural elements and spatial conditions are integrated in a way that does not only respond to some certain weather conditions, but they integrate and blend the weather within the built environment. A series of innovations aiming at maximum flexibility is proposed. The house can finally be transformed into a winter enclosure, while for the most part of the year it turns into a ‘camping’ living environment. Parallel to experimental interventions in existing traditional units, we will proceed examining the implementation of the same developed methodology in designing living units and complexes. Malleable courtyard organizations that attempt to blend the traditional wisdom with the contemporary needs for living, the weather and nature with the built environment will be seen tested in both horizontal and vertical developments. Social activities are seen as directly affected and forged by the weather conditions thus generating a new social identity of people where people are directly involved and interacting with the weather. The human actions and interaction with the built, material environment in order to respond to weather will be seen as the result of balancing the social with the technological sustainability, the immaterial, and the material aspects of the living environment.

Keywords: Building as a verb, contemporary living, traditional bioclimatic wisdom, weather architecture.

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Authors: George Leventakis, George Kokkinis, Nikos Moustakidis, George Papalexandratos, Ioanna Vasiliadou

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Enhancing the feeling of public safety and crime prevention are tasks customarily assigned to the Police. Police departments have, however, recognized that traditional ways of policing methods are becoming obsolete; Community Policing (CP) philosophy; however, when applied appropriately, leads to seamless collaboration between various stakeholders like the Police, NGOs and the general public and provides the opportunity to identify risks, assist in solving problems of crime, disorder, safety and crucially contribute to improving the quality of life for everyone in a community. Social Media, on the other hand, due to its high level of infiltration in modern life, constitutes a powerful mechanism which offers additional and direct communication channels to reach individuals or communities. These channels can be utilized to improve the citizens’ perception of the Police and to capture individual and community needs, when their feedback is taken into account by Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in a structured and coordinated manner. This paper presents research conducted under INSPEC²T (Inspiring CitizeNS Participation for Enhanced Community PoliCing AcTions), a project funded by the European Commission’s research agenda to bridge the gap between CP as a philosophy and as an organizational strategy, capitalizing on the use of Social Media. The project aims to increase transparency, trust, police accountability, and the role of civil society. It aspires to build strong, trusting relationships between LEAs and the public, supporting two-way, contemporary communication while at the same time respecting anonymity of all affected parties. Results presented herein summarize the outcomes of four online multilingual surveys, focus group interviews, desktop research and interviews with experts in the field of CP practices. The above research activities were conducted in various EU countries aiming to capture requirements of end users from diverse backgrounds (social, cultural, legal and ethical) and determine public expectations regarding CP, community safety and crime prevention.

Keywords: Community partnerships, next generation community policing, public safety, social media.

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Authors: Mohd Zaimmudin Mohd Zain, Patsy Perry, Lee Quinn

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This study explores how fashion consumers are influenced by fashion bloggers towards pre-purchase decision for online fashion products in a non-Western context. Malaysians rank among the world’s most avid online shoppers, with apparel the third most popular purchase category. However, extant research on fashion blogging focuses on the developed Western market context. Numerous international fashion retailers have entered the Malaysian market from luxury to fast fashion segments of the market; however Malaysian fashion consumers must balance religious and social norms for modesty with their dress style and adoption of fashion trends. Consumers increasingly mix and match Islamic and Western elements of dress to create new styles enabling them to follow Western fashion trends whilst paying respect to social and religious norms. Social media have revolutionised the way that consumers can search for and find information about fashion products. For online fashion brands with no physical presence, social media provide a means of discovery for consumers. By allowing the creation and exchange of user-generated content (UGC) online, they provide a public forum that gives individual consumers their own voices, as well as access to product information that facilitates their purchase decisions. Social media empower consumers and brands have important roles in facilitating conversations among consumers and themselves, to help consumers connect with them and one another. Fashion blogs have become an important fashion information sources. By sharing their personal style and inspiring their followers with what they wear on popular social media platforms such as Instagram, fashion bloggers have become fashion opinion leaders. By creating UGC to spread useful information to their followers, they influence the pre-purchase decision. Hence, successful Western fashion bloggers such as Chiara Ferragni may earn millions of US dollars every year, and some have created their own fashion ranges and beauty products, become judges in fashion reality shows, won awards, and collaborated with high street and luxury brands. As fashion blogging has become more established worldwide, increasing numbers of fashion bloggers have emerged from non-Western backgrounds to promote Islamic fashion styles, such as Hassanah El-Yacoubi and Dian Pelangi. This study adopts a qualitative approach using netnographic content analysis of consumer comments on two famous Malaysian fashion bloggers’ Instagram accounts during January-March 2016 and qualitative interviews with 16 Malaysian Generation Y fashion consumers during September-October 2016. Netnography adapts ethnographic techniques to the study of online communities or computer-mediated communications. Template analysis of the data involved coding comments according to the theoretical framework, which was developed from the literature review. Initial data analysis shows the strong influence of Malaysian fashion bloggers on their followers in terms of lifestyle and morals as well as fashion style. Followers were guided towards the mix and match trend of dress with Western and Islamic elements, for example, showing how vivid colours or accessories could be worked into an outfit whilst still respecting social and religious norms. The blogger’s Instagram account is a form of online community where followers can communicate and gain guidance and support from other followers, as well as from the blogger.

Keywords: Fashion bloggers, Malaysia, qualitative, social media.

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Authors: K.H. Yang

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After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 in U.S., the container security issue got high attention, especially by U.S. government, which deployed a lot of measures to promote or improve security systems. U.S. government not only enhances its national security system, but allies with other countries against the potential terrorist attacks in the future. For example CSI (Container Security Initiative), it encourages foreign ports outside U.S. to become CSI ports as a part of U.S. anti-terrorism network. Although promotion of the security could partly reach the goal of anti-terrorism, that will influence the efficiency of container supply chain, which is the main concern when implementing the inspection measurements. This paper proposes a quick estimation methodology for an inspection service rate by a berth allocation heuristic such that the inspection activities will not affect the original container supply chain. Theoretical and simulation results show this approach is effective.

Keywords: Berth allocation, Container, Heuristic, Inspection.

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Authors: D. Mirauda, M. Greco, P. Moscarelli

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The river flow forecasting represents a crucial point to employ for improving a management policy addressed to the right use of water resources as well as for conjugating prevention and defense actions against environmental degradation. The difficulties occurring during the field activities encourage the development and implementation of operative computation and measuring methods addressed to time reduction for data acquisition and processing maintaining a good level of accuracy. Therefore, the aim of the present work is to test a new entropy based expeditive methodology for the evaluation of the rating curves on three gauged sections with different geometric and morphological characteristics. The methodology requires the choice of only three verticals along the measure section and the sampling of only the maximum velocity. The results underline how in most conditions the rating curves drawn can replace those built with classic methodologies, simplifying thus the procedures of data monitoring and calculation.

Keywords: gauged station, entropic approach, expeditive methodology, rating curves.

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Authors: Ayse Gecer, Nihal Erginel

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Quality control is the crucial step for ISO 9001 Quality System Management Standard for companies. While measuring the quality level of both raw material and semi product/product, the calibration of the measuring device is an essential requirement. Calibration suppliers are in the service sector and therefore the calibration supplier selection is becoming a worthy topic for improving service quality. This study presents the results of a questionnaire about the selection criteria of a calibration supplier. The questionnaire was applied to 103 companies and the results are discussed in this paper. The analysis was made with MINITAB 14.0 statistical programs. “Competence of documentations" and “technical capability" are defined as the prerequisites because of the ISO/IEC17025:2005 standard. Also “warranties and complaint policy", “communication", “service features", “quality" and “performance history" are defined as very important criteria for calibration supplier selection.

Keywords: Calibration, criteria of calibration supplier selection, calibration supplier selection, questionnaire

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Authors: Rekik Rima, Aouachria Mekki

Abstract:

We study the movement of a two-level atom in interaction with time dependent nonuniform magnetic filed using the path integral formalism. The propagator is first written in the standard form by replacing the spin by a unit vector aligned along the polar and azimuthal directions. Then it is determined exactly using perturbation methods. Thus the Rabi formula of the system are deduced.

Keywords: Path integral, Formalism, Propagator, Transition probability.

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Authors: Osman Samancı, Ramazan Kaya

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The purpose of this study is to determine the circumstances affecting elementary school students in their family and school lives and what kind of emotions children may feel because of these circumstances. The study was carried out according to the survey model. Four Turkish elementary schools provided 123 fourth grade students for participation in the study. The study-s data were collected by using worksheets for the activity titled “Important Days in Our Lives", which was part of the Elementary School Social Sciences Course 4th Grade Education Program. Data analysis was carried out according to the content analysis technique used in qualitative research. The study detected that circumstances of their family and school lives caused children to feel emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear and jealousy. The circumstances and the emotions caused by these circumstances were analyzed according to gender and interpreted by presenting them with their frequencies.

Keywords: Elementary school students, emotional development, family and school, social development.

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Authors: Shishir Kumar, Chhaya Gangwal, Seema Raj

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Public health informatics (PHI) which has seen successful implementation in the developed world, become the buzzword in the developing countries in providing improved healthcare with enhanced access. In rural areas especially, where a huge gap exists between demand and supply of healthcare facilities, PHI is being seen as a major solution. There are factors such as growing network infrastructure and the technological adoption by the health fraternity which provide support to these claims. Public health informatics has opportunities in healthcare by providing opportunities to diagnose patients, provide intra-operative assistance and consultation from a remote site. It also has certain barriers in the awareness, adaptation, network infrastructure, funding and policy related areas. There are certain medico-legal aspects involving all the stakeholders which need to be standardized to enable a working system. This paper aims to analyze the potential and challenges of Public health informatics services in rural communities.

Keywords: PHI, e-health, Public health.

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Authors: Bundit Pungnirund

Abstract:

The purposes of this research were to develop and to monitor the antecedent factors which directly affected the success rate of new product development. This was a case study of the leather industry in Bangkok, Thailand. A total of 350 leather factories were used as a sample group. The findings revealed that the new product development model was harmonized with the empirical data at the acceptable level, the statistic values are: χ2=6.45, df= 7, p-value = .48856; RMSEA = .000; RMR = .0029; AGFI = .98; GFI = 1.00. The independent variable that directly influenced the dependent variable at the highest level was marketing outcome which had a influence coefficient at 0.32 and the independent variables that indirectly influenced the dependent variables at the highest level was a clear organization policy which had a influence coefficient at 0.17, whereas, all independent variables can predict the model at 48 percent.

Keywords: Antecedent, New Product Development, Leather Industry.

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Authors: Reinhard Neck, Guido Schäfer

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In this paper, we explore the macroeconomic effects of the European Single Market on Austria by simulating the McKibbin-Sachs Global Model. Global interdependences and the impact of long-run effects on short-run adjustments are taken into account. We study the sensitivity of the results with respect to different assumptions concerning monetary and fiscal policies for the countries and regions of the world economy. The consequences of different assumptions about budgetary policies in Austria are also investigated. The simulation results are contrasted with ex-post evaluations of the actual impact of Austria’s membership in the Single Market. As a result, it can be concluded that the Austrian participation in the European Single Market entails considerable long-run gains for the Austrian economy with nearly no adverse sideeffects on any macroeconomic target variable.

Keywords: Macroeconomics, European Union, simulation, sensitivity analysis.

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Authors: S. S. Rwanga, J. M. Ndambuki, Y. Woyessa

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Development of a groundwater management model is an important step in the exploitation and management of any groundwater aquifer as it assists in the long-term sustainable planning of the resource. The current study was conducted in Central Limpopo province of South Africa with the overall objective of determining how much water can be withdrawn from the aquifer without producing nonreversible impacts on the groundwater quantity, hence developing a model which can sustainably protect the aquifer. The development was done through the computation of Groundwater Sustainability Index (GSI). Values of GSI close to unity and above indicated overexploitation. In this study, an index of 0.8 was considered as overexploitation. The results indicated that there is potential for higher abstraction rates compared to the current abstraction rates. GSI approach can be used in the management of groundwater aquifer to sustainably develop the resource and also provides water managers and policy makers with fundamental information on where future water developments can be carried out.

Keywords: Development, groundwater, groundwater sustainability index, model.

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Authors: Hashem Dehghanniri

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Crime scripting is a simple and effective crime modeling technique that aims to improve understanding of security analysts about security and crime incidents. Low-quality scripts provide a wrong, incomplete, or sophisticated understanding of the crime commission process, which oppose the purpose of their application, e.g., identifying effective and cost-efficient situational crime prevention (SCP) measures. One important and overlooked factor in generating quality scripts is the crime scripting method. This study investigates the problems within the existing crime scripting practices and proposes a crime scripting approach that contributes to generating quality crime scripts. It was validated by experienced crime scripters. This framework helps analysts develop better crime scripts and contributes to their effective application, e.g., SCP measures identification or policy-making.

Keywords: Attack modeling, crime commission process, crime script, situational crime prevention.

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Authors: N. Elgendy, N. Hussein

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The current Syrian crisis has caused unprecedented practices of global mobility. The process of forced eviction and the resettlement of refugees could be seen through the insights of the “new mobilities paradigm”. The mobility of refugees in terms of meaning and practice is a subject that calls for further studies. There is a need for the development of an approach to human mobility to understand a practice that is turning into a phenomenon in the 21^st century. This paper aims at studying, from a qualitative point of view, the process of movement within the six constituents of mobility defined as the first phase of the journey of a refugee. The second phase would include the process of settling in and re-defining the host country as new “home” to refugees. The change in the refugee state of mind and crossing the physical and mental borders from a “foreigner” to a citizen is encouraged by both the governmental policies and the local communities’ efforts to embrace these newcomers. The paper would focus on these policies of social and economic integration. The concept of integration connotes the idea that refugees would enjoy the opportunities, rights and services available to the citizens of the refugee’s new community. So, this paper examines this concept through showcasing the two hosting countries of Canada and Egypt, as they provide two contrasting situations in terms of cultural, geographical, economic and political backgrounds. The analysis would highlight the specific policies defined towards the refugees including the mass communication, media calls, and access to employment. This research is part of a qualitative research project on the process of Urban Mobility practiced by the Syrian Refugees, drawing on conversational interviews with new-settlers who have moved to the different hosting countries, from their home in Syria. It explores these immigrants’ practical and emotional relationships with the process of movement and settlement. It uses the conversational interviews as a tool to document analysis and draw relationships in an attempt to establish an understanding of the factors that contribute to the new-settlers feeling of home and integration within the new community.

Keywords: Mobility, refugees, home, integration.

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Authors: Mingaleva Zhanna, Gayfutdinova Oksana, Podgornova Evgenia

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The regional innovative competitiveness is an integrating characteristic of the innovative sphere of the region. It depends on a big variety of different parameters connected with all kinds of economic entities- activities. But management parameters shouldn't be irregular, so in order to avoid it, an institutional system should be formed. This system should carry out strategic management of factors having the greatest influence on the region's innovative development. This article is devoted to different aspects of organization of the region's development institutional mechanism, which is based on management of regional innovative competitiveness parameters. The base of the analysis is innovatively-active Russian regions which were compared according to the level of the innovative competitiveness. After that the most important parameters of successful innovative development of the region were revealed with the help of the correlation-regression analysis. The results of the research could be used for investigation of the region's innovative policy.

Keywords: Regional innovative competitiveness, institutional mechanism, innovative region development, correlation-regression analysis.

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Authors: Jaouad Oukrich, Belaid Bouikhalene, Noureddine Askour

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This paper deals with the problem of management of information resources in libraries of the public institution Sultan Moulay Slimane University (SMSU) in order to analyze the satisfaction of the readers, and allow university leaders to make better strategic and instant decisions. For this, the integration of an integrated management decision library system is a priority program of higher education, as part of the Digital Morocco, which has a proactive policy to develop the use of new technologies information and communication in higher institutions. This operational information system can provide better services to the students and for the leaders. Our approach is to integrate the tools of business intelligence (BI) in the library management by using power BI.

Keywords: PMB, integrated library management system, ILMS, document, SMSU, power BI, satisfaction.

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Authors: Z. Abdullah, A. R. Hamdan

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Clustering is a process of grouping objects and data into groups of clusters to ensure that data objects from the same cluster are identical to each other. Clustering algorithms in one of the area in data mining and it can be classified into partition, hierarchical, density based and grid based. Therefore, in this paper we do survey and review four major hierarchical clustering algorithms called CURE, ROCK, CHAMELEON and BIRCH. The obtained state of the art of these algorithms will help in eliminating the current problems as well as deriving more robust and scalable algorithms for clustering.

Keywords: Clustering, method, algorithm, hierarchical, survey.

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Authors: Wen-Chi Liu

Abstract:

This study applies the sequential panel selection method (SPSM) procedure proposed by Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009) to investigate the time-series properties of energy consumption in 50 US states from 1963 to 2009. SPSM involves the classification of the entire panel into a group of stationary series and a group of non-stationary series to identify how many and which series in the panel are stationary processes. Empirical results obtained through SPSM with the panel KSS unit root test developed by Ucar and Omay (2009) combined with a Fourier function indicate that energy consumption in all the 50 US states are stationary. The results of this study have important policy implications for the 50 US states.

Keywords: Energy Consumption, Panel Unit Root, Sequential Panel Selection Method, Fourier Function, US states.

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Authors: Brett E. Shelton, Joel Duffin, Yuxuan Wang, Justin Ball

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With a growing number of digital libraries and other open education repositories being made available throughout the world, effective search and retrieval tools are necessary to access the desired materials that surpass the effectiveness of traditional, allinclusive search engines. This paper discusses the design and use of Folksemantic, a platform that integrates OpenCourseWare search, Open Educational Resource recommendations, and social network functionality into a single open source project. The paper describes how the system was originally envisioned, its goals for users, and data that provides insight into how it is actually being used. Data sources include website click-through data, query logs, web server log files and user account data. Based on a descriptive analysis of its current use, modifications to the platform's design are recommended to better address goals of the system, along with recommendations for additional phases of research.

Keywords: Digital libraries, open education, recommendation system, social networks

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Authors: P. I. Moraru, T. Rusu

Abstract:

Soil tillage systems can be able to influence soil compaction, water dynamics, soil temperature and crop yield. These processes can be expressed as changes of soil microbiological activity, soil respiration and sustainability of agriculture. Objectives of this study were: 1 - to assess the effects of tillage systems (Conventional System (CS), Minimum Tillage (MT), No-Tillage (NT)) on soil compaction, soil temperature, soil moisture and soil respiration and 2- to establish the effect of the changes on the production of wheat, maize and soybean. Five treatments were installed: CS-plough; MT-paraplow, chisel, rotary grape; NT-direct sowing. The study was conducted on an Argic-Stagnic Faeoziom. The MT and NT applications reduce or completely eliminate the soil mobilization, due to this; soil is compacted in the first year of application. The degree of compaction is directly related to soil type and its state of degradation. The state of soil compaction diminished over time, tending toward a specific type of soil density. Soil moisture was higher in NT and MT at the time of sowing and in the early stages of vegetation and differences diminished over time. Moisture determinations showed statistically significant differences. The MT and NT applications reduced the thermal amplitude in the first 15cm of soil depth and increased the soil temperature by 0.5-2.2⁰C. Water dynamics and soil temperature showed no differences on the effect of crop yields. The determinations confirm the effect of soil tillage system on soil respiration; the daily average was lower at NT (315-1914 mmoli m^-2s^-1) and followed by MT (318-2395 mmoli m^-2s^-1) and is higher in the CS (321-2480 mmol m^-2s^-1). Comparing with CS, all the four conservation tillage measures decreased soil respiration, with the best effects of no-tillage. Although wheat production at MT and NT applications, had no significant differences soybean production was significantly affected from MT and NT applications. The differences in crop yields are recorded at maize and can be a direct consequence of loosening, mineralization and intensive mobilization of soil fertility.

Keywords: Soil tillage, soil properties, yield.

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Authors: Teresa L. Ju, Szu-Yuan Sun, Pei-Ju Chao, Chang-Yao Wu

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This study aims to examine the factors affecting knowledge sharing behavior in knowledge-based electronic communities (e-communities) because quantity and quality of knowledge shared among the members play a critical role in the community-s sustainability. Past research has suggested three perspectives that may affect the quantity and quality of knowledge shared: economics, social psychology, and social ecology. In this study, we strongly believe that an economic perspective may be suitable to validate factors influencing newly registered members- knowledge contribution at the beginning of relationship development. Accordingly, this study proposes a model to validate the factors influencing members- knowledge sharing based on Transaction Cost Theory. By doing so, we may empirically test our hypotheses in various types of e-communities to determine the generalizability of our research models.

Keywords: Electronic community, individual behavior, knowledge sharing, transaction cost theory.

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Authors: Fang Yao, Minglei Chen

Abstract:

City shrinkage is one of the thorny problems that many European cities have to face with nowadays. It is mainly expressed as the decrease of population in these cities. Eastern Germany is one of the pioneers of European shrinking cities with long shrinking history. The paper selects one representative shrinking city Halle (Saale) in eastern Germany as research objective, collecting and investigating nearly 20 years (1993-2010) municipal data after the reunification of Germany. These data based on five dimensions, which are demographic, economic, social, spatial and environmental and total 16 eligible variables. Factor Analysis is used to deal with these variables in order to assess the most important factors affecting shrinking Halle. The results show that there are three main factors determine the shrinkage of Halle, respectively named “demographical and economical factor”, “social stability factor”, and “city vitality factor”. The three factors act at different time period of Halle’s shrinkage: from 1993 to 1997 the demographical and economical factor played an important role; from 1997 to 2004 the social stability factor is significant to city shrinkage; since 2005 city vitality factor determines the shrinkage of Halle. In recent years, the shrinkage in Halle mitigates that shows the sign of growing population. Thus the city Halle should focus on attaching more importance on the city vitality factor to prevent the city from shrinkage. Meanwhile, the city should possess a positive perspective to shift the growth-oriented development to tap the potential of shrinking cities. This method is expected to apply to further research and other shrinking cities

Keywords: Demography, Factor analysis, Halle, Shrinking cities.

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Authors: Pisit Potjanajaruwit

Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to study the motivation factors to influence the decision to choose Thai Fabric. A multiple-stage sample was utilized to collect 400 samples from working women who had diverse occupations all over Thailand. This research was a quantitative analysis and questionnaire was used a tool to collect data. Descriptive statistics used in this research included percentage, average, and standard deviation and inferential statistics included hypothesis testing of one way ANOVA. The research findings revealed that demographic factors and social factors had an influence to the positive idea of wearing Thai fabric (F = 5.377, P value < 0.05). The respondents who had the age over 41 years old had a better positive idea of wearing Thai fabric than other groups. Moreover, the findings revealed that age had influenced the positive idea of wearing Thai fabric (F = 3.918, P value < 0.05). The respondents who had the age over 41 years old also had stronger believe that wearing Thai fabric to work and social gatherings are socially acceptable than other groups.

Keywords: Decision, Motivation, Influence, Thai Fabric.

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Authors: Sujing Wang, Song Wang, Jian Zhang, Qiang Xu

Abstract:

Flaring emissions during abnormal operating conditions such as plant start-ups, shut-downs, and upsets in chemical process industries (CPI) are usually significant. Flare minimization can help to save raw material and energy for CPI plants, and to improve local environmental sustainability. In this paper, a systematic methodology based on plant-wide dynamic simulation is presented for CPI plant flare minimizations under abnormal operating conditions. Since off-specification emission sources are inevitable during abnormal operating conditions, to significantly reduce flaring emission in a CPI plant, they must be either recycled to the upstream process for online reuse, or stored somewhere temporarily for future reprocessing, when the CPI plant manufacturing returns to stable operation. Thus, the off-spec products could be reused instead of being flared. This can be achieved through the identification of viable design and operational strategies during normal and abnormal operations through plant-wide dynamic scheduling, simulation, and optimization. The proposed study includes three stages of simulation works: (i) developing and validating a steady-state model of a CPI plant; (ii) transiting the obtained steady-state plant model to the dynamic modeling environment; and refining and validating the plant dynamic model; and (iii) developing flare minimization strategies for abnormal operating conditions of a CPI plant via a validated plant-wide dynamic model. This cost-effective methodology has two main merits: (i) employing large-scale dynamic modeling and simulations for industrial flare minimization, which involves various unit models for modeling hundreds of CPI plant facilities; (ii) dealing with critical abnormal operating conditions of CPI plants such as plant start-up and shut-down. Two virtual case studies on flare minimizations for start-up operation (over 50% of emission savings) and shut-down operation (over 70% of emission savings) of an ethylene plant have been employed to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed study.

Keywords: Flare minimization, large-scale modeling and simulation, plant shut-down, plant start-up.

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Authors: Stanzin Gawa, Nalini Ranjan Kumar, Gohar Bilal Wani, Vinay Maruti Hatte, A. Vinay

Abstract:

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and Brown trout (Salmo trutta fario) are the two species of trout which were once introduced by British in waters of Kashmir has well adapted to favorable climatic conditions. Cold water fisheries are one of the emerging sectors in Kashmir valley and trout holds an important place Jammu and Kashmir fisheries. Realizing the immense potential of trout culture in Kashmir region, the state fisheries department started privatizing trout culture under the centrally funded scheme of RKVY in which they provide 80 percent subsidy for raceway construction and supply of feed and seed for the first year since 2009-10 and at present there are 362 private trout farms. To cater the growing demand for trout in the valley, it is important to understand the bottlenecks faced in the propagation of trout culture. Value chain analysis provides a generic framework to understand the various activities and processes, mapping and studying linkages is first step that needs to be done in any value chain analysis. In Kashmir, it is found that trout hatcheries play a crucial role in insuring the continuous supply of trout seed in valley. Feed is most limiting factor in trout culture and the farmer has to incur high cost in payment and in the transportation of feed from the feed mill to farm. Lack of aqua clinic in the Kashmir valley needs to be addressed. Brood stock maintenance, breeding and seed production, technical assistance to private farmer, extension services have to be strengthened and there is need to development healthier environment for new entrepreneurs. It was found that trout farmers do not avail credit facility as there is no well define credit scheme for fisheries in the state. The study showed weak institutional linkages. Research and development should focus more on applied science rather than basic science.

Keywords: Trout, Kashmir, value chain, linkages, culture.

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Authors: E. Kharaishvili, G. Erkomaishvili, M. Chavleishvili

Abstract:

The importance of agribusiness development is proved in accordance with the trends in the agricultural sector of Georgia. Agribusiness environment and the consequences of the agricultural reforms are evaluated. The factors hindering the development of agribusiness are revealed and the ways for overcoming these problems are suggested. SWOT analysis is done in order to identify the needs of agribusiness. The needs of agribusiness development in Georgia are evaluated by priorities: prevention of diseases and reduction of the harm caused by these diseases, accessibility of long-term agricultural loans with low interest rates, improving qualification of farmers, the level of education and usage of modern technologies, changes in legislation, accessibility to high quality agricultural machinery, and the development of infrastructure. Based on the outcomes of the research, agribusiness development strategies in Georgia are suggested and appropriate priorities of economic policy are determined. Conclusions are made and based on these conclusions, some recommendations are suggested.

Keywords: Agricultural sector, agribusiness development, agribusiness strategy, agribusiness in Georgia.

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Authors: B. Lonla Moffo, J. Mbihi, L. Nneme Nneme

Abstract:

In this paper, a low cost duty-cycle modulation scheme is studied in depth and compared to the standard pulse width modulation technique. Using a mix of analytical reasoning and electronics simulation tools, it is shown that under the same operating conditions, most characteristics of the proposed duty-cycle modulation scheme are better than those provided by a standard pulse width modulation technique. The simulation results obtained when testing both modulation control policies on prototyping systems, indicate that the proposed duty-cycle modulation approach, appears to be a high quality control policy in a wide variety of application areas, including A/D and D/A conversion, signal transmission and switching control in power electronics.

Keywords: Duty-cycle Modulation, Operational amplifiers, Pulse width modulation, Power electronics, Signal processing.

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Authors: Rana AlHajri, Salah Al-Sharhan, Ahmed Al-Hunaiyyan

Abstract:

Mobile learning is a new learning landscape that offers opportunity for collaborative, personal, informal, and students’ centered learning environment. In implementing any learning system such as a mobile learning environment, learners’ expectations should be taken into consideration. However, there is a lack of studies on this aspect, particularly in the context of Kuwait higher education (HE) institutions. This study focused on how students perceive the use of mobile devices in learning. Although m-learning is considered as an effective educational tool in developed countries, it is not yet fully utilized in Kuwait. The study reports on the results of a survey conducted on 623 HE students in Kuwait to a better understand students' perceptions and opinions about the effectiveness of using mobile learning systems. An analysis of quantitative survey data is presented. The findings indicated that Kuwait HE students are very familiar with mobile devices and its applications. The results also reveal that students have positive perceptions of m-learning, and believe that video-based social media applications enhance the teaching and learning process.

Keywords: Higher education, mobile learning, social media, students’ perceptions.

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