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Authors: O. B. Citil, V. Sariyel, M. Akoz

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In this study, total fatty acid composition of muscle lipids of Cyprinus carpio L. living in Suğla Dam Lake, Altinapa Dam Lake, Eğirdir Lake and Burdur Lake were determined using GC. During this study, for the summer season of July was taken from each region of the land and they were stored in deep-freeze set to -20 degrees until the analysis date. At the end of the analyses, 30 different fatty acids were found in the composition of Cyprinus carpio L. which lives in different lakes. Cyprinus carpio Suğla Dam Lake of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), were higher than other lakes. Cyprinus carpio L. was the highest in the major SFA palmitic acid. Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) of carp, the most abundant fish species in all lakes, were found to be higher than those of saturated fatty acids (SFA) in all lakes. Palmitic acid was the major SFA in all lakes. Oleic acid was identified as the major MUFA. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) was the most abundant in all lakes. ω3 fatty acid composition was higher than the percentage of the percentage ω6 fatty acids in all lake. ω3/ω6 rates of Cyprinus carpio L. Suğla Dam Lake, Altinapa Dam Lake, Eğirdir Lake and Burdur Lake, 2.12, 1.19, 2.15, 2.87, and 2.82, respectively. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) was the major PUFA in Eğirdir and Burdur lakes, whereas linoleic acid (LA) was the major PUFA in Altinapa and Suğla Dam Lakes. It was shown that the fatty acid composition in the muscle of carp was significantly influenced by different lakes.

Keywords: Chromatography, Cyprinus carpio L., fatty acid composition.

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Authors: Huei-Wen Lin, Huei-Fu Lu

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Event sport tourism (EST) has become an especially important economic sector around the world. As the magnitude continues to grow, attracting more tourists, media, and investment for the host community, and many local areas/regions and states have identified the expenditures by visitors as a potential source of economic or employment growth. The main purposes of this study are to investigate stakeholders’ insights into the feature of hosting EST and using them as a regional development strategy. Continuing the focus of previous literature on the regional development and economic benefits by hosting EST, a total of fıve semi-structured interview questions are designed and a thematic analysis is employed to conduct with eight key sport and tourism decision makers in Atlanta during July to August 2016. Through the depth interviews, the study will contribute to a better understanding of stakeholders’ decision-making, identifying benefits and constraints as well as leveraging the impacts of hosting EST. These findings have provided stakeholders’ perspectives of hosting EST and using them as a reference of regional development in emerging sport tourism markets in the US. Additionally, this study examines key considerations and issues that affect and are critical to reliable understanding of the economic impacts of hosting EST on the regional development, and it will be able to benefit future management authorities (i.e. governments and communities) in their sport tourism development endeavors in defining and hosting successful EST. Furthermore, the insights gained from the qualitative analysis could help other cities/regions analyzing the economic impacts of hosting EST and using it as an instrument of city development strategy.

Keywords: Event sport tourism, regional economic development, thematic analysis, stakeholder.

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Authors: Basavaraj Kabade, K. T. Nagaraja, Swathi Ramanathan, A. Veeraragavan, P. S. Reashma

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Deteriorating quality of the pedestrian environment and the increasing risk of pedestrian crashes are major concerns for most of the cities in India. The recent shift in the priority to motorized transport and the abating condition of existing pedestrian facilities can be considered as prime reasons for the increasing pedestrian related crashes in India. Bengaluru City – the IT capital hub of the nation is not much different from this. The increase in number of pedestrian crashes in Bengaluru reflects the same. To resolve this issue and to ensure safe, sustainable and pedestrian friendly sidewalks, Govt. of Karnataka, India has implemented newfangled pedestrian sidewalks popularized programme named Tender S.U.R.E. (Specifications for Urban Road Execution) projects. Tender SURE adopts unique urban street design guidelines where the pedestrians are given prime preference. The present study presents an assessment of the quality and performance of the pedestrian side walk and the walkability index of the newly built pedestrian friendly sidewalks. Various physical and environmental factors affecting pedestrian safety are identified and studied in detail. The pedestrian mobility is quantified through Pedestrian Level of Service (PLoS) and the pedestrian walking comfort is measured by calculating the Walkability Index (WI). It is observed that the new initiatives taken in reference to improving pedestrian safety have succeeded in Bengaluru by attaining a level of Service of ‘A’ and with a good WI score.

Keywords: Pedestrian safety, pedestrian level of service, right of way, Tender SURE, walkability index, walkway facilities.

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Authors: T. T. Olugbenga, A. I. Augie

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This research proposes an interpretation of the Bouguer’ gravity anomaly data of some parts of Sokoto basin for the estimation of crustal thickness. The study area is bounded between latitudes 11⁰0′0″N and 13⁰0′0″N, and longitudes 4⁰0′0″E and 6⁰0′0″E that covered Koko, Jega, B/Kebbi, Argungu, Lema, Bodinga, Tamgaza, Gunmi,Daki Takwas, Dange, Sokoto, Ilella, T/Mafara, Anka, Maru, Gusau, K/Namoda, and Sabon Birni within Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara state respectively. The established map of the study area was digitized in X, Y and Z format using excel software package and the digitized data were processed using Surfer version 13 software. The Moho and Conrad depths based on a relationship between Bouguer’ gravity anomaly determined crustal thickness were estimated as 35 to 37 km and 19 to 21 km, respectively. The crustal region has been categorized into: Crustal thinning zone that is the region with high gravity anomaly value due to its greater geothermal energy and also Crustal thickening zone which the region with low anomaly values due to its lower geothermal energy. Birnin kebbi, Jega, Sokoto were identified as the region of hydrocarbon potential with an estimate of 35 km thickness within the crustal region which is referred to as crustal thickening as a result of its low but sufficient geothermal energy to decompose organic matter within the region to form hydrocarbons.

Keywords: Bouguer gravity anomaly, crustal thickness, geothermal energy, hydrocarbons, Moho and Conrad Depths.

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Authors: G. Erkomaishvili, M. Kobalava, T. Lazariashvili, N. Damenia

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Current state of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Georgia is analyzed and evaluated in the paper, the existing legislative background for regulating investments and stimulating policies to attract investments are shown. It is noted that in developing countries encouragement of investment activity, support and implementation are of the most important tasks, implying a consistent investment policy, investor-friendly tax regime and the legal system, reducing administrative barriers and restrictions, fare competitive conditions and business development infrastructure. The work deals with the determining factor of FDIs and the main directions of stimulation, as well as prospective industries where new investments are needed. Contributing and hindering factors and stimulating measures are analyzed. As a result of the research, the direct and indirect factors attracting FDI have been identified. Facilitating factors to FDI inflow are as follows: simplicity of starting business, geopolitical location, low taxes, access to credit, ease of ownership registration, natural resources, low burden of regulations, low level of corruption and low crime rates. Hindering factors to FDI inflow are as follows: small market, lack of policy for attracting investments, low qualification of the workforce (despite the large number of unemployed people it is difficult to find workers with necessary special skills and qualifications), high interest rates, instability of national currency exchange rate, presence of conflict zones within the country and so forth.

Keywords: Foreign direct investment, investment attracting policies, investor, reinvestment.

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Authors: Teh Raihana Nazirah Roslan, Siti Zulaiha Ibrahim, Sharmila Karim

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A warrant is a financial contract that confers the right but not the obligation, to buy or sell a security at a certain price before expiration. The standard procedure to value equity warrants using call option pricing models such as the Black–Scholes model had been proven to contain many flaws, such as the assumption of constant interest rate and constant volatility. In fact, existing alternative models were found focusing more on demonstrating techniques for pricing, rather than empirical testing. Therefore, a mathematical model for pricing and analyzing equity warrants which comprises stochastic interest rate and stochastic volatility is essential to incorporate the dynamic relationships between the identified variables and illustrate the real market. Here, the aim is to develop dynamic pricing formulations for hybrid equity warrants by incorporating stochastic interest rates from the Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) model, along with stochastic volatility from the Heston model. The development of the model involves the derivations of stochastic differential equations that govern the model dynamics. The resulting equations which involve Cauchy problem and heat equations are then solved using partial differential equation approaches. The analytical pricing formulas obtained in this study comply with the form of analytical expressions embedded in the Black-Scholes model and other existing pricing models for equity warrants. This facilitates the practicality of this proposed formula for comparison purposes and further empirical study.

Keywords: Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model, equity warrants, Heston model, hybrid models, stochastic.

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Authors: Khoo Shin Yee, Lian Yee Cheng, Ong Zhi Chao, Zubaidah Ismail, Siamak Noroozi

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Structural frequency response testing is accurate in identifying the dynamic characteristic of a machinery structure. In practical perspective, conventional structural frequency response testing such as experimental modal analysis with impulse technique (also known as “impulse testing”) has limitation especially on its long acquisition time. The high acquisition time is mainly due to the redundancy procedure where the engineer has to repeatedly perform the test in 3 directions, namely the axial-, horizontal- and vertical-axis, in order to comprehensively define the dynamic behavior of a 3D structure. This is unfavorable to numerous industries where the downtime cost is high. This study proposes to reduce the testing time by using oblique impact. Theoretically, a single oblique impact can induce significant vibration responses and vibration modes in all the 3 directions. Hence, the acquisition time with the implementation of the oblique impulse technique can be reduced by a factor of three (i.e. for a 3D dynamic system). This study initiates an experimental investigation of impulse testing with oblique excitation. A motor-driven test rig has been used for the testing purpose. Its dynamic characteristic has been identified using the impulse testing with the conventional normal impact and the proposed oblique impact respectively. The results show that the proposed oblique impulse testing is able to obtain all the desired natural frequencies in all 3 directions and thus providing a feasible solution for a fast and time effective way of conducting the impulse testing.

Keywords: Frequency response function, impact testing, modal analysis, oblique angle, oblique impact.

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Authors: É. Kónya, E. Szabó, I. Bata-Vidács, T. Deák, M. Ottucsák, N. Adányi, A. Székács

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Spice paprika is a major spice commodity in the European Union (EU), produced locally and imported from non-EU countries, reported not only for chemical and microbiological contamination, but also for fraud. The effective interaction between producers’ quality management practices and government and EU activities is described on the example of spice paprika production and control in Hungary, a country of leading spice paprika producer and per capita consumer in Europe. To demonstrate the importance of various contamination factors in the Hungarian production and EU trade of spice paprika, several aspects concerning food safety of this commodity are presented. Alerts in the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) of the EU between 2005 and 2013, as well as Hungarian state inspection results on spice paprika in 2004 are discussed, and quality non-compliance claims regarding spice paprika among EU member states are summarized in by means of network analysis. Quality assurance measures established along the spice paprika production technology chain at the leading Hungarian spice paprika manufacturer, Kalocsai Fűszerpaprika Zrt. are surveyed with main critical control points identified. The structure and operation of the Hungarian state food safety inspection system is described. Concerted performance of the latter two quality management systems illustrates the effective interaction between internal (manufacturer) and external (state) quality control measures.

Keywords: Spice paprika, quality control, reporting mechanisms, RASFF, vulnerable points, HACCP, BRC Global Standard.

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Authors: Vesna Bosilj Vukšić, Lucija Ivančić, Dalia Suša Vugec

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While struggling to succeed in today’s complex market environment and provide better customer experience and services, enterprises encompass digital transformation as a means for reaching competitiveness and foster value creation. A digital transformation process consists of information technology implementation projects, as well as organizational factors such as top management support, digital transformation strategy, and organizational changes. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is little evidence about digital transformation endeavors in organizations and how they perceive it – is it only about digital technologies adoption or a true organizational shift is needed? In order to address this issue and as the first step in our research project, a literature review is conducted. The analysis included case study papers from Scopus and Web of Science databases. The following attributes are considered for classification and analysis of papers: time component; country of case origin; case industry and; digital transformation concept comprehension, i.e. focus. Research showed that organizations – public, as well as private ones, are aware of change necessity and employ digital transformation projects. Also, the changes concerning digital transformation affect both manufacturing and service-based industries. Furthermore, we discovered that organizations understand that besides technologies implementation, organizational changes must also be adopted. However, with only 29 relevant papers identified, research positioned digital transformation as an unexplored and emerging phenomenon in information systems research. The scarcity of evidence-based papers calls for further examination of this topic on cases from practice.

Keywords: Digital strategy, digital technologies, digital transformation, literature review.

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Authors: Alexander Wachtel, Michael T. Franzen, Walter F. Tichy

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Programming requires years of training. With natural language and end user development methods, programming could become available to everyone. It enables end users to program their own devices and extend the functionality of the existing system without any knowledge of programming languages. In this paper, we describe an Interactive Spreadsheet Processing Module (ISPM), a natural language interface to spreadsheets that allows users to address ranges within the spreadsheet based on inferred table schema. Using the ISPM, end users are able to search for values in the schema of the table and to address the data in spreadsheets implicitly. Furthermore, it enables them to select and sort the spreadsheet data by using natural language. ISPM uses a machine learning technique to automatically infer areas within a spreadsheet, including different kinds of headers and data ranges. Since ranges can be identified from natural language queries, the end users can query the data using natural language. During the evaluation 12 undergraduate students were asked to perform operations (sum, sort, group and select) using the system and also Excel without ISPM interface, and the time taken for task completion was compared across the two systems. Only for the selection task did users take less time in Excel (since they directly selected the cells using the mouse) than in ISPM, by using natural language for end user software engineering, to overcome the present bottleneck of professional developers.

Keywords: Natural language processing, end user development; natural language interfaces, human computer interaction, data recognition, dialog systems, spreadsheet.

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Authors: Meaghan Bowman

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Microblogging has become increasingly popular for commenting on current events, spreading gossip, and encouraging individualism--which favors its low-context communication channel. These social media (SM) platforms allow users to express opinions while interacting with a wide range of populations. Hashtags allow immediate identification of like-minded individuals worldwide on a vast array of topics. The output of the analytic tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)--a program that associates psychological meaning with the frequency of use of specific words--may suggest the nature of individuals’ internal states and general sentiments. When applied to groupings of SM posts unified by a hashtag, such information can be helpful to community leaders during periods in which the forming of public opinion happens in parallel with the unfolding of political, economic, or social events. This is especially true when outcomes stand to impact the well-being of the group. Here, we applied the online tools, Google Translate and the University of Texas’s LIWC, to a 90-posting sample from a corpus of Colombian Spanish microblogs. On translated disjoint sets, identified by hashtag as being authored by advocates of voting “No,” advocates voting “Yes,” and entities refraining from hashtag use, we observed the value of LIWC’s Tone feature as distinguishing among the categories and the word “peace,” as carrying particular significance, due to its frequency of use in the data.

Keywords: Colombia peace referendum, FARC, hashtags, linguistics, microblogging, social media.

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Authors: K. Qonono

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Despite the significance and economic benefits of petrol stations in South Africa, these still pose a huge risk of fire and explosion threatening public safety. This research paper examines the extent to which land-use planning in Stellenbosch, South Africa, considers the fire risk posed by petrol stations and the implications for public safety as well as preparedness for large fires or explosions. To achieve this, the research identified the land-use types around petrol stations in Stellenbosch and determined the extent to which their locations comply with the local, national, and international land-use planning regulations. A mixed research method consisting of the collection and analysis of geospatial data and qualitative data was applied, where petrol stations within a six-kilometre radius of Stellenbosch’s town centre were utilised as study sites. The research examined the risk of fires/explosions at these petrol stations. The research investigated Stellenbosch Municipality’s institutional preparedness to respond in the event of a fire/explosion at these petrol stations. The research observed that siting of petrol stations does not comply with local, national, and international good practices, thus exposing the surrounding developments to fires and explosions. Land-use planning practice does not consider hazards created by petrol stations. Despite the potential for major fires at petrol stations, Stellenbosch Municipality’s level of preparedness to respond to petrol station fires appears low due to the prioritisation of more frequent events.

Keywords: Petrol stations, technological hazard, DRR, land-use planning, risk analysis.

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Authors: Ya Lv, Benjamin Ong Wei Lin, Wanli Niu, Benjamin Seah Chin Tat

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This article presents a methodology that improves reliability and cyclability of 2nd-life Li-ion battery system repurposed as energy storage system (ESS). Most of the 2nd-life retired battery systems in market have module/pack-level state of health (SOH) indicator, which is utilized for guiding appropriate depth of discharge (DOD) in the application of ESS. Due to the lack of cell-level SOH indication, the different degrading behaviors among various cells cannot be identified upon reaching retired status; in the end, considering end of life (EOL) loss and pack-level DOD, the repurposed ESS has to be oversized by > 1.5 times to complement the application requirement of reliability and cyclability. This proposed battery grading algorithm, using non-invasive methodology, is able to detect outlier cells based on historical voltage data and calculate cell-level historical maximum temperature data using semi-analytic methodology. In this way, the individual battery cell in the 2nd-life battery system can be graded in terms of SOH on basis of the historical voltage fluctuation and estimated historical maximum temperature variation. These grades will have corresponding DOD grades in the application of the repurposed ESS to enhance the system reliability and cyclability. In all, this introduced battery grading algorithm is non-invasive, compatible with all kinds of retired Li-ion battery systems which lack of cell-level SOH indication, as well as potentially being embedded into battery management software for preventive maintenance and real-time cyclability optimization.

Keywords: Battery grading algorithm, 2nd-life repurposing battery system, semi-analytic methodology, reliability and cyclability.

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Authors: N. Southiseng, J. Walsh

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Prior to 1975, women in Laos suffered from having reduced levels of power over decision-making in their families and in their communities. This has had a negative impact on their ability to develop their own identities. Their roles were identified as being responsible for household activities and making preparations for their marriage. Many women lost opportunities to get educated and access the outdoor work that might have empowered them to improve their situations. So far, no accurate figures of either emigrants or return migrants have been compiled but it appears that most of them were women, and it was women who most and more frequently remitted money home. However, very few recent studies have addressed the relationship between remittances and the roles of women in Laos. This study, therefore, aims at redressing to some extent the deficiencies in knowledge. Qualitative techniques were used to gather data, including individual in-depth interviews and direct observation in combination with the content analysis method. Forty women in Vientiane Municipality and Savannakhet province were individually interviewed. It was found that the monetary remittance was typically used for family security and well-being; on fungible activities; on economic and business activities; and on community development, especially concerning hospitality and providing daily household necessities. Remittances played important roles in improving many respondents- livelihoods and positively changed their identities in families and communities. Women became empowered as they were able to start commercial businesses, rather than taking care of (just) housework, children and elders. Interviews indicated that 92.5% of the respondents their quality of lives improved, 90% felt happier in their families and 82.5% felt conflicts in their families were reduced.

Keywords: Laos, Monetary Remittances, Social Remittance, Women's Empowerment.

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Authors: Amol A. Talankar, Prakash Verma, Nitin Seth

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The purpose of this study is to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for the effective implementation of Six Sigma in non-formal service Sectors.

Based on the survey of literature, the critical success factors (CSFs) for Six Sigma have been identified and are assessed for their importance in Non-formal service sector using Delphi Technique. These selected CSFs were put forth to the panel of expert to cluster them and prepare cognitive map to establish their relationship.

All the critical success factors examined and obtained from the review of literature have been assessed for their importance with respect to their contribution to Six Sigma effectiveness in non formal service sector.

The study is limited to the non-formal service sectors involved in the organization of religious festival only. However, the similar exercise can be conducted for broader sample of other non-formal service sectors like temple/ashram management, religious tours management etc.

The research suggests an approach to identify CSFs of Six Sigma for Non-formal service sector. All the CSFs of the formal service sector will not be applicable to Non-formal services, hence opinion of experts was sought to add or delete the CSFs. In the first round of Delphi, the panel of experts has suggested, two new CSFs-“competitive benchmarking (F19) and resident’s involvement (F28)”, which were added for assessment in the next round of Delphi.  One of the CSFs-“fulltime six sigma personnel (F15)” has been omitted in proposed clusters of CSFs for non-formal organization, as it is practically impossible to deploy full time trained Six Sigma recruits.

Keywords: Critical success factors (CSFs), Quality assurance, non-formal service sectors, Six Sigma.

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Authors: Kiyohiro Yamazaki

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This paper considers a forming process of a single competitive factor in the digital camera industry from the viewpoint of product platform. To make product development easier for companies and to increase product introduction ratios, development efforts concentrate on improving and strengthening certain product attributes, and it is born in the process that the product platform is formed continuously. It is pointed out that the formation of this product platform raises product development efficiency of individual companies, but on the other hand, it has a trade-off relationship of causing unification of competitive factors in the whole industry. This research tries to analyze product specification data which were collected from the web page of digital camera companies. Specifically, this research collected all product specification data released in Japan from 1995 to 2003 and analyzed the composition of image sensor and optical lens; and it identified product platforms shared by multiple products and discussed their application. As a result, this research found that the product platformation was born in the development of the standard product for major market segmentation. Every major company has made product platforms of image sensors and optical lenses, and as a result, this research found that the competitive factors were unified in the entire industry throughout product platformation. In other words, this product platformation brought product development efficiency of individual firms; however, it also caused industrial competition factors to be unified in the industry.

Keywords: Digital camera industry, product evolution trajectory, product platform, unification of competitive factors.

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Authors: M. Byzedi, B. Saghafian

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Droughts are complex, natural hazards that, to a varying degree, affect some parts of the world every year. The range of drought impacts is related to drought occurring in different stages of the hydrological cycle and usually different types of droughts, such as meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomical are distinguished. Streamflow drought was analyzed by the method of truncation level (at 70% level) on daily discharges measured in 54 hydrometric stations in southwestern Iran. Frequency analysis was carried out for annual maximum series (AMS) of drought deficit volume and duration series. Some factors including physiographic, climatic, geologic, and vegetation cover were studied as influential factors in the regional analysis. According to the results of factor analysis, six most effective factors were identified as area, rainfall from December to February, the percent of area with Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) <0.1, the percent of convex area, drainage density and the minimum of watershed elevation that explained 90.9% of variance. The homogenous regions were determined by cluster analysis and discriminate function analysis. Suitable multivariate regression models were evaluated for streamflow drought deficit volume with 2 years return period. The significance level of regression models was 0.01. The results showed that the watershed area is the most effective factor with high correlation with deficit volume. Also, drought duration was not a suitable drought index for regional analysis.

Keywords: Iran, Streamflow drought, truncation level method, regional analysis.

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Authors: Saeid Fazli, Hajar Mohammadi D., Payman Moallem

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This paper presents a robust method to detect obstacles in stereo images using shadow removal technique and color information. Stereo vision based obstacle detection is an algorithm that aims to detect and compute obstacle depth using stereo matching and disparity map. The proposed advanced method is divided into three phases, the first phase is detecting obstacles and removing shadows, the second one is matching and the last phase is depth computing. We propose a robust method for detecting obstacles in stereo images using a shadow removal technique based on color information in HIS space, at the first phase. In this paper we use Normalized Cross Correlation (NCC) function matching with a 5 × 5 window and prepare an empty matching table τ and start growing disparity components by drawing a seed s from S which is computed using canny edge detector, and adding it to τ. In this way we achieve higher performance than the previous works [2,17]. A fast stereo matching algorithm is proposed that visits only a small fraction of disparity space in order to find a semi-dense disparity map. It works by growing from a small set of correspondence seeds. The obstacle identified in phase one which appears in the disparity map of phase two enters to the third phase of depth computing. Finally, experimental results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: obstacle detection, stereo vision, shadowremoval, color, stereo matching

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Authors: Sylvia Tumelo Nthutang, Nehemiah Mavetera

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Educational institutions are under pressure from their competitors. Regulators and community groups need educational institutions to adopt appropriate business and organizational practices. Globally, educational institutions are now using e-learning as the best teaching and learning approach. E-learning is becoming the center of attention to the learning institutions, educational systems and software inventors. North-West University (NWU) is currently using eFundi, a Learning Management System (LMS). LMS are all information systems and procedures that adds value to students learning and support the learning material in text or any multimedia files. With various e-learning tools, students would be able to access all the materials related to the course in electronic copies. The study was tasked with identifying the e-learning components at the NWU, Mafikeng campus. Quantitative research methodology was considered in data collection and descriptive statistics for data analysis. The Activity Theory (AT) was used as a theory to guide the study. AT outlines the limitations amongst e-learning at the macro-organizational level (plan, guiding principle, campus-wide solutions) and micro-organization (daily functioning practice, collaborative transformation, specific adaptation). On a technological environment, AT gives people an opportunity to change from concentrating on computers as an area of concern but also understand that technology is part of human activities. The findings have identified the university’s current IT tools and knowledge on e-learning elements. It was recommended that university should consider buying computer resources that consumes less power and practice e-learning effectively.

Keywords: E-learning, information and communication technology, teaching, and virtual learning environment.

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Authors: R. Ramli, M. I. Ghazali, H. Ibrahim, M. M. Kasim, F. M. Kamal, S.Vikneswari

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Teachers form the backbone of any educational system, hence selecting qualified candidates is very crucial. In Malaysia, the decision making in the selection process involves a few stages: Initial filtering through academic achievement, taking entry examination and going through an interview session. The last stage is the most challenging since it highly depends on human judgment. Therefore, this study sought to identify the selection criteria for teacher candidates that form the basis for an efficient multi-criteria teacher-candidate selection model for that last stage. The relevant criteria were determined from the literature and also based on expert input that is those who were involved in interviewing teacher candidates from a public university offering the formal training program. There are three main competency criteria that were identified which are content of knowledge, communication skills and personality. Further, each main criterion was divided into a few subcriteria. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique was employed to allocate weights for the criteria and later, integrated a Simple Weighted Average (SWA) scoring approach to develop the selection model. Subsequently, a web-based Decision Support System was developed to assist in the process of selecting the qualified teacher candidates. The Teacher-Candidate Selection (TeCaS) system is able to assist the panel of interviewers during the selection process which involves a large amount of complex qualitative judgments.

Keywords: Analytic Hierarchy Process, Simple Weighted Average, Decision Support System, Multi-criteria decision making problem.

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Authors: Matheus Borges Carneiro, Fabiane Letícia Lizarelli, José Carlos de Toledo

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The evolution of quality management by companies was strongly enabled by, among others, ISO 9001 certification, which is considered a crucial requirement for several customers. Likewise, performance measurement provides useful insights for companies to identify the reflection of their decision-making process on their improvement. One of the most used performance measurement models is the balanced scorecard (BSC), which uses four perspectives to address a firm’s performance: financial, internal process, customer satisfaction, and learning and growth. Since ISO 9001 certified firms are likely to measure their performance through BSC approach, it is important to verify whether the certificate influences the firm performance or not. Therefore, this paper aims to verify the impact of ISO 9001:2015 on Brazilian firms’ performance based on the BSC perspective. Hence, nine certified companies located in the Southeast region of Brazil were studied through a multiple case study approach. Within this study, it was possible to identify the positive impact of ISO 9001 on firms’ overall performance, and four Critical Success Factors (CSFs) were identified as relevant on the linkage among ISO 9001 and firms’ performance: employee involvement, top management, process management, and customer focus. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of interviews was limited to the quality manager specialist, and the sample was limited since several companies were closed during the period of the study. This study presents an in-depth analysis of how the relationship between ISO 9001 certification and firms’ performance in a developing country is.

Keywords: Balanced scorecard, Brazilian firms’ performance, critical success factors, ISO 9001 certification, performance measurement.

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Authors: G. Sandhya Devi, G. Suvarna Kumar, S. Chandini

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This research work aims to develop a system that will analyze and identify students who indulge in malpractices/suspicious activities during the course of an academic offline examination. Automated Video Surveillance provides an optimal solution which helps in monitoring the students and identifying the malpractice event immediately. This work is organized into three modules. The first module deals with performing an impersonation check using a PCA-based face recognition method which is done by cross checking his profile with the database. The presence or absence of the student is even determined in this module by implementing an image registration technique wherein a grid is formed by considering all the images registered using the frontal camera at the determined positions. Second, detecting such facial malpractices in which a student gets involved in conversation with another, trying to obtain unauthorized information etc., based on the threshold range evaluated by considering his/her mouth state whether open or closed. The third module deals with identification of unauthorized material or gadgets used in the examination hall by training the positive samples of the object through various stages. Here, a top view camera feed is analyzed to detect the suspicious activities. The system automatically alerts the administration when any suspicious activities are identified, thereby reducing the error rate caused due to manual monitoring. This work is an improvement over our previous work published in identifying suspicious activities done by examinees in an offline examination.

Keywords: Impersonation, image registration, incrimination, object detection, threshold evaluation.

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Authors: Valentina Piric, Maja Martinovic, Zoran Barac

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The application of marketing to the domain of politics has become relevant in recent times. With this article the authors wanted to explore the issue of the current political engagement among young people in Croatia. The question is what makes young people (age 18-30) politically active in young democracies such as that of the Republic of Croatia. Therefore, the objective of this study was to discover the real or hidden motivations behind the decision to actively participate in politics among young members of the two largest political parties in the country – the Croatian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party of Croatia. The study expected to find that the motivation for political engagement of young people is often connected with a possible achievement of individual goals and egoistic needs such as: self-acceptance, social success, financial success, prestige, reputation, status, recognition from the others etc. It was also expected that, due to the poor economic and social situation in the country, young people feel an increasing disconnection from politics. Additionally, the authors expected to find that there is a huge potential to engage young people in the political life of the country through a proper and more interactive use of marketing communication campaigns and social media platforms, with an emphasis on highly ethical motives of political activity and their benefits to society. All respondents included in the quantitative survey (sample size [N=100]) are active in one of the two largest political parties in Croatia. The sampling and distribution of the survey occurred in the field in September 2016. The results of the survey demonstrate that in Croatia, the way young people feel about politics and act accordingly, are in fact similar to what the theory describes. The research findings reveal that young people are politically active; however, the challenge is to find a way to motivate even more young people in Croatia to actively participate in the political and democratic processes in the country and to encourage them to see additional benefits out of this practice, not only related to their individual motives, but related more to the well-being of Croatia as a country and of every member of society. The research also discovered a huge potential for political marketing communication possibilities, especially related to interactive social media. It is possible that the social media channels have a stronger influence on the decision-making process among young people when compared to groups of reference. The level of interest in politics among young Croatians varies; some of them are almost indifferent, whilst others express a serious interest in different ways to actively contribute to the political life of the country, defining a participation in the political life of their country almost as their moral obligation. However, additional observations and further research need to be conducted to get a clearer and more precise picture about the interest in politics among young people in Croatia and their social potential.

Keywords: Croatia, marketing communication, motivation, politics, young people.

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Authors: Pedro M. Abreu, Bruno R. Mendes

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The management of pharmacotherapy and the process of dispensing medicines is becoming critical in clinical pharmacy due to the increase of incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases, the complexity and customization of therapeutic regimens, the introduction of innovative and more expensive medicines, the unbalanced relation between expenditure and revenue as well as due to the lack of rationalization associated with medication use. For these reasons, co-payments emerged in Europe in the 70s and have been applied over the past few years in healthcare. Co-payments lead to a rationing and rationalization of user’s access under healthcare services and products, and simultaneously, to a qualification and improvement of the services and products for the end-user. This analysis, under hospital practices particularly and co-payment strategies in general, was carried out on all the European regions and identified four reference countries, that apply repeatedly this tool and with different approaches. The structure, content and adaptation of European co-payments were analyzed through 7 qualitative attributes and 19 performance indicators, and the results expressed in a scorecard, allowing to conclude that the German models (total score of 68,2% and 63,6% in both elected co-payments) can collect more compliance and effectiveness, the English models (total score of 50%) can be more accessible, and the French models (total score of 50%) can be more adequate to the socio-economic and legal framework. Other European models did not show the same quality and/or performance, so were not taken as a standard in the future design of co-payments strategies. In this sense, we can see in the co-payments a strategy not only to moderate the consumption of healthcare products and services, but especially to improve them, as well as a strategy to increment the value that the end-user assigns to these services and products, such as medicines.

Keywords: Clinical pharmacy, co-payments, healthcare, medicines.

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Authors: Mohammed Sani Abdulai

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Ghana’s Public Financial Management reforms have been going on for some two decades now (1997/98 to 2017/18). Given this long period of reforms, Ghana in 2019 is putting together both a Public Financial Management (PFM) strategy and a Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) strategy for the next 5-years (2020-2024). The primary aim of these dual strategies is assisting the country in moving beyond reforms to consolidation and sustainability. In this paper we, first, examined the evolution of Ghana’s PFM reforms. We, secondly, reviewed the legal and institutional reforms undertaken to strengthen the country’s key PFM institutions. Thirdly, we summarized the strengths and weaknesses identified by the 2018 Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) assessment of Ghana’s PFM system relating to its macro-fiscal framework, budget preparation and approval, budget execution, accounting and fiscal reporting as well as external scrutiny and audit. We, finally, considered what the country should be doing to achieve its intended goal of PFM consolidation and sustainability. Using a qualitative method of review and analysis of existing documents, we, through this paper, brought to the fore the lessons that could be learnt by other developing countries from Ghana’s PFM reforms experiences. These lessons included the need to: (a) undergird any PFM reform with a comprehensive PFM reform strategy; (b) undertake a legal and institutional reforms of the key PFM institutions; (c) assess the strengths and weaknesses of those reforms using PFM performance evaluation tools such as PEFA framework; and (d) move beyond reforms to consolidation and sustainability.

Keywords: Public financial management, public expenditure and financial accountability (PEFA), reforms, consolidation, sustainability.

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Authors: Oliver F. Shyr, Yu-Hsuan Hsiao, David E. Andersson

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Due to the call of global warming effects, city planners aim at actions for reducing carbon emission. One of the approaches is to promote the usage of public transportation system toward the transit-oriented-development. For example, rapid transit system in Taipei city and Kaohsiung city are opening. However, until November 2008 the average daily patronage counted only 113,774 passengers at Kaohsiung MRT systems, much less than which was expected. Now the crucial questions: how the public transport competes with private transport? And more importantly, what factors would enhance the use of public transport? To give the answers to those questions, our study first applied regression to analyze the factors attracting people to use public transport around cities in the world. It is shown in our study that the number of MRT stations, city population, cost of living, transit fare, density, gasoline price, and scooter being a major mode of transport are the major factors. Subsequently, our study identified successful and unsuccessful cities in regard of the public transport usage based on the diagnosis of regression residuals. Finally, by comparing transportation strategies adopted by those successful cities, our conclusion stated that Kaohsiung City could apply strategies such as increasing parking fees, reducing parking spaces in downtown area, and reducing transfer time by providing more bus services and public bikes to promote the usage of public transport.

Keywords: Public Transit System, Comparative Study, Transport Demand Management, Regression

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Authors: Sujata Upgupta, Prasoon Kumar Singh

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The expansion of large scale coal mining into forest areas is a potential hazard for the local biodiversity and wildlife. The objective of this study is to provide a picture of the threat that coal mining poses to the forests of the East Bokaro landscape. The vulnerable forest areas at risk have been assessed and the priority areas for conservation have been presented. The forested areas at risk in the current scenario have been assessed and compared with the past conditions using classification and buffer based overlay approach. Forest vulnerability has been assessed using an analytical framework based on systematic indicators and composite vulnerability index values. The results indicate that more than 4 km² of forests have been lost from 1973 to 2016. Large patches of forests have been diverted for coal mining projects. Forests in the northern part of the coal field within 1-3 km radius around the coal mines are at immediate risk. The original contiguous forests have been converted into fragmented and degraded forest patches. Most of the collieries are located within or very close to the forests thus threatening the biodiversity and hydrology of the surrounding regions. Based on the vulnerability values estimated, it was concluded that more than 90% of the forested grids in East Bokaro are highly vulnerable to mining. The forests in the sub-districts of Bermo and Chandrapura have been identified as the most vulnerable to coal mining activities. This case study would add to the capacity of the forest managers and mine managers to address the risk and vulnerability of forests at a small landscape level in order to achieve sustainable development.

Keywords: Coal mining, forest, indicators, vulnerability.

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Authors: Harish Krishnamurthy, Anna Lafontant, Ren Yi

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Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) have been an interesting topic for most enthusiasts and hence people all over the United States report such findings online at the National UFO Report Center (NUFORC). Some of these reports are a hoax and among those that seem legitimate, our task is not to establish that these events confirm that they indeed are events related to flying objects from aliens in outer space. Rather, we intend to identify if the report was a hoax as was identified by the UFO database team with their existing curation criterion. However, the database provides a wealth of information that can be exploited to provide various analyses and insights such as social reporting, identifying real-time spatial events and much more. We perform analysis to localize these time-series geospatial events and correlate with known real-time events. This paper does not confirm any legitimacy of alien activity, but rather attempts to gather information from likely legitimate reports of UFOs by studying the online reports. These events happen in geospatial clusters and also are time-based. We look at cluster density and data visualization to search the space of various cluster realizations to decide best probable clusters that provide us information about the proximity of such activity. A random forest classifier is also presented that is used to identify true events and hoax events, using the best possible features available such as region, week, time-period and duration. Lastly, we show the performance of the scheme on various days and correlate with real-time events where one of the UFO reports strongly correlates to a missile test conducted in the United States.

Keywords: Time-series clustering, feature extraction, hoax prediction, geospatial events.

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Authors: Ranjan Sarukkalige, Dinushi Gamage

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The aim of this study was to develop a storm water quality improvement strategy plan (WQISP) which assists managers and decision makers of local city councils in enhancing their activities to improve regional water quality. City of Gosnells in Western Australia has been considered as a case study. The procedure on developing the WQISP consists of reviewing existing water quality data, identifying water quality issues in the study areas and developing a decision making tool for the officers, managers and decision makers. It was found that land use type is the main factor affecting the water quality. Therefore, activities, sources and pollutants related to different land use types including residential, industrial, agricultural and commercial are given high importance during the study. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with coordinators of different management sections of the regional councils in order to understand the associated management framework and issues. The issues identified from these interviews were used in preparing the decision making tool. Variables associated with the defined “value versus threat" decision making tool are obtained from the intensive literature review. The main recommendations provided for improvement of water quality in local city councils, include non-structural, structural and management controls and potential impacts of climate change.

Keywords: Storm water quality, Storm water Management, Land use, Strategy plan

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Authors: Ibrahim A. Al-Sulaihi, Khalid S. Al-Gahtani, Abdullah M. Al-Sugair, Aref A. Abadel

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Achieving environmental sustainability is one of the important issues considered in many countries’ vision. Green/Sustainable building is widely used terminology for describing a friendly environmental construction. Applying sustainable practices has a significant importance in various fields, including construction field that consumes an enormous amount of resource and causes a considerable amount of waste. The need for sustainability is increased in the regions that suffering from the limitation of natural resource and extreme weather conditions such as Saudi Arabia. Since buildings designs are getting sophisticated, the need for tools, which support decision-making for sustainability issues, is increasing, especially in the design and preconstruction stages. In this context, Building Information Modeling (BIM) can aid in performing complex building performance analyses to ensure an optimized sustainable building design. Accordingly, this paper introduces a roadmap towards developing a systematic approach for presenting the sustainability of buildings using BIM. The approach includes set of main processes including; identifying the sustainability parameters that can be used for sustainability assessment in Saudi Arabia, developing sustainability assessment method that fits the special circumstances in the Kingdom, identifying the sustainability requirements and BIM functions that can be used for satisfying these requirements, and integrating these requirements with identified functions. As a result, the sustainability-BIM approach can be developed which helps designers in assessing the sustainability and exploring different design alternatives at the early stage of the construction project.

Keywords: Green buildings, sustainability, BIM, rating systems, environment, Saudi Arabia.

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