Search results for: Secondary technical students.

Authors: Adam Pitluk

Abstract:

In a time period populated by legacy newspaper readers who throw around the term “fake news” as though it has long been a part of the lexicon, journalism schools must convince would-be students that their degree is still viable and that they are not teaching a curriculum of deception. As such, journalism schools’ academic administrators tasked with creating and maintaining conversant curricula must stay ahead of legacy newspaper industry trends – both in the print and online products – and ensure that what is being taught in the classroom is both fresh and appropriate to the demands of the evolving legacy newspaper industry. This study examines the information obtained from the result of interviews of journalism academic administrators in order to identify institutional pedagogy for recent journalism school graduates interested in pursuing careers at legacy newspapers. This research also explores the existing relationship between journalism school academic administrators and legacy newspaper editors. The results indicate the value administrators put on various academy teachings, and they also highlight a perceived disconnect between journalism academic administrators and legacy newspaper hiring editors.

Keywords: Academic administration, education, journalism, media management, newspapers.

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Authors: Paul Osmond

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This paper reports a new application of material accounting techniques to characterise and quantify material stocks and flows at the “neighbourhood" scale. The study area is the main campus of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. The system boundary is defined by the urban structural unit (USU), a typological construct devised to facilitate assessment of the metabolism of urban systems. A streamlined material flow analysis (MFA) was applied to quantify the stocks and flows of key construction materials within the campus USU over time, drawing on empirical data from a major campus development project. The results are reviewed to assess the efficacy of the method in supporting urban environmental evaluation and design practice, for example to facilitate estimation of significant impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. It is concluded that linking a service (in this case, teaching students) enabled by a given product (university buildings) to the amount of materials used in creating that product offers a potential way to reduce the environmental impact of that service, through more efficient use of materials.

Keywords: Construction materials, material flow analysis, urban metabolism, urban structural unit.

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Authors: Wahab Ali Shah, Junjia He

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Transferring electrical power without any wiring has been a dream since late 19^th century. There were some advances in this area as to know more about microwave systems. However, this subject has recently become very attractive due to their practiScal systems. There are low power applications such as charging the batteries of contactless tooth brushes or implanted devices, and higher power applications such as charging the batteries of electrical automobiles or buses. In the first group of applications operating frequencies are in microwave range while the frequency is lower in high power applications. In the latter, the concept is also called inductive power transfer. The aim of the paper is to have an overview of the inductive power transfer for electrical vehicles with a special concentration on coil design and power converter simulation for static charging. Coil design is very important for an efficient and safe power transfer. Coil design is one of the most critical tasks. Power converters are used in both side of the system. The converter on the primary side is used to generate a high frequency voltage to excite the primary coil. The purpose of the converter in the secondary is to rectify the voltage transferred from the primary to charge the battery. In this paper, an inductive power transfer system is studied. Inductive power transfer is a promising technology with several possible applications. Operation principles of these systems are explained, and components of the system are described. Finally, a single phase 2 kW system was simulated and results were presented. The work presented in this paper is just an introduction to the concept. A reformed compensation network based on traditional inductor-capacitor-inductor (LCL) topology is proposed to realize robust reaction to large coupling variation that is common in dynamic wireless charging application. In the future, this type compensation should be studied. Also, comparison of different compensation topologies should be done for the same power level.

Keywords: Coil design, contactless charging, electrical automobiles, inductive power transfer, operating frequency.

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Authors: Chaiwat Kongsom, Vitoon Panyakul

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The objective of this study was to assess the production and market of certified organic products in Thailand. A purposive sampling technique was used to identify a sample group of 154 organic entrepreneurs for the study. A survey and in-depth interview were employed for data collection. Also, secondary data from organic agriculture certification body and publications was collected. Then descriptive statistics and content analysis technique were used to describe about production and market of certified organic products in Thailand. Results showed that there were 9,218 farmers on 213,183.68 Rai (83,309.2 acre) of certified organic agriculture land (0.29% of national agriculture land). A total of 57.8% of certified organic agricultural lands were certified by the international certification body. Organic farmers produced around 71,847 tons/year and worth around THB 1,914 million (Euro 47.92 million). Excluding primary producers, 471 operators involved in the Thai organic supply chains, including processors, exporters, distributors, green shops, modern trade shops (supermarket shop), farmer’s markets and food establishments were included. Export market was the major market channel and most of organic products were exported to Europe and North America. The total Thai organic market in 2014 was estimated to be worth around THB 2,331.55 million (Euro 58.22 million), of which, 77.9% was for export and 22.06% was for the domestic market. The largest exports of certified organic products were processed foods (66.1% of total export value), followed by organic rice (30.4%). In the domestic market, modern trade was the largest sale channel, accounting for 59.48% of total domestic sales, followed by green shop (29.47%) and food establishment (5.85%). To become a center of organic farming and trading within ASEAN, the Thai organic sector needs to have more policy support in regard to agricultural chemicals, GMO, and community land title. In addition, appropriate strategies need to be developed.

Keywords: Certified organic products, production, market, Thailand.

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Authors: Karoliina Nisula, Samuli Pekkola

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Business education has been criticized for being too theoretical and distant from business life. Different types of experiential learning environments ranging from manual role-play to computer simulations and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems have been used to introduce the realistic and practical experience into business learning. Each of these learning environments approaches business learning from a different perspective. The implementations tend to be individual exercises supplementing the traditional courses. We suggest combining them into a business skills laboratory resembling an actual workplace. In this paper, we present a concrete implementation of an ERP-supported business learning environment that is used throughout the first year undergraduate business curriculum. We validate the implementation by evaluating the learning outcomes through the different domains of Bloom’s taxonomy. We use the role-play oriented practice enterprise model as a comparison group. Our findings indicate that using the ERP simulation improves the poor and average students’ lower-level cognitive learning. On the affective domain, the ERP-simulation appears to enhance motivation to learn as well as perceived acquisition of practical hands-on skills.

Keywords: Business simulations, experiential learning, ERP systems, learning environments.

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Authors: Norazah Mohd Suki, Norbayah Mohd Suki

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Online shopping enables consumers to search for information and purchase products or services through direct interaction with online store. This study aims to examine the effect of Internet marketing environment, product characteristics, familiarity and confidence, and promotional offers on consumer online shopping behavior. 200 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents, who are students and staff at a public university in the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia, following simple random sampling as a means of data collection. Multiple regression analysis was used as a statistical measure to determine the strength of the relationship between one dependent variable and a series of other independent variables. Results revealed that familiarity and confidence was found to greatly influence consumer online shopping behavior followed by promotional offers. A clear understanding of consumer online shopping behavior can help marketing managers predict the online shopping rate and evaluate the future growth of online commerce.

Keywords: Internet Marketing Environment, Product Characteristics, Multiple Regression Analysis, Malaysia.

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Authors: Canan Aslan

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The aim of this research is to determine how preservice Turkish teachers perceive themselves in terms of problem solving skills. Students attending Department of Turkish Language Teaching of Gazi University Education Faculty in 2005-2006 academic year constitute the study group (n= 270) of this research in which survey model was utilized. Data were obtained by Problem Solving Inventory developed by Heppner & Peterson and Personal Information Form. Within the settings of this research, Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found as .87. Besides, reliability coefficient obtained by split-half technique which splits odd and even numbered items of the scale was found as r=.81 (Split- Half Reliability). The findings of the research revealed that preservice Turkish teachers were sufficiently qualified on the subject of problem solving skills and statistical significance was found in favor of male candidates in terms of “gender" variable. According to the “grade" variable, statistical significance was found in favor of 4th graders.

Keywords: Problem Solving, problem solving skills, PreserviceTurkish Language Teachers.

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Authors: Anita Kéri

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Recent developments in the field of education have led to a renewed interest in teaching methodologies and practices. Gamification is fast becoming a key instrument in the education of new generations and besides other methods, serious games have become the center of attention. Ready-built serious games are available for most higher education institutions to buy and implement. However, monetary restraints and the unalterable nature of the games might deter most higher education institutions from the application of these serious games. Therefore, there is a continuously growing need for a customizable serious game that has been developed based on a concrete need analysis and experts’ opinion. There has been little evidence so far of serious games that have been created based on relevant and current need analysis from higher education institution teachers, professional practitioners and students themselves. Therefore, the aim of this current paper is to analyze the needs of higher education institution educators with special emphasis on their needs, the applicability of serious games in their classrooms, and exploring options for the development of a customizable serious game framework. The paper undertakes to analyze workshop discussions on implementing serious games in education and propose a customizable serious game framework applicable in the education of the new generation. Research results show that the most important feature of a serious game is its customizability. The fact that practitioners are able to manage different scenarios and upload their own content to a game seems to be a key to the increasingly widespread application of serious games in the classroom.

Keywords: Education, gamification, game-based learning, serious games.

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Authors: Y. Bi, T. Anderson, M. Huang

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The use of technology is increasingly adopted to support flexible learning in Higher Education institutions. The adoption of more sophisticated technologies offers a broad range of facilities for communication and resource sharing, thereby creating a flexible learning environment that facilitates and even encourages students not to physically attend classes. However this emerging trend seems to contradict class attendance requirements within universities, inevitably leading to a dilemma between amending traditional regulations and creating new policies for the higher education institutions. This study presents an investigation into student engagement in a technology enhanced/driven flexible environment along with its relationship to attainment. We propose an approach to modelling engagement from different perspectives in terms of indicators and then consider what impact these indicators have on student academic performance. We have carried out a case study on the relation between attendance and attainment in a flexible environment. Although our preliminary results show attendance is quantitatively correlated with successful student development and learning outcomes, our results also indicate there is a cohort that did not follow such a pattern. Nevertheless the preliminary results could provide an insight into pilot studies in the wider deployment of new technology to support flexible learning.

Keywords: Engagement, flexible leaning, attendance and attainment.

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Authors: Moh’d A. AL-Shboul

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Recently, and due to Arab spring and terrorism around the globe, pushing and driving most governments potentially to harmonize their border measures particularly the regional and an international transit trade within and among Customs Unions. The main purpose of this study is to investigate and provide an insight for monitoring and controlling the trade supply chain within and among different countries by using technological advancement (i.e. an electronic tracking system, etc.); furthermore, facilitate the local and intra-regional trade among countries through reviewing the recent trends and practical implementation of an electronic transit traffic and cargo that related to customs measures by introducing and supporting some case studies of several international and landlocked transit trade countries. The research methodology employed in this study was described as qualitative by conducting few interviews with managers, transit truck drivers, and traders and reviewing the related literature to collect qualitative data from secondary sources such as statistical reports, previous studies, etc. The results in this study show that Jordan and other countries around the globe that used an electronic tracking system for monitoring transit trade has led to a significant reduction in cost, effort and time in physical movement of goods internally and crossing through other countries. Therefore, there is no need to escort transit trucks by customs staff; hence, the rate of escort transit trucks is reduced by more than ninety percent, except the bulky and high duty goods. Electronic transit traffic has been increased; the average transit time journey has been reduced by more than seventy percent and has led to decrease in rates of smuggling up to fifty percent. The researcher recommends considering Jordan as regional and international office for tracking electronically and monitoring the transit trade for many considerations.

Keywords: Electronic tracking system, facilitation system, regional and international corridor, supply chain security, transit trade.

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Authors: Bello Abdullahi, Yahaya M. Ibrahim, Ahmed D. Ibrahim, Kabir Bala

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Public sector tendering has traditionally been conducted using manual paper-based processes which are known to be inefficient, less transparent and more prone to manipulations and errors. The advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web has led to the development of numerous e-Tendering systems that addressed some of the problems associated with the manual paper-based tendering system. However, most of these systems rarely support the evaluation of tenders and where they do it is mostly based on the single decision maker which is not suitable in public sector tendering, where for the sake of objectivity, transparency, and fairness, it is required that the evaluation is conducted through a tender evaluation committee. Currently, in Nigeria, the public tendering process in general and the evaluation of tenders, in particular, are largely conducted using manual paper-based processes. Automating these manual-based processes to digital-based processes can help in enhancing the proficiency of public sector tendering in Nigeria. This paper is part of a larger study to develop an electronic tendering system that supports the whole tendering lifecycle based on Nigerian procurement law. Specifically, this paper presents the design and implementation of part of the system that supports group evaluation of tenders based on a technique called fuzzy multi-attributes group decision making. The system was developed using Object-Oriented methodologies and Unified Modelling Language and hypothetically applied in the evaluation of technical and financial proposals submitted by bidders. The system was validated by professionals with extensive experiences in public sector procurement. The results of the validation showed that the system called NPS-eTender has an average rating of 74% with respect to correct and accurate modelling of the existing manual tendering domain and an average rating of 67.6% with respect to its potential to enhance the proficiency of public sector tendering in Nigeria. Thus, based on the results of the validation, the automation of the evaluation process to support tender evaluation committee is achievable and can lead to a more proficient public sector tendering system.

Keywords: e-Tendering, e-Procurement, public tendering, tender evaluation, tender evaluation committee, web-based group decision support system.

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Authors: Peng Hao Wang, Ronald Sterkenburg, Garam Kim, Yuwei He

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As composite materials continue to gain popularity in the aerospace industry; large airframe sections made out of composite materials are becoming the standard for aerospace manufacturers. However, the heavy utilization of these composite materials also increases the importance of the recycling of these composite materials. A team of Purdue University School of Aviation and Transportation Technology (SATT) faculty and students have partnered to investigate the characteristics of 3D printed recycled carbon fiber. A prototype of a 3D printed recycled carbon fiber part was provided by an industry partner and different sections of the prototype were used to create specimens. A furnace was utilized in order to remove the polymer from the specimens and the specimen’s fiber content and fiber length was calculated from the remaining fibers. A differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) test was also conducted on the 3D printed recycled carbon fiber prototype in order to determine the prototype’s degree of cure at different locations. The data collected from this study provided valuable information in the process improvement and understanding of 3D printed recycled carbon fiber.

Keywords: 3D printed, carbon fiber, fiber content, recycling.

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Authors: Tlou J. Ramabu

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Programming is one of the challenging subjects in the field of computing. In the higher education sphere, some programming novices’ performance, retention rate, and success rate are not improving. Most of the time, the problem is caused by the slow pace of learning, difficulty in grasping the syntax of the programming language and poor logical skills. More importantly, programming forms part of major subjects within the field of computing. As a result, specialized pedagogical methods and innovation are highly recommended. Little research has been done on the potential productivity of the WhatsApp platform as part of a blended learning model. In this article, the authors discuss the WhatsApp group as a part of blended learning model incorporated for a group of programming novices. We discuss possible administrative activities for productive utilisation of the WhatsApp group on the blended learning overview. The aim is to take advantage of the popularity of WhatsApp and the time students spend on it for their educational purpose. We believe that blended learning featuring a WhatsApp group may ease novices’ cognitive load and strengthen their foundational programming knowledge and skills. This is a work in progress as the proposed blended learning model with WhatsApp incorporated is yet to be implemented.

Keywords: Blended learning, higher education, WhatsApp, programming, novices, lecturers.

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Authors: Aldalalah, M. Osamah, Soon Fook Fong & Ababneh, W. Ziad

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of modality principles in instructional software among first grade pupils- achievements in the learning of Arabic Language. Two modes of instructional software were systematically designed and developed, audio with images (AI), and text with images (TI). The quasi-experimental design was used in the study. The sample consisted of 123 male and female pupils from IRBED Education Directorate, Jordan. The pupils were randomly assigned to any one of the two modes. The independent variable comprised the two modes of the instructional software, the students- achievement levels in the Arabic Language class and gender. The dependent variable was the achievements of the pupils in the Arabic Language test. The theoretical framework of this study was based on Mayer-s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. Four hypotheses were postulated and tested. Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) showed that pupils using the (AI) mode performed significantly better than those using (TI) mode. This study concluded that the audio with images mode was an important aid to learning as compared to text with images mode.

Keywords: Cognitive theory of Multimedia Learning, ModalityPrinciple, Multimedia, Arabic Language learning

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Authors: Pisit Potjanajaruwit

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This study aims to (1) investigate the corporate vision factor influencing Rajabhat University brand building in Thailand and (2) explore influences of brand building upon Rajabhat University stakeholders’ loyalty, and the research method will use mixed methods to conduct qualitative research with the quantitative research. The qualitative will approach by Indebt-interview the executive of Rathanagosin Rajabhat University group for 6 key informants and the quantitative data was collected by questionnaires distributed to stakeholder including instructors, staff, students and parents of the Rathanagosin Rajabhat University group for 400 sampling were selected by multi-stage sampling method. Data was analyzed by Structural Equation Modeling: SEM and also provide the focus group interview for confirming the model. Findings corporate vision had a direct and positive influence on Rajabhat University brand building were showed direct and positive influence on stakeholder’s loyalty and stakeholder’s loyalty was indirectly influenced by corporate vision through Rajabhat University brand building.

Keywords: Brand building, corporate vision, Rajabhat University, stakeholders’ loyalty.

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Authors: Vanessa A. Segovia, Sonia E. Ruiz

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The use of energy dissipation systems for seismic applications has increased worldwide, thus it is necessary to develop practical and modern criteria for their optimal design. Here, a direct displacement-based seismic design approach for frame buildings with hysteretic energy dissipation systems (HEDS) is applied. The building is constituted by two individual structural systems consisting of: 1) a main elastic structural frame designed for service loads; and 2) a secondary system, corresponding to the HEDS, that controls the effects of lateral loads. The procedure implies to control two design parameters: a) the stiffness ratio (α=Kframe/Ktotal system), and b) the strength ratio (γ=Vdamper/Vtotal system). The proposed damage-controlled approach contributes to the design of a more sustainable and resilient building because the structural damage is concentrated on the HEDS. The reduction of the design displacement spectrum is done by means of a damping factor (recently published) for elastic structural systems with HEDS, located in Mexico City. Two limit states are verified: serviceability and near collapse. Instead of the traditional trial-error approach, a procedure that allows the designer to establish the preliminary sizes of the structural elements of both systems is proposed. The design methodology is applied to an 8-story steel building with buckling restrained braces, located in soft soil of Mexico City. With the aim of choosing the optimal design parameters, a parametric study is developed considering different values of હ and ઻. The simplified methodology is for preliminary sizing, design, and evaluation of the effectiveness of HEDS, and it constitutes a modern and practical tool that enables the structural designer to select the best design parameters. 

Keywords: Damage-controlled buildings, direct displacementbased seismic design, optimal hysteretic energy dissipation systems

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Authors: Barry Ardley, Abi Hunt, Nick Taylor

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As a theoretical and practical framework this study uses the student as producer approach to learning in higher education, as adopted by the Lincoln International Business School, University of Lincoln, UK. Student as producer positions learners as skilled and capable agents, able to participate as partners with tutors in live research projects. To illuminate the nature of this approach to learning and to highlight its critical issues, the authors report on two guided student consultancy projects. These were set up with the assistance of two local organisations in the city of Lincoln UK. Using the student as producer model to deliver the projects enabled learners to acquire and develop a range of key skills and knowledge, not easily accessible in more traditional educational settings. This paper presents a systematic case study analysis of the eight organising principles of the student as producer model, as adopted by university tutors. The experience of tutors implementing student as producer suggests that the model can be widely applied to benefit not only the learning and teaching experiences of higher education students, and staff, but additionally, a university’s research programme and its community partners.

Keywords: Experiential learning, consultancy clients, student as producer.

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Authors: Münevver Başman, Ezel Tavşancıl

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Making the right decisions about students depends on teachers’ use of the assessment and evaluation techniques effectively. In order to do that, teachers should have positive attitudes and adequate self-efficacy perception towards assessment and evaluation. The purpose of this study is to investigate relationship between self-efficacy perception and the attitudes of prospective teachers towards assessment and evaluation and what kind of differences these issues have in terms of a variety of demographic variables. The study group consisted of 277 prospective teachers who have been studying in different departments of Marmara University, Faculty of Education. In this study, ‘Personal Information Form’, ‘A Perceptual Scale for Measurement and Evaluation of Prospective Teachers Self-Efficacy in Education’ and ‘Attitudes toward Educational Measurement Inventory’ are applied. As a result, positive correlation was found between self-efficacy perceptions and the attitudes of prospective teachers towards assessment and evaluation. Considering different departments, there is a significant difference between the mean score of attitudes of prospective teachers and between the mean score of self-efficacy perceptions of them. However, considering variables of attending statistics class and the class types at the graduated high school, there is no significant difference between the mean score of attitudes of prospective teachers and between the mean score of self-efficacy perceptions of them.

Keywords: Attitude, perception, prospective teacher, self-efficacy.

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Authors: Ahmed Amin Mousa, M. Abd El-Salam

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This study discusses a simple solution for the problem of shortage in learning resources for kindergarten teachers. Occasionally, kindergarten teachers cannot access proper resources by usual search methods as libraries or search engines. Furthermore, these methods require a long time and efforts for preparing. The study is expected to facilitate accessing learning resources. Moreover, it suggests a potential direction for using QR code inside the classroom. The present work proposes that QR code can be used for digitizing kindergarten curriculums and accessing various learning resources. It investigates using QR code for saving information related to the concepts which kindergarten teachers use in the current educational situation. The researchers have established a guide for kindergarten teachers based on the Egyptian official curriculum. The guide provides different learning resources for each scientific and mathematical concept in the curriculum, and each learning resource is represented as a QR code image that contains its URL. Therefore, kindergarten teachers can use smartphone applications for reading QR codes and displaying the related learning resources for students immediately. The guide has been provided to a group of 108 teachers for using inside their classrooms. The results showed that the teachers approved the guide, and gave a good response.

Keywords: Kindergarten, child, learning resources, QR code, smart phone, mobile.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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E-government has been adopted and used by many governments/countries around the world including Ghana to provide citizens and businesses with more accurate, real-time, and high quality services and information. The objective of this paper is to present an overview of the Government of Ghana’s (GoG) adoption and implement of e-government and its usage by the Ministries, Departments and its agencies (MDAs) as well as other public sector institutions to deliver efficient public service to the general public i.e. citizens, business etc. Government implementation of e-government focused on facilitating effective delivery of government service to the public and ultimately to provide efficient government-wide electronic means of sharing information and knowledge through a network infrastructure developed to connect all major towns and cities, Ministries, Departments and Agencies and other public sector organizations in Ghana. One aim for the Government of Ghana use of ICT in public administration is to improve productivity in government administration and service by facilitating exchange of information to enable better interaction and coordination of work among MDAs, citizens and private businesses. The study was prepared using secondary sources of data from government policy documents, national and international published reports, journal articles, and web sources. This study indicates that through the e-government initiative, currently citizens and businesses can access and pay for services such as renewal of driving license, business registration, payment of taxes, acquisition of marriage and birth certificates as well as application for passport through the GoG electronic service (eservice) and electronic payment (epay) portal. Further, this study shows that there is enormous commitment from GoG to adopt and implement e-government as a tool not only to transform the business of government but also to bring efficiency in public services delivered by the MDAs. To ascertain this, a further study need to be carried out to determine if the use of e-government has brought about the anticipated improvements and efficiency in service delivery of MDAs and other state institutions in Ghana.

Keywords: Electronic government, electronic services, electronic payment, MDAs.

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Authors: Chiao-Chen Chang, Yang-Chieh Chin

Abstract:

This study examines the issue of recommendation sources from the perspectives of gender and consumers- perceived risk, and validates a model for the antecedents of consumer online purchases. The method of obtaining quantitative data was that of the instrument of a survey questionnaire. Data were collected via questionnaires from 396 undergraduate students aged 18-24, and a multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify causal relationships. Empirical findings established the link between recommendation sources (word-of-mouth, advertising, and recommendation systems) and the likelihood of making online purchases and demonstrated the role of gender and perceived risk as moderators in this context. The results showed that the effects of word-of-mouth on online purchase intentions were stronger than those of advertising and recommendation systems. In addition, female consumers have less experience with online purchases, so they may be more likely than males to refer to recommendations during the decision-making process. The findings of the study will help marketers to address the recommendation factor which influences consumers- intention to purchase and to improve firm performances to meet consumer needs.

Keywords: Recommendation sources, Online purchaseintentions, Gender differences, Perceived risk.

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Authors: Taher M. Abou-deif, Mahmoud A. Fouad, Essam E. Khalil

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The present paper was concerned primarily with the analysis, simulation of the air flow and thermal patterns in a lecture room. The paper is devoted to numerically investigate the influence of location and number of ventilation and air conditioning supply and extracts openings on air flow properties in a lecture room. The work focuses on air flow patterns, thermal behaviour in lecture room where large number of students. The effectiveness of an air flow system is commonly assessed by the successful removal of sensible and latent loads from occupants with additional of attaining air pollutant at a prescribed level to attain the human thermal comfort conditions and to improve the indoor air quality; this is the main target during the present paper. The study is carried out using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation techniques as embedded in the commercially available CFD code (FLUENT 6.2). The CFD modelling techniques solved the continuity, momentum and energy conservation equations in addition to standard k – ε model equations for turbulence closure. Throughout the investigations, numerical validation is carried out by way of comparisons of numerical and experimental results. Good agreement is found among both predictions.

Keywords: Air Conditioning, CFD, Lecture Rooms, Thermal Comfort

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Authors: A. Pensiri, K. Nantaporn, P. Parichut

Abstract:

Tourism is very important to the economy of many countries due to the large contribution in the areas of employment and income generation. However, the rapid growth of tourism can also be considered as one of the major uses of water user, and therefore also have a significant and detrimental impact on the environment. Guest behavior in water usage can be used to manage water in hotels for sustainable water resources management. This research presents a study of hotel guest water usage behavior at two hotels, namely Hotel A (located in Kathu district) and Hotel B (located in Muang district) in Phuket Province, Thailand, as case studies. Primary and secondary data were collected from the hotel manager through interview and questionnaires. The water flow rate was measured in-situ from each water supply device in the standard room type at each hotel, including hand washing faucets, bathroom faucets, shower and toilet flush. For the interview, the majority of respondents (n = 204 for Hotel A and n = 244 for Hotel B) were aged between 21 years and 30 years (53% for Hotel A and 65% for Hotel B) and the majority were foreign (78% in Hotel A, and 92% in Hotel B) from American, France and Austria for purposes of tourism (63% in Hotel A, and 55% in Hotel B). The data showed that water consumption ranged from 188 litres to 507 liters, and 383 litres to 415 litres per overnight guest in Hotel A and Hotel B (n = 244), respectively. These figures exceed the water efficiency benchmark set for Tropical regions by the International Tourism Partnership (ITP). It is recommended that guest water saving initiatives should be implemented at hotels. Moreover, the results showed that guests have high satisfaction for the hotels, the front office service reveal the top rates of average score of 4.35 in Hotel A and 4.20 in Hotel B, respectively, while the luxury decoration and room cleanliness exhibited the second satisfaction scored by the guests in Hotel A and B, respectively. On the basis of this information, the findings can be very useful to improve customer service satisfaction and pay attention to this particular aspect for better hotel management.

Keywords: Hotel, tourism, Phuket, water usage.

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Authors: Amit Kumar Jakhar, Kumar Rajnish

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

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

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Authors: Adriana Alexandru, Elena Jitaru, Rayner Mayer

Abstract:

The paper presents the results of the European EIE project “Realising the potential for small scale renewable energy sources in the home – Kyotointhehome". The project's global aim is to inform and educate teachers, students and their families so that they can realise the need and can assess the potential for energy efficiency (EE) measures and renewable energy sources (RES) in their homes. The project resources were translated and trialled by 16 partners in 10 European countries. A web-based methodology which will enable families to assess how RES can be incorporated into energy efficient homes was accomplished. The web application “KYOTOINHOME" will help the citizens to identify what they can do to help their community meet the Kyoto target for greenhouse gas reductions and prevent global warming. This application provides useful information on how the citizens can use renewable energy sources in their home to provide space heating and cooling, hot water and electricity. A methodology for assessing heat loss in a dwelling and application of heat pump system was elaborated and will be implemented this year. For schools, we developed a set of practical activities concerned with preventing climate change through using renewable energy sources. Complementary resources will also developed in the Romanian research project “Romania Contribution to the European Targets Regarding the Development of Renewable Energy Sources" - PROMES.

Keywords: Education, energy policy, Internet, renewable energy sources.

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Authors: Suneel M. Agerwala, Ashley Votta, Briana Hogan, John Yannocone, Steven Samuels, SheilaChiffriller

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Road rage is an increasingly prevalent expression of aggression in our society. Its dangers are apparent and understanding its causes may shed light on preventative measures. This study involved a fifteen-minute survey administered to 147 undergraduate students at a North Eastern suburban university. The survey consisted of a demographics section, questions regarding financial investment in respondents- vehicles, experience driving, habits of driving, experiences witnessing role models driving, and an evaluation of road rage behavior using the Driving Vengeance Questionnaire. The study found no significant differences in driving aggression between respondents who were financially invested in their vehicle compared to those who were not, or between respondents who drove in heavy traffic hours compared to those who did not, suggesting internal factors correlate with aggressive driving habits. The study also found significant differences in driving aggression between males versus females, those with more points on their license versus fewer points, and those who witnessed parents driving aggressively very often versus rarely or never. Additional studies can investigate how witnessing parents driving aggressively is related to future driving behaviors.

Keywords: Aggression, college, driving, road rage.

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Authors: Kim H. K. Choy, Oliva H. K. Chu, W. Y. Keung, B. Lim, Winnie P. Y. Tang

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Background: The prevalence of workplace obesity is rising worldwide; therefore, the workplace is an ideal venue to implement weight control intervention. This pilot randomized controlled trial aimed to develop, implement, and evaluate a nutritional wellness program for obese health care providers working in a hospital. Methods: This hospital-based nutritional wellness program was an 8-week pilot randomized controlled trial for obese health care providers. The primary outcomes were body weight and body mass index (BMI). The secondary outcomes were serum fasting glucose, fasting cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density (HDL) and low-density (LDL) lipoprotein, body fat percentage, and body mass. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 20) or control (n = 22) group. Participants in both groups received individual nutrition counselling and nutrition pamphlets, whereas only participants in the intervention group were given mobile phone text messages. Results: 42 participants completed the study. In comparison with the control group, the intervention group showed approximately 0.98 kg weight reduction after two months. Participants in intervention group also demonstrated clinically significant improvement in BMI, serum cholesterol level, and HDL level. There was no improvement of body fat percentage and body mass for both intervention and control groups. Conclusion: The nutritional wellness program for obese health care providers was feasible in hospital settings. Health care providers demonstrated short-term weight loss, decrease in serum fasting cholesterol level, and HDL level after completing the program.

Keywords: Health care provider, hospital, weight management, weight control.

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Authors: Ileladewa Adeoye Abiodun, Cheng Wai Khuen

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Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) emerged in the pursuit to improve our standard of living, and hence can manifest complex human behaviors such as communication, decision making, negotiation and self-organization. The Social Network Services (SNSs) have attracted millions of users, many of whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. The domains of MAS and SNS have lots of similarities such as architecture, features and functions. Exploring social network users- behavior through multiagent model is therefore our research focus, in order to generate more accurate and meaningful information to SNS users. An application of MAS is the e-Auction and e-Rental services of the Universiti Cyber AgenT(UniCAT), a Social Network for students in Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Kampar, Malaysia, built around the Belief- Desire-Intention (BDI) model. However, in spite of the various advantages of the BDI model, it has also been discovered to have some shortcomings. This paper therefore proposes a multi-agent framework utilizing a modified BDI model- Belief-Desire-Intention in Dynamic and Uncertain Situations (BDIDUS), using UniCAT system as a case study.

Keywords: Distributed Data Mining, Multi-Agent Systems, Preference-Based, SNS.

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Authors: Yang Song, Yifan Guo, Edward F. Gehringer

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Fifty years of research has found great potential for peer assessment as a pedagogical approach. With peer assessment, not only do students receive more copious assessments; they also learn to become assessors. In recent decades, more educational peer assessments have been facilitated by online systems. Those online systems are designed differently to suit different class settings and student groups, but they basically fall into two categories: rating-based and ranking-based. The rating-based systems ask assessors to rate the artifacts one by one following some review rubrics. The ranking-based systems allow assessors to review a set of artifacts and give a rank for each of them. Though there are different systems and a large number of users of each category, there is no comprehensive comparison on which design leads to higher reliability. In this paper, we designed algorithms to evaluate assessors' reliabilities based on their rating/ranking against the global ranks of the artifacts they have reviewed. These algorithms are suitable for data from both rating-based and ranking-based peer assessment systems. The experiments were done based on more than 15,000 peer assessments from multiple peer assessment systems. We found that the assessors in ranking-based peer assessments are at least 10% more reliable than the assessors in rating-based peer assessments. Further analysis also demonstrated that the assessors in ranking-based assessments tend to assess the more differentiable artifacts correctly, but there is no such pattern for rating-based assessors.

Keywords: Peer assessment, peer rating, peer ranking, reliability.

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Authors: R.M. Kainkwa

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The African Great Lakes Region refers to the zone around lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, Albert, Edward, Kivu, and Malawi. The main source of electricity in this region is hydropower whose systems are generally characterized by relatively weak, isolated power schemes, poor maintenance and technical deficiencies with limited electricity infrastructures. Most of the hydro sources are rain fed, and as such there is normally a deficiency of water during the dry seasons and extended droughts. In such calamities fossil fuels sources, in particular petroleum products and natural gas, are normally used to rescue the situation but apart from them being nonrenewable, they also release huge amount of green house gases to our environment which in turn accelerates the global warming that has at present reached an amazing stage. Wind power is ample, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and free energy source that does not consume or pollute water. Wind generated electricity is one of the most practical and commercially viable option for grid quality and utility scale electricity production. However, the main shortcoming associated with electric wind power generation is fluctuation in its output both in space and time. Before making a decision to establish a wind park at a site, the wind speed features there should therefore be known thoroughly as well as local demand or transmission capacity. The main objective of this paper is to utilise monthly average wind speed data collected from one prospective site within the African Great Lakes Region to demonstrate that the available wind power there is high enough to generate electricity. The mean monthly values were calculated from records gathered on hourly basis for a period of 5 years (2001 to 2005) from a site in Tanzania. The documentations that were collected at a height of 2 m were projected to a height of 50 m which is the standard hub height of wind turbines. The overall monthly average wind speed was found to be 12.11 m/s whereas June to November was established to be the windy season as the wind speed during the session is above the overall monthly wind speed. The available wind power density corresponding to the overall mean monthly wind speed was evaluated to be 1072 W/m2, a potential that is worthwhile harvesting for the purpose of electric generation.

Keywords: Hydro power, windy season, available wind powerdensity.

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