Search results for: Human and Social Capital resources

Authors: M. Kiarna, S. Junjira, S. Casey, M. Nolwazi, M. S. Marcos, A. T. Tatiana, L. Cassandra

Abstract:

This paper details a rebrand design project developed for a non-profitable organization called Te Roopu Waiora (TRW), which is currently located in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. This social enterprise is dedicated to supporting the Māori community living with sensorial, physical and intellectual disabilities (whānau hauā). As part of a year three bachelor design brief, the rebrand project enabled students to reflect on Kaupapa Māori principles and appropriately address the values of the organisation. As such, the methodology used a pragmatic paradigm approach and mixed methods design practices involving a human-centred design to problem solving. As result, the student project culminated in the development in a range of cohesive design artefacts, aiming to improve the rentability and perception of the brand with the audience and stakeholders.

Keywords: Design in Aotearoa New Zealand, Kaupapa Māori, branding, design education, human-centered design.

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Authors: Rui. Zhang, Yiming. Pi

Abstract:

In this paper we present a novel approach for human Body configuration based on the Silhouette. We propose to address this problem under the Bayesian framework. We use an effective Model based MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) method to solve the configuration problem, in which the best configuration could be defined as MAP (maximize a posteriori probability) in Bayesian model. This model based MCMC utilizes the human body model to drive the MCMC sampling from the solution space. It converses the original high dimension space into a restricted sub-space constructed by the human model and uses a hybrid sampling algorithm. We choose an explicit human model and carefully select the likelihood functions to represent the best configuration solution. The experiments show that this method could get an accurate configuration and timesaving for different human from multi-views.

Keywords: Bayesian framework, MCMC, model based, human body configuration.

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Authors: Radia Guerza

Abstract:

Tutoring in the Algerian university has been an issue of great controversy and debate. Henceforth, the current paper is an attempt to shed light on the issue of tutoring at the Algerian university. It aims to set a plan for tutoring that might meet the students’ needs and challenges. It endeavors to explore the viability of tutoring in the Algerian university between “The Can Do” and “The Have to Do”. To equate with the addressed research question, an exploratory small-scale study has been carried out at Batna 2 University using questionnaires and interviews with 50 teachers. Results indicate that the Algerian university is still lagging behind because of the huge lack of infrastructure means, human resources, and even pedagogical resources. In addition, the majority of our teachers are reluctant to adhere to the tutorial policy due to the lack of incentives; next to that the yearly increasing number of students and students’ high ratio would hardly permit any tutoring sessions. Finally, this paper is an attempt towards raising the awareness of our institution, staff members, teachers and students towards the importance of tutoring and how to adopt it. 

Keywords: higher education, tutoring, tutoring awareness, tutoring policy

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Authors: Mohammad Hosein Hojati , Fardin Boustani

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Groundwater resources in Arsanjan plain provide water for agriculture, industry, and human consumption. Continued agricultural development in this area needs to additional groundwater resources for, particularly during of drought periods, and effects on the quantity and quality of ground water available. The purpose of this study is to evaluate water level changes in the aquifer of Arsanjan plain in the Fars province in order to determine the areas of greatest depletion and the causes of depletion. In this plain, farmers and other users are pumping groundwater faster than its natural replenishment rate, causing a continuous drop in groundwater tables and depletion of this resource. In this research variation of groundwater level, their effects and ways to help control groundwater levels in aquifer of the Arsanjan plains were evaluated .Excessive exploitation of groundwater in this aquifer caused the groundwater levels fall too fast or to unacceptable levels. The average drawdown of the groundwater level in this plain were 19.66 meters during 1996 to 2003.

Keywords: Aquifer , ground water depletion, water table

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Authors: Mohd Zahari, M. S, Kamaruddin, M. S. Y., Muhammad, R., Kutut, M. Z.

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Solidarity and kinship has long been an intangible emblem to Malay community especially in the rural area. It is visibly seen through the dependability among each unit of the community either in religious and social events including the matrimonial or wedding. Nevertheless, the inevitable phenomenon, modernization legitimately alters every facets of human life not only the routines, traditions, rituals, norms but also to the daily activities and the specific occasion. Using triangulation approach of interview and self completed questionnaire this study empirically examine the level of alteration of Malays wedding foodways which relate to the preparation and consumption of it and its impact on the community social bonding. Some meaningful insights were obtained whereby modernization through technology (modern equipments) and social factors (education, migration, and high disposal income) significantly contribute to the alteration of wedding foodways from preparation up to consumption stages. The domino effect of this alteration consequently leads to the fragility of social kinship or somehow reduced cohesiveness and interaction among the individual of Malay society in the rural area.

Keywords: Modernization, Malay, Matrimonial, Foodways, Social Bonding

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Authors: Giseob Byun, Ji Yeon Cho, Bong Gyou Lee

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The purpose of this study is to analyze Green IT industry in major developed countries and to suggest overall directions for IT-Energy convergence industry. Recently, IT industry is pointed out as a problem such as environmental pollution, energy exhaustion, and high energy consumption. Therefore, Green IT gets focused which concerns as solution of these problems. However, since it is a beginning stage of this convergence area, there are only a few studies of IT-Energy convergence industry. According to this, this study examined the major developed countries in terms of institution arrangements, resources, markets and companies based on Van de Ven(1999)'s social system framework that shows relationship among key components of industrial infrastructure. Subsequently, the direction of the future study of convergence on IT and Energy industry is proposed.

Keywords: Green IT, Energy industry, Convergence, Social System Framework.

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Authors: Won-Ho Kim, Nuwan Sanjeewa Rajasooriya

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In this paper, a simple moving human detection method is proposed for video surveillance system or access monitoring system. The frame difference and noise threshold are used for initial detection of a moving human-object, and simple labeling method is applied for final human-object segmentation. The simulated results show that the applied algorithm is fast to detect the moving human-objects by performing 95% of correct detection rate. The proposed algorithm has confirmed that can be used as an intelligent video access monitoring system.

Keywords: Moving human-object detection, Video access monitoring, Image processing.

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Authors: Neelam Vats, Madhvi Pathak Pillai, Rajender Lal, Indu Dabas

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The pressure of scoring higher marks to be able to get admission in a higher ranked institution has become a social stigma for school students. It leads to various social and academic pressures on them, causing psychological anxiety. This undue stress on students sometimes may even steer to aggressive behavior or suicidal tendencies. Human mind is always surrounded by the some desires, emotions and passions, which usually disturbs our mental peace. In such a scenario, we look for a solution that helps in removing all the obstacles of mind and make us mentally peaceful and strong enough to be able to deal with all kind of pressure. Preksha meditation is one such technique which aims at bringing the positive changes for overall transformation of personality. Hence, the present study was undertaken to assess the impact of Preksha Meditation on the academic anxiety on female teenagers. The study was conducted on 120 high school students from the capital city of India. All students were in the age group of 13-15 years. They also belonged to similar social as well as economic status. The sample was equally divided into two groups i.e. experimental group (N = 60) and control group (N = 60). Subjects of the experimental group were given the intervention of Preksha Meditation practice by the trained instructor for one hour per day, six days a week, for three months for the first experimental stage and another three months for the second experimental stage. The subjects of the control group were not assigned any specific type of activity rather they continued doing their normal official activities as usual. The Academic Anxiety Scale was used to collect data during multi-level stages i.e. pre-experimental stage, post-experimental stage phase-I, and post-experimental stage phase-II. The data were statistically analyzed by computing the two-tailed-‘t’ test for inter group comparison and Sandler’s ‘A’ test with alpha = or p < 0.05 for intra-group comparisons. The study concluded that the practice for longer duration of Preksha Meditation practice brings about very significant and beneficial changes in the pattern of academic anxiety.

Keywords: Academic anxiety, academic pressure, Preksha, meditation.

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Authors: Reza Sedaghati

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Given the increasing energy demand in the world as well as limited fossil energy fuel resources, it is necessary to use renewable energy resources more than ever. Developing a hybrid energy system is suggested to overcome the intermittence of renewable energy resources such as sun and wind, in which the excess electrical energy can be converted and stored. While these resources store the energy, they can provide a more reliable system that is really suitable for off-grid applications. In hybrid systems, a methodology for optimal sizing of power generation systems components is of great importance in terms of economic aspects and efficiency. In this study, a hybrid energy system is designed to supply an off-grid sample load pattern with the aim of supplying necessary energy and minimizing the total production cost throughout the system life as well as increasing the reliability. For this purpose, the optimal size and the cost function of these resources is determined and minimized using evolutionary algorithms and system efficiency is studied with real-time load and meteorological information of Kazerun, a city in southern Iran under different conditions.

Keywords: Hybrid energy system, intelligent method, optimal size, minimal.

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Authors: Mohammad Reza Pirestani, Mehdi Shafaghati, Amir Ahmad Dehghani

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From the beginning of creation, human being has ever fought against the ecosystem by changes has made in environment. The most environmental changes on the nature have been done after starting the concentrated life in the same region. Dams are one of the most important buildings in water resources and transferring. These buildings have been made from old times without access to hydrological, hydraulically, hydro mechanical information. Dams have positive and negative effects on environment. Constructing a dam relatively causes equal ecological consequences. According to different criteria, environmental effects of dams can lead short term and long term damages. These effects may influence on the situation and treatment of meteorology, biology, culture, ancient works, etc and severely causes to change and complicate it. So considering importance of positive effects of dam construction, it is necessary to minimize negative environmental effects of dams to achieve a stable development. In this article the considered effects and their solutions in influencing on assessment of destructive environmental effects of dams construction have been surveyed and presented.

Keywords: Dam, Environment, Water Resources, Assessment

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Authors: Zhalmagambetov Yerlanbek, Assymova Dariya, Tashieva Saltanat, and Aliya Bolatkhan

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The relevance of the study of everyday life in Almaty and Kyzylorda are associated with the emergence of the modern trends in historiography and socializing areas of government reform. The relevance is due to the fact that in the early twentieth century Kyzylorda and Almaty began to develop as a city and this period has a special place in the life of the state. An interesting aspect of the everyday life of the inhabitants of the new city, which was built in the era of Stalin's Five-Year Plans, can be examined through the eyes of the Soviet people living in a specific environment, reflecting the life of the citizens. The study of industrialization of the Soviet Union and the attention paid to new developments in the first five years of everyday aspects as the impact of the modernization of the 1930s was one of the decisive factors in the lives of residents. Among these factors, we would like to highlight the medical field, which is the basis of all human life, specifically focusing on the state of medicine in Alma-Ata in the first 20-30-years of the twentieth century, and analyze the different aspects of human life, determining the quality of medical care to the population during this period.

Keywords: Alma Ata, capital, epidemic diseases, health care, Kyzylorda, the USSR, Vernyj.

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Authors: Mária Csernoch, Piroska Biró

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The legends about “user-friendly” and “easy-to-use” birotical tools (computer-related office tools) have been spreading and misleading end-users. This approach has led us to the extremely high number of incorrect documents, causing serious financial losses in the creating, modifying, and retrieving processes. Our research proved that there are at least two sources of this underachievement: (1) The lack of the definition of the correctly edited, formatted documents. Consequently, end-users do not know whether their methods and results are correct or not. They are not aware of their ignorance. They are so ignorant that their ignorance does not allow them to realize their lack of knowledge. (2) The end-users’ problem solving methods. We have found that in non-traditional programming environments end-users apply, almost exclusively, surface approach metacognitive methods to carry out their computer related activities, which are proved less effective than deep approach methods. Based on these findings we have developed deep approach methods which are based on and adapted from traditional programming languages. In this study, we focus on the most popular type of birotical documents, the text based documents. We have provided the definition of the correctly edited text, and based on this definition, adapted the debugging method known in programming. According to the method, before the realization of text editing, a thorough debugging of already existing texts and the categorization of errors are carried out. With this method in advance to real text editing users learn the requirements of text based documents and also of the correctly formatted text. The method has been proved much more effective than the previously applied surface approach methods. The advantages of the method are that the real text handling requires much less human and computer sources than clicking aimlessly in the GUI (Graphical User Interface), and the data retrieval is much more effective than from error-prone documents.

Keywords: Deep approach metacognitive methods, error-prone birotical documents, financial losses, human and computer resources.

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Authors: M. Yoneda

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to identify human walking vertical force by using FFT power spectrum density from the experimental acceleration data of the human body. An experiment on human walking is carried out on a stationary floor especially paying attention to higher components of dynamic vertical walking force. Based on measured acceleration data of the human lumbar part, not only in-phase component with frequency of 2fw, 3fw, but also in-opposite-phase component with frequency of 0.5 fw, 1.5 fw, 2.5 fw where fw is the walking rate is observed. The vertical vibration of pedestrian bridge induced by higher components of human walking vertical force is also discussed in this paper. A full scale measurement for the existing pedestrian bridge with center span length of 33 m is carried out focusing on the resonance phenomenon due to higher components of human walking vertical force. Dynamic response characteristics excited by these vertical higher components of human walking are revealed from the dynamic design viewpoint of pedestrian bridge.

Keywords: Simplified method, Human walking vertical force, Higher component, Pedestrian bridge vibration.

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Authors: P. Pongsumpun

Abstract:

The Swine flu outbreak in humans is due to a new strain of influenza A virus subtype H1N1 that derives in part from human influenza, avian influenza, and two separated strains of swine influenza. It can be transmitted from human to human. A mathematical model for the transmission of Swine flu is developed in which the human populations are divided into two classes, the risk and non-risk human classes. Each class is separated into susceptible, exposed, infectious, quarantine and recovered sub-classes. In this paper, we formulate the dynamical model of Swine flu transmission and the repetitive contacts between the people are also considered. We analyze the behavior for the transmission of this disease. The Threshold condition of this disease is found and numerical results are shown to confirm our theoretical predictions.

Keywords: Mathematical model, Steady state, Swine flu, threshold condition.

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Authors: Daniel A. Montoya, Marta L. Tostes

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This investigation aims at analyzing and determining the relation between two very important variables in the human resource management: The organizational climate and the performance assessment. This study aims at contributing with knowledge in the search of the relation between the mentioned variables because the literature still does not provide solid evidence to this respect and the cases revised are incipient to reach conclusions enabling a typology about this relation.To this regard, a correlational and cross-sectional perspective was adopted in which quantitative and qualitative techniques were chosen with the total of the workers of the tourist service company PTS Peru. In order to measure the organizational climate, the OCQ (Organization Climate Questionnaire) from was used; it has 50 items and measures 9 dimensions of the Organizational Climate. Also, to assess performance, a questionnaire with 21 items and 6 dimensions was designed. As a means of assessment, a focus group was prepared and was applied to a worker in every area of the company. Additionally, interviews to human resources experts were conducted. The results of the investigation show a clear relation between the organizational climate and the personnel performance assessment as well as a relation between the nine dimensions of the organizational climate and the work performance in general and with some of its dimensions.

Keywords: Job performance, human resource management, organization climate, performance assessment.

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Authors: H. Zare Amadabadi, S. Soltani Gerdefaramarzi

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In recent years, strategic alliances have taken increasing importance as a means to control competitive forces and to enter into new markets. Joint ventures are one of the most frequently used contractual forms in strategic alliances. There are various motivations for cooperation between two or more firms e.g., accessing to technical know-how, accessing to financial resources and managing risks. The firms must know about these motivations to encourage for establishing joint venture. So, it is important for managers to understand about these motives. On the other hand, the cooperation section is one of the most effective parts in each country. In this way, our study identifies goals of joint venture between cooperative manufacturing firms, and prioritizes those using TOPSIS1. The results show that the most important of joint venture goals are: accessing to managerial know-how, sharing total capital investment.

Keywords: Cooperative, Joint Venture, TOPSIS

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Authors: Nahlah Abbas, Saleh A. Wasimi, Nadhir Al-Ansari

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The Greater Zab and Lesser Zab are the major tributaries of Tigris River contributing the largest flow volumes into the river. The impacts of climate change on water resources in these basins have not been well addressed. To gain a better understanding of the effects of climate change on water resources of the study area in near future (2049-2069) as well as in distant future (2080-2099), Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was applied. The model was first calibrated for the period from 1979 to 2004 to test its suitability in describing the hydrological processes in the basins. The SWAT model showed a good performance in simulating streamflow. The calibrated model was then used to evaluate the impacts of climate change on water resources. Six general circulation models (GCMs) from phase five of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) under three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5, and RCP 8.5 for periods of 2049-2069 and 2080-2099 were used to project the climate change impacts on these basins. The results demonstrated a significant decline in water resources availability in the future.

Keywords: Tigris River, climate change, water resources, SWAT.

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Authors: Piotr Podlipniak

Abstract:

This paper proposes that in the course of evolution pitch structure became a human specific tool of communication the function of which is to induce emotional states such as uncertainty and cohesion. By the means of eliciting these emotions during collective music performance people are able to unconsciously give cues concerning social acceptance. This is probably one of the reasons why in all cultures people collectively perform tonal music. It is also suggested that tonal pitch structure had been invented socially before it became an evolutionary innovation of hominines. It means that a predisposition to tonally organize pitches evolved by the means of ‘Baldwin effect’ – a process in which natural selection transforms the learned response of an organism into the instinctive response. In the proposed, hypothetical evolutionary scenario of the emergence of tonal pitch structure social forces such as a need for closer cooperation play the crucial role.

Keywords: Emotion, evolution, tonality, social consolidation.

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Authors: Aishath Shakeela

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At a global level, water stewardship, water stress and water security are crucial factors in tourism planning and development considerations. Challenges associated with water is of particular concern to the Maldives as there is limited availability of freshwater, high dependency on desalinated water, and high unit cost associated with desalinating water. While the Maldives is promoted as an example of sustainable tourism, a key sustainability challenge facing tourism dependent communities is the efficient use and management of available water resources. A water crisis event in the capital island of Maldives highlighted how precarious water related issues are in this tourism dependent destination. Applying netnography, the focus of this working paper is to present community perceptions of how government policies addressed Malé Water and Sewerage Company (MWSC) water crisis event.

Keywords: Crisis management, government policies, Maldives, tourism, water.

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Authors: Christina Babatsou, Efthimios Zervas

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Since 2008 a new economic crisis is present is the entire planet. This crisis affects several domains of the economic but also of the social life. Consumption decreases due to the lack of necessary resources of households to increase their expenditures. The car manufacturing is one of the main industrial activities in European Union (EU) and the present crisis particularly affects it. The present study examines the correlations between several socio-economic indicators and car market in European Union. The target is to find out the impact of the present economic crisis on the car market in EU.

Keywords: European Union, Passenger cars, Social indicators, Correlations

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Authors: G. Sekeroglu, M. Altan

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Working capital is identified as firm’s all current assets. Inventories which are one of the working capital elements are very important among current assets for firms. Because, profitability is an indicator for firms’ financial success is provided with minimum cost and optimum inventory quantity. So in this study, it is investigated as comparatively that the effect of inventory management on the profitability of Turkish firms which operated in weaving industry, eatables industry, wholesale and retail industry in between 2003 – 2012 years. Research data consist of profitability ratios and inventory turnovers ratio calculated by using balance sheets and income statements of firms which operated in Borsa Istanbul (BIST). In this research, the relationship between inventories and profitability is investigated by using SPSS-20 software with regression and correlation analysis. The results achieved from three industry departments which exist in study interpreted as comparatively. Accordingly, it is determined that there is a positive relationship between inventory management and profitability in eatables industry. However, it was founded that there is no relationship between inventory management and profitability in weaving industry and wholesale and retail industry.

Keywords: Profitability, regression analysis, inventory management, working capital.

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Authors: Shoji Katagiri

Abstract:

This paper is to clarify the relationship between ICT and income inequality. To do so, we develop the general equilibrium model with ICT investment, obtain the equilibrium solutions, and then simulate the model with these solutions for some OECD countries. As a result, generally, during the corresponding periods we confirm that the relationship between ICT investment and income inequality is positive. In this mode, the increment of the ratio of ICT investment to the aggregated investment in stock enhances the capital’s share of income, and finally leads to income inequality such as the increase of the share of the top decile income. Although we confirm the positive relationship between ICT investment and income inequality, the upward trend for that relationship depends on the values of parameters for the making use of the simulations and these parameters are not deterministic in the magnitudes on the calculated results for the simulations.

Keywords: ICT, inequality, capital accumulation, technology.

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Authors: Libena Cernohorska, Veronika Linhartova, Michal Sinka, Petr Teply

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The term private equity usually refers to any type of equity investment in an asset in which the equity is not freely tradable on a public stock market. Some researchers believe that private equity contributed to the extent of the crisis and increased the pace of its spread over the world. We do not agree with this. On the other hand, we argue that during the economic recession private equity might become an important source of funds for firms with special needs (e.g. for firms seeking buyout financing, venture capital, expansion capital or distress debt financing). However, over-regulation of private equity in both the European Union and the US can slow down this specific funding channel to the economy and deepen credit crunch during global crises.

Keywords: scredit lunch, distress debt, global crisis, private equity, regulation

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Authors: Nahed Ayedh Al-Hajeri

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In a world of climate change and limited fossil fuel resources, renewable energy sources are playing an increasingly important role. Due to industrializations and population growth our economy and technologies today largely depend upon natural resources, which are not replaceable. Approximately 90% of our energy consumption comes from fossil fuels (viz. coal, oil and natural gas). The irony is that these resources are depleting. Also, the huge consumption of fossil fuels has caused visible damage to the environment in various forms viz. global warming, acid rains etc.

Keywords: Kilo watt, kilo watt hour, carbon di-oxide, photovoltaic, environmental protection agency, Kwaiti dinar.

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Authors: Firas A. Al Laban, Mohamed Chabi, Sammani Danwawu Abdullahi

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There are real needs to integrate types of Open Educational Resources (OER) with an intelligent system to extract information and knowledge in the semantic searching level. The needs came because most of current learning standard adopted web based learning and the e-learning systems do not always serve all educational goals. Semantic Web systems provide educators, students, and researchers with intelligent queries based on a semantic knowledge management learning system. An ontology-based learning system is an advanced system, where ontology plays the core of the semantic web in a smart learning environment. The objective of this paper is to discuss the potentials of ontologies and mapping different kinds of ontologies; heterogeneous or homogenous to manage and control different types of Open Educational Resources. The important contribution of this research is that it uses logical rules and conceptual relations to map between ontologies of different educational resources. We expect from this methodology to establish an intelligent educational system supporting student tutoring, self and lifelong learning system.

Keywords: Knowledge Management Systems, Ontologies, Semantic Web, Open Educational Resources.

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Authors: Carlos Ramirez, Carlos Concha, Benjamin Valdes

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Emotions are related with learning processes and physiological signals can be used to detect them for the personalization of learning resources and to control the pace of instruction. A model of relevant emotions has been developed, where specific combinations of emotions and cognition processes are connected and integrated with the concept of 'flow', in order to improve learning. The cardiac pulse is a reliable signal that carries useful information about the subject-s emotional condition; it is detected using a classroom chair adapted with non invasive EMFi sensor and an acquisition system that generates a ballistocardiogram (BCG), the signal is processed by an algorithm to obtain characteristics that match a specific emotional condition. The complete chair system is presented in this work, along with a framework for the personalization of learning resources.

Keywords: Ballistocardiogram, emotions in learning, noninvasive sensors, personalization of learning resources.

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Authors: Bohsiu Wu

Abstract:

Among serious crimes, child homicide is a rather rare event. However, the killing of children stirs up a special type of emotion in society that pales other criminal acts. This study examines the relevancy of three possible community-level explanations for child homicide: social deprivation, female empowerment, and social isolation. The social deprivation hypothesis posits that child homicide results from lack of resources in communities. The female empowerment hypothesis argues that a higher female status translates into a higher level of capability to prevent child homicide. Finally, the social isolation hypothesis regards child homicide as a result of lack of social connectivity. Child homicide data, aggregated by US postal ZIP codes in California from 1990 to 1999, were analyzed with a negative binomial regression. The results of the negative binomial analysis demonstrate that social deprivation is the most salient and consistent predictor among all other factors in explaining child homicide victimization at the ZIP-code level. Both social isolation and female labor force participation are weak predictors of child homicide victimization across communities. Further, results from the negative binomial regression show that it is the communities with a higher, not lower, degree of female labor force participation that are associated with a higher count of child homicide. It is possible that poor communities with a higher level of female employment have a lesser capacity to provide the necessary care and protection for the children. Policies aiming at reducing social deprivation and strengthening female empowerment possess the potential to reduce child homicide in the community.

Keywords: Child homicide, deprivation, empowerment, isolation.

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Authors: Zelal Çinar

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This paper aims to expose the effects of the ideological program of Turkish Republic on city planning, through the first plan of Ankara. As the new capital, Ankara was planned to be the ‘showcase’ of modern Turkey. It was to represent all new ideologies and the country’s cultural similarities with the west. At the same time it was to underline the national identity and independence of Turkish republic. To this end, a new plan for the capital was designed by German city planner Carl Christopher Lörcher. Diametrically opposed with the existing fabric of the city, this plan was built on the basis of papers and plans, on ideological aims. On the contrary, this paper argues that the city is a machine of possibilities, rather than a clear, materialized system.

Keywords: Architecture, ideology, modernization, urban planning.

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Authors: Jang-Hee Yoo, Doosung Hwang, Jong-Wook Han, Ki-Young Moon

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The ability to recognize humans and their activities by computer vision is a very important task, with many potential application. Study of human motion analysis is related to several research areas of computer vision such as the motion capture, detection, tracking and segmentation of people. In this paper, we describe a segmentation method for extracting human body contour in modified HLS color space. To estimate a background, the modified HLS color space is proposed, and the background features are estimated by using the HLS color components. Here, the large amount of human dataset, which was collected from DV cameras, is pre-processed. The human body and its contour is successfully extracted from the image sequences.

Keywords: Background Subtraction, Human Silhouette Extraction, HLS Color Space, and Object Segmentation

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Authors: A. A. Ghanim

Abstract:

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is heading towards a severe and rapidly expanding water crisis, which can have negative impacts on the country’s environment and economy. Of the total water consumption in KSA, the agricultural sector accounts for nearly 87% of the total water use and, therefore, any attempt that overlooks this sector will not help in improving the sustainability of the country’s water resources. KSA Vision 2030 gives priority of water use in the agriculture sector for the regions that have natural renewable water resources. It means that there is little concern for making reuse of municipal wastewater for irrigation purposes in any region in general and in water-scarce regions in particular. The use of treated wastewater is very limited in Saudi Arabia, but it has very considerable potential for future expansion due its numerous beneficial uses. This study reviews the current situation of water resources in Saudi Arabia, providing more highlights on agriculture and wastewater reuse. The reviewed study is proposing some corrective measures for development and better management of water resources in the Kingdom. Suggestions also include consideration of treated water as an alternative source for irrigation in some regions of the country. The study concluded that a sustainable solution for the water crisis in KSA requires implementation of multiple measures in an integrated manner. The integrated solution plan should focus on two main directions: first, improving the current management practices of the existing water resources; second, developing new water supplies from both conventional and non-conventional sources.

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, water resources, water crisis, treated wastewater.

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