Search results for: local government areas

Authors: P. Pongsumpun

Abstract:

Herpes zoster is a disease that manifests as a dermatological condition. The characteristic of this disease is an irritating skin rash with blisters. This is often limited to one side of body. From the data of Herpes zoster cases in Thailand, we found that age structure effects to the transmission of this disease. In this study, we construct the age structural model of Herpes zoster in Thailand. The local stability analysis of this model is given. The numerical solutions are shown to confirm the analytical results.

Keywords: Age structural model, Herpes zoster, local stability, Numerical solution.

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Authors: Mary L. G. S. Senna, Afonso R. Aquino, Veruska C. Dutra, Carlos H. C. Tolentino

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The quality of life index, despite elucidating many discussions, the conceptual subjectivity of the term does not show precision, and consequently, many researchers seek to develop methods aiming to measure this concept, bringing it to a more concrete approach. In this study, the quality of life index method was used to analyze the population of Mateiros, Tocantins, Brazil for quality of life. After data collection, it was compared the quality of life index between the population and the group of beneficiaries of the Brazilian government assistance program Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Some of the people interviewed receive financial aid from the federal government program Bolsa Família (22%). Comparisons were made among the final score of the quality of life index of the Mateiros population and the following factors: Gender, age, education, those working or not with tourism and those who receive or do not receive the Bolsa Família. It was observed that only the factor, Bolsa Família (p-score 0.0138), shows an association with quality of life improvement, noticing that those who have financial aid had a higher quality of life improvement than the rest of the population. It was concluded that, government assistance has shown a decisive element on the enhancement of Mateiros population quality of life, indicating that similar actions should be maintained.

Keywords: Quality of life index, government aid to families, sustainable tourism, Bolsa Familia.

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Authors: Thiyam Tamphasana Devi, Bimlesh Kumar

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A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique has been applied to simulate the gas-liquid phase in double stirred tank of Rushton impeller. Eulerian-Eulerian model was adopted to simulate the multiphase with standard correlation of Schiller and Naumann for drag co-efficient. The turbulence was modeled by using standard k-ε turbulence model. The present CFD model predicts flow pattern, local gas hold-up, and local specific area. It also predicts local kLa (mass transfer rate) for single impeller. The predicted results were compared with experimental and CFD results of published literature. The predicted results are slightly over predicted with the experimental results; however, it is in reasonable agreement with other simulated results of published literature.

Keywords: Eulerian-Eulerian, gas-hold up, gas-liquid phase, local mass transfer rate, local specific area, Rushton Impeller.

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Authors: Sebastian B. Mendes

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The presence of a vertical fatigue crack in the web of a plate girder subjected to pure bending influences the bending moment capacity of the girder. The growth of the crack may lead to premature elastic failure due to flange local yielding, flange local buckling, or web local buckling. Approximate expressions for the bending moment capacities corresponding to these failure modes were formulated. Finite element analyses were then used to validate the expressions. The expressions were employed to assess the effects of crack length on the capacity. Neglecting brittle fracture, tension buckling, and ductile failure modes, it was found that typical girders are governed by the capacity associated with flange local yielding as influenced by the crack. Concluding, a possible use of the capacity expressions in girder design was demonstrated.

Keywords: Fatigue crack, flange yielding, flange buckling, web buckling.

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Authors: Malika Fekih, Mohamed Saighi

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Many methods exist for either measuring or estimating evaporation from free water surfaces. Evaporation pans provide one of the simplest, inexpensive, and most widely used methods of estimating evaporative losses. In this study, the rate of evaporation starting from a water surface was calculated by modeling with application to dams in wet, arid and semi arid areas in Algeria. We calculate the evaporation rate from the pan using the energy budget equation, which offers the advantage of an ease of use, but our results do not agree completely with the measurements taken by the National Agency of areas carried out using dams located in areas of different climates. For that, we develop a mathematical model to simulate evaporation. This simulation uses an energy budget on the level of a vat of measurement and a Computational Fluid Dynamics (Fluent). Our calculation of evaporation rate is compared then by the two methods and with the measures of areas in situ.

Keywords: Evaporation, Energy budget, Surface water temperature, CFD, Dams

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Authors: Olfa.Ben Ahmed, Mahmoud. Mejdoub, Chokri. Ben Amar

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Recognizing human action from videos is an active field of research in computer vision and pattern recognition. Human activity recognition has many potential applications such as video surveillance, human machine interaction, sport videos retrieval and robot navigation. Actually, local descriptors and bag of visuals words models achieve state-of-the-art performance for human action recognition. The main challenge in features description is how to represent efficiently the local motion information. Most of the previous works focus on the extension of 2D local descriptors on 3D ones to describe local information around every interest point. In this paper, we propose a new spatio-temporal descriptor based on a spacetime description of moving points. Our description is focused on an Accordion representation of video which is well-suited to recognize human action from 2D local descriptors without the need to 3D extensions. We use the bag of words approach to represent videos. We quantify 2D local descriptor describing both temporal and spatial features with a good compromise between computational complexity and action recognition rates. We have reached impressive results on publicly available action data set

Keywords: Accordion, Bag of Features, Human action, Motion, Moving point, Space-Time Descriptor, SIFT, Video.

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Authors: Eakarat Boonreang

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The past two decades, Thailand faced the natural disasters, for instance, Gay typhoon in 1989, tsunami in 2004, and huge flood in 2011. The disaster management in Thailand was improved both structure and mechanism for cope with the natural disaster since 2007. However, the natural disaster management in Thailand has various problems, for examples, cooperation between related an organizations have not unity, inadequate resources, the natural disaster management of public sectors not proactive, people has not awareness the risk of the natural disaster, and communities did not participate in the natural disaster management. Objective of this study is to find the methods for capacity building in the natural disaster management of Thailand. The concept and information about the capacity building and the natural disaster management of Thailand were reviewed and analyzed by classifying and organizing data. The result found that the methods for capacity building in the natural disaster management of Thailand should be consist of 1) link operation and information in the natural disaster management between nation, province, local and community levels, 2) enhance competency and resources of public sectors which relate to the natural disaster management, 3) establish proactive natural disaster management both planning and implementation, 4) decentralize the natural disaster management to local government organizations, 5) construct public awareness in the natural disaster management to community, 6) support Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) seriously, and 7) emphasis on participation in the natural disaster management of all stakeholders.

Keywords: Capacity Building, Community Based Disaster Risk Management, Natural Disaster Management, Thailand.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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Governments around the world are adopting Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) because of the important opportunities it provides through E-government (EG) to modernize government public administration processes and delivery of quality and efficient public services. Almost every country in the world is adopting ICT in its public sector administration (EG) to modernize and change the traditional process of government, increase citizen engagement and participation in governance, as well as the provision of timely information to citizens. This paper, therefore, seeks to present the adoption, development and implementation of EG in regions globally, as well as the ICT indicators around the world, which are making EG initiatives successful. Europe leads the world in its EG adoption and development index, followed by the Americas, Asia, Oceania and Africa. There is a gradual growth in ICT indicators in terms of the increase in Internet access and usage, increase in broadband penetration, an increase of individuals using the Internet at home and a decline in fixed telephone use, while the mobile cellular phone has been on the increase year-on-year. Though the lack of ICT infrastructure is a major challenge to EG adoption and implementation around the world, in Africa it is very pervasive, hampering the expansion of Internet access and provision of broadband, and hence is a barrier to the successful adoption, development, and implementation of EG initiatives in countries on the continent. But with the general improvement and increase in ICT indicators around the world, it provides countries in Europe, Americas, Asia, Arab States, Oceania and Africa with the huge opportunity to enhance public service delivery through the adoption of EG. Countries within these regions cannot fail their citizens who desire to enjoy an enhanced and efficient public service delivery from government and its many state institutions.

Keywords: E-government development index, e-government, indicators, information and communication technologies.

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Authors: Jong-Bae Lee, Seongsoo Lee

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Local interconnect network (LIN) is a communication protocol that combines sensors, actuators, and processors to a functional module in automotive applications. In this paper, a LIN ver. 2.2A controller was designed in Verilog hardware description language (Verilog HDL) and implemented in field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Its operation was verified by making full-scale LIN network with the presented FPGA-implemented LIN controller, commercial LIN transceivers, and commercial processors. When described in Verilog HDL and synthesized in 0.18 μm technology, its gate size was about 2,300 gates.

Keywords: Local interconnect network, controller, transceiver, processor.

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Authors: Kelly Grani Yuen

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Accounting scandals and auditing frauds are perceived to be driven by aggressive companies and misrepresentation of audit reports. However, local legal systems and law enforcements may affect the services auditors provide to their ‘important’ clients. Under the civil law and common law jurisdictions, the standard setters, the government, and the regulatory bodies treat cases differently. As such, whether or not different forms of legal systems and extent of law enforcement plays an important role in auditor’s Audit Quality is a question this paper attempts to explore. The paper focuses on the investigation in Asia, where Hong Kong represents the common-law jurisdiction, while Taiwan and China represent the civil law jurisdiction. Only the ten reputable accounting firms are used in this study due to the differences in rankings and establishments of some of the small local audit firms. This will also contribute to the data collected between the years 2007-2013. By focusing on the use of multiple regression based on the dependent (Audit Quality) and independent variables (Client Importance, Law Enforcement, and Press Freedom), six different models are established. Results demonstrate that since different jurisdictions have different legal systems and market regulations, auditor’s treatment on ‘important’ clients will vary. However, with the moderators in place (law enforcement and press freedom), the relationship between client importance and audit quality may be smoothed out. With that in mind, this study contributes to local governments and standard setters’ consideration on legal reform and proper law enforcement in the market. Perhaps, with such modifications on the economic systems, collusion between companies and auditors can finally be put to a halt.

Keywords: Audit quality, client importance, jurisdiction, modified audit opinions.

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Authors: Han-Mei Chen, Rongxin Zhou, Taige Wang

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Glass is widely used in everyday life, from glass bottles for beverages, to architectural glass for various forms of glazing. Although the mainstream of used glass is recycled in the UK, the single-use and then recycling procedure results in a lot of waste as it incorporates intact glass with smashing, re-melting and remanufacturing. These processes bring massive energy consumption with a huge loss of high embodied energy and economic value, compared to re-use which’s towards a ‘zero carbon’ target. As a tourism city, Liverpool has more glass bottle consumption than most less leisure focused cities. It is therefore vital for Liverpool to find an upgrading approach for the single-use glass bottles with a low carbon output. This project aims to assess the feasibility of an industrial symbiosis and upgrading framework of glass and to investigate the ways of achieving them. It is significant to Liverpool’s future industry strategy since it provides an opportunity to target on economy recovery for post-COVID by industry symbiosis and an up-grading waste management in Liverpool to respond to the climate emergency. In addition, it will influence the local government policy for glass bottle reuse and recycling in North West England, and as a good practice to be further recommended to other areas of the UK. First, critical literature review of glass waste strategies has been conducted in the UK, and world-wide industrial symbiosis practices. Second, mapping, data collection and analysis have shown the current life cycle chain and the strong links of glass reuse and upgrading potentials via site visits to 16 local waste recycling centres. The results of this research have demonstrated the understanding the influence of key factors on the development of a circular industrial symbiosis business model for beverage glass bottles. The current waste management procedures of glass bottle industry, its business model, supply chain and the material flow have been reviewed. The various potential opportunities for glass bottle up-valuing have been investigated towards an industrial symbiosis in Liverpool. Finally, an up-valuing business model has been developed for an industrial symbiosis framework of glass in Liverpool. For glass bottles, there are two possibilities: 1) focus on upgrading processes towards re-use rather than single-use and recycling, 2) focus on ‘smart’ re-use and recycling leading to optimised values in other sectors to create a wider industry symbiosis for a multi-level and circular economy.

Keywords: Glass bottles, industry symbiosis, smart reuse, waste upgrading.

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Authors: Kadyrzhan Smagulov, Beken Makhmutov, Abai Kurmankulov

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The concept of the new government should focus on forming a new relationship between public servants and citizens of the state, formed on the principles of transparency, accountability, protection of citizens' rights. These principles are laid down in the problem of administrative reform in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Also, this wish arises, contributing to the improvement of the system of political management in our country. For the full realization of the goals is necessary to develop a special state program designed to improve the regulatory framework for public service, improving training, retraining and advanced training of civil servants, forming a system of incentives in public service and other activities aimed at achieving the efficiency of the entire system government.

Keywords: Kazakhstan, political management, independence

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Authors: Yuyun Wabula, B. J. Dewancker

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In the past decade, the social networking app has been growing very rapidly. Geolocation data is one of the important features of social media that can attach the user's location coordinate in the real world. This paper proposes the use of geolocation data from the Twitter social media application to gain knowledge about urban dynamics, especially on human mobility behavior. This paper aims to explore the relation between geolocation Twitter with the existence of people in the urban area. Firstly, the study will analyze the spread of people in the particular area, within the city using Twitter social media data. Secondly, we then match and categorize the existing place based on the same individuals visiting. Then, we combine the Twitter data from the tracking result and the questionnaire data to catch the Twitter user profile. To do that, we used the distribution frequency analysis to learn the visitors’ percentage. To validate the hypothesis, we compare it with the local population statistic data and land use mapping released by the city planning department of Makassar local government. The results show that there is the correlation between Twitter geolocation and questionnaire data. Thus, integration the Twitter data and survey data can reveal the profile of the social media users.

Keywords: Geolocation, Twitter, distribution analysis, human mobility.

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Authors: Chao-Linag Hsieh, Zheng-Wei Ye, Chen-Kang Huang, Yeun-Chung Lee, Chih-Hong Sun, Tzai-Hung Wen, Jehn-Yih Juang, Joe-Air Jiang

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Air pollution and climate warming become more and more intensified in many areas, especially in urban areas. Environmental parameters are critical information to air pollution and weather monitoring. Thus, it is necessary to develop a suitable air pollution and weather monitoring system for urban areas. In this study, a vehicle monitoring system (VMS) based on the IoT technique is developed. Cars are selected as the research tool because it can reach a greater number of streets to collect data. The VMS can monitor different environmental parameters, including ambient temperature and humidity, and air quality parameters, including PM2.5, NO₂, CO, and O₃. The VMS can provide other information, including GPS signals and the vibration information through driving a car on the street. Different sensor modules are used to measure the parameters and collect the measured data and transmit them to a cloud server through the LoRa protocol. A user interface is used to show the sensing data storing at the cloud server. To examine the performance of the system, a researcher drove a Nissan x-trail 1998 to the area close to the Da’an District office in Taipei to collect monitoring data. The collected data are instantly shown on the user interface. The four kinds of information are provided by the interface: GPS positions, weather parameters, vehicle information, and air quality information. With the VMS, users can obtain the information regarding air quality and weather conditions when they drive their car to an urban area. Also, government agencies can make decisions on traffic planning based on the information provided by the proposed VMS.

Keywords: Vehicle, monitoring system, LoRa, smart city.

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Authors: Artur Krukowski, Emmanouela Vogiatzaki

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The article presents an ongoing work in research projects such as SCAN4RECO or ARCH, both funded by the European Commission under Horizon 2020 program. The former one concerns multimodal and multispectral scanning of Cultural Heritage assets for their digitization and conservation via spatiotemporal reconstruction and 3D printing, while the latter one aims to better preserve areas of cultural heritage from hazards and risks. It co-creates tools that would help pilot cities to save cultural heritage from the effects of climate change. It develops a disaster risk management framework for assessing and improving the resilience of historic areas to climate change and natural hazards. Tools and methodologies are designed for local authorities and practitioners, urban population, as well as national and international expert communities, aiding authorities in knowledge-aware decision making. In this article we focus on 3D modelling of object geometry using primarily photogrammetric methods to achieve very high model accuracy using consumer types of devices, attractive both to professions and hobbyists alike.

Keywords: 3D modeling, UAS, cultural heritage, preservation.

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Authors: L. Salvati, D. Smiraglia, S. Bajocco, M. Munafò

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This paper focuses on Land Use and Land Cover Changes (LULCC) occurred in the urban coastal regions of the Mediterranean basin in the last thirty years. LULCC were assessed diachronically (1975-2006) in two urban areas, Rome (Italy) and Athens (Greece), by using CORINE land cover maps. In strictly coastal territories a persistent growth of built-up areas at the expenses of both agricultural and forest land uses was found. On the contrary, a different pattern was observed in the surrounding inland areas, where a high conversion rate of the agricultural land uses to both urban and forest land uses was recorded. The impact of city growth on the complex pattern of coastal LULCC is finally discussed.

Keywords: Land use changes, coastal region, Rome, Attica, southern Europe.

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Authors: Maisam Rafiee, Chikashi Deguchi, Akio Odake, Minoru Matsui, Takanori Sata

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Cities in Afghanistan have been rapidly urbanized; however, many parts of these cities have been developed with no detailed land use plan or infrastructure. In other words, they have been informally developed without any government leadership. The new government started the In-situ Upgrading Project in Kabul to upgrade roads, the water supply network system, and the surface water drainage system on the existing street layout in 2002, with the financial support of international agencies. This project is an appropriate emergency improvement for living life, but not an essential improvement of living conditions and infrastructure problems because the life expectancies of the improved facilities are as short as 10–15 years, and residents cannot obtain land tenure in the unplanned areas. The Land Readjustment System (LRS) conducted in Japan has good advantages that rearrange irregularly shaped land lots and develop the infrastructure effectively. This study investigates the effects of the In-situ Upgrading Project on private investment, land prices, and residents’ satisfaction with projects in Kart-e-Char, where properties are registered, and in Afshar-e-Silo Lot 1, where properties are unregistered. These projects are located 5 km and 7 km from the CBD area of Kabul, respectively. This study discusses whether LRS should be applied to the unplanned area based on the questionnaire and interview responses of experts experienced in the In-situ Upgrading Project who have knowledge of LRS. The analysis results reveal that, in Kart-e-Char, a lot of private investment has been made in the construction of medium-rise (five- to nine-story) buildings for commercial and residential purposes. Land values have also incrementally increased since the project, and residents are commonly satisfied with the road pavement, drainage systems, and water supplies, but dissatisfied with the poor delivery of electricity as well as the lack of public facilities (e.g., parks and sport facilities). In Afshar-e-Silo Lot 1, basic infrastructures like paved roads and surface water drainage systems have improved from the project. After the project, a few four- and five-story residential buildings were built with very low-level private investments, but significant increases in land prices were not evident. The residents are satisfied with the contribution ratio, drainage system, and small increase in land price, but there is still no drinking water supply system or tenure security; moreover, there are substandard paved roads and a lack of public facilities, such as parks, sport facilities, mosques, and schools. The results of the questionnaire and interviews with the four engineers highlight the problems that remain to be solved in the unplanned areas if LRS is applied—namely, land use differences, types and conditions of the infrastructure still to be installed by the project, and time spent for positive consensus building among the residents, given the project’s budget limitation.

Keywords: In-Situ Upgrading, Kabul, Land Readjustment, Land value, Planned areas, Private investment, Resident satisfaction, Unplanned areas.

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Authors: Alima Damak Masmoudi, Randa Boukhris Trabelsi, Dorra Sellami Masmoudi

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Single biometric modality recognition is not able to meet the high performance supplies in most cases with its application become more and more broadly. Multimodal biometrics identification represents an emerging trend recently. This paper investigates a novel algorithm based on fusion of both fingerprint and fingervein biometrics. For both biometric recognition, we employ the Monogenic Local Binary Pattern (MonoLBP). This operator integrate the orginal LBP (Local Binary Pattern ) with both other rotation invariant measures: local phase and local surface type. Experimental results confirm that a weighted sum based proposed fusion achieves excellent identification performances opposite unimodal biometric systems. The AUC of proposed approach based on combining the two modalities has very close to unity (0.93).

Keywords: fingerprint, fingervein, LBP, MonoLBP, fusion, biometric trait.

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Authors: Yuko Hiramatsu, Fumihiro Sato, Atsushi Ito, Hiroyuki Hatano, Mie Sato, Yu Watanabe, Akira Sasaki

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This paper presents a mobile phone application developed for sightseeing in Nikko, one of the cultural world heritages in Japan, using the BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) beacon. Based on our pre-research, we decided to design our application for young people who walk around the area actively, but know little about the tradition and culture of Nikko. One solution is to construct many information boards to explain; however, it is difficult to construct new guide plates in cultural world heritage sites. The smartphone is a good solution to send such information to such visitors. This application was designed using a combination of the smartphone and beacons, set in the area, so that when a tourist passes near a beacon, the application displays information about the area including a map, historical or cultural information about the temples and shrines, and local shops nearby as well as a bus timetable. It is useful for foreigners, too. In addition, we developed quizzes relating to the culture and tradition of Nikko to provide information based on the Zeigarnik effect, a psychological effect. According to the results of our trials, tourists positively evaluated the basic information and young people who used the quiz function were able to learn the historical and cultural points. This application helped young visitors at Nikko to understand the cultural elements of the site. In addition, this application has a function to send notifications. This function is designed to provide information about the local community such as shops, local transportation companies and information office. The application hopes to also encourage people living in the area, and such cooperation from the local people will make this application vivid and inspire young visitors to feel that the cultural heritage site is still alive today. This is a gateway for young people to learn about a traditional place and understand the gravity of preserving such areas.

Keywords: BLE beacon, smartphone application, Zeigarnik effect, world heritage site, school trip.

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Authors: Sirirat Taneerananon

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This paper presents the results of a study of the ultra-poor in the south of Thailand, revisited after 10 years since the original study in 2000. The original study was conducted in four provinces. The first two namely Phatthalung and Nakorn were chosen to represent the Thai Buddhists and the others, Satun and Pattani were chosen to represent the Thai Muslims. For this study, only the results from the three provinces except Pattani are reported as it was difficult and dangerous to conduct fieldwork in Pattani due to the continued unrest in the area since 2005.

The objectives of the study are to find out the changes of the poverty situation after 10 years and to see the impacts of the poverty reduction projects implemented by the government on the poor. The research methodology used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The same villages in the four provinces studied in 1999 were again chosen. In each village, five ultra-poor people and heads of the villages were interviewed. The results show that the poverty situation of the ultra-poor groups has not changed much since they lacked the basic key factor to get themselves out of poverty: The ownership of land. Their chronic poverty situation has been passed on from the last generation. In the province of Phatthalung, the ultra-poor have improved in terms of economic situation because of the big increase in the price of rubber. However, the same could not be said for other provinces. Even though the government’s projects have not reduced the poverty directly, the projects have significantly contributed to the improvement of the quality of life of the poor and the people in the areas. 

Keywords: Poverty, Southern Thailand, Ultra-poor.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah

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The adoption and application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in government administration through e-government is expected to permeate all sectors of state/ public institutions as well as democratic institutions. One of such public institutions is the Electoral Commission of Ghana mandated by the 1992 Constitution to hold all public elections including presidential and parliamentary elections. As Ghana holds its 7th General Elections since 1992, on 7th November 2016, there are demands from key stakeholders for the Election Management Body, which is the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana to adopt and implement an electronic voting system. This case study, therefore, attempts to contribute significantly to the debate by examining influencing factors that would impact on citizen’s readiness to adopt and use an electronic voting system in Ghana. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used as a theoretical framework for this study, out of which a research model and hypotheses were developed. Importantly, the outcome of this research finding would form a basis for appropriate policy recommendation for consideration of Government and EC of Ghana.

Keywords: Citizens readiness, e-government, electronic voting, technology acceptance model (TAM).

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Authors: Domenico Chizzoniti, Monica Moscatelli, Letizia Cattani, Luca Preis

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A primary healthcare facility in developing countries should be a multifunctional space able to respond to different requirements: Flexibility, modularity, aggregation and reversibility. These basic features could be better satisfied if applied to an architectural artifact that complies with the typological, figurative and constructive aspects of the context in which it is located. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify a procedure that can define the figurative aspects of the architectural structure of the health prototype for the marginal areas of developing countries through a critical approach. The application context is the rural areas of the Northeast of Bahia in Brazil. The prototype should be located in the rural district of Quingoma, in the municipality of Lauro de Freitas, a particular place where there is still a cultural fusion of black and indigenous populations. Based on the historical analysis of settlement strategies and architectural structures in spaces of public interest or collective use, this paper aims to provide a procedure able to identify the categories and rules underlying typological and figurative aspects, in order to detect significant and generalizable elements, as well as materials and constructive techniques typically adopted in the rural areas of Brazil. The object of this work is therefore not only the recovery of certain constructive approaches but also the development of a procedure that integrates the requirements of the primary healthcare prototype with its surrounding economic, social, cultural, settlement and figurative conditions.

Keywords: Architectural typology, Developing countries, Local construction techniques, Primary health care.

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Authors: Priya Sepaha

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Social media has loomed as the most effective tool in recent times to flag the causes, contents, opinions and direction of any social movement and has demonstrated that it will have a far-reaching effect on government as well. This study focuses on India which has emerged as the fastest growing community on social media. Social movement activists, in particular, have extensively utilized the power of digital social media to streamline the effectiveness of social protest on a particular issue through extensive successful mass mobilizations. This research analyses the role and impact of social media as a power to catalyze the social movements in India and further seeks to describe how certain social movements are resisted, subverted, co-opted and/or deployed by social media. The impact assessment study has been made with the help of cases, policies and some social movement which India has witnessed the assertion of numerous social issues perturbing the public which eventually paved the way for remarkable judicial decisions. The paper concludes with the observations that despite its pros and cons, the impacts of social media on the functioning of the Indian Government have demonstrated that it has already become an indispensable tool in the hands of social media-suave Indians who are committed to bring about a desired change.

Keywords: Impact, Indian government, misuse, social media, social movement.

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Authors: Samson Abayomi Olasoju, Olufemi Adekunle, Titilope Edun, Johnson Owoseni

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Science offers opportunities for revolutionizing human activities, enriched by input from scientific research and technology. Biotechnology is a major force for development in developing countries such as Nigeria. It is found to contribute to solving human problems like water and food insecurity that impede national development and threaten peace wherever it is applied. This review identified the problems of agricultural biotechnology in Nigeria. On the part of rural farmers, there is a lack of adequate knowledge or awareness of biotechnology despite the fact that they constitute the bulk of Nigerian farmers. On part of the government, the problems include: lack of adequate implementation of government policy on bio-safety and genetically modified products, inadequate funding of education as well as research and development of products related to biotechnology. Other problems include: inadequate infrastructures (including laboratory), poor funding and lack of national strategies needed for development and running of agricultural biotechnology. In spite of all the challenges associated with agricultural biotechnology, its prospects still remain great if Nigeria is to meet with the food needs of the country’s ever increasing population. The introduction of genetically engineered products will lead to the high productivity needed for commercialization and food security. Insect, virus and other related diseases resistant crops and livestock are another viable area of contribution of biotechnology to agricultural production. In conclusion, agricultural biotechnology will not only ensure food security, but, in addition, will ensure that the local farmers utilize appropriate technology needed for large production, leading to the prosperity of the farmers and national economic growth, provided government plays its role of adequate funding and good policy implementation.

Keywords: Biosafety, biotechnology, food security, genetic engineering, genetic modification.

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Authors: L. R. Valencia Pérez, J. M. Peña Aguilar, A. Lamadrid Álvarez, A. Pastrana Palma, H. F. Valencia Pérez, M. Vivanco Vargas

Abstract:

This work proposes a Cooperation-Competitive (Coopetitive) approach that allows coordinated work among the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), the Autonomous University of Querétaro (UAQ) and government funds from National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) or some other international organizations. To work on an overall knowledge transfer strategy with e-learning over the Cloud, where experts in junior high and high school education, working in multidisciplinary teams, perform analysis, evaluation, design, production, validation and knowledge transfer at large scale using a Cloud Computing platform. Allowing teachers and students to have all the information required to ensure a homologated nationally knowledge of topics such as mathematics, statistics, chemistry, history, ethics, civism, etc. This work will start with a pilot test in Spanish and initially in two regional dialects Otomí and Náhuatl. Otomí has more than 285,000 speaking indigenes in Queretaro and Mexico´s central region. Náhuatl is number one indigenous dialect spoken in Mexico with more than 1,550,000 indigenes. The phase one of the project takes into account negotiations with indigenous tribes from different regions, and the Information and Communication technologies to deliver the knowledge to the indigenous schools in their native dialect. The methodology includes the following main milestones: Identification of the indigenous areas where Otomí and Náhuatl are the spoken dialects, research with the SEP the location of actual indigenous schools, analysis and inventory or current schools conditions, negotiation with tribe chiefs, analysis of the technological communication requirements to reach the indigenous communities, identification and inventory of local teachers technology knowledge, selection of a pilot topic, analysis of actual student competence with traditional education system, identification of local translators, design of the e-learning platform, design of the multimedia resources and storage strategy for “Cloud Computing”, translation of the topic to both dialects, Indigenous teachers training, pilot test, course release, project follow up, analysis of student requirements for the new technological platform, definition of a new and improved proposal with greater reach in topics and regions. Importance of phase one of the project is multiple, it includes the proposal of a working technological scheme, focusing in the cultural impact in Mexico so that indigenous tribes can improve their knowledge about new forms of crop improvement, home storage technologies, proven home remedies for common diseases, ways of preparing foods containing major nutrients, disclose strengths and weaknesses of each region, communicating through cloud computing platforms offering regional products and opening communication spaces for inter-indigenous cultural exchange.

Keywords: Mexicans indigenous tribes, education, knowledge transfer, cloud computing, Otomí, Náhuatl, language.

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Authors: P. Pongsumpun

Abstract:

A new strain of Type A influenza virus can cause the transmission of H1N1 virus. This virus can spread between the people by coughing and sneezing. Because the people are always movement, so this virus can be easily spread. In this study, we construct the dynamical network model of H1N1 virus by separating the human into five groups; susceptible, exposed, infectious, quarantine and recovered groups. The movement of people between houses (local level) is considered. The behaviors of solutions to our dynamical model are shown for the different parameters.

Keywords: Dynamical network, H1N1virus, local level, simulation.

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Authors: Akiko Kondo, Akio Kondo

Abstract:

We are facing serious problems related to long-term depopulation and an aging society with a falling birth rate in Japan. In this situation, we are suffering from a shortfall in human resources as well as a shortage of workforce in rural regions. In addition, we are struggling with a protracted economic slump and excess concentration of population in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. It is an urgent national issue to consider how to live in this country and what kind of structure of society and administration policy is needed. It is necessary to clarify people’s desire for their way of living and social assistance to be provided. The aim of this study is to clarify the characteristics of regional issues and the degree of their seriousness in local municipalities of Japan. We conducted a questionnaire survey about regional agenda in all local municipalities in Japan. We obtained responses concerning the degree of seriousness of regional issues and degree of importance of policies. Based on the data gathered from the survey, it is apparent that many local municipalities are facing an aging population and declining population. We constructed a model to analyze factors for declining population. Using the model, it was clarified that a population’s age structure, job opportunities and income level affect the decline of population. In addition, we showed the way of the evaluation of state of local municipality.

Keywords: Evaluation, Local municipality, Regional analysis, Regional issue.

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Authors: Aditi Bhadra, Sutapa Choudhury, Daita Kar

Abstract:

Flood zoning studies have become more efficient in recent years because of the availability of advanced computational facilities and use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In the present study, flood inundated areas were mapped using GIS for the Dikrong river basin of Arunachal Pradesh, India, corresponding to different return periods (2, 5, 25, 50, and 100 years). Further, the developed inundation maps corresponding to 25, 50, and 100 year return period floods were compared to corresponding maps developed by conventional methods as reported in the Brahmaputra Board Master Plan for Dikrong basin. It was found that, the average deviation of modelled flood inundation areas from reported map inundation areas is below 5% (4.52%). Therefore, it can be said that the modelled flood inundation areas matched satisfactorily with reported map inundation areas. Hence, GIS techniques were proved to be successful in extracting the flood inundation extent in a time and cost effective manner for the remotely located hilly basin of Dikrong, where conducting conventional surveys is very difficult.

Keywords: Flood hazard mapping, GIS, inundation area, return period.

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Authors: Kamolchanok Panishkan, Kanokporn Swangjang, Natdhera Sanmanee, Daoroong Sungthong

Abstract:

The objective of this research is to study principal component analysis for classification of 67 soil samples collected from different agricultural areas in the western part of Thailand. Six soil properties were measured on the soil samples and are used as original variables. Principal component analysis is applied to reduce the number of original variables. A model based on the first two principal components accounts for 72.24% of total variance. Score plots of first two principal components were used to map with agricultural areas divided into horticulture, field crops and wetland. The results showed some relationships between soil properties and agricultural areas. PCA was shown to be a useful tool for agricultural areas classification based on soil properties.

Keywords: soil organic matter, soil properties, classification, principal components

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Authors: Francis O. Iyoha, Daniel E. Gberevbie, Charles T. Iruonagbe, Matthew E. Egharevba

Abstract:

Cost of governance in Nigeria has become a challenge to development and concern to practitioners and scholars alike in the field of business and social science research. In the 2010 national budget of NGN4.6 trillion or USD28.75billion for instance, only a pantry sum of NGN1.8trillion or USD11.15billion was earmarked for capital expenditure. Similarly, in 2013, out of a total national budget of NGN4.92trillion or USD30.75billion, only the sum of NGN1.50trllion or USD9.38billion was voted for capital expenditure. Therefore, based on the data sourced from the Nigerian Office of Statistics, Central bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin as well as from the United Nations Development Programme, this study examined the causes of high cost of governance in Nigeria. It found out that the high cost of governance in the country is in the interest of the ruling class, arising from their unethical behaviour – corrupt practices and the poor management of public resources. As a result, the study recommends the need to intensify the war against corruption and mismanagement of public resources by government officials as possible solution to overcome the high cost of governance in Nigeria. This could be achieved by strengthening the constitutional powers of the various anti-corruption agencies in the area of arrest, investigation and prosecution of offenders without the interference of the executive arm of government either at the local, state or federal level.

Keywords: Capital expenditure, Cost of governance, recurrent expenditure, unethical behaviour.

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