Abstract: One major issue that is regularly cited as a block to
the widespread use of online assessments in eLearning, is that of the
authentication of the student and the level of confidence that an
assessor can have that the assessment was actually completed by that
student. Currently, this issue is either ignored, in which case
confidence in the assessment and any ensuing qualification is
damaged, or else assessments are conducted at central, controlled
locations at specified times, losing the benefits of the distributed
nature of the learning programme. Particularly as we move towards
constructivist models of learning, with intentions towards achieving
heutagogic learning environments, the benefits of a properly
managed online assessment system are clear. Here we discuss some
of the approaches that could be adopted to address these issues,
looking at the use of existing security and biometric techniques,
combined with some novel behavioural elements. These approaches
offer the opportunity to validate the student on accessing an
assessment, on submission, and also during the actual production of
the assessment. These techniques are currently under development in
the DECADE project, and future work will evaluate and report their
use..
Abstract: This questionnaire-based study, aimed to measure and
compare the awareness of English reading strategies among EFL
learners at Bangkok University (BU) classified by their gender, field
of study, and English learning experience. Proportional stratified
random sampling was employed to formulate a sample of 380 BU
students. The data were statistically analyzed in terms of the mean
and standard deviation. t-Test analysis was used to find differences in
awareness of reading strategies between two groups (-male and
female- /-science and social-science students). In addition, one-way
analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare reading strategy
awareness among BU students with different lengths of English
learning experience. The results of this study indicated that the
overall awareness of reading strategies of EFL learners at BU was at
a high level (ðÑ = 3.60) and that there was no statistically significant
difference between males and females, and among students who have
different lengths of English learning experience at the significance
level of 0.05. However, significant differences among students
coming from different fields of study were found at the same level of
significance.
Abstract: Business continuity management (BCM) identifies
potential external and internal threats to an organization and their
impacts to business operations. The goal of the article is to identify,
based on the analysis of employee turnover in organizations in the
Czech Republic, the role of personnel planning in BCM. The article
is organized as follows. The first part of the article concentrates on
the theoretical background of the topic. The second part of the article
is dedicated to the evaluation of the outcomes of the survey
conducted (questionnaire survey), focusing on the analysis of
employee turnover in organizations in the Czech Republic. The final
part of the article underlines the role of personnel planning in BCM,
since poor planning of staff needs in an organization can represent
a future threat for business continuity ensuring.
Abstract: Termination Mechanism is an indispensible part of the
emergency management mechanism. Despite of its importance in both
theory and practice, it is almost a brand new field for researching. The
concept of termination mechanism is proposed firstly in this paper,
and the design and implementation which are helpful to guarantee the
effect and integrity of emergency management are discussed secondly.
Starting with introduction of the problems caused by absent
termination and incorrect termination, the essence of termination
mechanism is analyzed, a model based on Optimal Stopping Theory is
constructed and the termination index is given. The model could be
applied to find the best termination time point.. Termination decision
should not only be concerned in termination stage, but also in the
whole emergency management process, which makes it a dynamic
decision making process. Besides, the main subjects and the procedure
of termination are illustrated after the termination time point is given.
Some future works are discussed lastly.
Abstract: The research objective of the project and article “The impact of Structural Funds on the growth of competitiveness of Polish agriculture" is to assess competitiveness of regions in Poland from the perspective of Polish agriculture by analysing the efficiency of the use of Structural Funds, the economic procedure of their distribution and the regulatory and organisational framework under the Rural Development Programme (RDP). It must be stressed that defining the scope of research in the above manner limits the analysis only to the part of Structural Funds directed to support Polish agriculture.
Abstract: This paper introduces a tool that is being developed for the expression of information security policy controls that govern electronic healthcare records. By reference to published findings, the paper introduces the theory behind the use of knowledge management for automatic and consistent security policy assertion using the formalism called the Secutype; the development of the tool and functionality is discussed; some examples of Secutypes generated by the tool are provided; proposed integration with existing medical record systems is described. The paper is concluded with a section on further work and critique of the work achieved to date.
Abstract: The concurrent era is characterised by strengthened interactions among financial markets and increased capital mobility globally. In this frames we examine the effects the international financial integration process has on the European bond markets. We perform a comparative study of the interactions of the European and international bond markets and exploit Cointegration analysis results on the elimination of stochastic trends and the decomposition of the underlying long run equilibria and short run causal relations. Our investigation provides evidence on the relation between the European integration process and that of globalisation, viewed through the bond markets- sector. Additionally the structural formulation applied, offers significant implications of the findings. All in all our analysis offers a number of answers on crucial queries towards the European bond markets integration process.
Abstract: Text categorization (the assignment of texts in natural language into predefined categories) is an important and extensively studied problem in Machine Learning. Currently, popular techniques developed to deal with this task include many preprocessing and learning algorithms, many of which in turn require tuning nontrivial internal parameters. Although partial studies are available, many authors fail to report values of the parameters they use in their experiments, or reasons why these values were used instead of others. The goal of this work then is to create a more thorough comparison of preprocessing parameters and their mutual influence, and report interesting observations and results.
Abstract: the research was conducted using the self report of
shoplifters who apprehended in the supermarket while stealing. 943
shoplifters in three years were interviewed right after the stealing act
and before calling the police. The aim of the study is to know the
shoplifting characteristics in Saudi Arabia, including the trait of
shoplifters and the situation of the supermarkets where the stealing
takes place. The analysis based on the written information about each
thief as the documentary research method. Descriptive statistics as
well as some inferential statistics were employed. The result shows
that there are differences between genders, age groups, occupations,
time of the day, days of the week, months, way of stealing, individual
or group of thieves and other supermarket situations in the type of
items stolen, total price and the count of items. The result and the
recommendation will serve as a guide for retailers where, when and
who to look at to prevent shoplifting.
Abstract: The traditional Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
(FMEA) uses Risk Priority Number (RPN) to evaluate the risk level
of a component or process. The RPN index is determined by
calculating the product of severity, occurrence and detection indexes.
The most critically debated disadvantage of this approach is that
various sets of these three indexes may produce an identical value of
RPN. This research paper seeks to address the drawbacks in
traditional FMEA and to propose a new approach to overcome these
shortcomings. The Risk Priority Code (RPC) is used to prioritize
failure modes, when two or more failure modes have the same RPN.
A new method is proposed to prioritize failure modes, when there is a
disagreement in ranking scale for severity, occurrence and detection.
An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is used to compare means of
RPN values. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences)
statistical analysis package is used to analyze the data. The results
presented are based on two case studies. It is found that the proposed
new methodology/approach resolves the limitations of traditional
FMEA approach.
Abstract: Historical monuments as architectural heritage are,
economically and culturally, considered one of the key aspects for
modern communities. Cultural heritage represents a country-s
national identity and pride and maintains and enriches that country-s
culture. Therefore, conservation of the monuments remained from
our ancestors requires everybody-s serious and unremitting effort.
Conservation, renewal, restoration, and technical study of cultural
and historical matters are issues which have a special status among
various forms of art and science in the present century and this is due
to two reasons: firstly, progress of humankind in this century has
created a factor called environmental pollution which not only has
caused new destructive processes of cultural/historical monuments
but also has accelerated the previous destructive processes by several
times, and secondly, the rapid advance of various sciences, especially
chemistry, has lead to the contribution of new methods and materials
to this significant issue.
Abstract: Traditionally, terror groups have been formed by ideologically aligned actors who perceive a lack of options for achieving political or social change. However, terrorist attacks have been increasingly carried out by small groups of actors or lone individuals who may be only ideologically affiliated with larger, formal terrorist organizations. The formation of these groups represents the inverse of traditional organizational growth, whereby structural de-evolution within issue-based organizations leads to the formation of small, independent terror cells. Ideological franchising – the bypassing of formal affiliation to the “parent" organization – represents the de-evolution of traditional concepts of organizational structure in favor of an organic, independent, and focused unit. Traditional definitions of dark networks that are issue-based include focus on an identified goal, commitment to achieving this goal through unrestrained actions, and selection of symbolic targets. The next step in the de-evolution of small dark networks is the miniorganization, consisting of only a handful of actors working toward a common, violent goal. Information-sharing through social media platforms, coupled with civil liberties of democratic nations, provide the communication systems, access to information, and freedom of movement necessary for small dark networks to flourish without the aid of a parent organization. As attacks such as the 7/7 bombings demonstrate the effectiveness of small dark networks, terrorist actors will feel increasingly comfortable aligning with an ideology only, without formally organizing. The natural result of this de-evolving organization is the single actor event, where an individual seems to subscribe to a larger organization-s violent ideology with little or no formal ties.
Abstract: Existing literature ondesign reasoning seems to give
either one sided accounts on expert design behaviour based on
internal processing. In the same way ecological theoriesseem to
focus one sidedly on external elementsthat result in a lack of unifying
design cognition theory. Although current extended design cognition
studies acknowledge the intellectual interaction between internal and
external resources, there still seems to be insufficient understanding
of the complexities involved in such interactive processes. As
such,this paper proposes a novelmulti-directional model for design
researchers tomap the complex and dynamic conduct controlling
behaviour in which both the computational and ecological
perspectives are integrated in a vertical manner. A clear distinction
between identified intentional and emerging physical drivers, and
relationships between them during the early phases of experts- design
process, is demonstrated by presenting a case study in which the
model was employed.
Abstract: Retention in the IT profession is critical for
organizations to stay competitive and operate reliably in the dynamic
business environment. Most organizations rely on compensation and
rewards as primary tools to enhance retention of employees. In this
quantitative survey-based study conducted at a large global bank, we
analyze the perceptions of 575 information technology (IT) software
professionals in India and Malaysia and find that fairness of rewards
has very little impact on retention likelihood. It is far more important
to actively involve employees in organizational activities. In
addition, our findings indicate that involvement is far more important
than information flow: the typical organizational communication to
keep employees informed.
Abstract: To investigate the possible correlation between peer aggression and peer victimization, 148 sixth-graders were asked to respond to the Reduced Aggression and Victimization Scales (RAVS). RAVS measures the frequency of reporting aggressive behaviors or of being victimized during the previous week prior to the survey. The scales are composed of six items each. Each point represents one instance of aggression or victimization. Specifically, the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (PMCC) was used to determine the correlations between the scores of the sixthgraders in the two scales, both in individual items and total scores. Positive correlations were established and correlations were significant at the 0.01 levels.
Abstract: This research aims to examine the key success factors
for the diffusion of mobile entertainment services in Malaysia. The
drivers and barriers observed in this research include perceived
benefit; concerns pertaining to pricing, product and technological
standardization, privacy and security; as well as influences from
peers and community. An analysis of a Malaysian survey of 384
respondents between 18 to 25 years shows that subscribers placed
greater importance on perceived benefit of mobile entertainment
services compared to other factors. Results of the survey also show
that there are strong positive correlations between all the factors,
with pricing issue–perceived benefit showing the strongest
relationship. This paper aims to provide an extensive study on the
drivers and barriers that could be used to derive architecture for
entertainment service provision to serve as a guide for telcos to
outline suitable approaches in order to encourage mass market
adoption of mobile entertainment services in Malaysia.
Abstract: Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the
overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project
on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for
any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting
objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision
support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather
than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will
select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the
problem in project scheduling notated as
(1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The
problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto
optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project
(curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish
activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different
possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and
each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is
constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because
the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is
developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted
to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project
with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed
method.
Abstract: Self-directed learning (SDL) was developed initially
for adult learning. Guglielmino constructed a scale to measure SDL.
Recent researchers have applied this concept to children. Although
there are sufficient theoretical evidences to present the possibility of
applying this concept to children, empirical evidences were not
provided. This study aimed to examine the quality of SDL and
construct a scale to measure SDL among young children. A modified
scale of Guglielmino-s scale was constructed and piloted with 183
subjects of age 9. Findings suggest that the qualities of SDL in young
ages are apparently congruent with that of adults.
Abstract: The study was designed to develop a measurement of
the positive emotion regulation questionnaire (PERQ) that assesses
positive emotion regulation strategies through self-report. The 14
items developed for the surveying instrument of the study were based
upon literatures regarding elements of positive regulation strategies.
319 elementary students (age ranging from 12 to14) were recruited
among three public elementary schools to survey on their use of
positive emotion regulation strategies. Of 319 subjects, 20 invalid
questionnaire s yielded a response rate of 92%. The data collected
wasanalyzed through methods such as item analysis, factor analysis,
and structural equation models. In reference to the results from item
analysis, the formal survey instrument was reduced to 11 items. A
principal axis factor analysis with varimax was performed on
responses, resulting in a 2-factor equation (savoring strategy and
neutralizing strategy), which accounted for 55.5% of the total
variance. Then, the two-factor structure of scale was also identified by
structural equation models. Finally, the reliability coefficients of the
two factors were Cronbach-s α .92 and .74. Gender difference was
only found in savoring strategy. In conclusion, the positive emotion
regulation strategies questionnaire offers a brief, internally consistent,
and valid self-report measure for understanding the emotional
regulation strategies of children that may be useful to researchers and
applied professionals.
Abstract: It is quite essential to form dialogue mechanisms and
dialogue channels to solve intercultural communication issues.
Therefore, every country should develop a intercultural education
project which aims to resolve international communication issues.
For proper mediation training, the first step is to reach an agreement
on the actors to run the project. The strongest mediation mechanisms
in the world should be analyzed and initiated within the educational
policies. A communication-based mediation model should be
developed for international mediation training. Mediators can use
their convincing communication skills as a part of this model. At the
first, fundamental stages of the mediation training should be specified
within the scope of the model. Another important topic at this point is
common sence and peace leaders to act as an ombudsman in this
process. Especially for solving some social issues and conflicts,
common sense leaders acting as an ombudsman would lead to
effective communication. In mediation training that is run by
universities and non-governmental organizations, another phase is to
focus on conducting the meetings. In intercultural mediation training,
one of the most critical topics is to conduct the meeting traffic and
performing a shuttle diplomacy. Meeting traffic is where the mediator
organizes meetings with the parties with initiative powers, in order to
contribute to the solution of the issue, and schedule these meetings.
In this notice titled “ Intercultural mediation training and the training
process of common sense leaders by the leadership of universities
communication and artistic campaigns" , communication models and
strategies about this topic will be constructed and an intercultural art
activities and perspectives will be presented.