Abstract: Educational institutions often implement policies with
the intention of influencing how learning and teaching occur.
Generally, such policies are not as effective as their makers would
like; changing the behavior of third-level teachers proves difficult.
Nevertheless, a policy instituted in 2006 at the Dublin Institute of
Technology has met with success: each newly hired faculty member
must have a post-graduate qualification in “Learning and Teaching"
or successfully complete one within the first two years of
employment. The intention is to build teachers- knowledge about
student-centered pedagogies and their capacity to implement them.
As a result of this policy (and associated programs that support it),
positive outcomes are readily apparent. Individual teachers who have
completed the programs have implemented significant change at the
course and program levels. This paper introduces the policy,
identifies outcomes in relation to existing theory, describes research
underway, and pinpoints areas where organizational learning has
occurred.
Abstract: Equilibrium and stability equations of a thin rectangular plate with length a, width b, and thickness h(x)=C1x+C2, made of functionally graded materials under thermal loads are derived based on the first order shear deformation theory. It is assumed that the material properties vary as a power form of thickness coordinate variable z. The derived equilibrium and buckling equations are then solved analytically for a plate with simply supported boundary conditions. One type of thermal loading, uniform temperature rise and gradient through the thickness are considered, and the buckling temperatures are derived. The influences of the plate aspect ratio, the relative thickness, the gradient index and the transverse shear on buckling temperature difference are all discussed.
Abstract: Forming a legal culture among citizens is a
complicated and lengthy process, influencing all spheres of social
life. It includes promoting justice, learning rights and duties, the
introduction of juridical norms and knowledge, and also a process of
developing a system of legal acts and constitutional norms. Currently,
the evaluative and emotional influence of attempts to establish a legal
culture among the citizens of Kazakhstan is limited by real legal
practice. As a result, the values essential to a sound civil society are
absent from the consciousness of the Kazakh people who are thus, in
turn, not able to develop respect for these values. One of the
disadvantages of the modern Kazakh educational system is a
tendency to underrate the actual forces shaping the worldview of
Kazakh youths. The mass-media, which are going through a
personnel crisis, cannot provide society with the legal and political
information necessary to form the sort of legal culture required for a
true civil society.
Abstract: Stability of functionally graded beams with piezoelectric layers subjected to axial compressive load that is simply supported at both ends is studied in this paper. The displacement field of beam is assumed based on first order shear deformation beam theory. Applying the Hamilton's principle, the governing equation is established. The influences of applied voltage, dimensionless geometrical parameter, functionally graded index and piezoelectric thickness on the critical buckling load of beam are presented. To investigate the accuracy of the present analysis, a compression study is carried out with a known data.
Abstract: The major urban centers are all facing rapid growth is
most often associated with spreading urbanization, social status of the
car has also changed: it has become a commodity of mass
consumption. There are currently about 5 million and 260 cars in
Algeria (2008), this number increases every year 200,000 new cars.
These phenomena induce a demand for greater mobility and a
significant need for transport infrastructure. Faced with these
problems and development of the growing use of the automobile,
central governments and local authorities in charge of urban transport
issues are aware of the need to develop their urban transport systems
but often lack opportunities.
Urban Transport Plans (PDU) were born in reaction to the "culture
of automobile." Their existence in the world the '80s, however, they
had little success before laws on air and rational use of energy in 90
years does not alter substantially their content and make mandatory
their implementation in cities of over 100,000 inhabitants (Abroad)
[1].
The objective of this work is to use the tool and specifically
Geomatics techniques as decision support in the organization and
management of travel while taking into consideration the influence,
which will then translate by National Urban Transport Plan.
Abstract: In the 21. century it comes true, that competitiveness of the firm is - to a considerable level - influenced by its participation in the chain of suppliers, customers and partners and by the way how the subject cooperates in the chain. This is valid also for new forms of enterprise such as virtual organization or virtual firm. In the first part of the paper there are determined the differences between these forms of enterprise. Another part will bring methodological framework for analysis of the factors, that influence the competitiveness of the virtual organization from spontaneity and order point of view.
Abstract: This paper shows that the economy of any country
can be presented as three different shells such as: economic shell of a
big, a medium and a small business. The new concepts were
introduced such as: volume of an economic shell, coefficient of
shell-s expansion (compression) etc. These shells can expansion or
compress under action by internal or external powers and when shell
expansions - it means the rising of a business activity and
compression shows us that economy goes on recession. This process
of an expansion or a compression can develop in the various ways
like linear, logarithm or any other mathematical laws.
Abstract: An effect of rolling temperature on the mechanical properties and microstructural evolution of an Al-Mg-Si alloy was studied. The material was rolled up to a true strain of ~0.7 at three different temperatures viz; room temperature, liquid propanol and liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen rolled sample exhibited superior properties with a yield and tensile strength of 332 MPa and 364 MPa, respectively, with a reasonably good ductility of ~9%. The liquid nitrogen rolled sample showed around 54 MPa increase in tensile strength without much reduction in the ductility as compared to the as received T6 condition alloy. The microstructural details revealed equiaxed grains in the annealed and solutionized sample and elongated grains in the rolled samples. In addition, the cryorolled samples exhibited fine grain structure compared to the room temperature rolled samples.
Abstract: The Expert Witness Testimony in the Battered
Woman Syndrome Expert witness testimony (EWT) is a kind of
information given by an expert specialized in the field (here in BWS)
to the jury in order to help the court better understand the case. EWT
does not always work in favor of the battered women. Two main
decision-making models are discussed in the paper: the Mathematical
model and the Explanation model. In the first model, the jurors
calculate ″the importance and strength of each piece of evidence″
whereas in the second model they try to integrate the EWT with the
evidence and create a coherent story that would describe the crime.
The jury often misunderstands and misjudges battered women for
their action (or in this case inaction). They assume that these women
are masochists and accept being mistreated for if a man abuses a
woman constantly, she should and could divorce him or simply leave
at any time. The research in the domain found that indeed, expert
witness testimony has a powerful influence on juror’s decisions thus
its quality needs to be further explored. One of the important factors
that need further studies is a bias called the dispositionist worldview
(a belief that what happens to people is of their own doing). This
kind of attributional bias represents a tendency to think that a
person’s behavior is due to his or her disposition, even when the
behavior is clearly attributed to the situation. Hypothesis The
hypothesis of this paper is that if a juror has a dispositionist
worldview then he or she will blame the rape victim for triggering the
assault. The juror would therefore commit the fundamental
attribution error and believe that the victim’s disposition caused the
rape and not the situation she was in. Methods The subjects in the
study were 500 randomly sampled undergraduate students from
McGill, Concordia, Université de Montréal and UQAM.
Dispositional Worldview was scored on the Dispositionist
Worldview Questionnaire. After reading the Rape Scenarios, each
student was asked to play the role of a juror and answer a
questionnaire consisting of 7 questions about the responsibility,
causality and fault of the victim. Results The results confirm the
hypothesis which states that if a juror has a dispositionist worldview
then he or she will blame the rape victim for triggering the assault.
By doing so, the juror commits the fundamental attribution error
because he will believe that the victim’s disposition, and not the
constraints or opportunities of the situation, caused the rape scenario.
Abstract: The evolution in project management was triggered by
the changes in management philosophy and practices in order to
maintain competitive advantage and continuous success in the field.
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the practicality of cognitive
style and unlearning approach in influencing the achievement of
project success by project managers. It introduces the concept of
planning, knowing and creating style from cognitive style field in the
light of achieving time, cost, quality and stakeholders appreciation in
project success context. Further it takes up a discussion of the
unlearning approach as a moderator in enhancing the relationship
between cognitive style and project success. The paper bases itself on
literature review from established disciplines like psychology,
sociology and philosophy regarding cognitive style, unlearning and
project success in general. The analysis and synthesis of literature in
the subject area a conceptual paper is utilized as the basis of future
research to form a comprehensive framework for project managers in
enhancing the project management competency.
Abstract: Biochemical investigations were carried out to assess
the effect of different exposure regimes of Kazakhstan crude oil
(KCO) on hepatic antioxidant defense system in albino rats.
Contaminants were delivered under two different dosing regimes,
with all treatments receiving the same total contaminant load by the
end of the exposure period. Rats in regime A injected with KCO
once at a dose of 6 ml/kg bw while in regime B injected multiply at a
dose of 1.5 ml/kg bw on day 1, 3, 5 and 8. Antioxidant biomarkers
were measured in hepatic tissue after 1, 3, 5 and 8 days. Significant
induction was observed in serum aminotransferases (ALT, AST)
(p
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to survey the effect of
organizational communication system on the conflict in physical
education offices of Isfahan province. The research methodology of
this research was a descriptive study. All employees working in
physical education offices of Isfahan province were included in the
sample for this study (N= 236). Researcher made questionnaire and
demographic questionnaire were used as investigation instruments.
Based on the result of chi square test, there is significant difference
between organizational communication system and interpersonal
conflict. The most of participants evaluate communication in an
informal way and pointed out that the communication channels were
not open. Based on the result of binomial test, interpersonal conflict
exists in physical education offices of Isfahan.
Abstract: Previous studies have indicated that one of the most
critical failure reasons of enterprise systems is the lack of knowledge
sharing and utilization across organizations. As a consequence, many
information systems researchers have paid attention to examining the
effect of absorptive capacity closely associated with knowledge
sharing and transferring on IS usage performance. A lack of
communications and interactions due to a lack of organizational
citizenship behavior might lead to weak absorptive capacity and thus
negatively influence knowledge sharing across organizations. In this
study, a theoretical model which delves into the relationship between
usage performance of enterprise systems and its determinants was
established.
Abstract: The present research was focused to investigate the
role of investment in the course of economic growth with reference to
Pakistan. The study analyzed the role of the public and private
investment and impact of the political and macroeconomic
uncertainty on economic growth of Pakistan by using the vector
autoregressive approach (VAR). In long-run both public and private
investment showed a positive impact on economic growth but the
growth was largely driven by private investment as compared to
public investment. Government consumption expenditure, economic
uncertainty and political instability hampered the economic growth of
Pakistan. In short-run the private investment positively influences the
growth but there was negative and insignificant effect of the public
investment and government consumption expenditure on the growth.
There was a positive relationship found between economic
uncertainty (proxy for inflation) and GDP in short run.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the
relationship between knowledge sharing and innovation capability,
by examining the influence of individual, organizational and
technological factors on knowledge sharing. The research is based
on a survey of 103 employees from different organizations in the
United Arab Emirates. The study is based on a model and a
questionnaire that was previously tested by Lin [1]. Thus, the study
aims at examining the validity of that model in UAE context. The
results of the research show varying degrees of correlation between
the different variables, with ICT use having the strongest relationship
with the innovation capabilities of organizations. The study also
revealed little evidence of knowledge collecting and knowledge
sharing among UAE employees.
Abstract: Attempts to add fibre and polyphenols (PPs) into
popular beverages present challenges related to the properties of
finished products such as smoothies. Consumer acceptability,
viscosity and phenolic composition of smoothies containing high
levels of fruit fibre (2.5-7.5 g per 300 mL serve) and PPs (250-750
mg per 300 mL serve) were examined. The changes in total
extractable PP, vitamin C content, and colour of selected smoothies
over a storage stability trial (4°C, 14 days) were compared. A set of
acidic aqueous model beverages were prepared to further examine
the effect of two different heat treatments on the stability and
extractability of PPs. Results show that overall consumer
acceptability of high fibre and PP smoothies was low, with average
hedonic scores ranging from 3.9 to 6.4 (on a 1-9 scale). Flavour,
texture and overall acceptability decreased as fibre and polyphenol
contents increased, with fibre content exerting a stronger effect.
Higher fibre content resulted in greater viscosity, with an elevated PP
content increasing viscosity only slightly. The presence of fibre also
aided the stability and extractability of PPs after heating. A reduction
of extractable PPs, vitamin C content and colour intensity of
smoothies was observed after a 14-day storage period at 4°C. Two
heat treatments (75°C for 45 min or 85°C for 1 min) that are
normally used for beverage production, did not cause significant
reduction of total extracted PPs. It is clear that high levels of added
fibre and PPs greatly influence the consumer appeal of smoothies,
suggesting the need to develop novel formulation and processing
methods if a satisfactory functional beverage is to be developed
incorporating these ingredients.
Abstract: Identifying and classifying intersections according to
severity is very important for implementation of safety related
counter measures and effective models are needed to compare and
assess the severity. Highway safety organizations have considered
intersection safety among their priorities. In spite of significant
advances in highways safety, the large numbers of crashes with high
severities still occur in the highways. Investigation of influential
factors on crashes enables engineers to carry out calculations in order
to reduce crash severity. Previous studies lacked a model capable of
simultaneous illustration of the influence of human factors, road,
vehicle, weather conditions and traffic features including traffic
volume and flow speed on the crash severity. Thus, this paper is
aimed at developing the models to illustrate the simultaneous
influence of these variables on the crash severity in urban highways.
The models represented in this study have been developed using
binary Logit Models. SPSS software has been used to calibrate the
models. It must be mentioned that backward regression method in
SPSS was used to identify the significant variables in the model.
Consider to obtained results it can be concluded that the main
factor in increasing of crash severity in urban highways are driver
age, movement with reverse gear, technical defect of the vehicle,
vehicle collision with motorcycle and bicycle, bridge, frontal impact
collisions, frontal-lateral collisions and multi-vehicle crashes in
urban highways which always increase the crash severity in urban
highways.
Abstract: Educational games (EG) seem to have lots of potential due to digital games popularity and preferences of our younger generations of learners. However, most studies focus on game design and its effectiveness while little has been known about the factors that can affect users to accept or to reject EG for their learning. User acceptance research try to understand the determinants of information systems (IS) adoption among users by investigating both systems factors and users factors. Upon the lack of knowledge on acceptance factors for educational games, we seek to understand the issue. This study proposed a model of acceptance factors based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). We use original model (performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence) together with two new determinants (learning opportunities and enjoyment). We will also investigate the effect of gender and gaming experience that moderate the proposed factors.
Abstract: This study presents the application of artificial
neural network for modeling the phenolic compound
migration through vertical soil column. A three layered feed
forward neural network with back propagation training
algorithm was developed using forty eight experimental data
sets obtained from laboratory fixed bed vertical column tests.
The input parameters used in the model were the influent
concentration of phenol(mg/L) on the top end of the soil
column, depth of the soil column (cm), elapsed time after
phenol injection (hr), percentage of clay (%), percentage of
silt (%) in soils. The output of the ANN was the effluent
phenol concentration (mg/L) from the bottom end of the soil
columns. The ANN predicted results were compared with the
experimental results of the laboratory tests and the accuracy of
the ANN model was evaluated.
Abstract: The paper reflects current state of popularization of
static elasticity modulus of concrete. This parameter is undoubtedly
very important for designing of concrete structures, and very often
neglected and rarely determined before designing concrete
technology itself. The paper describes assessment and comparison of
four mix designs with almost constant dosage of individual
components. The only difference is area of origin of small size
fraction of aggregate 0/4. Development of compressive strength and
static elasticity modulus at the age of 7, 28 and 180 days were
observed. As the experiment showed, designing of individual
components and their quality are the basic factor influencing
elasticity modulus of current concrete.