Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Challenges and Community Development: A Case Study of Homestay in Malaysia

Homestay programme, which was introduced in 1988, has become the iconic rural tourism product highlighting Malaysian cultural and traditional ways of life. The concept of Homestay is whereby a tourist stays together with the host family and interacts with the local community for a reasonable charge. This paper presents a review of community development through the Homestay programme in Malaysia as well as to review challenges facing the Homestay operators and community. Due to the potential of homestay in providing additional income and employment within the community, more participants have become motivated and encouraged to run the Homestay programme. Research methodology using content analysis approach was adopted in analyzing the data. The study revealed the many aspects of development, issues and challenges arising encompassing the stakeholders namely the Homestay operators, community and government agencies.
Using food web structure based on stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes to investigate pelagic-benthic coupling in different areas of the Barents Sea

Pelagic-benthic coupling is generally assumed to be tighter on Arctic shelves than in lower latitudes, due to for example pronounced seasonal cycles of sunlight and primary production and a potential mismatch between the bloom and its pelagic consumers. Pelagic-benthic coupling is also often stronger in shallower areas compared to deeper areas, due to the shorter distance between the productive, euphotic zone and the benthic realm. Recent studies have investigated this relationship between the pelagic and benthic communities and found stable isotope ratios to be depleted in areas where the coupling is tight and enriched where coupling is weaker. This study compares the pelagic-benthic coupling in the NE Fram Strait and SW Barents Sea and on the continental shelf relative to the continental slope, via the use of stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes. The approach was to study those contrasting regimes, both at the level of select species and at that of feeding guilds. Niche metrics were calculated to describe and compare trophic structure between the different areas. Contrary to the expectations, however, no differences in isotopic enrichment between the NE Fram Strait and the SW Barents Sea or between the continental shelf and the continental slope were observed. Pelagic feeding guilds were depleted in 15N and 13C compared to benthopelagic and benthic feeding guilds. The similarities observed between the NE Fram Strait and SW Barents sea may be attributed to substantial advection of Atlantic Water, with its associated biota, in the West Spitsbergen Current, which would cause the two areas to have the same water mass characteristics. The similarities observed between the continental shelf and to the continental slope sea may be attributed to deep vertical mixing in the study area.
Theoretical evaluation of the role of crystal defects on local equilibrium and effective diffusivity of hydrogen in iron

ABSTRACT Hydrogen diffusion and trapping in ferrite is evaluated by quantum mechanically informed kinetic Monte Carlo simulations in defective microstructures. We find that the lattice diffusivity is attenuated by two to four orders of magnitude due to the presence of dislocations. We also find that pipe diffusivity is vanishingly small along screw dislocations and demonstrate that dislocations do not provide fast diffusion pathways for hydrogen as is sometimes supposed. We make contact between our simulations and the predictions of Oriani's theory of ‘effective diffusivity’, and find that local equilibrium is maintained between lattice and trap sites. We also find that the predicted effective diffusivity is in agreement with our simulated results in cases where the distribution of traps is spatially homogeneous; in the trapping of hydrogen by dislocations where this condition is not met, the Oriani effective diffusivity is in agreement with the simulations to within a factor of two. This paper is part of a thematic issue on Hydrogen in Metallic Alloys
Client Factors That Predict the Therapeutic Alliance in a Chronic, Complex Trauma Sample

This investigation aimed to examine how specific client characteristics of individuals with chronic, complex trauma are associated with the type of coping strategies that they use and the quality of the therapeutic alliance. Fifty-nine adult participants with diagnostic levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and who attended therapy for complex trauma in Northern Ireland were obtained via opportunity sampling. Participants completed self-report measures of client attachment style, alexithymia, coping strategies, and the therapeutic alliance. Preoccupied attachment factors such as Need for Approval and Preoccupation with Relationships were related to use of maladaptive coping strategies. In contrast, the adaptive coping strategies of Acceptance and Instrumental Support were significant predictors of a positive therapeutic alliance whereas established psychological and traumatogenic factors (e.g., attachment, number of traumatic events) did not significantly predict the therapeutic alliance. The findings have implications for understanding the relationship between client characteristics and the therapeutic alliance within complex trauma populations as well as developing protocols to assist this process.
Informal Care and the Great Recession

Macroeconomic downturns can have an important impact on the availability of informal and formal long-term care. This paper investigates how the market for informal care changed during and after the Great Recession in Europe. We use data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe, which includes a rich set of variables covering waves before and after the Great Recession. We find evidence of an increase in the availability of informal care and a reduction in the use of formal health services (doctor visits and hospital stays) after the economic downturn when controlling for year and country fixed effects. This trend is mainly driven by changes in care provision of individuals not cohabiting with the care recipient. We also find a small negative association between old-age health and crisis severity. The results are robust to the inclusion of individual characteristics, individual-specific effects and region-specific time trends.
EFFECT OF ALKALI TREATMENT ON MECHANICAL AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF OIL PALM FROND-POLYPROPYLENE MATRIX

The main purpose of modifying the oil palm frond surfaces is to remove the cementing materials that tied up the crystallite rigid cellulose fibrils. This intention is to overcome the drawbacks of poor particle dispersion and to reduce the particle agglomeration in the polypropylene matrix. This paper investigates the effects of alkalization treatment on oil palm frond and its performance on the flexural, tensile and impact properties and water absorption of the composites. The experimental procedure involved four concentrations of Sodium Hydroxide on two different oil palm frond particle sizes. The findings obtained in this study show better properties in the treated samples and the interpretation is supported by the chemical analysis conducted.
Is Equality Always Desirable? Analyzing the Trade-Off Between Fairness and Attractiveness in Crew Rostering

Millions of employees around the world work in irregular rosters. The quality of these rosters is of utmost importance. High-quality rosters should be attractive on an individual level, but also divide the work fairly over the employees. We develop novel methodology to compute the trade-off between fairness and attractiveness in crew rostering. First, we propose an intuitive fairness scheme for crew rostering and analyze its theoretical performance. To do so, we introduce the approximate resource-allocation problem. This extension of the resource-allocation problem provides a framework for analyzing decision making in contexts where one relies on approximations of the utility functions. Fairness is a typical example of such a context due to its inherently subjective nature. We show that the scheme has “optimal” properties for a large class of approximate utility functions. Furthermore, we provide a tight bound on the utility loss for this scheme. We then present a unified approach to crew rostering. This approach integrates our proposed fairness scheme with a novel mathematical formulation for crew rostering. We call the resulting problem the Fairness-Oriented Crew Rostering Problem and develop a dedicated exact Branch-Price-and-Cut solution method. We conclude by applying our solution approach to practical instances from Netherlands Railways, the largest passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. Our computational results confirm the importance of taking the fairness–attractiveness trade-off into account. This paper was accepted by Yinyu Ye, optimization.
The Interaction between Local and Regional Knowledge-Based Development: Towards a Quadruple Helix Model

By the turn of the 21st century, the significance of knowledge to be the key factor in urban and regional development is well established. However, it has been only recently that attempts have been made to identify the specific mechanism and institutional relationships, through which knowledge-based development takes place. In this regard, very little consideration has been given to the ways that different levels of knowledge-based development communicate to each other. This chapter examines the mutual interaction between knowledge-based development in local and regional level in two different sections. The first section builds upon the third wave of economic development supporting the growth of cluster of related firms and relates it to an empirical case study of knowledge-based community development in Queensland- Australia. It concludes that knowledge-based local developments do not evolve without a regional support network. The second section reviews the "Triple Helix" of university-industry- government collaboration as the basis of knowledge-based regional development in the investigated case study. This review determines the central role of local community as an innovation base for the interaction among the key factors, and suggests a promotion for a Quadruple Helix Model where community works alongside business, university and government in the new economy.
Enhancing Children's Numeracy & Te Reo Skills using Computer Games

The use of computer games as common vehicles for education, as opposed to pure entertainment, has gained immense popularity in recent years. In our earlier work, we investigated the appealing characteristics of engaging computer games for children and designed an educational tool based on those characteristics. In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted with 120 primary school children, in which two versions of our proposed educational tool (features enriched vs feature devoid) were used for four weeks to teach primary school curriculum areas of Numeracy and Te Reo Maori language. The effectiveness of the educational tool was measured using a pre-test and a post-test, as well as other indicators such as subjective analysis, the frequency and duration of time on playing the game. We found that the features enriched game enhanced children's learning in both Numeracy and Te Reo curriculum areas more than the feature devoid version. In the case of Numeracy, the increase in scores was twice as much as the feature devoid version and in the case of Te Reo it was five times as much. Finally, the results of the subjective analysis showed that the feature enriched game was more popular with children - the test group indicated that they enjoyed playing the game more than the participants in the control group and are more likely to recommend it to their friends. The results also showed that the sound effects, the visual effects, the level of challenges in the game and the feedback messages contributed more to their engagement.
Demystifying Cultural Differences in Country-of-Origin Effects: Exploring the Moderating Roles of Product Type, Consumption Context, and Involvement

ABSTRACT This article explains mixed findings about the differences in country-of-origin effects for different product categories and cultures by hypothesizing interactions among three product characteristics and six personal cultural orientations. Using a Web-based study with 1,568 consumers in four countries (China, India, UK, and U.S.), it shows that product type (hedonic vs. utilitarian) moderates the influence of individualism/collectivism and long- versus short-term orientation; consumption context (private vs. public) moderates the influence of power distance and masculinity/femininity; and product involvement moderates the influence of uncertainty avoidance on product evaluations and behavioral intentions.
Understanding Community's Evacuation Intention Development Process in a Flood Prone Micro-hotspot, Mumbai

During the 2005 Mumbai flood, it became apparent that the death toll and property damage could have been minimized by planned and organized evacuation. It became evident that it is not the information per se that determines whether people take actions to manage their risks, decision on evacuation reflect how people interpret and collate information to make it meaningful to them. Studies and research in pursuit of this line of knowledge are scanty in the risk management literature. In the context of mega city Mumbai flood risk management, this knowledge is non-existent. The objective of the present study is to investigate the cognitive perceptual process that households experience when faced with the decision to evacuate. The purpose of this study is to analyze integrated flood evacuation behaviour based on field evidence in order to manage the flood evacuation challenge for a Mumbai hot-spot. The present study has developed and empirically examined an integrated cognitive evacuation approach, which includes Protection Motivation Theory (PMT), Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and other cognitive theories. Results have shown that the intention to evacuate and avoid unacceptable loss was most pronounced with individuals when the level of critical awareness about ‘outcome efficacy’ and ‘self-efficacy’ was high. Apparently, no other factors matters as much. The present study revealed it is not always necessary that individuals’ evacuation motive go through all cognitive phases or stages before it turns into genuine intention. This finding, in a way, does not run in line with the conventional cognitive theoretical approaches. Findings of the study further highlighted that emphasis needs to be made on the “how to” aspect of the diagnostic risk mitigation information rather than on the provision of information about possible risks and vulnerability. This study is particularly important in the context of improving public awareness and education programs on evacuation.
Organic carbon isotope chemostratigraphy and cyclostratigraphy in the Volgian of Svalbard

We present δ13C org curves for the Upper Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous of central Spitsbergen. The three sections span the Slottsmoya Member (Agardhfjellet Formation) at Janusfjellet and Knorringfjellet in the Sassenfjorden area. The results indicate that bulk organic carbon isotope chemostratigraphy can be used as a tool for high-resolution, local chronostratigraphic correlation in central Spitsbergen, resolving problems of possible overthrusts, slumping and diachronous lithological boundaries. Moreover, the curves can be compared with published data from carbonates on the Russian Platform, recording a negative δ13C trend through the Lower Volgian followed by a positive trend from the lower part of the Middle Volgian and into the Upper Volgian. The minimum in the curve in the lower Middle Volgian is sharply defined, and this negative excursion may provide a useful chemostratigraphic marker for correlation between the Barents Sea and the Russian Platform, and possibly globally. The excursion is here called VOICE (Volgian Isotopic Carbon Excursion). There are indications of a c. 400 kyr periodicity, which can be interpreted as a result of orbital forcing (long eccentricity). In contrast, inorganic carbon and oxygen isotopes from carbonates in the Sassenfjorden area mainly reflect diagenetic processes.
Metaphors in Conversational Context: Toward a Connectivity Theory of Metaphor Interpretation

The model proposed in this article merges the cognitive and social elements of metaphor use and interpretation in the cognitive representation of mutual cognitive environment (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995) or common ground (Clark, 1996). The proposed principle of metaphor interpretation is based on the interaction of both vehicle and topic with the common ground. Because common ground is inherently problematic, it is rarely accurate to discuss "the meaning of" a metaphor, as if metaphors must have a single well-specified meaning. Each metaphor is interpreted in the particular communicative context in which it is encountered, and individual interpretations will not necessarily match unless the individuals' cognitive representations of the common ground are similar. The proposed model is consistent with several other theories of metaphor interpretation, but it explicitly acknowledges the need for interpretive processes to be context specific and neurologically embodied, and avoids the problem of circularity (Ritchie, 2003b).
Military Spending and Economic Growth Relationship in the Case of France, ARDL and Causality Analysis

Over the last 3 decades, there has been a remarkable amount of empirical study on the defense-growth relationship, applying various models and econometric methods by concentrating on individual case researches, time series, and panel data studies or cross country investigations. In spite of the number and the diversity of researchers, the evidence of the defense-growth correlations are still far from conclusive. In addition, few studies have focused on the case of France. To fill in the gap in the literature, this paper employs an autoregressive distributed lag and granger causality test to provide empirical evidence on the economic effects of defense expenditure between 1970–2010. All in all, the result derived from autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) is consistent and suggests that significant and positive correlation exist between economic and military sector in both short and long term. The Granger causality result outcomes show a unidirectional relation running from gross domestic product per capita to the defense expenditure. This is an indicated that gross domestic product is very significant to the defense sector in France. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015. v6n4p178
Formosa Critical Geragogy : Situating Theory in Practice

The goal of this article is to document the planning and coordination of an older adult learning program premised upon the tenets of critical geragogy. The learning program took place in Dingli, Malta, and was called “Age-friendly communities: the case of Dingli. ” Its purpose was to open spaces for older learners to participate in the development of a curriculum that makes our experiences of power, privilege, and discrimination explicit. Its objectives were twofold: to what extent does critical geragogy raise older learners’ consciousness of their role in the society and hence unlock older adults’ critical imagination? And secondly, to what extent does critical geragogy lead older learners to engage in a social activity that has the potential to change their lives for the better? As far as this learning program is concerned, there is no doubt about the potential of critical geragogy to help older learners locate their positions and voices, as well as to create spaces for resistance, subversions and new possibilities. As the direct consequence of this course, a small group of older Maltese elders currently are more knowledgeable about the structural issues hindering the establishment of age-friendly policies. Yet, critical geragogy’s promise to lead older adults from “reflection” to “action” seems more problematic and difficult to achieve in practice. On the basis of this article’s data, it seems that as individuals grow older, they tend to experience a shift from material to transcendent values which eclipses their interest in political commitments.
pH modelling in aquatic systems with time-variable acid-base dissociation constants applied to the turbid, tidal Scheldt estuary

Abstract. A new pH modelling approach is presented that explicitly quantifies the influence of biogeochemical processes on proton cycling and pH in an aquatic ecosystem, and which accounts for time variable acid-base dissociation constants. As a case study, the method is applied to investigate proton cycling and long-term pH trends in the Scheldt estuary (SW Netherlands, N Belgium). This analysis identifies the dominant biogeochemical processes involved in proton cycling in this heterotrophic, turbid estuary. Furthermore, information on the factors controlling the longitudinal pH profile along the estuary as well as long-term pH changes are obtained. Proton production by nitrification is identified as the principal biological process governing the pH. Its acidifying effect is mainly counteracted by proton consumption due to CO2 degassing. Overall, CO2 degassing generates the largest proton turnover in the whole estuary on a yearly basis. The main driver of long-term changes in the mean estuarine pH over the period 2001 to 2004 is the decreasing freshwater flow, which influences the pH directly via a decreasing supply of dissolved inorganic carbon and alkalinity, and also indirectly, via decreasing ammonia loadings and lower nitrification rates.
Resource specialization, customer orientation, and firm performance: an empirical investigation of valuable resources

This study contributes to the strategic marketing research by empirically investigating the role of customer orientation in explaining how firms leverage their specialized but vulnerable resources. The aim is thus to explore a subset of the means by which resources become valuable to the firm – the first criterion for a strategic resource. Hypotheses are developed and tested using CEO questionnaire responses from a sample of manufacturing firms and census accounting data. The results show that there is a strong link between industry-specific resources and return on assets for firms with high levels of customer orientation. We also report that firm-specific resources are unrelated to firm performance and that a customer orientation – investigated in isolation, may be detrimental to firm performance. Research and managerial implications are discussed.
The microgeometry parameters of uncoated and zinc-coated cold rolled steel strips

The microgeometry of surface is arithmetically expressed by the arithmetical mean deviation of the profile, Ra and peak count, Pc. Roughening of working rolls was achieved by using the technology EDT (Electric Discharge Texturing) and SBT (Shot Blast Texturing). The paper shows the relationship between the basic microgeometry parameters and the adjustment technology of working rolls. Zinc-coated cold rolled steel strips, uncoated cold rolled steel strips and the Ra, Pc parameters were measured using the tangent profilometer “Hommel Tester T1000”. Measurements of Ra and Pc showed the scatter for SBT and EDT rolls, respectively. EDT can provide a considerably greater degree of control of surface texture than SBT together with an accurate selection of surface roughness, Ra, and peak count, Pc. The peak count obtained can be appreciably higher than that obtained with shot blasting. In comparison with SBT, it is considered that the operating costs associated with EDT are lower.