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Solid waste always produce negative impacts to the environment, thus effective solutions must be implemented. However, most people are not concerned of the importance of recycling. At the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) which has already launched the sustainable campus programme in 2007, the initiative to managing the solid waste and conducting the recycling programs were advocated through the Zero Waste Campus Initiative (ZWCI), where the team are committed to do the awareness, practices and enforcement regarding solid waste management in UKM. It would be undesirable if these initiatives to educate the majority of the community of UKM were not put into practice. To solve this problem, a study has been conducted to determine an effective method of recycling management at UKM in providing quality service that encouraged UKM's community to recycle. The effectiveness of recycling programs is influenced by a number of factors such as proper service facilities and good management system. Paper recycling boxes in each office which is one of recycling component that play important role to educate UKM staff and awareness of importance recycling system in waste management campus. This paper discusses the efforts carried out at UKM to create an operational system and implement efficient recycling management by improving the current management system.

This paper reports on an on-going action research that enquires into the academic writing of a project paper by international post-graduate students enrolled at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Preliminary observations reveal that many of these students are underprepared for the task, citing cross-cultural limitations stemming from differences in teaching and learning styles vis-avis here and their home countries. They also claim that they are not prepared for the autonomy that is presented in the data collecting process and the writing of the paper. This action research aims to address the problem with a focus on the Statement of Problem. Data for the study were collected through semi-structured questionnaires, interviews and document analysis. The researchers believe that if intervention is provided at the early stages of the writing, these novice writers should be able to achieve academic socialization.

Current studies agree on the need of training university students in various competences. Among them, writing stands out as an essential competence. This study analyzes the abstract produced by Spanish PhD candidates in the context of an academic writing workshop. These abstracts were rewritten as a result of peers’ and supervisors’ reviews. The purpose is to analyze the construction of this type of text in relation to its content categories. The results attest a series of challenges faced by students and help teachers in the design of their teaching instruction.

Ethics and communication with patients are basic transversal skills for the Degrees in Medicine, Physiotherapy and Nutrition. In this model, senior students use video to create simulated clinical cases with ethics and communication components, and conduct academic mentoring using these cases. To ensure quality video recordings, the students are introduced to visual language by students of the Master's in Communication, thus completing the learning cycle.

This paper which introduces strategic planning for foreign vassals during recession period is the result of a research project. This project has been done for Yazd Government, therefore due to security issues; statement whole of this project is not possible and therefore only some of permitted information could be mentioned. As a basic model Bryson's model was selected and the research group did its stages after each other. During this process, the group used observations, questionnaires, interviews and official national and international documents, analyzed internal and external different stakeholders, defined strategic issues and finally proposed possible strategies for the Yazd government. The procedure of strategy planning is illustrated briefly in this paper. In the end of project, the research group presents its findings and results to the client with a one year operating plan. In the next sections a short report of this project will be depicted.

The research presented in this paper is set in a Spanish University, and describes why and how group ‘learning to learn’ tutorials were introduced within an Action Research project designed to help students take greater control of their own learning. The paper shows how discoveries made during the project impacted on the implementation of the tutorials while discussing some of the perceived benefits of this approach.

Implementation of renewable energy projects (RES) involves very complex processes which are based on the latest creative techniques to give adequate solutions teaching practitioners of this multidisciplinary field. The need for a complex transfer of knowledge at the administrative level, technical level and technological level of RES projects, constitute prerequisites for success in projects implementation of this type. The present paper proposes using creative educational methods for implementing investment projects in renewable energy using a combination of methods of Goldratt. To exemplify bottleneck situations in the management of certain flows within the supply chain of the RES implementation projects, the paper proposes Drum-Buffer-Rope philosophy. In order to underline the effectiveness in fast obtaining and implementing the right solutions along the lifecycle of RES projects, the paper illustrates the steps of Theory of Constraints Thinking Process (TOCTP) integration by problem diagnosing, designing the solutions plan and integrating the solutions plan through the conceptualization of adequate diagrams communication within these types of projects.

This paper presents the current situation of the university–industry–government partnership in Indonesia, in the context of university readiness to contribute to the government strategy as outlined in the MP3EI (Master plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Indonesia Economic Development) 2011-2025. Since the higher education system is highly diversified in term of its capacity to contribute, the paper reviews the status in 3 different types of institutions: research, production, and human resources development oriented. Initial finding shows that the government allocated very small budget for research (0.08% of GDP) and universities play a critical role in the national research capacity. Although research is still considered as very low in the government priority setting, the number of patents and international publications has significantly increased in the last few years. Collaborative activities have been carried out to date include, service and training, patenting, collaborative R&D, networking events, industrial collaboration for education, incubators, SME support, and science parks. University and industry appear to be still in the state of “institutional sphere” instead of “consensus space” lacking understanding about each other. The uncertainty about institutional framework available for universities drives academics to develop partnership with industries individually instead of institutionally. Universities feel that there are only few domestic companies with interest and/or capacity to innovate, with the bulk of industry concentrated in assembly operations. Implementation of MP3EI outside Jawa might require expertise and capacity that are only available in institutions in Jawa, that it is essential to develop mechanisms for building local institutional capacity. We conclude that all 3 institutional spheres require further development before each can take purposeful action. Having said that, the study team found a number of cases whereby the 3 parties are willing, even eager, to develop partnerships. With an appropriate and comprehensive strategy, there is significant potential to create productive environment to be developed into knowledge, consensus, and innovation space.

This paper aims to present a recent research on collocation of adjectives inside nominal syntagmata. It examines how their collocation is influenced by diverse linguistic factors, mostly of semantic, syntactic, idiomatic or even prosodic character. The research was based on the “Corpus do Portugues” ( www.corpusdoportugues.org ) and used statistical methods to prove our hypotheses about idiomatic and phonetic influence on adjectives’ positioning. The paper also includes a short discussion of problems encountered during the data processing, like weaknesses in POS definition and distinction (noun / adjective, adjective / quantifier) due to their morphological similarities. Statistical instruments and approaches are also mentioned.

Scratch is a free graphical programming language designed for children to create their own interactive games, animations, simulations and stories. Scratch provides a virtual space where children use some mathematics ideas in order to build their own animated artefacts. This paper reports on some preliminary findings from a research project where two elementary teachers in an urban New Zealand school introduced Scratch to nine and ten year old children in their classrooms. In each of the classrooms a small number of computers and an interactive whiteboard (IWB) were utilised. This paper uses a case study approach to describe how engagement with Scratch and independent use of the IWB enabled children to work collaboratively to solve design challenges. Initial results indicate that the Scratch program is engaging for children. It created an environment where the children were, by necessity, using problem-solving processes such as goal setting, and generating and testing of ideas. The interactive whiteboard afforded rich opportunities for children to collaborate and share their thinking. Some questions and implications for the learning and teaching of elementary school mathematics are explored at the conclusion of the paper.

The current issue of financial literacy is addressed at the international level and the trend suggests that increasing the level of population knowledge in this direction can be more than useful. Financial literacy is a set of knowledge and skills necessary for people to financially secure themselves and to behave actively in the market of financial products and services. Financially literate citizens are well versed in issues of money and prices, and are able to manage their personal budget responsibly. Finances are important part of everyday life and financial literacy is the best way to prevent over-indebtedness of citizens. Therefore it should be taught at schools. The government of the Czech Republic has approved the National Strategy for Financial Education. The survey focused on mapping the level of knowledge of financial markets of the students was conducted and the results are presented in the paper. In addition to the survey, extensive surveys of information available on the Internet and information in many databases were conducted. Data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed using statistical software Statistica SPSS. The key problems encountered by consumers were identified and methodologically described. At the end of the paper new methods are proposed for effective teaching of financial literacy.

The aim of this paper to present some findings on the construct of glass ceiling in organizations and its role in driving women professionals in Malaysia to venture into business as entrepreneurs. The researcher used the qualitative method known as ‘phenomenology” to explore the phenomenon of glass ceiling. The concept was said to be created by Western academics in the 1970s to describe a situation where women professionals found barriers in progressing in the organizational hierarchy in generally all types of organizations whether firms or governmental organizations. For many women professionals especially in the West, the lack of promotional opportunities in the corporate world had driven them to involve in businesses. This paper wanted to determine whether this situation had driven women professionals in Malaysia to venture into business. The samples were women professionals in the legal firms. Interviews were conducted with 20 women professionals. It was found that 6 professionals had set up their own legal firms while 14 had set up their business firms not connected to the legal business. In terms of performance, their firms were observed to be doing well exceeding the three-year gestation period. Generally bankers believe that if a start-up firm can survive the first three years of its establishment, then it is on its way to become successful in whatever business it is in. The average length of the businesses that the Malaysian women professionals were involved in was five years. This is an indication that the said women professionals had successfully transformed themselves into entrepreneurs. It can be said that the glass ceiling phenomenon has a positive effect in this regard as it had spurred the creation of women entrepreneurs among the legal professionals.

This paper outlines current work on the construction of a high-quality, richly-annotated and register-diversified parallel corpus for the English-Spanish language pair, as currently carried out within the framework of the MULTINOT project. The corpus consists of original and translated texts in both directions and is designed as a multifunctional resource to be used in a number of disciplines such as corpus-based contrastive linguistic and translation studies, machine translation, computer-assisted translation, computer-assisted language learning and terminology extraction. The paper describes the structure of the corpus –which includes four subcorpora: English originals (EO) and Spanish originals (SO), English translations (Etrans) and Spanish translations (Strans)-, the registers selected for inclusion in the corpus, and the methodology used to guarantee the quality of the processing steps to enrich the corpus with linguistic information at different levels.

The paper is aimed at presenting an insight into a specific poetry translation model for poetry translation assessment and, in a broader context, for a poetry translation theory for a practical analysis of the English and Latvian translations of the poem “May 24, 1980” written by Joseph Brodsky. The theoretical setting of this model is briefly explained and nine theoretical principles of poetry translation are presented. The paper shows that the cross-linguistic, cross-cultural and interpretative components form an indispensable unity; the proposed principles are both theoretically relevant and applicable in poetry translation practice.

This paper presents an ongoing doctoral study investigating the implementation of education programs carried out in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Melbourne, Australia. Four main aspects are the focus of the study: its policy, organisational and managerial roles, processes involved in carrying out the programs as well as the implementation, strategies and approaches utilised. The study employs qualitative case study design within pragmatic paradigm. Methods of data collection are interviews, observations and document analysis. The discussion in this paper only focuses on the data derived from the interview conducted on four NGV educators, and the observations of their teaching sessions.

2nd International Geography Symposium-Mediterranean Environment -- JUN 02-05, 2010 -- Antalya, TURKEY, WOS: 000299536700022, Agriculture, fishing, greenhousing, carpet manufacturing, granite stone engraving and tourism are the primary sources of income in Dikili, Izmir. Tourism started to develop in the region since the 1980s and recently, coastal tourism and domestic tourism have gained importance. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that beside coasts where coastal tourism takes place, Dikili, has natural and cultural sources required for development of thermal tourism and rural tourism/ecotourism. Additionally, presenting these sources give way to provide numerous opportunities as a power, is complement aim. The presence of high-flow geothermal water sources in Kaynarca and Ilica districts in Dikili provides opportunities for heating houses and performing greenhousing in the districts, however Nebiler, Bademli, Kocaoba, French hot springs and etc. offer a great potential for the development of thermal tourism. The land allocations for the establishment of two facilities in Dikili indicate that the region will soon be mentioned with thermal tourism. Except for the Aegean Sea and geothermal waters, the mountains, mountain pastures, islands, lakes, waterfalls, caves, forests, monumental trees, natural medicinal plants, wild animals and scenic beauties indicate how rich natural geography Dikili has. Local economic products (olive, olive oil, marine products, Yagcibedir carpets and etc.), ancient cities, rock tombs and ruins of castles as well as villages display the diversity of cultural sources in the region. These all sources mean great attractions for rural tourism/ecotourism and the only shortcoming is that these products have not been branded or turned into touristic products yet. In this sense, the design of tracking paths, the establishment of shopping stands and the opening of some restaurants in some villages are primarly steps and touristic products to launch tourism. Finally in the study, SWOT analysis is made and strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of Dikili in terms of thermal tourism and rural tourism/ecotourism are suggested. The paper has been written in the field of tourism geography and prepared after data collection, geographical observations, analysis and synthesis. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of The 2nd International Geography Symposium-Mediterranean Environment

At all times the numbers were an important part of people's culture. Where there are people there are always numbers and numerology system. In turn, the figures are included in any field of science and serve it. So linguistics is not an exception. This paper discusses the figures which were the basis of the spiritual world of the Kazakhs and Chinese, namely the mysterious sacred figures to determine their function in the life of people and open the subtle secret of their world view. In the paper we consider the numbers “one”, “two”, “three”, “four” and explore history of their origin and etymology. Through the study of numerology systems we define particular knowledge of numbers, concepts and features of the symbols. Thus we can see the similarities and differences in the numerology world of two historically neighboring countries.

20th International Scientific Conference; Economics and Management 2015, ICEM 2015, 06-08 May 2015, Kaunas, Lithuania Corporate Social Responsibility in Poland :Businesses' Self-Presentations Barbara Mazur Bialystok University of Technology , ul. Wiejska 45 A, 15-351 Bialystok, Poland Purpose. The main purpose of the paper is to present the extent and content of businesses’ communications about corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Poland. In particular, the study investigates the CSR actions and issues discussed in web pages. Methodology. The Fortune 100 2014 ranking of businesses in Poland were used as a sample frame (purposeful sample). The study focused on corporate signature web pages. A procedure was defined to seek information about CSR in the web pages based on the investigation of 100 corporate sites. The search was limited to the web pages areas that directly referred to the responsibilities and commitment of the company either to society, environment and economy. Links to these relevant areas were searched for either in the home page or in a section providing general company information. Results. The results show that the biggest businesses in Poland do not display the same eagerness to appear as socially responsible and employ diverse means to convey social responsibility images. However, many businesses are eager to display their CSR principles and social and environmental actions in order to communicate a positive image of their identity and to gain legitimacy along with support among stakeholders. The theoretical contribution. Over the past few years, businesses and academic researchers alike have displayed increased levels of interest for corporate social responsibility. In particular, recent research suggests that CSR may be an excellent instrument to enhance the legitimacy of the firm among its stakeholders (e.g., Handelman and Arnold, 1999) and to develop positive social responsibility images (e.g., Brown and Dacin, 1997; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). The value of the paper to is in the coding scheme which was developed based on an analysis of 100 web pages. The coding scheme employed was based on the conceptualization of CSR as three dimensions– social, economic and environmental. Practical implications . Some studies have started to investigate how businesses use communications to highlight their commitment to CSR (e.g., Esrock and Leichty, 1998; Hooghiemstra, 2000). Against this backdrop, the present study examines how businesses in Poland communicate about CSR in their web pages. The research findings can be used to show the best practices in the respect of CSR communication . Key words : corporate responsibility, on-line communication, Polish companies Paper type : Research paper.

This paper aims to investigate how students perceive the service quality offered at public and private technical education and vocational training institute (TEVT) in Malaysia and their overall satisfaction. An evaluation study using questionnaire survey was employed to measure the students’ perception towards 10 service quality dimensions and their overall satisfaction. The questionnaire was distributed by hand at the beginning of the selected lecture or workshop session and the completed questionnaire were collected at the end of the session. This paper discuss the student's perception in every service dimension measured and compared the similarities and differences with some previous studies.

The main focus of this paper is to develop gap acceptance model for two-wheelers using neuro-fuzzy approach at three legged uncontrolled intersections in India. Unsignalized intersections are controlled with the help of stop or yield sign in developing countries, but in India, signs do not work and thus they are treated as uncontrolled intersections by the road users. The processing of vehicles at unsignized intersection is complex and very interactive, whereby each driver makes individual decisions about when, where, and how to complete the required maneuver. Such intersections cannot be analyzed based on the findings of the unsignalized intersections in other countries (HCM 2000, for example). This paper systematically analyzes the behavior of right turning two-wheelers at uncontrolled intersections. Data on gap acceptance behavior is obtained with Video. The various parameters that are collected include vehicle arrival rate, gap accepted/rejected, time to cross the intersection, driver's gender and approximate age, type of conflicting vehicle, and occupancy of two-wheelers. The critical lag and gap by Raff method for two-wheelers is found to be 2.51 and 2.47 seconds respectively. This value is smaller than the critical gaps reported in other studies. An Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Interface System (ANFIS) has been developed that estimates the possibility of accepting a given lag/gap based on various drivers and traffic attributes. Eight different combinations of attributes are considered. For model calibration, 80% of the extracted data is used and remaining is used for model validation. The percent correct prediction by all models for validation data is found to be significant.

This paper is focused on the introduction of an ID card based security system inside a railway operator business field, in order to have an improvement in term of performance and quality level of the offered services. The project takes into consideration the “Technical Recommendation” elaborated by UNIFE cab experts, CER and UIC expert team, which provides a framework for the functionalities and the design of ID-cards and ID-card readers. All the persons, part of the railway operator business field, have their own ID card, which contains a personal profile based on the role, on the expertise and on the assigned mission. By means of ID card, realized with the technology state of the art, it is possible to address the following items: Identification: only authorized persons may have access to a well defined area and/or train part. Operation: pre-defined and planned actions, like the ones needed for a train preparation before the commercial service, can be automatically executed. Monitoring: from the headquarter it is possible to know who is doing what and where. Reporting: a digitally signed report can be automatically done, reducing the paper consumption. Analysis: all the events, both on the rolling stock fleet and on the base station are logged and remain available for any traceability check and for mission tag profile upgrading or changes. The ID based security system could be an important tool to support the railway operation management to increase the efficiency of the delivered services with security improvement.

The fundamental focus of this study is to gain an increasing understanding on how people interpret their leisure and recreational outdoor activities in neighbourhood parks. This paper explores and expended the attributes or construct from past literature findings in the area of use pattern, needs and preferences study towards neighbourhood parks by using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Technique. The model should help to evaluate quality aspects in neighbourhood parks. This paper offers knowledge contribution to the body of literature for future research in the field of Landscape Architecture as well as Park and Recreation Management.

The purpose of the paper is to identify the factors of the success of business models used in the hospitality services industry in the context of growing competition market. The research presents the process of deriving the success factors for business models, what operate precisely for the hospitality industry. the essential factors are as follows: value creation, the development of relationship with partners, ICT, as well as customer relationship management. The value of the paper related to the directions for theoreticians making researches in the business models theories, as well as pecific business models, for services industry per se, for the hospitality or any subsector of hospitality. The business model hospitality services providers enables to act more efficiently and to achieve the long-term success, to develop their business and to improve services and its evaluation from the customers' perspective

The complexity of Medea's gendering has become one of the most widely explored topics, particularly in the field of ancient Greek literature within the context of gender. Given that Medea's character is also known to be highly verbal and behaving beyond the general norms of the feminine in the ancient Greek context, this paper proposes to explore Medea's act of speaking and its influence on her gender signification. The notion of Medea's speech “from the Outside in the Outside” defines Medea's act of speaking in the public space of the polis that is normally marked as the masculine space, as an abject. In other words, Medea's subjectivation and gendering can also be considered to be constituted through her speaking in the masculine space as a marginalised subject. My reading of Medea's gendering in the context of her act of speaking appropriates the gender performative framework, which is useful to gauge how Euripides’ text operates by way of reiteration and repetition of the norms, constraints and failure of repetition of signs of the normative, and the presence of power relation in terms of how the text appears to regulate the performative significations of Medea's gendering in the context of her act of speaking. This paper makes reference mainly to Euripides’ text because it is one of the most popular existing versions. On the whole, this study aspires to further expand the exploration of Medea's gendering within the performative context.

This paper proposes to regard the structure of CSCL activities as an entity composed of the three independent dimensions: Time, Tasks and Teams. The paper analyses the collaborative processes activated by students during five different types of activities (Discussion, Peer Review, Case Studies, Role Play and Jigsaw). Based on real life data, the authors try to identify the relations between the three dimensions and the nature of the learning process. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The main idea of this Paper is researching Global Investment possibilities and creating strategies for Investments in the Industry Field and Financial Market. As a proposal for the recovery from the recession there is a need of investing in the industry field, including investments in virtual manufacturing, innovations and software for electronic commerce. Further more, there should be made strategies for the Emerging countries, which are attractive for investments in the industry field. In the period of the Global economic crisis there is a need for changes and investing in new fields and new markets. This Project will include solutions for investments in Emerging Markets with Investment Proposals for EU Countries and investments in European Emerging Countries. Global Investment theory gives investors possibility to analyze global market and all opportunities for capital allocation. Since the optimal capital allocation means investment with the highest income with the minimal risk, there should be chosen markets which are often not in the country of the investors but give positive investment result. Because of that, one of the most recommendable investment solutions in the Industry field on the Global market is Foreign direct investment in the Emerging Countries. Beside the fact the investors have good subventions and other market conditions, at the same time that is important for Global Economy and Financial market as well. Investing on the Financial Market in the period of recession also needs using new software and changes of the investment strategies. Investment portfolio as a combination of investment opportunities is an optimal solution for maximal income with minimal risk of investment. Investors with global portfolios have a large number of possibilities for choosing the optimal investment solution, since there are also investment possibilities on the Emerging Markets and new industrial fields. The main Problem of the Researching which will be presented in this paper is a need for Investments in Industry field in the period of Global Economic Crisis. Researching all Investment Possibilities will give some Investment Strategies as a result, with Investment Proposals for Emerging Countries and Investment Strategies for Serbia.

This paper presents insights from an interdisciplinary collaborative venture in the virtual environment between four university teams. The venture, which is called the COINs course, was designed to enable students to learn experientially how to use the tools of dynamic social network analysis (DSNA) through a variety of projects. Collaborating across disciplines requires team members to rapidly and clearly communicate and demonstrate the value of key principles, processes, and work practices while negotiating multiple levels of complexity, knowledge cultures, skills, and capabilities. This paper explores these complexities, documents insights gained through experience, and proposes a framework for future GVT collaboration.

This study aims to examine the feasibility of a number of technical solutions implemented in a web-based system designed for the creation and management of online language exams within PAULEX Universitas, a project for the development of an online platform to design, deliver and assess the foreign language exam within the Spanish national University Entrance Examination. The paper provides an overview of the context and a discussion of current changes in Spanish ministerial policies, followed by a description of the PAULEX testing platform and a discussion on the technological solutions adopted. Lastly, the paper reflects upon a quantitative analysis derived from a pilot experience conducted in Valencia with over 200 students and their respective teachers, the results of which indicate that in spite of the difficulties, the implemented solutions have a high degree of acceptance Keywords: University Entrance Examination; online platform; English exam; assessment

Unsatisfactory Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) in the construction industry has turned out to be an issue as it contributes to numbers of incidents and fatality to the construction players and public. Previous research suggested that early introduction of safety & health elements within the project implementation contributed towards minimising this issue. Hence, the objective of this paper is to identify the occupational safety & health elements during pre-construction. This paper is an initial study with the hope the finding will lead its way to the output of occupational safety & health indicators for pre-construction in Malaysia.

This paper describes aspects of empowerment of human resources, and its concerning issues such as sense of competence, sense of being effective, sense of being valuable, autonomy and trust. These issues are briefly described in this paper and show how they can help staff to overcome the concerning worries and how efficiency of staff activities improves by sense of being valuable and feeling ownership and efficacy. It is also retrieved that empowered people have a strong sense of personal control over work and they believe that they can influence environment or the work results. Also, Self-efficacy is introduced as the most important element of empowerment, In fact when the staffs expand their self-efficacy in addition to their skills, capabilities, they feel empowered. Besides The idea of empowered personnel about their work is in a way that they feel ownership because they can determine how things should be done and how quickly ended. In fact choice is the major component of autonomy This paper also indicates that the environment of trust allows people to grow and empowerment is linked strongly with a sense of confidence which help staff do their jobs in the right way and do not waste their energy for their protection or to engage in political works and they just perform tasks successfully and help organization to improve. In short research results show that without the empowerment, neither managers nor the organizations can be successful in the long run.

In a paper the problem of students’ training for their professional activity and methods that provide preparedness and can be applied an educational process are discussed. Research on this issue in has up-to-date urgency linked with necessity of forming up students’ professional competencies. Problem of future specialists training, and forming up professional traits of their personality, growth of professional competence is quite important in modern university education from the point of view of graduates’ suitability to new professional and applied demands. Also, basic research data and results that had been gathered by through experimental study are suggested in this paper. As charts data there is shown forming up of specialists’ competence components including communicative competence and loud speaking development connected with development of professional competence by means of comparing control group and research sample of students (before and after an empirical research-study).

The Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, offers two master programs, namely: Master of Science in Industrial and Technology Management; and Master of Engineering in Manufacturing Systems using the executive (i.e. part time) mode for practicing engineering managers in the manufacturing industry. The aim of both programs are to provide higher degree learning opportunity for engineering managers to advance their knowledge in manufacturing processes, industrial and technology management. This program has high demand from potential students due to rapid technological advancement and stiff international business competition in selling products and services. This new competitiveness business environment had made it crucial for engineering managers to enhance their technical and managerial skills in performing their daily tasks. These programs were first offered during the 1998/1999 academic session. In this paper, the authors would like to present the analysis of customer's (i.e. students) feedbacks in 2008/2009 academic session with respect to the programs relevancy and appropriateness. The main aims of presenting this paper are to identify the programs’ strengths and weaknesses with respect to the course contents and mode of delivery. Having done that the authors’ would like to use these students’ feedbacks to update; improve the course contents and mode of delivery for both program so that they are at par with other well established universities. The results of this study show both programs still have many weaknesses in terms of course contents and mode of delivery, thus need some attention from the department to alleviate these shortcomings.

Many features of the freight wagons/trains differ substantially from those of the passenger coaches/trains. As a result, sharing the same track affects directly or indirectly the design, construction, operation and maintenance of a railway system. In this context, this paper evaluates qualitatively and quantitatively the effect of some of the above features on the components and elements of the railway system and provides cost elements for the construction of a railway infrastructure considering different scenarios of operation. The main findings of this paper have shown that: for freight trains the track maintenance cost is much greater than that for passenger trains, the alignment is determined by the design speed defined for passenger trains, the construction cost of infrastructure for a typical mixed traffic corridor is generally higher than that of a passenger dedicated corridor.

Design education in general includes various design fields such as product design graphic design communication design and design in engineering. Designing as an activity captures all these various fields. Design refers basically to a problem solving method a creative problem solving approach and relevant processes. Design as an activity has always been considered as a creative tool. Design education mainly focuses on enhancing creative approaches with various 2D and 3D project based basic design studies. As the tools of designing developed in parallel with technology the core structure of the education is based on a model with creative and analytical aspects: Designerly way of thinking aims at originality and uniqueness. Today the need for innovation has become more evident than ever. The main purpose of the paper is to explore and to identify the relationship between creativity innovation and design related to design education. Bruno Munari(Milano 1907-1998) as a designer and a design educator is one of the prominent names reflecting innovation and creativity in the history of Italian Design. His innovative contribution to Italian Design is reinforced by his experimental design educator background in research for creativity. The paper aims at exploring the educational structures through history of design and design education that leads to creative thinking and nurture sustainable innovation through the case study of Bruno Munari's works as a designer and as an educator. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The paper presents the skid resistance measurements results achieved by Wehner/Schulze method; Christian Doppler Laboratory (TU Vienna) testing device was used.The Wehner/Schulze testing device is designed to simulate the polishing action of vehicles on road surfaces.The paper shows a wide scope of W/S method usage: evaluation of polishing of different aggregate fractions, laboratory prepared test specimens and specimens cored from pavements. More testing cycles can predict the long-term development of wearing course friction coefficient.

It's important to measure business performance with true criterions and approval methods for creating sustainable competitive advantage. Our research method is content analysis of qualitative research analysis. In this research, 116 papers in literature were analysed for defining methods and criterions regarding business performance. As first result, business performance were measured with the subjective method in 73 papers, objective method in 37 papers and both subjective and objective method in 6 papers. As second result, while the most important criterions in subjective methods were profitablity, sales, market share and new product launch, the ones in objective methods were ROA, ROE, Tobin’q ratio and sales. As third result, subjective methods and criterions were used more than objective ones in both external literature and internal literature. As fourth result, in external literature, while subjective method is used more between 2000-2007, objective methods is used more between 2008-2012.

Lately, due to intensive global competition, both academic and market society have paid more attention to concepts such as ‘open innovation’ and ‘innovation network’. To make a constructive literature review, at first, in this paper, theoretical aspects and literature of innovation network and its management are reviewed and examined. This review shows that most studies have limited their investigation and the development of the model to their particular views and applications. In other words, there rarely exist comprehensively and systematically framework developed in the literature. This paper emphasizes on the development of a comprehensive and systematic model for innovation network management. For this purpose, the literature is analysed and the related aspects and factors are classified. This led to the categories consisting of: building blocks of network management, managing innovation, dimensions of relational network, types of innovation and performance. Also, due to the complexity inherent in dynamic systems, management and control processes for innovation networks are often non-linear and hard to observe and control. In addition, knowledge about regulation, control and communication functions in any system is known as ‘cybernetics’ which is closely related to control theory and systems theory subjects. Finally, this paper by using cybernetics and assigning classified theoretical aspects toa general cybernetic model develops a comprehensive innovation network model.

As businesses have developed globally and multinational companies have tended to dominate the economy, so has the importance of strengthening confidence in the accounting profession worldwide. The internationalisation of the accounting profession requires convergence both in terms of the technical aspects of the profession and in training and ethical aspects. The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) in order to promote an international convergence of accountants has issued a Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants. In order to be adopted and effective, codes of ethics should reflect the beliefs of those who are going to apply them. In this sense, religion is a very important matter as it is one of the influential factors in individual beliefs,. However codes of ethics could be influenced by the beliefs of those who have developed them. In this sense, the religious tradition of those who have developed the Code could be a relevant factor in the acceptance of a worldwide code of ethics. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the influence of religion in the decision of the professional accounting bodies of adopting the IFAC Code. We obtained the data from 165 accounting bodies from 125 countries. The results of our study show that the national accounting organizations belonging to countries where the predominant religion is Christianity are more prone to adopt the IFAC Code of Ethics as their own. This paper adds empirical evidence to the academic literature about the variables that affect the acceptance of international codes of ethics. An understanding of the religious restrictions provides guidelines to international organizations in their attempt to establish international standards of conduct for professional accountants worldwide.

As university teacher of English, the author of this paper has been concerned with exploring and exploiting the potential of Web 2.0 tools and applications for English language learners. To this end, I have complemented face-to-face teaching with collaborative Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and voice threads (online media albums that can hold any type of media, and can be shared with anyone we wish). More specifically, I came in contact with Mr. Larry Ferlazzo, a US teacher who invited my students from International Relations to join a project he had designed and which was called Sister Classes. Our students interacted on an edublog using English, created a few presentations, left audio and written comments on each other's work, exchanged ideas, shared links, podcasts and videos. Other countries from around the world became involved, and we built a community of practice. Thus, in the present paper we assert that creating meaningful content for the students’ specific purposes (in this case, practicing English), is as important as creating connectivity, and that collaborative language learning can prove very efficient. At the same time, we have also identified some methodological limitations to teaching English with the aid of Web 2.0. Consequently, our pedagogical approach may serve for an invitation to further research.

The paper provides an overview of the EVA-TREN project approach and results. Following a process which started from the detailed analysis of 11 European case studies, the paper ends up providing recommendations for the improvement of the methodology for ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of large infrastructure projects in the transport sector. The case studies provided inputs for a specific analysis of ‘problems’ in the implementation of the projects that may have been avoided whether the project would have been appraised ex-ante by using different approaches/methods. The paper highlights two critical aspects for the assessment and evaluation of the large infrastructure projects: 1) the importance of looking at the entire project circle, from ex-ante to ex-post, and of adopting a comprehensive approach able to adapt to the level of debates and analyses that takes place at different stages of the project; 2) the application of a common assessment methodology and of some instruments that might help reducing the uncertainties of demand forecasting as well as compare different transport infrastructure projects on the basis of the same assumptions at least from the point of view of international flows.

The paper provides a review of the light goods vehicle (LGV) fleet and its activity, with specific reference to operations in urban areas, and sustainability issues associated with the ever-growing use of LGVs. Traditionally these vehicles have received little attention but are becoming an ever-more important element of urban freight transport both for goods collection and delivery and for the provision of a wide range of critical services. Relevant literature from the UK and elsewhere pertaining to LGV operations and their impacts has been identified and utilised. The paper identifies the impacts of LGV operations in terms of economic, social and environmental impacts and presents the range of measures being taken by policy makers and companies to address negative impacts.

Problem Statement: We have tried to figure out radiography of the theoretical and investigative characteristics of the academic assessor such as they appear within the documents and the researches from the scientific literature. Purpose of Study: The main goal of the paper is to investigate the portrait of the academic assessor from the perspective of the students. Research Methods: The investigative part is done through the analysis of the survey about some aspects of evaluation in higher education and the projective tools (essays). The sample comprises 909 students from different Romanian university (for quantitative analysis) and 95 students from the science of education study program (for qualitative analysis). Findings: The academic assessor portrait was figured out by the students considering some criteria: the assessor subjectivity, the used assessment methods and the competence witch are assessed by the assessor. In terms of the gained results we have described the perceived assessor portrait from the students’ point of view. The gained data were correlated with the data derived from the literature and with other studies upon this topic. Conclusions: The results obtained after the quantitative and qualitative analysis help to figure out more clearly the type of the desired assessor within academic environment from the students’ perspective. The academic assessor ideal profile could be useful for those who want to improve their assessment modalities. The discussions were pointed out at the end of the paper, and also some new research directions were emphasized. The results of the study could be useful for the studies regarding the academic evaluation and assessment and also for the optimizing the quality of the academic teaching and learning process. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

This paper is dedicated to International Student Mobility (ISM) in Higher Education and contributes to the researchers’ growing interest towards various aspects of ISM. Such interest is justified by the fact that in the 1950s the worldwide number of students studying abroad is estimated to have been about 200 000, whereas by 2012 it increased to more than 2 million, at least in absolute terms. The paper is based on the results of exploratory research into the area and highlights gaps in the existing knowledge, conceptual inconsistencies and other challenges associated with researching ISM. However, the main point of the presentation is to raise academic awareness about new ideas associated with the topic, to share new, successful approaches to researching ISM and to suggest the nature of implications that ISM research findings may offer to the academic community.

The objective of this study was to develop and apply a ‘scientific approach’ for improving the integration of Beijing's metro and bus networks. Daxing Line, which is one of the five newly built metro lines opened in Beijing in 2010, was selected as a demonstration metro corridor for this methodology. A detailed public transport passenger trip matrix is developed from the Beijing public transport IC card data. According to this data, different bus service patterns were evaluated using a pivot point demand model and PT model. In the final section of the paper, the schemes are evaluated through using a set of 6 weighted indicators to decide on an optimal outcome. The bulk of the recommended service planning adjustments recommended by the study are currently being implemented in the corridor. The study concludes that the proposed approach is practical and can provide meaningful input to service planning in multi modal corridors in Chinese cities. Given the rapidly expanding metro networks in many Chinese cities, there is a large potential for replication of the approach described in the paper.

It is advocated that the success and user acceptability of Fully Electric Vehicles (FEVs) will predominantly depend on their electrical energy consumption rate and the corresponding degree of autonomy that they offer. FEVs must provide their drivers with the highest possible autonomy, as well as with a high degree of reliability and robustness in terms of energy performance. Thus, appropriate innovative Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions must be adopted, in order to assist the driver in dealing with such energy-related issues, and strengthen FEVs’ autonomy and reliability. Such an ICT solution tailored for FEVs is the focus of this paper. In detail, this paper presents a novel implementation of energy-efficient routing based on machine learning engines. It identifies and explains appropriate instance and target attributes, related to road segments and vehicles characteristics. Consequently, it proposes a robust machine learning model, capable of predicting the actual energy that is expected to be consumed by the vehicle on the particular road segment. Scalability aspects are, then, discussed and presented. Finally, useful conclusions on the performance of the proposed model are reached.

This paper presents longitudinal research that examines how students perceive certain teaching quality characteristics which are measured by teaching assessment surveys conducted by the University of Zagreb. Main aim of this research is to find out how students rank teaching quality characteristics, their attitude towards teaching quality assessment surveys and their influence on improvement of teaching practice. Students are asked to rank by importance teaching quality characteristics by on-line survey. Similar research was conducted in years 2007 and 2009, so this paper will also present comparison of results between these three researches which displays refinement of student's perception of teaching quality characteristics. Findings from this research helps teachers to prioritize their effort to improve quality of teaching in those teaching quality characteristics that are identified by students as most important.

An undergraduate level laboratory course on digital signal processing (DSP) is described. The primary purpose of the laboratory is a better understanding of the theoretical concepts, and to let the students experience actual DSP happening in real-time, using real devices. The paper describes the experience of one institution in the teaching of applied signal processing. The paper will be of interest to those teaching DSP related courses at undergraduate level, such as Introduction to DSP, Real-time DSP, and the Fundamentals of DSP. The low-cost dsPICPRO4 DSP development kit is used as the fundamental tool in the laboratory experiments.

This paper is structured as follows: in the first part we present the internationalisation process theories and arguments including learning process, born global approach, internetisation process and networking which are classified as market focused approaches. The second part presents some general patterns of the internationalisation process of Turkish firms. Our study on how and when Turkish companies began to invest abroad is based on a database consisting of all known manufacturing firms with subsidiaries abroad before the year 2000. This paper also discusses the internationalisation of Turkish firms in light of the internationalization process theory, and focuses on the period from the end of 1980 to 2010. It seems that Turkish firms, in their internationalisation process use their network in addition to learning from existing export markets and market knowledge. It is appearent from the secondary data analysis that companies make use of know-how knowledge resulting in gaining experience in international markets other than relying only on export.

The paper proposes a stochastic, dynamic discrete-event micro-simulation model to analyse the operation of a logistic platform in order to determine its performance in different system configurations by using appropriate efficiency indicators. The issues connected to the management and optimization of operational functions are studied at a global level in order to obtain a technical/economic analysis through aggregate evaluations, which provide information useful to a tactical/strategic planning. The model implementation consists of four sequential steps: survey and statistical analysis, specification, calibration and validation model. The micro-simulation model has been implemented by using Witness software. The paper proposes an application of the micro-simulation model on the Kuehne+Nagel logistic platform in order to analyse its operativity.

The efficiency assessment of road safety measures is considered to be an extremely useful tool in decision making; in particular, cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses are carried out in several countries, in a more or less systematic way. The objective of this paper is to present findings from a review of current practices for road safety assessment worldwide gathered in various handbooks, manuals, research projects and other international reports. This review comprises the preliminary results of the work carried out in the framework of the on-going Working Group on the assessment of the effectiveness of road safety measures, of the Joint Transport Research Centre (JTRC) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Transport Forum (ITF). In particular, the most important international initiatives for providing standardized and accurate methods or tools for the estimation of safety effects of road safety measures are presented. Furthermore, the procedural and technical limitations of these methodologies are discussed in this paper, as is the lack of knowledge and data on the safety effects of road safety measures but also the potential for transferability of the assessment results. Emphasis is given to the added value of the safety assessment process and the related results to the various stages of the road safety decision making at local, regional national and international level.