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Participation of all relevant stakeholders to the New Product Development (NPD) process is an important issue for the democratization of the use of goods and services and promoting responsible research and innovation. Although participatory NPD is becoming a hot topic in recent years, most of the studies concentrate on the participation of users as individual entities-customers and neglect that production-consumption cycle is constituted as a network of stakeholders. Besides their role as customers, individuals play different social roles in their daily lives. Social roles are not determined according to some essential behavioural characteristics but emerge within a structure constituted as a network amalgamated according to a set of relations. Individuals can have different norms depending on their position in the network structures constituted according to different types of stakes. Organizing and coordinating stake based roles is a complex and fuzzy issue as these are constantly in making and involves “politics” in the sense of persuading other people to some form of action. In this paper, we have discussed the possibility of an integrative online platform built upon the principles of Web 2.0 revolution that would act as a “democratic assembly” for negotiating, coordinating and integrating the fuzzy cycles of the innovation process. Social media offers great opportunities for organizing and coordinating participatory NPD activities as they provide means for bringing large number of participants to form a virtual community within an electronic platform. Building upon these principles we have outlined some important challenges that can be important during the conceptualization of such a platform. Our conceptual framework can offer a guideline for future research with the aim of turning this concept into a product. This paper has some limitations which could be complemented with some empirical research on how actors experience these challenges in their everyday organizational context. Future work needs to be focused on discovering the concerns from the emic view points of the stakeholders.

Over the last few decades, a large evolution has been made in the field of handwritten recognition. Material of handwritten documents is become less with current trends of digital electronics. However, for the investigation and research on a particular language a large volume of handwritten documents database is required. In this paper we describe our approach for development a large volume of Urdu handwritten text images Corpus on Urdu language. To make the database available in large field of Natural Language Processing we annotate database for each image and associate a XML based ground-truth Meta information to make it computer compatible as a linguistic resource. This paper focus on the some issue related with Corpus design and annotation such as data collection, writers selection, methodology of annotation etc.

Global projects are remarkably emerging all around the world, whether at the mega level such as Oil & Gas projects or at the micro level such as in specific R&D projects. Global Projects can be very complex or can be quite simple, they might involve huge investments or rather be at low budget, they can have a diverse spectrum of stakeholders or a limited community of beneficiaries. Accordingly the definition of Global Projects is actually far from being obvious. It is suggested that several factors are favoring the emergence of Global projects, such as globalization of business environment, cost driven project execution strategies, national requirements for local presence, dispersion of expertise, joint venture projects and corporate mergers & acquisitions. However Global Projects are thought to be associated with some side effects, such as integration and/or coordination difficulties, statutory and regulatory issues, uncertainty in project controls, and the drawbacks of remoteness and potential cultural differences. Through this conceptual paper, the gap in knowledge about Global Projects is highlighted and areas for potential academic research are suggested. The paper also proposes a series of research questions that are formulated from the literature review conclusions. The outputs of this conceptual literature review & analysis suggest that there are insufficient research and academic publications written on the subject. The discussions presented in the literature about global projects are actually fragmented and segregated with a clear biased drift toward the focus on cross-cultural aspects, virtual teams and project organization. It is intended that this conceptual research paper help researchers and projects stakeholders in international business environment better understand the opportunities and threats in global project execution, such as on innovation, on inter-transfer of knowledge and organizational resources and their relation to value creation in multinational corporations.

The main purpose of this paper is to present a didactical method as used for an assessment of electromagnetic field effects on the environment. First of all, this paper presents the influence of the electric field on the environment and, after that, the methodology, as used for the efficient transfer of all the results to students, is described. Any electromagnetic equipment working on high voltages makes a significant electromagnetic field around itself. The intensity of that field depends on the voltage type, the voltage level and the distance from the device. It's obvious that a high intensity in this field makes for more drastic effects. Consequently, the effects of this highly electromagnetic field are more likely to be observed around this equipment (e.g. overhead power lines, power stations). These effects are indirect ones, (e.g. ecological pollution, phonic pollution, radio-TV jamming and air ionization), and direct ones, (electromagnetic induction pollution or accidental risks to humans or animals). In the case of nearby overhead power lines or power stations, working on high voltage, electromagnetic phenomena are imposing the need for certain protective measures, both for humans and for the environment, which must be carried out during a safe service. The methodology used for sending this knowledge to students involved three stages: a description of the direct and indirect influences of the electromagnetic field on the environment; the presentation of methods used to produce evidence of the effects of electromagnetic induction, (direct and indirect), in order to prevent accidents; the description of effects (biological and physical) made principally by the electrical field component on the human body. The efficiency of this method is analyzed at the end of this paper, through some real examples.

The labor market in Romania is characterized by a strong contradiction: the population complains that there are not enough jobs, and the firms have problems with the recruitment of employees. The companies problems are related to the quality of human resources as well of economic and social factors that influence the recruitment process. This paper presents the results of a quantitative research on the internships importance in human resource training. To conduct this research the authors used the survey as research method and the research instrument was the questionnaire. In the first part of the paper the authors present the research methodology and the context in which it was conducted. In the second part of the paper, the research results are presented. In the end of the paper are presented conclusions and suggestions for increasing the quality of human resources.

Generally speaking, terminology management refers to a range of activities involved in designing, collecting, documenting and processing data to create a terminology resource. Given that terminology is essential to professional communication and practice in any field of expertise, the present paper argues in favour of integrating fundamental principles of terminology management into ESP teaching. In particular, the aim of the paper is twofold: to share the authors’ experience with such an interdisciplinary approach to teaching ESP to second-year students in Communication and Public Relations at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, Politehnica University of Timisoara, Romania, and to pinpoint the ways in which practical terminology work, carried out by our students among other more traditional ESP specific activities, greatly benefits future Public Relations (PR) specialists.

This paper presents the experimental approach and an example of using conceptual maps as a method based on constructivist mode of learning, teaching and researching knowledge of quantum Physics, using photonic devices. Understanding the Planck relationship, which links energy and frequency as a result of quantification of the energy, is a crucial step. It is one of the most famous examples of the corpuscular nature of light, which led to the development of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century, and whose explanation is still the standard in teaching Physics in high school. The paper also presents the verification of Einstein's theory and determination of Planck's constant using electroluminescent phenomenon for LEDs of different colours. Conceptual maps are a powerful tool not only for perceiving, representing and achieving knowledge, but also for creating new knowledge. It is essential helping students to understand that all concepts are somehow related to each other. Selecting cross-links as specific as possible and identifying the most appropriate linking words to connect concepts are crucial aims. CmapTools software tool can serve as a basis for a new kind of integration of Internet resources and all classroom experiences, inside Physics laboratories, and outside them. If it is used in conjunction with conceptual maps designed to support learning, it provides a new educational model.

Learning and technology has penetrated people's daily lives in so many multiple ways and spheres that learning process may not be planned separated from technology. Researchers agree that ICT as such cannot improve educational processes, but ICT may trigger and enable the use of innovative methods that make learning more efficient and more attractive to learners in higher education. Contemporary young learners in higher education are eager to embrace technology enriched learning curriculum, but the question of this paper is whether teaching staff in higher education is ready and holds the necessary skills to construct and use technology enhanced learning curriculum.The object of the paper is didactics of TEL curriculum and it's requirements for teaching staff in higher education. The purpose of the study is to analyze didactic parameters of technology rich curriculum in higher education. The purpose of this study is achieved by attaining these goals: (1) Introducing the main characteristics of technology enhanced learning; (2) Identifying didactic requirements for technology enhanced learning curriculum in higher education; (3) Analyzing teaching staff's readiness and skills to construct and use technology enhanced learning curriculum. Methods of the research are analysis of scientific literature, quantitative survey of teaching staff in higher education in Lithuania and statistical analysis of the survey results. The conclusions will show the main didactic requirements of TEL and readiness of teaching staff in higher education to perform it.

Historically, applied linguistics has tended to shift from a theoretical approach toward a problem solving approach. Intercultural communication as a field of study has gained its position through asking how people from different cultures communicate and how misunderstanding can be prevented. Within the domain of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Aviation English has become a matter of concentration worldwide. The requirements introduced by International Civil Aviation Organization encompass both technical language and plain English applicable to both native and non-native English speakers. However, based on cultural differences, related conventions, and diverse communication styles, air traffic controllers and pilots sometimes use English in a way that may cause confusion and misunderstanding, which in turn can result in aviation accidents or incidents. This paper aims to consider cultural dimensions as introduced by Hofstede (1980) and their involvement in aviation context. The paper highlights the necessity of focusing more on intercultural communicative competence in the teaching of aviation English.

The present paper describes the Romanian initiatives related to Open Educational Resources (OER). We start from a national report developed by the first author under the umbrella of the European project POERUP, based on a documentary and a field work research. Although the aim of this paper is to focus on the state of the art of OER in the Romanian education system, our goals are to promote a background of research about the use of OER in universities; to contribute to a better knowledge of teachers’ and students’ perception and practices on the use of OER in academic life; to suggest key aspects and make suggestions on how to integrate OER in the HE area. The Romanian Report can be found here: http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Romania . For more information about the POERUP project see http://poerup.referata.com.

The most appropriate approach for educational project practices, considering flow of ideas, may lead to the development and implementation of a thorough process of innovation for the knowledge transfer, based on best techniques of converting combinations for tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. One of the recent concepts of process improvement has been created using the methodology Win-Win and Clarity of Communication based on the Theory of Constraints Thinking Process (TOCTP). The paper illustrates the application of TOCTP in the process of converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge in educational projects. The paper provides different viewing perspective approaches for the knowledge transfer, building a strategy for a wide variety of issues, which contribute completely too full conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. The research methodology of this paper illustrates the steps of TOCTP integration by problem diagnosing, designing the solutions plan and integrating the solutions plan into a conceptual model for knowledge transfer in educational projects. The authors of this paper present a case study that underlines the effectiveness in fast obtaining the right solutions for a research theme by using a combination of TOCTP diagrams.

The paper analyzes one the existing experience of “school – enterprise – higher technical educational institution” educational line by using multiple case studies method which allows revealing conditions for efficient use of this educational approach. By comparing “school – enterprise – higher technical educational institution” approach to traditional educational approach used by classical universities both advantages and disadvantages of both are revealed. Then by means of correlation analysis of two sets of data concerning “school – enterprise – higher technical educational institution” approach and traditional higher education the main factors defining the success of each of these methods are defined, and the model situation for implementation of “school – enterprise – higher technical educational institution” approach is created. The limitations of using educational model in question are defined as well, and include certain fields of knowledge, approach to course design, methods to be implemented. The paper also defines the possibility of using “school – enterprise – higher technical educational institution” approach within Bologna process, limitations and possibilities provided by this approach within bachelor-master two stage education. The paper suggests an algorithm for implementation of “school – enterprise – higher technical educational institution” approach for contemporary universities, which was implemented at Kazan federal university for applied sciences education. The paper also reveals that development of above mentioned interrelation has to be created within the entrepreneurial environment developed by the universities.

There have been calls (e.g., Gergen, 2001 ) for psychologists to more critically deliberate the meaning of their concepts, ideas, predictions and data in the context of broader political debate. In educational psychology, this is important in order that our construction of knowledge remains in touch with the storms that are raging outside of our laboratory doors. This paper sought to interrogate a popular and significant theory of educational motivation (achievement goal theory) in the context of broader debate around contemporary educational policy. The paper draws upon the knowledge base and data (in the area of achievement goal theory) in relation to educational motivation, interrogating and integrating such knowledge in relation to broader sociological and political critique of contemporary educational policy. As a consequence of such critique a number of conclusions are reached: (a) there is a pressing need to consider policy-level representations of motivational constructs such as achievement goals, (b) such policy-level representations may be highly significant for future directions and developments in goal theory, and (c) the possibility that goal theory's concepts and ideas might be “used” and “exploited” in the context of current political debate.

The study on augmented reality and its use in education, that is a base of this paper, arises from the needs of deeper notional and content definition of augmented reality in the context of education and sought to examine this issue from the technological psychological, physiological and didactical points of view. Primarily, it deals with the description of technological-functional properties and specifics of augmented reality, specifications of the significance of combining real environment with added information for information value of the provided content, identifying methodology of augmented reality, defining the system of criteria for technology solutions and didactical use of augmented reality and generating didactical aspects of augmented reality in education. This paper focuses on identification of the perceptual and technological aspects of augmented reality and on categorization of augmented reality systems.

This paper analyses the impact of changing requirements in an international (European Union) e-Learning project. As in other domains, keeping the project milestones is very important for the success of the project. Keeping the milestones in a European e-Learning project is crucial for the future development of a common learning strategy. Nevertheless, there are unexpected issues which can occur during the development of educational technologies. Applying the common implementation processes can lead to an e-Learning platform which is not fulfilling its scope. The objective of this paper is to present a release strategy of the educational platform for every European country involved, which ensures that the same information is provided throughout all participating countries. The methods applied will be different from the classic approaches and also will combine the well-known e-Learning development processes with the techniques used in other areas, like IT or software automotive processes. By analysing projects in different areas, this paper chose time as the most important factor which influences the success of a project. By managing the factor of time, even if requirement changes occur during implementation, there is still the possibility of releasing an e-Learning platform, as expected by the project stakeholder, by adapting the release strategy.

Changes are essence of any international project. The main features of international project are related to novelty of idea, limited resources, specific of goals and uniqueness of process and results. Investment process consists of search for ideas, investment offers consist of project formulation, initial selection, financial analysis of projects and decision making, project implementation, monitoring and post-investment control. These stages of investment project lifecycle and complex of related corresponding decisions are influenced by internal and external elements of environment. Considering to this problem, paper examines which the main factors influencing efficient planning of international projects in high schools. Based on theoretical analysis of efficient planning elements, the paper presents the results of empirical research. The research has been implemented at the institution of high education in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

This case study is part of an ongoing research which aims to investigate and promote the values of multiculturalism, cultural pluralism and intercultural academic education in our communication-driven and culture-convergent world. As an Erasmus guest lecturer in the European Union, a visiting lecturer overseas and a lecturer in Saudi Arabia, I have always been trying to identify the opportunities of developing intercultural competence (ICC) of my university students. Firstly, this paper discusses the values and difficulties of teaching female university students in our multicultural academic environment heavily based on methodological and cultural issues in practice. Then, it focuses on the dominant role of English use among the international teaching staff and Saudi students, highlighting English as Lingua Franca in the globalised higher education. Secondly, it moves on introducing some theoretical approaches, concepts of culture and latest research results of intercultural competence (ICC). The outcome is to put practice into theory or correspond practice to theory. As a conclusion, the paper summarises the implications of developing ICC as an ongoing lifelong learning spiral in a multidimensional academic context. Finally, it presumes to forecast the opportunity of a paradigm shift in the area of intercultural university education in the near future.

The development of the new digital world in the 21st Century has exponentially altered the mode through which we communicate, teach, learn, and perform research. The mode of interactions and social relationships that occur through new digital technologies are also shaping and transforming the meaning of instruction. Current online activities support face-to-face, distance education, and hybrid courses. Yet, despite the more frequent use of technology in the classroom for Arabic as a Foreign Language (FL), there is still little research conducted in the Arabic instructors’ use, understanding, and knowledge of technological tools. This paper will examine the use of technological tools Arabic instructors are implementing in their curriculum and their beliefs about the importance of the integration of technology to enhance Arabic learners’ FL skills at university level in the United States. The data to be presented is derived from a mixed-method approach collected from a sample of Higher Education Arabic instructors using two types of instruments. First was the online non-experimental survey. Second were in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with a small sample of instructors to obtain an in-depth understanding of Arabic teachers’ attitudes toward the use of technology. Hence, the significance of this paper is to provide contribution and support to the progress of the teaching and learning of Arabic as a FL in the United States in the 21st Century.

The subject of the paper is part of the general issue, particularly complex, establishing the means and methods of intervention for maintaining an appropriate quality of power supplied to consumers connected to existing distribution networks, which are subject to more pronounced harmonic pollution. In this context, the analysis in the frequency domain of the normal operating regimes of electrical distribution networks is a mandatory operation, the main instrument being the harmonic impedance seen in the network buses nodes. A typical application of this tool of analysis refers to reactive power compensation in distribution network harmonic polluted, operation that may lead to increased non-sinusoidal regime and consequently to increased negative effects on the operating of installations belonging to the supplier or consumers. Avoidance of harmonic resonances is possible only by knowing the frequency response of the network, more exactly the change of harmonic impedance seen in the network buses. This paper presents, in two parts, the numerical examples carried out on the same area of a real distribution network, two analytical methods: harmonic nodal admittance matrix method, respectively state matrix method. The results are analyzed and compared with the values obtained by the two methods.

In the age of globalization, a university's brand has a crucial value in facing change, competition and challenges set forth by the sometimes confusing expectations of the society. The current paper discusses the importance of image audit and possibilities to work with the inner stake-holders’ perceptions in order to consolidate and promote the university brand. The authors have relied on sociological surveys and image of organizations as main instruments while carrying out the research in 2011-2012, on a sample of 1099 students and 532 professors from Politehnica University of Timisoara (UPT), determined by probabilistic methods, namely through stratified sampling in the first phase and the second phase sampling group, with a rate of responses of 71%. Among the items measured in the case of students were: reasons for choosing the specialization offered by UPT, students’ information sources when selecting a college, institutional attributes of the university's personality. Professors have been asked to evaluate, among other items: the communication channels and their efficiency in institutional communication, their evaluation of the position of Politehnica University as compared to other universities in Romania and abroad, institutional attributes of the university's personality. The results were then subjected to quantitative and qualitative analysis. Recommendations and conclusions point at the necessity of communication campaigns and strategic planning for consolidating the image anchors identified through the methods discussed in the paper.

Members of parliament have central constitutional roles in passing laws, approving budgets, being accountable to the people and making decisions on behalf of the entire nation. Thus they have necessarily to possess the needed capacities and qualifications enabling them to fulfil their functions efficiently and effectively in a complex and globalised world ( Donohue and Holland, 2012 ). Purpose of this paper is to introduce the empirical research relating to the Lithuanian parliamentarians and former candidates to the parliament attitudes towards capacity building. The findings of this paper are based on the analysis of 29 semi-structured expert interviews conducted with the members of the Lithuanian parliament and former candidates to the parliament. The empirical research indicated that capacity building of the Lithuanian parliamentarians is not systematic and attitudes of the experts towards capacity building are ambiguous: from considerations that such activities are waste of tax payers’ money to personal responsibility taking and active involvement into qualification development activities. The conclusions were made that the system of capacity building of the Lithuanian parliamentarians should be improved paying special attention to the parliamentarians’ consciousness, ability to understand their own limitations and readiness to learn.

In this paper authors will expose a work developed with the aim to submit an educational innovation project proposal to a competitive call for Educational Innovation Projects 2013-2015 of the Education Advisory Service of the Basque Country University (UPV/EHU, Spain). This project is being carried out in the Computer Structure and Computer Architecture sub-module of the Degree in Computer Management and Information Systems Engineering of the University College of Engineering of Vitoria-Gasteiz, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). The project is based on the active learning, more specifically, on cooperative learning. In this paper we have given deeper insight the dependencies between all the subjects belonging to the analyzed sub-module, which is composed of two subjects named Computer Structure and Computer Architecture. We have included in such analysis a previous subject named Principles of Digital Systems Design, which does not belong to that sub-module, but plays an important role in the acquisition of the knowledge and competencies of the two previously referenced subjects.

This paper explores the relationship between using virtual learning communities in initial education process and the development of students’ professional identity, by examining the most recent contributions in this field and by proposing a new strategy of knowledge management, at university level, that harness the virtual learning environment's potential, based on mobile learning models. In addition to that, the paper proposes a strategy for empowering higher education institutions to use VLCs in order to improve primary school teachers’ professional identity highlighting especially the requirements, curriculum and evaluation of such a strategy, focusing on the existing best practices on international level.

There is a need to move from system flexibility to process flexibility with advancements of research in the niche field of flexible systems management. This paper analyses how much Indian organisational flexibility is aligned with employee expectations, greater workforce utilization and avoiding process failures amidst the process of globalization trends. The paper attempts to reduce risks and add up values in the business process flow. It maps key flexibility functions and expectations within the vast head of organisational flexibility. The paper works to find empirical links between employee reactions to Indian organisational flexibility and expanding business process optimization with globalization impacts and the responses towards organisational strategies. The paper also investigates on how exactly the dynamics of Indian organisational flexibility contributes to the economy and social stand points of a fast growing nation. Flexibility as a process is studied with challenges, positive trends, organizational abilities and reactions fitting well with global business environment.

Many entrepreneurs are really visionary game changers who believe both in their missions and values. These types of entrepreneurs use their mindsets and essential entrepreneurial thinking to build successful family businesses. The aim of this paper is to describe this special mindset, which manifests itself in entrepreneurial thinking, and offer a solution to help successors in family businesses to refresh and improve the core businesses given to them. Design thinking might be used as a method for helping successors to recognize new business opportunities and refresh the core business, creating new visions and values. This paper is divided into the following sections: introduction, the creation and definition of entrepreneur missions and values. A short description of the entrepreneurial thinking is in the third part. Part four focuses on the problem of succession in family businesses. In part five, the reason why the design thinking might be the right tool to help solve this problem is explained. Finally, a conclusion is offered. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

4th World Conference on Educational Technology Researches (WCETR) -- NOV 28-29, 2014 -- -- Univ Barcelona, Barcelona, SPAIN, WOS: 000380397600109, People counting systems aim at automatically estimating the number of people indoor and outdoor places. They are widely used in retail environment; determining conversion ratio, advertising and promotional evaluations. And they can be used for transportation management system and video surveillance. This paper presents a model of estimating the number of people in several scenarios at campuses based on face detection. Several considerations for counting people at campuses are illustrated in this paper, and experimental results of the developed method are explained and shown preliminary results. Moreover, it is investigated the possible importance of people counting in the scenarios where potential learners are watching a bulletin board and are captured via a single camera. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Globalization enables the transfer of urban development policies across country and continents. This paper highlights the creative city notion in Bandung, Indonesia, that is adopted from the British Council (BC) attempts to mobilize policy through various programs and workshops. This paper aims to overview the role of BC in transferring and mobilizing policy on Cultural and Creative Industry. The paper argues that BC has played an important role in introducing and shaping the CCI policies in Bandung, even though certain adjustments to local socio-economic conditions have been made. The BC has significantly ascertained the establishment of Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF) as a forum that hubs multi agent interest including BC, local government, artisans, and related stakeholders within the creative community.

This paper analyses cases where data collectors adopt privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) for a data market, and investigates investment strategies for privacy protection technologies. This paper shows the firm has an incentive to invest in privacy enhancing technologies if consumers feel there is a psychological privacy cost. This paper also discusses firm's investment strategies on privacy, and shows that a firm will invest more on privacy protection as the influence of privacy awareness groups and privacy costs increase, and a firm will not invest in privacy protection when privacy breach probability is deemed to be low.

This paper present a comparative analysis of Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF: HEd) and Capability Maturity Model Integration for Service (CMMI-SVC) in order to compare the high level similarities between these two frameworks when they are both applied to improve the quality instruction and standardization of higher education instruction delivery, pedagogy, and learning outcomes. TQF is used to standardize the quality of education in Thailand with the expected learning outcomes of students in five domains, namely: ethical and moral development, cognitive skills, interpersonal skills and responsibility, analytical and communication skills, and numerical analysis, communication and information technology. Since CMMI-SVC targets towards the agencies that provides services, it contains 24 process areas each of which has specific goals and generic goals. This paper suggests the eight high level topics to be analysed including objectives, model characteristics, products, applications, dissemination, enhancement and enforcement, content, essence, and evaluation. The result shows that TQF would benefit s from integrating the CMMI-SVC maturity level and key process areas with generic and specific goals and practices.

Disasters are of two type's natural and anthropogenic hazard or man-made hazards. A natural disaster is a major adverse geologic process resulting as floods, earth quakes, tsunamis which cause severe damage of life, property and environment. While the anthropogenic hazard results in the form of human intent, negligence, human error and involving a failure of man-made system. The Nagaram gas leaking from GAIL pipeline fire explosion took 23 lives in the early hours of 27 th June 2014. This explosion occurred close to the ONGC's Tatipaka mini-refinery and a gas collecting station began leaking the day before the accident and spread over the area and caught fire when the tea vendor lit a stove. The impact was devastating as the flames spread over a 1 km radius, catching people in the vicinity unawares. The major cause for this mishap is apathy towards the haul of surveillance and hovered district administration. The state government has announced ex-gratia of 50,000 rupees and GAIL has announced an ex-gratia of 25 lakh to the next kin of those who died, and 5 lakh to those who suffered permanent disability as a medical aid. The paper aims to question the governments’ ex-gratia over decimation, despite additional surveillance based on an empirical work in support of disaster relief operations over this anthropogenic hazard of GAIL pipeline disaster. This paper provides an overview of this hazard in victim's family/kin perspective, which is aggravated significantly by the vulnerability of people‘s vicinity, and the findings of the study will be useful to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of disaster relief operations in order to assist in the aftermath of future anthropogenic disasters.

The paper deals with the problematic of general enterprises’ lifecycle based on size (number of employees) as a parameter of growth and success. Author works with Miller and Friesen lifecycle model ( Miller and Friesen, 1984 ) and expects occurrence of similar pattern in large scale sample composed from 677 randomly chosen companies of different type. This so cold “fractal analogy” will help to describe model lifecycle of general successful company in the terms of most significant time dependent phenomena observed on researched sample of Czech and Slovak enterprises. Except of mentioned model lifecycle characterization, which can be considered as main objective of the paper, there were three supplementary hypotheses tested. Questionnaire research as background of presented data was performed on Silesian University, School of Business Administration in Karvina, Czech Republic with the help of attendant bachelor's degree students. Presented paper includes brief literature review as well as most important research findings accompanied with commented charts, tables and discussion.

Teaching aids are the common and new practice in today's scenario. Learning is now not only limited to classrooms but has broken the barriers across borders. This has been made possible by the influence of ICT (Information and Communication Technology). The paper focuses on various ICT teaching aids and studies the impact of these teaching aids on its users. The paper demonstrates the impact based on two parameters: Individual Impact and Organizational Impact. Individual Impact talks about the ICT teaching aids used by its user and the ease in utilizing it. Organizational Impact converses about the importance of using ICT teaching aids for developing its manpower. The research is conducted using both primary as well as secondary data and the data is conducted through structured questionnaire consequently finding the impact of ICT teaching aids in organizations.

Reverse logistics practices are gaining attention due to environmental concern, enforced legislation, rapid change in technology and corporate citizenship. Reverse logistics has been seen as a part of sustainable development due to reduction in pollution by using product again after end-of its life. The goal of this research paper is to identify and rank the barriers of RL adoption so organization can cultivate strategies to tackle them on priority. This paper proposes a methodology based on fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to prioritize the barriers of RL adoption. A numerical analysis of electronic industry of India is presented to demonstrate the use of the proposed method. This proposed method considered fuzzy framework that can handle impreciseness and uncertainty easily. This study identified 28 barriers through literature review and expert's opinion. These barriers were categorized into five major criteria. The result of the study indicates that Lack of coordination/collaboration with 3PL providers, Customer perception about RL and Lack of system to monitor returns are the three most important barriers of RL adoption. Electronics companies should overcome these barriers with higher priority for effective RL adoption. Finally sensitivity analysis is also performed to check changes in the ranking of RL adoption barriers by change in criteria weights.

Quality in E-Learning is a critical success factor that is not easy to determine and achieve. In this paper, we aim to describe the challenges in quality development and show as solution approach, an innovative process management for planning, production and application of e-learning and the importance of quality standards. We will focus especially on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), because in the SME sector, the special optimization potential is what the introduction of explicit quality strategies concerns. This paper illustrates at first the problematic and defines its quality development in education and training. Subsequently, appropriate tools and aids, used by both providers and users, will be demonstrated. The focus will be on quality standards and instruments for their application, which will be developed by the Quality Initiative E-Learning in Germany. In particular, the reference process model of PAS 1032-1 and the subsequent constructive first standard for quality management in education and training (ISO/IEC 19796-1) and the type of Quality Management Support Systems (QSS) are explained.

This paper discusses the concept of creative Kampong as an alternative for establishing kampong as defensible living space and for enhancing the community's capacity to improve physical condition of the kampong. The objective of the paper is the identification of community's capacity toward creative kampong that promotes sustainability. The identification is undertaken by observing kampong in the city center of Bandung and interviewing the stakeholders: creative community, community leaders, and government officials. The case study is selected based on its location in the city center, its historical context and involvement in government's program of creative kampong. The analysis result shows that a successful creative kampong is supported by a strong commitment, sense of community, skill in problem-solving, access to resources, and strategy of capacity building. This paper recommends the capacity building of kampong's community towards creative community and sustainable kampong.

This paper intends to analyzed, for a period of 7 years, in one retrospective demographic study, the deaths from cardiovascular diseases - heart attack - in Arad County, between years: 2000 and 2006. The results and observations of the research made in this paper can be materialized through the necessity of improving the prevention measures and through the control of the acute coronary incident, in Arad. It is extremely important to inform and make the population aware of the cardiovascular risk factors which depend a lot on the population's addressability and accessibility, to the special medical services.

In developing countries, very few methods of medical disposal and treatments are used which lead to adverse impacts to public health. In healthcare facilities, the issue of infectious waste generated has become the big concern today for hospital authority. To ensure the proper disposal of the medical wastes has become the big challenge for the hospital waste management and they think that to outsource the waste disposal process is the best option. Hence, to ensure the proper hygiene environment and to minimize the cost of operations, the trends in outsourcing the waste disposal process is increasing. But, outsourcing process is not easy for the hospitals authorities as it is very difficult to select the best waste disposal firm, which takes care of all the government regulations and at the same time is cost effective. Since selection of healthcare waste disposal firms is based on the evaluation of various attributes of each alternative, therefore this problem is a multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) problem. Till now, so many methods like analytical hierarchy process (AHP); analytical network process (ANP); data envelopment analysis (DEA); fuzzy theory; mathematical programming, etc. have been used by various researchers to select the best alternate out of the available choices. The above-mentioned techniques either used the precise values of the attributes or in terms of membership functions. However, in case of uncertainty these techniques failed to implement. Hence, this paper reports the implementation of grey theory to choose the appropriate healthcare waste disposal firm with uncertain information. This paper proposed a MADM model based on grey theory to select the optimal waste disposal firm and finally, the proposed model has been applied to select the best healthcare waste disposal firm.

Knowledge and competence cultivation of the nation is based on the cultivation of knowledge and competences of University teachers. From this point of view, the paper deals with the key competences of University teachers, trying to identify competences in general, identify their importance in a case of teachers/scholars and suggest suitable methods for development of teachers’ crucial competences: teaching, professional and communication competence. Methodological part consists of presenting main results of our questionnaire survey realized at the Universities in Slovak Republic and Poland. Survey results point out relatively high level of teachers’motivation to quality education and objective assessment of students but a slightly lower motivation to increase the level of teacher's own knowledge. Application part of the paper contains the suggested methods and techniques for developing teaching competence (e.g. coaching, mentoring, consulting and shadowing experienced educational authorities), professional competence (e.g. participation in the foreign academic and other internships and scholarships), and communication competence (e.g. keeping the so-called communication journal, removing communication imperfections and replacing them by more appropriate elements, training the communication skills, etc.). In conclusion, a neuro linguistic programming is also suggested as a suitable method of developing (especially young) teachers’ potential and competences.

This paper shares the experience of an ongoing research on stakeholder-based planning and development in Solo City. The goal of the research is to find the connectivity among actors and the aspect that makes collaboration in Solo City happened. What makes the collaboration happened is hypothetically a growing trust and a good leadership with sense of entrepreneurship. The objective of the paper is to externalize and share the documentation of collaborative practices in city planning and development process, as lessons learned for other Indonesian cities. The observation indicates that trust from the community to the city hall is acquired as the city hall is consistent to the collaboration process in carrying the plan into implementation. The willingness of local community to participate and to deliver innovation in the process indicates a supportive foundation for the growing collaboration.

The paper focuses on ethical culture as one of the components of culture in an institution, an organization, a business or a company. We look into those characteristics of culture in which the ethical dimension may become dominant, or significant. The main problems of an institution, an organization, a business or a company include above all excessive self-centeredness, focus on short-term goals only, moral problems, the lack of cohesiveness between individual components of the organizational structure, strong sub-cultures, and individual barriers to positive development of culture. These problems often result in a number of ethical risks which can only be identified through ethical auditing. Ethical auditing is defined as a tool for development of favorable ethical climate. The paper presents three basic forms of ethical auditing: integrity auditing, ethics quick test, and moral values and weaknesses assessment. The aim of the audit should not be just to check something as an audit proves meaningful only after activities of the management, ordinary personnel, and the whole organization have improved. In the final part of the article we present partial results of empiric research based on a pilot ethical test completed by 77 part-time students of Travel & Tourism Management who commented on the situation in their workplace and at their faculty. The respondents consider the situation at the faculty as more favorable.

Sustainability has been becoming an imperative research agenda among the researchers/practitioners to achieve ecological, societal as well as financial benefits. As the moment, Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) practices are at very initial phase in developing countries like India due to existence of many hurdles. In present research, an effort has been made to identify and evaluate hurdles in implementing SSCM in Indian automobile sector. Literature review approach and experts’ inputs have been used to identify hurdles in implementing SSCM. Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) methodology has been utilized to understand the contextual relationships among these identified hurdles, their interdependence and hierarchy levels to implement SSCM practices in Indian automobile sector. MICMAC analysis has also been used to categorize identified hurdles according to their importance. ‘Political Instability’ has been reported as most driver hurdle in implementing SSCM. ‘Unawareness among society about social practices’ has been found as most dependent hurdle of the present study. We believe that, this paper will surely help business practitioners/researchers/scholars in broadening research in this emerging area and developing new theories/proposition. This paper may provide important future research directions towards increasing effectiveness of sustainability in the supply chains.

Technology and globalization have brought fundamental changes in the information media. Femina is the first women's magazine in Indonesia that launched the digital magazine. The objective of the paper is to describe some aspects that influence urban women in Jakarta to change the habit of reading from print to digital magazine. The paper will also discuss the impact of digital media to the women's lifestyle in Jakarta. The study is undertaken by analyzing data from the survey by Femina and interviewing readers of digital Femina. The digital magazine Femina has introduced modern lifestyle to the women and influenced the pattern of women's behavior in Jakarta, in particular, women working in modern offices.

The paper A systemic-interactionist model to design a competency-based curriculum presents a theoretical model for the competence development in school. Various definitions of concepts have been suggested: competence, curriculum design, cognitive content, actional content and attitudinal content. Regarding the term of competence, although it is increasingly vehiculated today in specialty literature, but also in educational practice, there is no widely accepted definition of it, considered to be a reference in education. Therefore, there is a great variety of perspectives to define competence which may lead to the risk of confusion among experts, responsible for the design of educational programs based on training and competence development, but also among practitioners, those who implement competency-based training programs. The paper represent a plea for designing a competency-based curriculum and for a new and challenging approach, which highlights the need of a deep reconsideration of the curriculum, in order to adapt it to the actual paradigms of educational sciences and of the new educational realities.

The paper discusses recent changes occurring in the sphere of research worldwide. A special accent is made on the difficulties that face Russian scholars within adaptation to Bologna Agreements, European Framework for Research Careers and the necessity to integrate into the world research market characterized by transparency, international cooperation, active mobility and worldwide scientific interdependence. The paper provides theoretical analysis of the mentioned changes, highlights the most significant barriers and constraints to becoming an internationally recognized researcher as pointed by the Russian scholars within the case-study of Southern Federal University in Russia. Eventually the author's conclusions and offers are made concerning the tactics for overcoming these constraining factors when planning contemporary researcher‘s lifelong transition trajectory at the international level.

The European labor market requires qualified young graduates in information and communication technologies (ICT). One of the subdomains of ICT is microprocessor technologies, which are necessary in the field of the “internet of things, smart cities, sensor networks,” etc. The teaching of this field cannot be properly done without practical seminars and workshops, where students can try elementary and advanced programming techniques on-site with actual hardware. This paper provides detailed information about implementing the actual student development board known as AVS Kit into the Czech Technical University syllabus, mainly in the master's subject of Embedded System Applications. The authors discuss different issues in the teaching of scientific subjects. Recommendations as to how to interconnect theoretical study with practical skills are provided in the conclusion of this paper.

Participation rate to education for Romanian population between 15 and 24 years old is situating Romania on the last places compared to the other European countries. The paper aim is to establish the main influence factors over the measures charactering the high education system evolution in Romania during the world economic crisis. There are differences concerning the participation rate to education by gender, the feminine population having a bigger rate, and there are also differences between the urban and the rural areas. The main methods used in the paper are discussion the correlation and multiple regression models between the scholar population, education human resources, number of graduates of high education, the rate of participation to high education and the share of GDP allocated. Analysis and modeling (correlation analysis, multiple regression models, associations analysis) are realized using E-views and Excel programs. The increasing tendency of the participation rate to education can be explained mainly by the increase of the participation rate to high education. If Romania is still behind other European countries in spied of the increasing tendency of the cost per student and of connected to the high education graduates.

The central idea of the paper refers to the need to create and implement a new model of professionalization for pre-school and primary school teachers who will be proficient in English language skills, ensuring the quality of teaching early English language and therefore determining its status in kindergarten and primary school as compulsory subject. From this perspective, the investigative approach of this study is on teaching English to young learner (TEYL) new policy and practice at the European level, the Romanian context and how the process of teaching-learning is perceived by the trainee teachers preparing for Preschool and Primary education at our University. The paper will also serve to shape the new identity of this kind of teacher proficient in English, as representing a fundamental criterion in designing new educational curriculum for linguistic educators in Romanian education.

This paper is about the relationship of music and art which are components of the basic design applications over arts. For architectural education, to deal with art as a tool and the experience of benefiting from this tool in the design phase is considered as important. Therefore, the situations of music being used as a tool in solving design problems are exemplified in this study. Pallasma said “In the silence of a Gothic cathedral, we remember the last sound of a Gregorian melody”. He emphasized how close the relationship between the sound theme of music and architecture is. Its relationship with sound and architecture in the upper scale and its relationship with music and architecture in the lower scale, similarities, common or differing sides have been emerged as two areas which have been questioned all throughout the history. These similarities, common or differing sides host up almost infinite number of concepts and features in themselves such as rhythm, repetition, body, composer, designer… In this paper, the relationship of music and architecture are discussed in terms of the said similarities, common features and differences. Sample area of this discussion is the basic design course in Karadeniz Technical University Department of Architecture, Trabzon, Turkey.

The term of “innovation” has become increasingly frequent as people begin to recognize both the need for fundamental change in human beings’ relationships with each other and their environment. This paper wants to bring up also the complexity theory matter in order for us to be able to build a connection between innovation and complex adaptive social systems. The critical que stion is whether and how social networks can help facilitate innovations to bridge the seemingly insurmountable chasms that separate local solutions from broad system transformation; that is, how they help innovations to “cross scales”. Using a complexity lens to understand the meta challenges confronting the world, and applying a social innovation framework to illuminate how local novelty spreads so as to have broad system impacts, this paper proposes that institutional entrepreneurship enhances the understanding of agency that is active within networks. The Public sector adopts strategies for dealing with c omplexity, therefore, focuses on outcomes (rather than inputs and outputs) that are demonstrable and measurable (even if only qualitatively), collaboration and co-ordination (across sectors, fields, organizational boundaries etc.), decentralization and selforganization (by increasing decision making powers of local communities), building adaptive capacity (in order to support d ecentralization and self-organization and build resilience). © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.

The investigation proposes a number of approaches to assessment of the factors of historical heritage in terms of their impact on quality of living and socio-economic development of a multicultural region. The monitoring variant and the complex of methods were substantiated to give predictive assessment of the prospects of socio-economic development of a region in the analysis of historical retrospective of its development. They are based on the analysis of the category of quality of life and represent the combination of logical modeling methods (including the construction of forecast scenarios), mathematical-statistical and expert judgments.In particular, the authors propose a modified index statistical method of monitoring and forecasting of the dynamics of the quality of life of a region, taking into account a social differentiation of its territory. The authors have elaborated the quality of life (dynamics) change indicators, considering a historical retrospective. These indicators form the basis for the identification and analysis of regional development scenario variants. The paper also presents an adaptable method of expert judgments based on a questionnaire for social and economic forecasting.The Republic of Tatarstan, being one of the most dynamic multicultural regions of Russia with rich historical and cultural heritage was selected as a base region. The paper presents a number of forecast scenarios of development of the region, based on the differentiation of the quality of life of regional community, and takes into account local areas of compact settlement of various ethnic groups.The comparative evaluation of these scenarios is provided.