Search results

Impermeability tests had been carried out to compare the moisture resistance of two wood finish paints available on the Cameroonian market. Two types of paints had been used namely, an oil‐based paint and an emulsion paint, both manufactured in Cameroon by SMALTO Company. It appeared that the oil‐based paint gave better protection to wood in wet environments, areas with strong pluviometry (where the quantity of humidity in the air is very high). The emulsion paint was found to be suitable for use for interior decorative purpose. It was suggested that a glycerophthalic lacquer could be used for wood finishing in areas subjected to the emissions of water vapour or requiring frequent washing (bathroom, kitchen, WC, etc.). In addition, the number of coating layers should be increased to enhance the moisture resistance of such paint films.

The paper aims to explore whether topic analysis (identification of the core contents, trends and topic distribution in the target field) can be performed using a more low-cost and easily applicable method that relies on a small dataset, and how we can obtain this small dataset based on the features of the publications.

The paper proposes a topic analysis method based on prolific and authoritative researchers (PARs). First, the authors identify PARs in a specific discipline by considering the number of publications and citations of authors. Based on the research publications of PARs (small dataset), the authors then construct a keyword co-occurrence network and perform a topic analysis. Finally, the authors compare the method with the traditional method.

The authors found that using a small dataset (only 6.47% of the complete dataset in our experiment) for topic analysis yields relatively high-quality and reliable results. The comparison analysis reveals that the proposed method is quite similar to the results of traditional large dataset analysis in terms of publication time distribution, research areas, core keywords and keyword network density.

Expert opinions are needed in determining the parameters of PARs identification algorithm. The proposed method may neglect the publications of junior researchers and its biases should be discussed.

This paper gives a practical way on how to implement disciplinary analysis based on a small dataset, and how to identify this dataset by proposing a PARs-based topic analysis method. The proposed method presents a useful view of the data based on PARs that can produce results comparable to traditional method, and thus will improve the effectiveness and cost of interdisciplinary topic analysis.

This paper proposes a PARs-based topic analysis method and verifies that topic analysis can be performed using a small dataset.

Special education is the education segment that deals with the students facing hurdles in the traditional education system. Research data have evolved in the domain of special education due to scientific advances. The present study aims to employ text mining to extract the latent patterns from the scientific data.

This study examined the 12,781 Scopus-indexed titles, abstracts and keywords published from 1987 to 2021 through an integrated text-mining and topic modeling approach. It combines dynamic topic models with highly cited reviews of this domain. It facilitates the extraction of topic clusters and communities in the topic network.

This methodology discovered children’s communication and speech using gaming techniques, mental retardation, cost effect on infant birth, involvement of special education children and their families, assistive technology information for special education, syndrome epilepsy and the impact of group study on skill development peers or self as the hottest topic of research in this domain. In addition to finding research hotspots, it further explores annual topic proportion trends, topic correlations and intertopic research areas.

The results provide a comprehensive summary of the popularity of research topics in special education in the past 34 years, and the results can provide useful insights and implications, and it could be used as a guide for contributors in special education form a structured view of past research and plan future research directions.

This study aims to determine the effect of online social networks on university students’ environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). This research aimed to develop and test a behavioral model in the context of online social networks, where students’ attitudes, knowledge and behavior influence their ERB.

This study used a quasi-experiment with a pretest-posttest design and a random parallelization control group. The research used a questionnaire to assess ERB, environmental attitudes and environmental knowledge. The researcher randomly assigned 120 students to an experimental and a control group of equal size. Both groups initially completed a pretest. The experimental group was trained in environmental issues over four months (an academic semester) via an online social network.

The findings indicated that the social network had a significant effect on motivating ERB. Additionally, it improved environmental attitudes. According to the results, online social networks such as Facebook can significantly aid in teaching and learning environmental issues in formal academic settings.

Online social networks facilitated significant cognitive progress in environmental education. The primary objective is to educate students about ERB.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an affective computing-based method of identifying sleeping beauties and their princes in five educational technology journals.

This study develops an information technology-based methodology to analyze sleeping beauties in the field of educational technology. The authors seek to determine the characteristics of studies which trigger the awakening of sleeping beauties (called “princes”). The keywords and Hirsch index (H-index) are used as two essential analysis indicators.

Between 2000 and 2015, these five journals included 7,864 articles with a total of 77,700 citations and 24,312 keywords. This study identified articles as being in deep sleep (75.7 percent), less deep sleep (14.7 percent), and awakening (5.5 percent) states. According to the analytical results, 431 of 7,864 articles are qualified as “sleeping beauties.” Of the 431 sleeping beauties identified, 232 articles were awakened by trend princes, while 286 were awakened by H-index princes. A total of 128 sleeping beauties were awakened by both prince types. Besides, impact factors (IFs) of journals do not have a significant effect on the number of sleeping articles.

There are two main research limitations in this study. The first one is the amount of target journals. Only five well-known educational technology journals are analyzed in this research. There may be more valuable sleeping publications in other journals not been found. The second limitation is that the authors merely pick up the lead author of citing papers as the indicator to determine the H-index prince. The contributions of the rest of authors are not taken are not taken into consideration. These limitations should be further studied.

To the knowledge, this study is the first one reporting the identification of sleeping beauty and princes in educational technology field. Furthermore, the authors devise an informational method to determine sleeping publications, sleeping beauty, and princes. A systematic analysis of five well-known journals in the field of educational technology field confirms the existence of “sleeping beauties.” It is reported that improvements to a journal’s IF are positively correlated to increased numbers of sleeping beauties being awakened. To reduce the number of such articles, or to reduce the overall sleeping duration, journal editors should not only seek to raise the journal’s IF, but also strategically select keywords for maximum visibility, and promote articles to high H-index authors.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Knight's Industrial Law Reports goes into a new style and format as Managerial Law This issue of KILR is restyled Managerial Law and it now appears on a continuous updating basis rather than as a monthly routine affair.

A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.