Search results

This chapter provides a conceptual framework for inclusive education for learners with low-incidence disabilities grounded in the argument that increased access and participation in socially valued roles, activities, and settings are both the most fundamental goals of the inclusive education process and also the primary means in which these goals are achieved. By challenging traditional views of learning development as merely the acquisition of skills, the proposed framework largely considers the social contexts in which the development of new skills takes place. Through the presentation of three case illustrations, the authors describe ways in which the framework may be relevant to designing and evaluating programs of inclusive education that are responsive to the needs of diverse communities, including those in a variety of international contexts.

The purpose of this article is to develop a nonprofit integrated social accounting (NISA) model that takes into account the particular objectives of nonprofit organizations (achieving their mission and remaining viable as an organization), their specific characteristics (e.g., the engagement of volunteers), and their economic, social and environmental impacts. The conceptual framework includes defining social accounting, setting the boundaries of the reporting entity, identifying the objectives of nonprofit reporting, identifying the users of the accounts and their information needs, and considering the questions that have to be answered in order to know if the organization is achieving its goals. From the conceptual framework, the NISA model is developed, incorporating four elements: (1) economic and human resources; (2) economic, social and environmental value creation; (3) internal systems and processes; and (4) organizational learning, growth and innovation. Overall, the model provides a mechanism to address both functional and strategic accountability concerns of the organization, its effectiveness and efficiency, and to drive behavior through feedback and readjustment. In this way, accounting plays an important role in shaping the ‘reality’ of the organization.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the Fukushima nuclear disaster (FND) that occurred 11 March 2011 through the lens of the systemic and complexity theory. This analysis allows the proposition of some guidelines for the development of a more preventive and ethical approach in crisis management, including changes in human resource management and training.

Thanks to a layered analysis of the complex system that represents the FND and an actor/stake approach, this paper sheds light on the many failures that occurred on the personal, organizational, institutional, political and cultural level.

This analysis highlights that, beyond the apparent simplicity of the natural trigger events, a complex network of legal, cultural and technological paradigms, as well as the defense mechanisms of personal and organizational moral disengagement, have structured the context of this crisis, allowing for an event to turn into this disaster.

This study shows the limit of classical approach towards crisis management such as probabilistic risk assessment in terms of systemic and complexity: the assessment could be easily overcome if the mindset of the organization leaders is not already oriented towards preventive management.

The value of this study is participating to the effort of showing the need to develop more preventive mindsets and behaviours in the global economy, dealing with worldwide and complex issues.

This article describes the occupational culture of soldiers who live and work in Northern Ireland. The analysis proceeds from the recognition that work communities are not simply random aggregates of individual workers; the interpretation and meanings that individual soldiers give to their work are critically dependent upon the social and cultural context within which the work has developed.

Governing principles of the world countries' current foreign policies are based on nationalism and in the realization of this aspiration, human rights in other countries are less considered and demands of national interests on other issues are surpassed. Islam, in principle, is opposite to this approach. However, national interests are important in Islam, but Islam does not try to achieve this target by destruction of other countries and rights violations of their peoples. Interests of Islam's government are based on expediency of humankind as a whole and its foreign policy should be arranged in a way to fulfill this target. In this regard, the purpose of this paper is to introduce the basic principles of foreign policy in Islam based on the Sufi standpoint.

Islam aims to improve humanities based on moralities and spiritualities. Some principles for reaching this goal based on Islamic Sufism standpoints are provided.

In total, 32 principles are introduced.

Comparative researches in other religions' Gnosticism will be helpful.

These principles can be used for applied debates in the field and be ended to new international regulations.

Delicateness, truthfulness, and righteousness of Islamic Sufism, may turn the attentions of scholars and researchers to this viewpoint, and enable a new set of regulations to be codified.

Political scientists have not touched the topic from a Sufi point of view. This paper brings this approach to a new challenging arena.

Passage of the 1996 Farm Bill marked a dramatic departure in federal farm policy as the longstanding deficiency payment program was replaced with non‐risk responsive transition payments. In light of the departure, subsidized savings has been proposed as a mechanism to provide risk protection to agricultural producers. Using Canada’s National Income Stabilization Account (NISA) program as an example of a subsidized savings program, a stochastic programming model of income stabilization is developed. The model is then used to investigate the optimizing behavior of a typical Midwestern crop producer. The results suggest a fair amount of program design flexibility exists, and that the government can use this flexibility to stimulate initial and continual participation while minimizing capital outlays.

This study examined the factors affecting university students' financial decisions in Pakistan.

Structural equation models were used to analyze data from 300 university students using a questionnaire. Students' financial decisions were used as the dependent variable, while financial literacy, money ethics, money attitude, time preference, financial experience, and financial specialization agents were the independent variables.

Resultantly, power, personal financial literacy, achievement, financial behavior, avoidance, reward for efforts, financial experience, financial attitude, financial socialization agents, and time preference influence the students' financial decisions.

The findings are useful for financial and educational institutions and policymakers who design academic courses.

This study measured the effects of several critical contextual areas regarding financial literacy and students' decisions in Pakistani universities.

Malnutrition during childhood precedes growth failure and affects the child’s well-being later in life. This study aims to investigate the potency of iron-fortified klutuk banana (Musa balbisiana Colla) flour on growth parameters and fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) expression in malnourished rat model.

Rats were allocated into normal control (NC), untreated malnutrition (MC), malnutrition + iron-fortified klutuk banana flour (IBF) and malnutrition + Indonesian Government-issued biscuit (GB). Malnutrition was induced by an isoenergetic low-protein diet for five weeks. The IBF and GB groups were supplemented with IBF 1.2 g/200 gBW and GB 1.2 g/200 gBW, respectively, via gavage daily for three weeks. The body weight and length, the levels of plasma and liver FGF21 and red blood cell indices were analyzed.

After three weeks of supplementation, the IBF group showed higher body weight (245 ± 13.6 g vs 201.8 ± 16.3 g; p = 0.0004) and length (20.9 ± 0.5 cm vs 19.8 ± 0.5 cm; p = 0.021) compared with the untreated group. The plasma FGF21 level decreased in the IBF group (p = 0.034). The IBF group altered mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin, suggesting the IBF might attenuate malnutrition-induced anemia. Overall, the IBF prevented growth failure in malnourished condition. This might be mediated by the suppression of FGF21 expression, along with the prevention of malnutrition and anemia.

This study provides preliminary information about the potential use of rarely consumed banana, klutuk banana, as a supplement to treat malnutrition. This study might help the developing countries to eliminate the widespread malnutrition in economically challenged communities.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare procedures for determination of characteristics and parameters of DC cables on the basis of transient and steady thermal field distribution in their cross-sections.

Steady-state current rating was computed iteratively, with the use of steady thermal field distribution in the cable. The iterative process was regulated with respect to this field by changes of the mean surface temperature of the sheath of the cable. It was also controlled with respect to the unknown current rating by deviations of the temperature of the core from the maximum sustained temperature of the insulation (material zone) adjacent to the core. Heating curves were determined (in arbitrarily selected points of the cross-section of the cable) by a parallel algorithm described thoroughly in the first part of the paper. The algorithm was used for computing of transient thermal field distribution throughout the whole cross-section. Thermal time constant distributions were determined by the trapezium rule, where the upper integration limit of respective thermal field distributions was being changed.

Using the methods prepared the following characteristics/parameters of the cable were determined: steady-state current rating, spatial-time heating curves, mean thermal time constant distribution. The results were verified and turned to be in conformance with those of the IEC 287 Standard and a commercial software – Nisa v. 16. Speedup and efficiency of the parallel computations were calculated. It was concluded that the parallel computations took less time than the sequential ones.

The specialized algorithms and software are dedicated to cylindrical DC cables.

The knowledge of the determined characteristics and parameters contributes to optimal exploitation of a DC cable during its use.

The algorithms of determination of the steady-state current rating and thermal time constant are original. The software described in the appendix has also been made by the authors.