Search results

This study examines the adoption drivers of scale-appropriate mechanization in Nepal's maize-based farming systems. The authors also assess the contribution of scale-appropriate mechanization to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of zero hunger (SDG2) and no poverty (SDG1).

Propensity score matching and doubly robust inverse probability-weighted regression adjusted methods were applied to estimate the effects of mini-tiller adoption. These methods control the biases that arise from observed heterogeneities between mini-tillers users and nonusers.

The study findings show that farm size, labor shortages, draft animal scarcity, market proximity, household assets and household heads' educational level influence the adoption of mechanization in Nepal. Mechanized farms exhibited enhanced maize productivity, profits and household food self-sufficiency. Reduced depth and severity of poverty were also observed. Nevertheless, these effects were not uniform; very small farms (≤0.41 ha) facing acute labor shortages benefited the most.

The study results suggest that policymakers in developing nations like Nepal may wish to expand their emphasis on scale-appropriate mechanization to improve farm productivity and household food security, reduce poverty and contribute to the SDGs.

This first-of-its-kind study establishes the causal effects between scale-appropriate farm mechanization and SDG1 (no poverty) and SDG2 (zero hunger) in a developing nation.

Gender equality plans (GEPs) are currently the preferred approach to initiate structural change towards gender equality in research organisations. In order to achieve structural change, GEPs have to be more than just a formally adopted institutional policy. Effective GEPs lead to a transformation of gendered practices and thus to structural change. This chapter presents the innovative approach developed for an H2020 structural change project and its theoretical background. We argue that due to the dual logic, which characterises academic organisations, the organisational logic and the academic logic, change is a complex endeavour. To deal with this complexity, one of the main functions of a GEP is to provide space and initiate reflexivity at an individual as well as at an institutional level. A theory of change approach supports reflexivity in all stages of a GEP as it ensures that basic assumptions of the institutional change process are questioned and reflected on by the different stakeholder groups involved in the implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine human resource management (HRM) innovation programs in the early stages of employment for workers with an intellectual disability (WWID).

The first case study was carried out at a large national courier company where a film innovation programme was used to enhance the socialisation process of WWID. The second case study was at a five-star hotel situated in a large city where a buddy system innovation programme was used in the induction and training process of WWID.

The overarching “life theme” created through these innovation programs was one of enhanced and creative opportunities for social inclusion. The participants displayed more confidence and independence in their ability and exhibited aspirations to advance and succeed in their roles.

The study argues that HR professionals need to be more proactive in finding innovative ways to engage WWID in the early stages of employment.

The qualitative study is underpinned by socialisation and career construction theory which provides the framework to discuss the ways in which socialisation and socially inclusive HRM practices enable participants and other WWID achieve success on their career paths. The key message of our research is that early vocational socialisation innovation programs can make a positive difference to the work experiences of WWID.

Concepts of health and wellbeing have long been conceived as relevant to leisure, recreation and rejuvenation. These are now conceived as being necessary and useful as potential measures of success in community development and in that subset of leisure and recreation pursuits that is designated as tourism at a destination. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A post-modern approach to development of community and markers of sustainable development more-or-less correspond to sustainable development goals (there are 17) that often overlay the concepts of good health and wellbeing that concern all stakeholders.

This paper encompasses best practice experiences from two case studies conducted in a tourism “hot spot” in the environs of the first National Park established in Derbyshire in the UK. There is some urgency about this topic as resources for community development are increasingly under pressure from local, central government and the expectation is now that local communities take full responsibility for that development. An inter-disciplinary approach using concepts of health and wellbeing is recommended.

Wellbeing may demand a greater allocation of scarce resources in an era of self-determination, bottom-up and locally sourced community aspiring to become, or remain, a destination of choice. Two case studies’ outcomes in this development are presented with a special focus on creation of a repository for the know-how and know what of the learning acquired.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and prioritize the positive and negative impacts of tourism on the process of tourism growth at a national scale in Iran, by taking into account the reviews of previous studies, views of experts and structural analysis.

In this investigation, structural analysis technique has been used to identify the correlation between variables by using mix method data analysis. By using cross-impact analysis (N × N integer matrix) in the form of the Micmac method, the economic, sociocultural and environmental factors have been evaluated.

The results of the distribution of factors in the coordinate axes and the graphs between them indicate their features, and for reaching a sustainable system of tourism development, at first, priority should be given to the negative influential factors, especially the environmental fields, and then the focus should be on the decrease of the dual and risk variables as they cannot be anticipated.

For the rapid growth of tourism in many countries, governments ensure that policies have been heeded in designing and preparing general plans of the country to understand how the development trend is moving on. In this respect, arisen impacts of tourism system are one of the important issues during the development path and in the field of tourism future. Because of the complexity and broadness of tourism activities, these impacts have also many interconnected dimensions that should also be considered while studying tourism impacts.

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point clouds have been widely used in deformation measurement for structures. However, reliability and accuracy of resulting deformation estimation strongly depends on quality of each step of a workflow, which are not fully addressed. This study aims to give insight error of these steps, and results of the study would be guidelines for a practical community to either develop a new workflow or refine an existing one of deformation estimation based on TLS point clouds. Thus, the main contributions of the paper are investigating point cloud registration error affecting resulting deformation estimation, identifying an appropriate segmentation method used to extract data points of a deformed surface, investigating a methodology to determine an un-deformed or a reference surface for estimating deformation, and proposing a methodology to minimize the impact of outlier, noisy data and/or mixed pixels on deformation estimation.

In practice, the quality of data point clouds and of surface extraction strongly impacts on resulting deformation estimation based on laser scanning point clouds, which can cause an incorrect decision on the state of the structure if uncertainty is available. In an effort to have more comprehensive insight into those impacts, this study addresses four issues: data errors due to data registration from multiple scanning stations (Issue 1), methods used to extract point clouds of structure surfaces (Issue 2), selection of the reference surface S_ref to measure deformation (Issue 3), and available outlier and/or mixed pixels (Issue 4). This investigation demonstrates through estimating deformation of the bridge abutment, building and an oil storage tank.

The study shows that both random sample consensus (RANSAC) and region growing–based methods [a cell-based/voxel-based region growing (CRG/VRG)] can be extracted data points of surfaces, but RANSAC is only applicable for a primary primitive surface (e.g. a plane in this study) subjected to a small deformation (case study 2 and 3) and cannot eliminate mixed pixels. On another hand, CRG and VRG impose a suitable method applied for deformed, free-form surfaces. In addition, in practice, a reference surface of a structure is mostly not available. The use of a fitting plane based on a point cloud of a current surface would cause unrealistic and inaccurate deformation because outlier data points and data points of damaged areas affect an accuracy of the fitting plane. This study would recommend the use of a reference surface determined based on a design concept/specification. A smoothing method with a spatial interval can be effectively minimize, negative impact of outlier, noisy data and/or mixed pixels on deformation estimation.

Due to difficulty in logistics, an independent measurement cannot be established to assess the deformation accuracy based on TLS data point cloud in the case studies of this research. However, common laser scanners using the time-of-flight or phase-shift principle provide point clouds with accuracy in the order of 1–6 mm, while the point clouds of triangulation scanners have sub-millimetre accuracy.

This study aims to give insight error of these steps, and the results of the study would be guidelines for a practical community to either develop a new workflow or refine an existing one of deformation estimation based on TLS point clouds.

The results of this study would provide guidelines for a practical community to either develop a new workflow or refine an existing one of deformation estimation based on TLS point clouds. A low-cost method can be applied for deformation analysis of the structure.

Although a large amount of the studies used laser scanning to measure structure deformation in the last two decades, the methods mainly applied were to measure change between two states (or epochs) of the structure surface and focused on quantifying deformation-based TLS point clouds. Those studies proved that a laser scanner could be an alternative unit to acquire spatial information for deformation monitoring. However, there are still challenges in establishing an appropriate procedure to collect a high quality of point clouds and develop methods to interpret the point clouds to obtain reliable and accurate deformation, when uncertainty, including data quality and reference information, is available. Therefore, this study demonstrates the impact of data quality in a term of point cloud registration error, selected methods for extracting point clouds of surfaces, identifying reference information, and available outlier, noisy data and/or mixed pixels on deformation estimation.