Knowledge management system for efficient use of modern rural energy services (MRES) in Thailand

In Thailand, the purpose of the Modern Rural Energy Service (MRES) projects is to improve the quality of life and elevation of economic advantages in rural areas (Ketjoy et al, 2004 and CASE, 2001). However, there exist many practical problems that hinder the success of the projects. Examples of the reasons are - high turnover of experts and specialists; lack of in depth knowledge on the system among the local users; high cost of the system, tools and equipment; and limited budget for planning, research and development. In order to overcome the above issues, Knowledge Management System (KMS) has been identified as a viable solution. Regarding the advance development on information and communication technology (ICT), the integration of knowledge management and Web technologies has been established as an invaluable tool. The combination has the potential to assist the promotion of knowledge management and related activities thereby enabling the acquisition of diverse types of information and data (Tiwana & Ramesh, 2001). The proposed research is to develop a KM platform based on Web technologies that will be a channel used by the stakeholders for the gathering, sharing, extraction and dissemination of knowledge about the MRES. Examples of the system functions will be - checking the type of renewable energy resources around local area; teaching of MRES development and maintenance processes; comparison for suitable MRES according to the users’ location; forums, and FAQ’s; sharing of best practices and discussion with experts…etc. The expected users and contributors to this system are the relevant government departments including the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), Solar Energy Research and Training Centre (SERT) and local administrators. This paper will present the overview of proposed research, important features, the prototype, functionalities and significant contributions. A case study based on this prototype will be implemented and studied at SERT at the later part of the study

Rockefeller Foundation 2010 Annual Report

Contains president's letter; 2010 program highlights, including support for Africa's green revolution, sustainable and equitable transportation policy, and healthy communities; grants list; financial report; and lists of trustees and staff

Intellectual Property and Opportunities for Food Security in the Philippines

By 2050, the Philippine population is projected to increase by as much as 41 percent, from 99.9 million to nearly 153 million people. Producing enough food for such an expanding population and achieving food security remain a challenge for the Philippine government. This paper argued that intellectual property rights (IPR) can play a key role in achieving the nation’s current goal to be food-secure and provided examples to illustrate that the presence of sound intellectual property (IP) helps foster research, development, and deployment of agricultural innovations. This paper also offered key recommendations about how the IP system can be further leveraged to enable access, creation, and commercialization of new and innovative agricultural practices and technologies to enhance the nation’s agricultural productivity, meet rice self-sufficiency, and sustain food security

Research on agricultural supply chain finance supporting sustainable poverty reduction under the background of digital technology

From the perspective of financial services, management services and coordination services, this paper analyzes the internal mechanism of agricultural supply chain finance (ASCF) to help sustainable poverty reduction (SPR). The internal and external driving forces of ASCF for SPR are also explored. Among them, the internal driving forces include industrial upgrading and financial transformation; External driving forces include technological change, policy guidance and market drive. Based on the background of digital technology, the green agricultural supply chain finance (GASCF) model has been innovatively proposed. We mainly analyze the core elements and platform structure of GASCF, and focus on the process design and key points of the three modules of the GASCF platform: risk control port, credit port and capital port. Finally, we analyze the practical difficulties of green agricultural supply chain finance in helping sustainable poverty reduction, such as the lack of comprehensive management ability of the organization, the insufficient application of digital technology, the imperfect institutional environment and the lack of compound talents. And we put forward accordingly a four in one path of GASCF helping SPR, which is Government standardizing and leading, assistance from financial institutions, driven by industry subjects and Co governance of Social Service

Web Based Telecenter Training Management System at Yevern Region in Libya (WBTTMS)

In telecenters, the process of managing the training programs is still done manually therefore this study comes up with new website for ITU-UUM telecenter which help the telecenter management to manage the telecenter training programs easily where this study reduce the effort and time of managing the telecenter programs for the people. To develop such system, the general methodology has been used to develop the system, on the other hand. The entire study is hereby divided into to four main stages (1) requirement gathering, (2) prototype development, (3) prototype implementation and (4) usability testing. Questionnaire has been used as a usability technique for purpose of evaluating the system in terms of usefulness and easiness. The evaluation reveals that 72.6% of the participants indicated that the prototype usefulness which is high and agreed altitude

Smart vest for respiratory rate monitoring of COPD patients based on non-contact capacitive sensing

In this paper, a first approach to the design of a portable device for non-contact monitoring of respiratory rate by capacitive sensing is presented. The sensing system is integrated into a smart vest for an untethered, low-cost and comfortable breathing monitoring of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients during the rest period between respiratory rehabilitation exercises at home. To provide an extensible solution to the remote monitoring using this sensor and other devices, the design and preliminary development of an e-Health platform based on the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) paradigm is also presented. In order to validate the proposed solution, two quasi-experimental studies have been developed, comparing the estimations with respect to the golden standard. In a first study with healthy subjects, the mean value of the respiratory rate error, the standard deviation of the error and the correlation coefficient were 0.01 breaths per minute (bpm), 0.97 bpm and 0.995 (p < 0.00001), respectively. In a second study with COPD patients, the values were -0.14 bpm, 0.28 bpm and 0.9988 (p < 0.0000001), respectively. The results for the rest period show the technical and functional feasibility of the prototype and serve as a preliminary validation of the device for respiratory rate monitoring of patients with COPD.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PI15/00306Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación DTS15/00195Junta de Andalucía PI-0010-2013Junta de Andalucía PI-0041-2014Junta de Andalucía PIN-0394-201

An aesthetic for sustainable interactions in product-service systems?

Copyright @ 2012 Greenleaf PublishingEco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the application of this concept is still very limited because its implementation and diffusion is hindered by several barriers (cultural, corporate and regulative ones). The paper investigates the barriers that affect the attractiveness and acceptation of eco-efficient PSS alternatives, and opens the debate on the aesthetic of eco-efficient PSS, and the way in which aesthetic could enhance some specific inner qualities of this kinds of innovations. Integrating insights from semiotics, the paper outlines some first research hypothesis on how the aesthetic elements of an eco-efficient PSS could facilitate user attraction, acceptation and satisfaction

Policies for capacity development

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