Participation in adult education: attitude and barriers.

In this paper, we control the intention theory of Fishbein and Ajzen (1980) for the participation in an adult education course. Based on the Flemish Eurostat Adult Education Survey, we reveal that participants in adult education have a more positive attitude towards learning and that within the group of non-participants, those who formulate an intention to participate score higher on attitude scales than non-participants without intention. The main reasons for non-participation are related to time squeeze and although the model of Fishbein and Ajzen (1980) stresses the importance of attitude, barriers are more than the mask of a poor attitude. Education policy and practice should therefore help adults in overcoming these obstacles

Transmission losses cost allocation in restructed electricity market environment

During these recent decades, the restructuring system of electricity market has been taken places around the whole world. Due to the restructuring (deregulation), the electrical power system has been divided into three separates categories according to the function. First stage of power system is the generation companies (GENCOs), followed by transmission companies (TRANSCOs) and distribution companies (DISCOs). The competitive environment will be handling by a non-profit entity, independent system operator (ISO) that functioning as the system securities that have to make sure that the power system continues to operate in a stable and economical manner. However, restructuring system can give effect during the energy transmission. One of the transmission issues is regarding the power losses. To overcome the losses, generators must generate more power. The issue regarding the transmission losses in deregulated system is how to allocate it to the user and charge them in fair ways as in for instance the pool trading model, it is hard to trace the power contribution and losses of each user in transmission line. In addition, the users didn’t want to pay the losses, it means that the ISO have to responsible for the losses and it will be unfair to put the responsible to ISO alone. Therefore, in this project, the allocation of transmission losses and loss cost methods which are the pro-rata and proportional sharing method will be investigated. Comparison between those methods will be done in order to identify which types of method that reflect an efficient and fair way to distribute the cost of the transmission losses to the user. These chosen methods will be tested on IEEE bus system

Natural resources conservation management and strategies in agriculture

This paper suggests a holistic framework for assessment and improvement of management strategies for conservation of natural resources in agriculture. First, it incorporates an interdisciplinary approach (combining Economics, Organization, Law, Sociology, Ecology, Technology, Behavioral and Political Sciences) and presents a modern framework for assessing environmental management and strategies in agriculture including: specification of specific “managerial needs” and spectrum of feasible governance modes (institutional environment; private, collective, market, and public modes) of natural resources conservation at different level of decision-making (individual, farm, eco-system, local, regional, national, transnational, and global); specification of critical socio-economic, natural, technological, behavioral etc. factors of managerial choice, and feasible spectrum of (private, collective, public, international) managerial strategies; assessment of efficiency of diverse management strategies in terms of their potential to protect diverse eco-rights and investments, assure socially desirable level of environmental protection and improvement, minimize overall (implementing, third-party, transaction etc.) costs, coordinate and stimulate eco-activities, meet preferences and reconcile conflicts of individuals etc. Second, it presents evolution and assesses the efficiency of diverse management forms and strategies for conservation of natural resources in Bulgarian agriculture during post-communist transformation and EU integration (institutional, market, private, and public), and evaluates the impacts of EU CAP on environmental sustainability of farms of different juridical type, size, specialization and location. Finally, it suggests recommendations for improvement of public policies, strategies and modes of intervention, and private and collective strategies and actions for effective environmental protection

Work-related teaching and learning methods to foster generic skills in Higher Education. An Italian experience

open5siWithin the framework of modernisation of higher education systems in Europe, universities are invited to go beyond a knowledge-based perspective focused on disciplinary approaches and to be more concentrated on encouraging generic skills to deal with today’s complex and unpredictable career paths. The literature about Work-Related Learning and Work-Integrated Learning offers evidence to research regarding contributions of work-related experiences to the development of generic skills. The first part of the article presents a literature review carried out following the matching among three main keywords: work-related learning, generic skills, and higher education. Resources focused on the integration/teaching of generic skills in formal curriculum or in co-curriculum work-related activities and they were collected in order to explore the link between work-related learning in higher education and the development of generic skills. The focus is to identify valuable considerations to improve teaching strategies and methods. The second part presents an Italian work-related experience developed within the course of “Organizational Intervention Research Methods,” which involved 22 master’s degree students. The work-related assignment will be described in addition to the content analysis process of the 22 collected texts and the findings about the development of generic skills.openDaniela, Frison; Concetta, Tino; Jonathan, W., Tyner; Monica, FedeliFrison, Daniela; Tino, Concetta; Jonathan, W.; Tyner, ; Fedeli, Monic