Scientific digital poster assignments: strengthen concepts, train creativity, and communication skills

Student-centered learning promotes the development of students’ knowledge and skills with poster assignments used to ensure their active participation in academics. Therefore, this research aims to explore student competencies in concept strengthening, creativity, and communication skills from working on digital poster project assignments. Research using observation method with a quantitative approach. Data were collected from 86 participants learning plant systematics in their first semester based on the criteria for strengthening the concept, creativity, communication, and student responses. The instruments used for data collection were a poster scoring rubric and a closed questionnaire. Data were analyzed descriptively with simple statistics in the form of average, standard deviation, and percentage. The hypothesis about the correlation of concept strengthening, creativity, and communication was tested with Spearman’s coefficient. The result showed that students made 29 posters with concept strengthening, creativity and communication skills in the very good (3.42±0.49), very good (3.57±0.26), and very good (3.41±0.25) categories, respectively. Student competency shows a positive correlation between communication skills and concept reinforcement and between communication skills and creativity. Students give a positive response to the application of posters in learning in terms of learning experiences, concept strengthening, creativity and communication. Hence, using posters as project assignments in learning helps develop students’ knowledge and skills by acquiring varied experiences

Proceeding Of Mechanical Engineering Research Day 2016 (MERD’16)

This Open Access e-Proceeding contains a compilation of 105 selected papers from the Mechanical Engineering Research Day 2016 (MERD’16) event, which is held in Kampus Teknologi, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) - Melaka, Malaysia, on 31 March 2016. The theme chosen for this event is ‘IDEA. INSPIRE. INNOVATE’. It was gratifying to all of us when the response for MERD’16 is overwhelming as the technical committees received more than 200 submissions from various areas of mechanical engineering. After a peer-review process, the editors have accepted 105 papers for the e-proceeding that cover 7 main themes. This open access e-Proceeding can be viewed or downloaded at www3.utem.edu.my/care/proceedings. We hope that these proceeding will serve as a valuable reference for researchers. With the large number of submissions from the researchers in other faculties, the event has achieved its main objective which is to bring together educators, researchers and practitioners to share their findings and perhaps sustaining the research culture in the university. The topics of MERD’16 are based on a combination of fundamental researches, advanced research methodologies and application technologies. As the editor-in-chief, we would like to express our gratitude to the editorial board and fellow review members for their tireless effort in compiling and reviewing the selected papers for this proceeding. We would also like to extend our great appreciation to the members of the Publication Committee and Secretariat for their excellent cooperation in preparing the proceeding of MERD’16

Sustainable Textile Marketing

We know that sustainability has become an important topic in every aspect of life. The textile, fashion, and material industries must also be sustainable, which could be imparted in their development, production, or even marketing. The textile industry has a huge market, as clothing is arguably the most important human need after food. Recently, this industry has been labeled as a polluting industry, a label that could be overcome by the proper development of textile goods and careful marketing strategies. There are specific roles that government, entrepreneurs, and even universities can play in properly educating people to make the textile industry cleaner and greener. Several journals focus only on one of the aspects of this key problem, i.e., the production of sustainable materials, textile education, or textile marketing. However, herein, we strive to bring different areas together on one platform to cover different aspects, i.e., production, policy, education, and marketing related to textile fashion and textile materials

The Role of Self-Brand Overlap in Consumer Evaluations of Brand Portfolio Management Decisions

Branding research has begun to explore how loved brands are included in consumers’ self-concepts. Such self-brand overlap can enable consumers to react to brand-relevant situations as though they were self-relevant. Synthesizing theories of self-other overlap and perspective taking, self-enhancement and self-protection, as well as brand portfolios, I articulate how self-serving biased cognitions can influence consumer attitudes and behaviours toward entire brand portfolios via the consumer’s self-brand overlap with a single portfolio member. Study 1 was designed to investigate how self-serving biases can positively affect consumer evaluations of multi-brand portfolios of which the consumer’s focal brand is a member. Potential reasons for the resulting inconclusive findings are discussed and prospects for future research are suggested. Study 2 was designed to investigate consumer interpretations of brand portfolio restructuring. Results indicate that consumers who have a high degree of self-brand overlap can interpret such brand portfolio management decisions as a personal rejection of themselves when the brand is eliminated, and personal acceptance or validation when their brand is retained after an elimination threat. Study 3 was designed to investigate the behavioural aftermath of such inferences. Partial results and prospects for future research are offered. Potential implications for brand managers and marketing theory are discussed

Sustainable Integrated Clean Environment for Human & Nature

In this book, the articles published in the special issue of the journal Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050), entitled “Sustainable Integrated Clean Environment for Human & Nature” are re-printed. The objective of this book is to answer the following questions regarding technical, economic, and social approaches:1. What is the current state of the environment? Is it clean?2. How can we make our environment clean and suitable for humans as well as nature?3. How can we keep our environment clean through sustainable practices? The re-printed research articles and review papers aim to cover the subjects mentioned below: 1. COVID-19 and the sustainability of a clean environment for humans and nature: visions, challenges, and solutions2. Clean technologies and nature-based approaches, including environmental remediation and resource circulation3. Global sanitation, hygiene, and public health issues4. Economic approaches, including the development of economic models, life cycle assessment, and the circular economy5. Social awareness and effective education on human rights for procuring clean air and water Through including the latest studies in the above-mentioned fields, this book addresses the technicians, economists, social activists, and decision-makers who are concerned about clean environment concepts for sustainable development of the current and next-generation through respectful interactions between humans and nature

Sinophone Southeast Asia

This volume explores the diverse linguistic landscape of Southeast Asia’s Chinese communities. Based on archival research and previously unpublished linguistic fieldwork, it unearths a wide variety of language histories, linguistic practices, and trajectories of words. The localized and often marginalized voices we bring to the spotlight are quickly disappearing in the wake of standardization and homogenization, yet they tell a story that is uniquely Southeast Asian in its rich hybridity. Our comparative scope and focus on language, analysed in tandem with history and culture, adds a refreshing dimension to the broader field of Sino-Southeast Asian Studies. . Readership: Students, scholars, (academic) libraries, community organizations, heritage organizations; linguistics, Southeast Asia Studies, East Asia Studies, Overseas Chines

Nuaulu Settlement and Ecology

This book is about the pattern of settlement and ecology of the Nuaulu, a group of sedentary swidden cultivators and hunters of southcentral Seram (Eastern Indonesia). It has three inter-related aims: to describe and account for nuaulu settlement; to outline and exemplify a suitable method of assessing the fine inter-action of cultural and ecological variables in small scale communities; and to explore the usefulness of a generative form of analysis in this respect

A geo-information theoretical approach to inductive erosion modelling based on terrain mapping units

Three main aspects of the research, namely the concept of object orientation, the development of an Inductive Erosion Model (IEM) and the development of a framework for handling uncertainty in the data or information resulting from a GIS are interwoven in this thesis. The first and the second aspect of the thesis discuss simultaneously the application of a terrain mapping unit (TA" in hierarhical observational procedures and an IEM in a GIS environment. These aspects were aimed at providing an alternative solution to the traditional approach to data acquisition, data capture and producing aggregated information for a GIS.The third aspect discusses the application of standard deviation, probability of misclassification, membership degree and plausibility reasoning for handling error and uncertainty associated with data inputs and information outputs handled by a GIS in general and into and from the Indonesian Field Engineering Design Plan (FEDP) in particular. It is aimed mainly at establishing a framework for representing uncertainty in geographical data manipulation. GIS logical models, the characteristics of logical GIS models, types of uncertainty including error due to variability, imprecision, ambiguity and a proposed conceptual framework based on the concept of certainty factors are discussed.The research involved the establishment of stable basic mapping units that allow the definition of repeatable and hierarchical observational procedures. This solution was addressed especially to the situation when sophisticated software and good quality data are not available. In this research, TMUs are defined as areas with a particular combination of geology, geomorphology, morphometry and soil characteristics, usually obtained by interpretation of aerial photo or SPOT images. Terrain areas having similar relief characteristics are identified, delineated and verified in the field. The delineated TMUs represent natural divisions of the terrain often with distinct boundaries.Attributes associated with the established TMUs were selected and used to clasify TMUs. A classification hierarchy of TMU was established in the fight of object oriented modelling including abstraction, inheritance, aggregation and association of terrain objects. The hierarchy has three levels, namely level +1 (superclass level refered to as TMU), level 0 (class level refered to as sub TMU) and level -1 (elementary object refered to as subsub TMU). A lower level in the classification hierarchy represents more refined or specialised information.The well known deductive erosion model, the Universal Sod Loss Equation (USLE) is incomplete in predicting spatial erosion processes. More sophisticated models (i.e. CREAMS, ANSWERS, EPIC, WEPP, GAMES) have failed to account for the complexity of erosion processes and there are no means for validation of model predictions. An alternative to the problem is suggested through an inductive (bottom-up) approach. This approach involves an Inductive Erosion Model (IEM), which was built on observations including dynamic (resilience) and static (inertia) site specific erosion influencing factors in one or more sample areas, made on site at the farmer's field level which is the best functional unit to describe erosion class at local level. An IEM model therefore is region specific. Once an IEM is built and tested for each type of TMU then it can be incorporated within the GIS environment as an acceptable means to predict safely the severity of sod erosion for the entire study area. Erosion severity classes predicted by an IEM are considered as active or dynamic attributes of the established TMUs. By definition TMU provides inherently erosion influencing factors, so called terrain characteristics including morphometry, geology, soil and ground cover. An IEM is intended to predict homogeneous erosion severity classes, related to TMUs at different aggregation or hierarchical levels. The aggregation levels are related to point observations, farmers field level (FFL) and larger parts of the terrain. The discussion of this aspect is focused on the role of the TMU in the observational procedure providing input for an IEM.The established hierarchical mapping units served as a basis for inductive erosion modelling, incorporating expert knowledge-based inference rules. The inductive erosion modelling followed a multi-scale approach and was implemented in a GIS environment. Application of the concepts of regionalization, observed pattern, and decision rules in predicting and modelling purposes are discussed. At regional level patterns associated with the main erosive processes such as sheet, rill, gully and ravine features are generally still identifiable on the aerial photos at scale 1 : 50 000. However, more detailed information on these types of active process at local level can be obtained only by more detailed study, i.e., erosion study at the FFL. In this regard, the FFL is considered as a suitable basic functional unit to describe erosion at local level.Instead of using probability reasoning, which must follow statistical constraints, production rules allow the introduction of a Certainty Factor (CF) for handling both uncertainty in data, models and the resulting information. The C17 can be obtained as a subjective judgment made by experts and comes naturally to experts either in inferring underlying processes or estimating quality of data and models being used. With special reference to the situation when all procedures and techniques for determining probability and obtaining quantitative information particularly in data poor environment are unlikely to be performed, this study demonstrated sufficiently the application of the concept of CF.In the fight of evidence theory, an IEM for predicting erosion severity at a specific TMU was built as a function of various certainty factors of spatial erosion influencing factors. The certainty factor has a value between -1 and +1 and its value indicates the estimated change in belief of allocation of a TMU to a particular erosion class as evidence (from maps, air photos, field observations etc.) is gathered, for each contributing factor. The erosion severity class to which a TMU is finally allocated is the one with overall certainty factor closest to +1. It is proposed as a method of handling uncertain information caused by incompleteness such as inferences established and derived by experts from a set of observations including the effect of causal relationships among various uncertain evidences