Special Libraries, December 1946

Volume 37, Issue 10https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1946/1009/thumbnail.jp

“One Country, Two Systems,” Three Law Families, and Four Legal Regions: The Emerging Inter-Regional Conflicts of Law in China

With accumulation of sovereign debt in many large OECD countries it seems that attention is heightened on how to manage public resources more effectively. High levels of sovereign debt are partly related to the aftermath of the latest financial crisis, where resolution for many big economies was to intervene and use public resources to put an end to the expansion of the crisis. Public real estate is one of those resources, which’s efficient management has high importance on general public sector efficacy. It seems that governments around the world have a way to go toward efficiency in public real estate management. There seem to be rather wide differences in management practices and quality. This thesis is an attempt to quantify some choices Estonian government could take in terms of its public real estate management. Four different scenarios are compared and Monte Carlo Simulation tool is used for that purpose. Two of the scenarios are related to private sector involvement and two are not. Privatization of public assets does not only mean cashing out for the government. It has wider consequences by introducing market forces where they weren’t before. One of the most important points of interest in this thesis is what effect can market forces and change in incentives have on public real estate management. There can be both, positive and negative effects, but which ones would prevail? The model built during the process of the thesis tries to measure those effects with aggregate net present value and its volatility by looking at 30 years ahead. Simulation analyses is used to vary input variables in the range that seems to be supported by the observations made in the literature and in some cases, where data is not available, also according to more subjective view that of the author’s. As input and their characteristics are different for scenarios, it is of interest to document how do the main outputs, mean NPV and its volatility, vary along with inputs

Special Libraries, December 1946

Volume 37, Issue 10https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1946/1009/thumbnail.jp

A Phone Learning Model for Enhancing Productivity of Visually Impaired Civil Servants

Phone-based learning in civil service is the use of voice technologies to deliver learning and capacity building training services to government employees. The Internet revolution and advancement in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have given rise to online and remote staff training for the purpose of enhancing workers productivity. The need for civil servants in Nigeria to develop capacity that will enhance knowledge is a key requirement to having competitive advantage in the work place. Existing online learning platforms (such as web-based learning, mobile learning, etc) did not consider the plight of the visually impaired. These platforms provide graphical interfaces that require sight to access. The visually impaired civil servants require auditory access to functionalities that exist in learning management system on the Internet. Thus a gap exist between the able-bodied and visually impaired civil servants on accessibility to e-learning platform. The objective of this paper is to provide a personalized telephone learning model and a prototype application that will enhance the productivity of the visually impaired workers in Government establishments in Nigeria. The model was designed using Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagram. The prototype application was implemented and evaluated. With the proposed model and application, the visually and mobility impaired worker are able to participate in routine staff training and consequently enhances their productivity just like their able-bodied counterparts. The prototype application also serves as an alternative training platform for the able-bodied workers. Future research direction for this study will include biometric authentication of learners accessing the applicatio