How Can Restorative Justice and the Unified Theory of Punishment Help Us Make Sense of Corporate Crime and Punishment?

The supposed deterrent and retribution ‘tough on corporate crime’ model may have been promising when corporate criminal liability was recognised over a century ago, but it is not working today. The response to ‘controlling corporate crime’ should not be a simple hefty fine, a simple apology, or a pinky promise. The starting point lies in gaining an understanding of the justifying aims of punishment before determining how punishment should be distributed. The thesis moves away from the ‘soft on crime’ vs. ‘tough on crime’ debate, towards a ‘smart on crime’ approach. It goes back to the foundations of corporate criminal law to assess its aim(s) and purpose(s): why should we punish corporations? Why do corporations violate the law? How should corporations be brought to justice when they violate the law? If corporations cannot be imprisoned, how should they be punished? The thesis explores existent theories of punishment and responses to crime (retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, restoration) to assess whether they are well-suited, or badly-suited, to dealing with corporate crime. It advances proposals and recommendations for improving corporate criminal liability standards, and how punishment of corporations might be reformed. The thesis brings new insights to corporate crime and punishment through the concept of ‘restorative justice.

Pinpointing What is Wrong With Cross-Agency Collaboration in Disaster Healthcare

A disaster is an event in which a hazard has a destructive environmental or ecological impact on such a scale that the effects cannot be managed within local community resources. In disaster healthcare, the main responders to provide emergency relief are usually emergency management and health personnel. Although these two sectors share the same vision of providing public health services to disaster victims, post-disaster analysis reflects poor communication between them leading to delayed, substandard and even unavailable healthcare. This paper investigates the barriers to smooth and effective communication between health and emergency management personnel in a disaster, with the aim of pinpointing possible points of improvement. The paper presents a comprehensive review of the available literature on the subject and suggests suitable interventions to enhance healthcare delivery through cross-agency collaboration and information exchange based on a projected telehealth system

Smart Visualization for Online Aids Image Retrieval

Visual aids can be considered as a motivational tool in enhancing students’ attention and create positive perceptions. The use of new technologies has opened new possibilities to integrate online visual aids in the teaching process, which produce positive learning effects. In this paper, a novel technique employed to retrieve specific images based on the kind of query classification. The semantic dictionary built based on the specific classification correlate with the query intention. Singular Value Decomposition SVD training technique have been used to select the effective key templates in order to link the query with the web annotation directly. The present method can be considered as a strategic tool in the E-learning technique, which can provide variety of clustered images to help the students in creative and critical thinking skills and prevent the indoctrination method in learning the students. The qualitative results achieved high True Positive (TP) retrieved images that respect to the effectiveness of the E-learning task. Also, it provides a good 92% of learning reaction and superior learning behavior level

The enabler : facilitating next-speaker selection in L2 group oral assessments

Ph. D. (Integrated)To support the academic and linguistic adjustment of international students using English as a second language (L2) in the UK, many universities provide access to pre-sessional English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses. Despite this widespread use of group oral assessments in presessional contexts in Europe and North America, much research on such assessments stems from Asian settings (e.g. Greer and Potter, 2008; Leyland et al., 2016). This study uses Conversation Analysis (CA) to examine the interactional unfolding of group oral assessments involving international students in a university-affiliated EAP institution in the UK. Data comprises of 19 video recorded group oral assessments, each lasting 3 to 4 minutes and involving 3 to 4 international students. To date, CA research on such assessments has identified various important interactional phenomena, such as the ways test-takers engage with peers’ ideas (Z. Gan, 2010), test-takers’ impression management (Luk, 2010) and language proficiency identities (Lazaraton and Davis, 2008). The current study builds on this work and focuses on the under-examined issue of nextspeaker selection; the ways test-takers manage the shift from one speaker to the next for extended turns. In particular, this study reveals the ways one test-taker adopts the role of ‘enabler’ by facilitating the shift from one speaker’s extended turn to another speaker’s extended turn. The enabler’s work is required (i) when one test-taker struggles to select another speaker, (ii) when a test-taker struggles to select him/herself, and (iii) to select a thus-far quiet student who does not display recipiency. As these enabling actions are achieved through the manipulation of a series of vocal and embodied actions, the current study draws upon recent thinking in multimodality in interaction (e.g. Streeck et al., 2011; Mondada, 2016). The findings of this study contribute to research on interaction in group oral assessments by revealing the ways test-takers work to enable the successful distribution of extended turns of talk across participants. This study also adds to an important bridge between research on L2 testing and multimodality, highlighting the ways participants rely upon gaze, gesture and talk to ensure the selection of the next-primary-speaker.Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal Universit

A Case study of mobile telephony in Sudan

Thesis(Master) --KDI School:Master of Business Administration,2012masterpublishedReem Mohamed Salah Eldin Abbas

Reliability of graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry as alternative method for trace analysis of arsenic in natural medicinal products

Purpose: To evaluate the comparative efficiency of graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry (GFAAS) and hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry (HGAAS) for trace analysis of arsenic (As) in natural herbal products (NHPs).Method: Arsenic analysis in natural herbal products and standard reference material was conducted using atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS), namely, hydride generation ASSAAS (HGAAS) and graphite furnace (GFAAS). The samples were digested with HNO3–H2O2 in a ratio of 4:1 using microwave-assisted acid digestion. The methods were validated with the aid of the standard reference material 1515 Apple Leaves (SRM) from NISTResults: Mean recovery of three different samples of NHPs, using HGAAS and GFAAS, ranged from 89.3 - 91.4 %, and 91.7 - 93.0 %, respectively. The difference between the two methods was insignificant. A (P= 0.5), B (P=0.4) and C (P=0.88) Relative standard deviation (RSD) RSD, i.e., precision was 2.5 - 6.5 % and 2.3 - 6.7 % using HGAAS and GFAAS techniques, respectively. Recovery of arsenic in SRM was 98 and 102 % by GFAAS and HGAAS, respectively.Conclusion: GFAAS demonstrates acceptable levels of precision and accuracy. Both techniques possess comparable accuracy and repeatability. Thus, the two methods are recommended as an alternative approach for trace analysis of arsenic in natural herbal products.Keywords: Arsenic, Graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometer (GFAAS), Hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometer (HGAAS), Natural herbal product

Design Studios: Understanding Relations Between Built Environment, Learning and Behaviours

The design studio is an important part of design and architectural education, because of the unique approach of pedagogy used (Dutton, 1987, Salama, 1995, 2012). This research uses this space to examine the physical characteristics and properties of the design studio as a space, considering the ways it influences the behaviours and emotions of its users towards learning and collaborating with one another. Starting from the Sheffield School of Architecture, where the focus towards engaged and reflective learning. Trying to answer the research question ‘How do the physical characteristics of the Design Studio influence certain behaviours of the studio user, relevant to collaborative learning?. Ultimately, attention is directed towards looking at their experience, which is created with the influence of the space, and the curriculum of architectural education, with both referred to as the ‘design studio’ (Crowther, 2013). This research has ‘empowered’ users of the design studio (Literat, 2013), notably ‘students’ of four different universities in the context of the United Kingdom, through creating a hybrid research methodology that revolves around capturing their experience in relation to the physical space of the design studio. Under the umbrella of case study, using ethnography and focus groups, which were consisting of ‘Student Designer Engagement Map’, a method created based on a service design tool (Stickdorn and Schneider, 2011) to capture the current and aspired experience. These have then been analysed and interpreted through different lenses, i.e. the interior designer, tutor and the researcher. The findings of the research were themed around spatial features in terms of social aspects, environmental control aspects and in terms of design organisation and furniture. The findings were related to the emotions experienced in the design studio through the project phases and stages. The hybrid methodology used and the methods have helped in creating a framework of propositional guidelines of design considerations, which may be beneficial for the stakeholders of the learning design studio and beyond

A PARAMETER IDENTIFICATION APPROACH OF A PEM FUEL CELL STACK USING PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZATION

ABSTRACT The fear of fossil fuels depletion as well as the constantly increasing pollution rates motivated most of today's engineers and researchers towards focusing on renewable energies and their applications. Fuel Cells are one of the green technologies that are being explored extensively around the world. The work of this paper was done on the 3kW ElectraGen TM fuel cell system under study for domestic use in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Several experiments were conducted at different operating points and relatively high ambient temperatures. The experimental I/V characteristics of the system are matched by identifying 13 different modeling parameters using basic fitting. The obtained model is then further optimized using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The resulting model is validated experimentally and was found to highly resemble the system's I/V characteristics yielding less than 1.5 V H ∞ norm of the error

Nonlinear Analysis on Torsional Strengthening Of Rc Beams Using Cfrp Laminates

This research is devoted to investigate the behavior and performance of reinforced concrete beams strengthened with externally bonded Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) laminates under the effect of torsion. In this study a theoretical analysis has been conducted using finite element code ANSYS. Six previously tested beams are used to investigate reinforced concrete beams behavior under torsion, two of them are solid and the rest are box-section beams. Also, two beams are without CFRP reinforcement, which are used as control beams for the strengthened one, and the other four beams are strengthened with CFRP laminates with different number of layers and spacing. Numerical investigation is conducted on these beams, and comparisons between the available experimental results for these beams and numerical results from the current study are made. Conclusions from these comparisons are presented and discussed. An increase of about 15.6% in the ultimate torque for the solid beam and of about 9.8% in the ultimate torque for the box-section beam is observed after using the CFRP strips. A parametric study is carried out to study the torsional behavior of RC beams having different number of CFRP layers and concrete compressive strength; also U-wrap for the CFRP configuration is investigated

Heavy metal content determination in locally available traditional medicines using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS)

Traditional medicine (TM) is a system of health care that has ancient roots. It has been defined as practices designed to promote mental, physical and spiritual well-being of mankind. Usually (TM) are made from various types of medicinal plants. Sometimes they contain other ingredients such as animal parts and minerals however, the primary source of remedies is botanical. The use of traditional medicine has started beyond recorded history, but has increased tremendously in recent years. It is considered as alternative treatments which are widely used in developing countries. Recently became more popular in most developed countries as well. According to the world health Organization (WHO) reports that more than 70% of the population all over the world relies on non-conventional medicine. This high percentage indicates the positive attitudes towards herbal medicine in various places in the world, probably due to the people’s believe that such products are more likely to be safe ‘natural’ rather than ‘synthetic’ origin. In Malaysia, folk medicines are widely used .The huge demand of TM has been driven the total Malaysian market for TM to US $ 1.29 billion in 2005. The global popularity of(TM) has created great concern about the safety and efficacy of traditional medicines. Although WHO has developed guidelines for the quality control of herbal drugs, there is still a gap between available knowledge and implementation. Processors of herbal drugs are still not much aware of WHO’s guidelines yet they continue their work without proper quality control which results in products with lots of contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides residues and microbes, therefore inappropriate consumption of herbal preparation can cause serious health complication even toxicity.. In our study we are focusing on identifying the presence of toxic heavy metals in locally available traditional medicines in the east coast region of Malaysia. Traditional medicine samples were collected from different sources such as shops, open market, night market and weekend market. Most of them are not registered with the Malaysian drug authority. All samples were digested using freshly prepared aqua regia (mixture of concentrated nitric acid and hydrochloric acid 1:3 ratio). 0.5 g of each sample was weighed and placed in 100 ml PTFE beaker, after which 9 ml of freshly prepared aqua regia was added. The mixture was then heated over water bath for 4-5 hours or until the sample had completely dissolved. The mixture was then allowed to cool and filtered; the residue was then washed with deionised water, and the extract was then made up to 50 ml with deionised water. The samples were then analysed by using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS). Out of twenty over traditional medicine samples most of them has shown the presence of lead (Pb), chromium (Cr), ferrum (Fe) and zinc (Zn). The results for nickel (Ni) and cadmium (Cd) were found below the detection limit using flame ionization technique and expected to be detected using graphite furnace AAS (GFAAS) method which will be the second part of this study. From the results we conclude that the traditional medicines available in local markets contain heavy metals which are considered toxic for human if consumed more than the permissible amount. Key word: Traditional medicine, heavy metal, Toxicity, Aqua regia, AAS