The Role of Faith in Cross-Cultural Conflict Resolution

Excerpt When we speak of the role of faith in cross-cultural conflict resolution, our challenge is to honor the diversity of the world’s humanistic and spiritual traditions while seeking common ground among them. What we aspire towards, in other words, is an agenda for research, dialogue and activism that is global in conception and responsive to common challenges of peacemaking and coexistence within and among the world’s many traditions. It is no longer sufficient for transnational peace agendas to be defined primarily by the cultural experiences and perceived security threats of a particular nation or culture. We need new frameworks for organizing knowledge about religion, culture and spirituality – frameworks that recognize the powerful role that faith and belief play in conflict and conflict resolution, and that do not privilege one culture as ‘normal’ and label another as ‘exceptional’

Localizing Peace: An Agenda for Sustainable Peacebuilding

The sophistication of peace operations and complex humanitarian missions has increased in recent decades, resulting in increased international capacity to mitigate organized violence and provide relief to suffering populations. With respect to other indicators of success, however, international peace strategies still leave much to be desired. By their very nature, externally driven efforts tend to leave local actors feeling marginalized and disempowered, and unable to fulfill aspirations for cumulative and sustainable transformations in the quality of life. The peace that local populations genuinely hope for may fail to take root, and dynamics associated with interventionism may replace one set of problems with another. To address such problems within existing peace processes and to provide a framework for broader preventive action, this paper identifies “localizing peace” as a central challenge for twenty-first century peacebuilding efforts. International and cross-cultural cooperation remain vital for tackling border-spanning problems and structural inequalities, yet the advancement of global peace depends in no small part on the enhancement of local peace capacities. Ultimately, peace must be defined and constructed locally, and peacebuilding efforts become energetic and sustainable only to the extent that they tap local resources, empower local constituencies, and achieve legitimacy within particular cultural and religious contexts. By appreciating these realities, international actors can discover more effective means of partnering with local organizations and movements, while also deriving new insights into the unity and diversity of peacemaking

Detection of learning styles with prior knowledge data using the SVM, K-NN and Naïve Bayes algorithms

The two types of automatic learning style detection approaches are data driven (DD) and literature based (LB). Both methods of automatic learning style detection have advantages over traditional learning style detection methods because they use external data sources, such as forums, quizzes and views of teaching materials, that are more accurate than the questionnaires used in traditional styles of detection. The results of automatic detection, on the other hand, do not always reflect learning styles. This paper presents a learning style recognition method that uses data from the learner’s internal source, namely prior knowledge, to overcome these challenges. Prior knowledge is proposed because it is based on the learner’s knowledge or skills, which better reflect the learner’s characteristics, rather than on the learner’s behaviour, which tends to be dynamic. By using past knowledge, this paper presents a method for detecting automatic learning patterns. The learning style detection framework is unique in that it consists of three stages: prior knowledge question development, prior knowledge measurement and learning style detection using the Support Vector Machine (SVM), Naïve Bayes and K-Nearest Neighbour (K-NN) classification methods. The accuracy of learning style detection using prior knowledge data was higher than detection results using behavioural data or hybrid data (prior knowledge + behaviour) in this studyMetode deteksi gaya belajar otomatis dapat dibagi menjadi dua yakni Metode Data-Driven (DD) dan Literature Based (LB). Kedua metode deteksi gaya belajar otomatis tersebut memiliki kelebihan dibandingkan metode de- teksi gaya belajar konvensional, karena metode deteksi gaya belajar otomatis menggunakan sumber data eksternal seperti forum, kuis dan kunjungan bahan ajar yang lebih akurat dibandingkan dengan kuesioner yang digunakan dalam metode deteksi gaya belajar konvensional. Meskipun demikian, hasil deteksi otomatis tidak selalu mencerminkan gaya belajar.. Untuk mengatasi kendala tersebut, penelitian ini mengusulkan metode deteksi gaya belajar yang mengambil data dari sumber internal pembelajar yakni prior knowledge. Prior knowledge diusulkan karena tidak berdasarkan pada perilaku pembelajar yang cenderung bersifat dinamis, namun lebih kepada pengetahuan atau keterampilan yang dimiliki, yang lebih mencerminkan karakteristik pembelajar. Penelitian ini mengusulkan sebuah metode untuk mendeteksi gaya belajar otomatis dengan memanfaatkan prior knowledge. Kebaruannya terletak pada kerangka kerja (framework) deteksi gaya belajar yang terdiri dari tiga tahapan yaitu: tahapan pembangunan pertanyaan prior knowledge, tahapan pengukuran prior knowledge, dan tahapan deteksi gaya belajar dengan menggunakan metode klasifikasi svm, naïve bayes dan k-nn, Penelitian ini menghasilkan akurasi hasil deteksi gaya belajar dengan data prior knowledge yang lebih tinggi dibandingkan dengan hasil deteksi yang menggunakan data perilaku dan data hybrid (prior knowledge + perilaku

Performance and emission evaluations of a prototype stepped-piston engine using carburetor and direct fuel-injection systems

Two-stroke engines have been used for sometimes in automotive and stationary applications since early 20th century. The advantages of two-stroke engines are obvious, i.e., lighter, simpler and less expensive to manufacture. Technically, two-stroke engines have the potential to pack almost twice the power into the same space because there are twice as many power strokes per revolution. The combination of lightweight and twice the power gives two-stroke engines a great power-to-weight ratio compared to many four stroke engine designs. However due to the short-circuiting process of the fuel before combustion, this has resulted in deterioration in overall performances especially poor combustion efficiency and high white smoke emission problem. Coupled with the improvement in the four-stroke engine technology, the former has overcome the latter in being the choice for mobile platform applications. Due to high fuel cost and the need to explore the use of other fuel sources, notably gaseous fuels, a number of enthusiasts and engine developers have revisited the two-stroke engine design. Fuels such as hydrogen and methane are said to be ideal for use with the incorporation of the some new features (Goldsborough and Blaringan, 2003). An engine design and development program was initiated at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in year 2003 to develop local R&D capabilities in small power-train engineering. The exercise evolved around the development of an air-cooled single cylinder of stepped-piston engine concept. The term “stepped piston” refers to the conventional piston having compounded with a larger diameter section at the rear section of its geometry. The changes to the original design were made as the research group feels that there are rooms for improvements. In addition to this, the modifications will infuse other innovative scope of work from design to product testing activities (Hooper, 1985).This program, eventually leads to the incorporation of features, is expected to enhance performance of the prototype and subsequently exhaust emission. This is in anticipation of producing a working prototype for multiple applications namely stationary and automotive. The gasoline stepped-piston engine is a relatively new design concept for small mobile power plants. It is an engine, operating on a two-stroke cycle but is infused with four-stroke engine features. It has a build-in supercharger mechanism (by virtue of the extended flange) that improves the scavenging process thus improve combustion efficiency. Due to these operating characteristics, the engine has all the attributes of a low emission, high-efficiency power plant that eliminates many of the major weaknesses associated with the Otto four-stroke engine and with modern two-stroke engines

Investigation into the selection of an appropriate piston head geometry for a spark ignition engine equipped direct-fuel injector

Constructors of gasoline engines are faced with higher and higher requirements as regards to ecological issues and an increase in engine efficiency at a simultaneous decrease in fuel consumption. Satisfaction of these requirements is possible by the recognition of the phenomena occurring inside the engine cylinder, the choice of suitable optimal parameters of the fuel injection process, and the determination of the geometrical shapes of the combustion chamber and the piston head. The aim of the study was to simulate flow in Direct-Injection Fuel engine with different geometrical shapes of piston head. The method of design piston head shapes was referring to existing motorcycle Demak single cylinder 200cc piston size using Solidwork and ANSYS softwarse. The parameter was shallow and deep bowl design on piston head. In term of fuel distribution throughout the combustion chamber, second model that having deeper bowl shows a better fuel distribution than first model as it manages to direct flow the fuel injected towards the location of spark plug. Therefore, second model is chosen as the best model among the two models as it can create a richer mixture around the spark plug

Single-cylinder 125 CC stepped piston engine for mobility and portable power generation applications

Two-stroke engines is far simpler than four-stroke version from its physical perspective. For a given brake output, two-stroke is lighter, easier to work on, and provide higher power-to-weight ratio than the four-stroke, making it suitable for small platform applications. However a conventional two-stroke engine has a reputation for generating smoke and unburned fuel, a situation which does not meet many emissions regulations, now enforced around the world. Thus for many decades two-stroke engines were not favored, giving ways to four-stroke engines to dominate applications, especially for mobile power-generation purposes. In the quest to improve the potential of such an engine, a group of researchers from the Automotive Development Centre (ADC), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has come up with a 125 cc, air-cooled stepped-piston engine to demonstrate the higher power-to-weight ratio feature, apart from overcoming emission reduction. The engine is designed to mitigate the problem of mixture short circuiting, which is the major hindrance to combustion efficiency, and for this to happen they have incorporated a three-port stratification strategy onto the engine. This paper provides the overview related to the earlier work done to infuse the necessary features and highlights some of the performance features of this unique engine design

Work-family balance, employee commitment, and number of dependents among staff in a malaysian tv network / Shereen Noranee… [et al.]

Committed employees tend to perform better as they feel having personal connection towards the organization. However, in some cases, dismissal from the organization also indicates poor job performance. Poor job performance resulted in low organizational commitment. The ability of an individual to balance between work and family depends on several factors such as the type of job, the organization that hires them, economy, social and cultural context. The emerging situation had led to overload of responsibility as people had to play the role of employees, spouses, parents, and parent's caregivers. Biased participation in one role, either work of family, will affect the other role. Work-family balance has two types of relationship. The first relationship is when work interferes with family life and the second relationship is when family life interferes with work. The main purpose of this study was to examine the effect of work-family balance towards employee commitment among TVABC (a Malaysian television network) staff, with number of dependents as moderating variable. The responses were gathered from 184 TVABC staff. Convenient sampling technique was used and hierarchical regression analysis was administered. The results indicated that work interference with family dimension did not had any significant relationship with employee commitment. While family interference with work was proven to have a significant relationship with employee commitment among TVABC staff. The number of dependents, as the moderating variable, was found not affecting the relationship between work-family balance and employee commitment as all tests indicated insignificant relationship