Beyond the last train: Creating a mobile-driven low carbon rail trail

There is a growing interest in low carbon tourism and sustainable forms of tourism development in destinations in light of climate change, high resource dependency and sustainability concerns. To address these concerns, rail trails have gained increased attention from city planners and environmental advocates as viable alternatives for creating a more sustainable tourism future in an urban city. However, studies focusing on rail trail experiences involving the application of a mobile-driven low carbon trail has been sparse. This paper explores the feasibility of developing an environmentally friendly, low carbon rail trail in urbanized Singapore. It presents a conceptual framework that outlines key attributes necessary for the successful development of low carbon mobile-driven rail trails. The results of the research support the idea of developing rail trail tourism in Singapore to augment existing tourism resource. Understanding the benefits, demand and requirements associated with rail trail development provides evidence for funding support and stakeholder commitment

A noninvasive molecular approach: exploiting species-locus-specific PCR primers in defeating numts and DNA cross-contamination of cercopithecidae

The lack of a standardized, noninvasive molecular approach to studying genetic aspects of primates has made it hard for primatologists to decode the evolutionary history of these species. Researchers must optimize their own techniques to fully exploit the available samples. Lack of species-locus-specific primers also contributes to difficulties in using noninvasive genetic samples. Thus, the objectives of this study were to develop a standardized technique to collecting samples noninvasively, propose newly designed species-locus-specific primers, and optimize conditions for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Macaca fascicularis, M. nemestrina, Trachypithecus cristatus, and T. obscurus. Nine new species-locus-specific primers for three different loci of mitochondrial DNA, namely D-loop, cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI), and cytochrome b, were successfully designed. These primers proved to be efficient in amplifying larger datasets (up to ~1,000 bp) of the targeted species in the optimized PCR conditions. The species-locus-specific primers are able to anneal to host DNA alone in highly contaminated feces of highlighted species. They can also offer alternatives measures in avoiding contamination related to nuclear insertion of mitochondrial pseudogenes (numts)

mTasting culture: A taste of Singapore through a mobile-driven street food trail

Food-related activities are a central feature in Singapore's social and cultural landscape. A destination's culinary heritage can be a key cultural resource and attraction in tourism, contributing to its unique character, local identity and sense of place. Culinary tourism and food trails offer tourists the opportunity to get a taste of local heritage, culture, and vibrant flavors of life in local neighborhoods through eating and touring. This exploratory study investigates the application of a mobile-driven street food trail within the context of cultural and heritage tourism. Specifically, it explores research themes within the domains of (1) culinary tourism and food trails as tourism attractions, and (2) mobile-driven applications for culinary tourism. A street food trail mobile app developed for a Singaporean neighborhood is utilized in the study

Experiencing the flash mob: Meanings and experiences in an unplanned event in Singapore

The flash mob phenomenon while capturing public interests and trending globally on social media, has not been comprehensively investigated conceptually. While this contemporary topic has been examined by authors in a small number of disciplines, its investigation and conceptualization within event studies has been limited. This study explores the phenomenon of flash mobs from an experiential and psychological perspective. Specifically, it investigates the dimensions of personal and social experiences and meanings within the context of flash mobs as unplanned and spontaneous events from an Asian perspective. Data for this study was gathered using the specific example of a flash mob created and performed by a group of 45 students at a mall in Singapore, themed around the Lunar New Year festivities. Qualitative interviews, semi-structured questionnaires, observation and post-activity focus group were employed to collect narratives from participants (flash mobbers) and audience in this exploratory study

THE CHALLENGES OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY IN NIGERIA PROJECT, 2007-2010

Promoting the general welfare of the people and securing citizens’ liberty is an incontrovertible project of any state’s policymaking. Therefore, Nigeria’s citizen diplomacy is one of the diplomatic drives of achieving this project. However, avid reader and scholar of the Nigerian polity will notice some national and international contradictions that have hampered the promotion of Nigerians’ welfare and security, and thus challenging the positive image perception of the country. Therefore, the task of the paper is tounderscore the challenges clogging the wheel of citizen diplomacy towards achieving Nigeria project, and to enunciate the way forward for Nigeria’s regeneration. Utilizing both primary (direct observations, interviews and focus groups) and secondary (literature and document reviews) methods of data collection, which are qualitatively and systematically analyzed through inductive approach, the study reveals an obvious wide gulf between the Nigerian State and its citizens. The paper posits that this intricately complementary domain aids the country’s image crisis.Among all other things, the paper recommends a comprehensive publicity of the concept of citizen diplomacy and a concerted institutional conspiracy in fighting corruption. Hence, enhancing the welfare of the Nigerian citizens, as well as, improving the rebranding efforts of Nigeria will be a mirage

Face detection in profile views using fast discrete curvelet transform (FDCT) and support vector machine (SVM)

Human face detection is an indispensable component in face processing applications, including automatic face recognition, security surveillance, facial expression recognition, and the like. This paper presents a profile face detection algorithm based on curvelet features, as curvelet transform offers good directional representation and can capture edge information in human face from different angles. First, a simple skin color segmentation scheme based on HSV (Hue - Saturation - Value) and YCgCr (luminance - green chrominance - red chrominance) color models is used to extract skin blocks. The segmentation scheme utilizes only the S and CgCr components, and is therefore luminance independent. Features extracted from three frequency bands from curvelet decomposition are used to detect face in each block. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier is trained for the classification task. In the performance test, the results showed that the proposed algorithm can detect profile faces in color images with good detection rate and low misdetection rate

Flexural Strength of Interlocking Compressed Earth Brick (ICEB) Unit

This paper presents the flexural strength of the ICEB unit. The flexural strength is important in determining the strength of the masonry unit. About 260 units of ICEB consist three type of unit were tested on flatwise (bed direction) and inverted direction, with the different shape at the top and bottom of the ICEB. The unit was loaded at midspan through a steel bearing plate of 6.4 mm thickness and 38.1 mm width. Specimens were supported at both ends which are free to rotate in the longitudinal and transverse directions during the test. The highest flexural strength of ICEB is Wall Brick for both flatwise and inverted direction which is 2.36 N/mm2 and 2.15 N/mm2, respectively. For flatwise direction, Beam Brick has the lowest flexural strength which is 1.55 N/mm2, and in inverted direction Column Brick flexural strength is lower than Beam Brick which is 1.65 N/mm2. ICEB can be used in construction and has the equal properties as other common brick and block at the market nowadays

Damage spreading in 2-dimensional isotropic and anisotropic Bak-Sneppen models

We implement the damage spreading technique on 2-dimensional isotropic and anisotropic Bak-Sneppen models. Our extensive numerical simulations show that there exists a power-law sensitivity to the initial conditions at the statistically stationary state (self-organized critical state). Corresponding growth exponent $\alpha$ for the Hamming distance and the dynamical exponent $z$ are calculated. These values allow us to observe a clear data collapse of the finite size scaling for both versions of the Bak-Sneppen model. Moreover, it is shown that the growth exponent of the distance in the isotropic and anisotropic Bak-Sneppen models is strongly affected by the choice of the transient time.Comment: revised version, 9 pages, 5 eps figures, use of svjour.st