A systematic review of contract farming and it's impacts on broiler producers in Lebanon

This Thesis has been realized within the agribusiness sector and experiments the Transaction Cost Theory a branch of the New Institutional Economy which explain market failure caused by many factors. Transaction costs are associated with carrying a transaction between buyers and sellers. This study has been conducted between 2014 and 2017; and has collected data from 11 broiler producers in Jezzine, Lebanon, about: Production costs, capital investment, revenues, land tenure, access to infrastructure, and information about the contract. The propensity score matching method is used to compare the effect of participating in contract farming and to solve the hypotheses, which say: There is a positive relationship between contract farming and the economic benefits of broiler producers and the development of the broiler sector in Jezzine District. Findings from farmer’s interviews indicated that sustainability, guaranteed price, risk reduction, credit facilities and technical aids are the main reasons for signing a contract. In contrast, Farmers have expressed problems concerning the contractors’ responsibilities such as delay in payment and delivery. Also, when prices are high, it was argued that farmers were selling the products in the open market

A molecular dynamics approach.

Thesis. M.S. American University of Beirut. Department of Physics, 2018. T:6828$Advisor : Dr. Leonid Klushin, Professor, Physics ; Committee members : Dr. Jihad Touma, Professor, Physics ; Dr. Michel Kazan, Professor, Physics.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-69)In this thesis we investigate the problem of a polymer chain ejecting from a cylindrically symmetric capsid. We approach the problem through molecular dynamics simulations using a bead spring model for the chain, and a strongly repulsive potential for the walls of the capsid. We formulate two theories to get predictions for the ejection times, one deterministic and one stochastic. We also introduce a method to calculate local pressure distribution in cylindrical coordinates. The simulation results show some deviations from the theory which is an indication that we need to improve the theoretical model

Development and Testing of an Instrument to Measure Professionalism in Nursing

Objectives: Evaluation of professionalism in nursing has proven challenging as no objective measurement tool exists. The purpose of this study was to develop and test the Professionalism in Nursing Scale (PNS) for reliability and validity, which will facilitate evaluation of the constructs of professionalism in nursing. Participants: Participants were senior nursing students and registered nurses with at least a baccalaureate degree and minimum of three years of experience working either in academia at an accredited university or in a practice setting in a Magnet™ hospital. Study Method: Methodological research was used to design an instrument that measures professionalism in nursing. Phase one included item development, scaling, and evaluation of the content validity index, using ten content experts. Phase two included pilot and field testing using participants meeting the inclusion criteria. Questionnaires were sent electronically to evaluate the relevance of each attribute of professionalism using a Likert scale. Phase three was scale evaluation, including reliability and validity of the PNS. Findings: The proposed factor structure was seven, with final results of exploratory factor analysis supporting a 33-item five-factor model. The factors were named Ethics and Interprofessional Collaboration, Excellence, Professional Engagement, Caring, and Self-awareness, respectively. The overall reliability of the PNS was .97. Findings demonstrated the reliability and validity of the PNS for measuring professionalism in academic and clinician nurses and nursing students. Conclusions: Measuring professionalism in nursing can assist driving improvement of patient care, accountability, and team collaboration. A discussion of the PNS within the context of academia and clinical practice, along with implications for research, practice, education, and policy will be presented

Alien Registration- Rodrique, Melina (Auburn, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30963/thumbnail.jp

Partial and total displacement migration in the San Fernando Valley

This study focuses on migrations made into or within the San Fernando Valley. The Valley is a large area of post-World War II suburban development, located on the northwest side of Los Angeles. With a present population of approximately one and one-half million, the Valley is divided into some twenty-one towns. Due to the rapid influx of migrants since the war, these many towns have completely coalesced into a single conurbation.The California Geographer 17: 25-3

Home With a view: chaparral fire hazard and the social geographies of risk and vulnerability

The purpose of this paper is to outline the political and space economy of fire hazard in the chaparral-covered hillsides of California. The tragic Oakland fire briefly focused national attention on the recurrent natural hazard of brushfire on the montane fringes of California urban areas and the Los Angeles fires of Fall, 1993, have set off another brief flurry of reportage. Unlike coverage of the Midwest flooding of 1993, however, media analysis never addressed the larger social and environmental context of such brushfires in California. As many geographers have noted, such events are not disasters or natural hazards as things-in-themselves. The first section of this paper reviews relevant background concepts in prior hazards work in geography and related disciplines, while the second presents the hypotheses guiding this study. The third section sketches the ecological functions of fire in chaparral and the mechanisms by which chaparral ensures its occurrence. The fourth section addresses cultural and economic factors in Southern California that create the chaparral fire hazard. The last section distinguishes risk and vulnerability and examines processes allocating each across space and social strata.The California Geographer 33: 29-4

Islamic Performance Instrument (IPI): An Alternative Servant Leadership (SL) tool for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

In the search for measures to keep the society sustained, a qualitative study was conducted to explore a Tawhidic Paradigm (TP) alternative for servant leaders, building upon Greenleaf servant leadership (SL) theory. The aim is to ground an Islamic Performance Instrument (IPI) favourable to sustainable development (SD). Adopting Charmaz's (2006) constructivist Grounded Theory Method (GTM), 5 Muslim managers were identified and interviewed through purposive sampling. The coding process produced an IPI-5es principles (expertise, ethereal, emotional, ethical and empowering) essentially required by servant leaders to transform SDGs around the globe. The Islamic constructs of ‘Aqidah (Creed), Khalifa (Vicegerent) and ‘Adl (Justice) were critical in grounding these principles. Theoretically, the research outcome contributes to  body of knowledge on Tawhidic Paradigm (TP) and Islamic Servant Leadership (ISL). This paper projects leaders forming polices that synchronizes meeting SDGs with spiritual responsibilities. Practically, it offers leaders the ideal purpose of SL: servitude to the Creator – (Allah) and, also to humanity (fulfilling SDGs), as against the conventional SL theory which excludes the former. By implication, TP projects service to humanity (SDGs) as acts of worship (Ibadah). The paper was limited by fewer GTM research on Islamic SL principles for SDGs. Future study may conduct a time series analysis on servant leaders imbued with IPI-5es principles to determine SDGs success rate. The paper offers a pioneer model (IPI-5es principles) that extends conventional SL theory for SD

Peer group interaction, academic integration and persistence in a foundation programme at a university in the Western Cape

Magister Educationis (Adult Learning and Global Change) - MEd(AL)This research paper is based on an investigation of the factors that enabled final year students to persist in a four-year degree programme (Foundation Programme). This study is important given that students who generally enrol for this programme terminate their studies before completion. This is a qualitative study in which interviewing was employed to collect the data. The conceptual framework is underpinned by Tinto’s model of student persistence with specific focus on student involvement through peer group interaction in the formal structure of the classroom. It also hones in on informal engagement which goes beyond the nature of the classroom. It further explores the relevance of academic integration, which encompasses a student’s ability to become well-grounded intellectually in the sphere of the institution in order to respond in a critical and systematic way to its educational demands. In addition, it further interrogates how peer group interaction and academic integration impact students’ ability to persist with their studies. Thus, the findings confirm that relationships exist between peer group interaction, academic integration, and persistence

Dynamics of Droplets Moving on Lubricated Polymer Brushes

Understanding the dynamics of drops on polymer-coated surfaces is crucial for optimizing applications such as self-cleaning materials or microfluidic devices. While the static and dynamic properties of deposited drops have been well characterised, a microscopic understanding of the underlying dynamics is missing. In particular, it is unclear how drop dynamics depends on the amount of uncrosslinked chains in the brush, because experimental techniques fail to quantify those. Here we use coarse-grained simulations to study droplets moving on a lubricated polymer brush substrate under the influence of an external body force. The simulation model is based on the many body dissipative particle dynamics (mDPD) method and designed to mimic a system of water droplets on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) brushes with chemically identical PDMS lubricant. In agreement with experiments, we find a sublinear power law dependence between the external force $F$ and the droplet velocity $v$, $F \propto v^\alpha$ with $\alpha <1$; however, the exponents differ ($\alpha \sim 0.6-0.7$ in simulations versus $\alpha \sim 0.25$ in experiments). With increasing velocity, the droplets elongate and the receding contact angle decreases, whereas the advancing contact angle remains roughly constant. Analyzing the flow profiles inside the droplet reveals that the droplets do not slide, but roll, with vanishing slip at the substrate surface. Surprisingly, adding lubricant has very little effect on the effective friction force between the droplet and the substrate, even though it has a pronounced effect on the size and structure of the wetting ridge, especially above the cloaking transition