Marketing Mix and Business Success: A Perception from Entrepreneurs of Community Flea Market in Saraburi Province

Due to the importance of community flea market to the economy of Thailand, the purposes of this research are (1) to investigate the perception of community flea market entrepreneurs in Saraburi Province toward the marketing mix factors that promote the community flea market economy; and (2) to examine the relationship between the marketing mix factors that promote the community flea market economy and the community flea market’s success perceived by community flea market entrepreneurs in Saraburi Province. The studied sample groups were 304 community flea market entrepreneurs in Saraburi Province. Data were collected by questionnaires. The statistics analysis was of frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, correlation coefficient analysis, and regression analysis. The result shows that product and place/distribution channels are the highest importance marketing mix factors that promote the community flea market economy. In addition, product and place/distribution channels are the only two predictors that have positive effects on the successful performance of the community flea market economy. Suggestions are provided for future research studies and those who are interested in studying these variables.Keywords: Marketing Mix, Community Flea Market, Market’s Succes

Physics Teachers’ Constructing Knowledge Base for Physics Teaching Regarding Constructivism in Thai Contexts

This research aimed to clarify 5 physics teachers’ constructing knowledge base for teaching regarding constructivism. The participants were 5 physics teachers who studying Master degree in science education in Khon Kaen University, Thailand. Three participants applied science, technology, and (STS) approach for developing their teaching regarding constructivism. Other 2 participants applied teaching strategies of Predict Observe Explain (POE). This qualitative research regarded interpretive paradigm for physics teachers’ constructing knowledge base for teaching regarding constructivism during applying STS approach and POE for 2 months of physics teaching. Research instruments include teachers’ lesson plan, observation, teachers’ journal writing, and interviewing. The study explicates such a knowledge base. It is demonstrated what kind of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) originates from our cooperation with six participating teachers. The pathway of teachers’ constructing PCK will be discussed for provide information of enhancing physics teaching regarding constructivism. This study has implications for science teacher professional development. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2p54

Prevalence of Causative Bacteria, Therapeutic Choices of Antimicrobials and Clinical Outcomes among Patients with Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia and Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia in A General Hospital

Objectives: To assess the prevalence of etiologic bacteria of hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), the antibiotic susceptibility of the isolated pathogens and the prescribed antimicrobial therapy. Relationship between select factors and clinical outcomes was tested. Methods: This retrospective study included HAP or VAP patients admitted to Hua-hin Hospital, a general hospital, from January to December 2013. Patients aged 18 or older and diagnosed with HAP or VAP were included. The bacteria isolated from HAP or VAP patients were listed as etiologic pathogens and the clinical outcomes were classified as treatment failure and 30-day mortality rate. Results: Of the 106 patients recruited, their median age was 72 years (range: 18 - 95 years). It was found that 56.6% of 106 patients were male, 81.1% had comorbid diseases and 27.4% were admitted to the intensive care unit. With 15 patients with negative sputum culture, 91 patients contributed 155 isolated organisms. Of the 46 HAP cases, A. baumannii (23.8%), P. aeruginosa (20.6%) and K. pneumoniae (17.5%) were the most frequently found isolated organisms; while A. baumannii (32.6%), P. aeruginosa (18.5%) and S. aureus (22.8%) were the most frequently identified among 60 VAP cases. Imipenem and meropenem were a good option for K. pneumoniae; while vancomycin remained the best drug against methicillin-resistant S. aureus. Of the 106 cases, the crude 30-day mortality rate and treatment failure were 17.9% and 34%, respectively. The appropriate antimicrobial treatment and multi-drug resistant A. baumannii were the two factors significantly associated with treatment failure in the opposite directions, with odds ratios of 0.126 and 3.624, respectively. Conclusion: Our findings illustrated the pattern of causative pathogens in a general hospital that seemed to have the same trouble as in a larger-sized hospital. The appropriate antimicrobial treatment and multi-drug resistant A. baumannii were related to the unfavorable outcome. Keywords: causative pathogens, clinical outcome, pneumoni

Role of Natural Wetlands in Arsenic Removal from Arsenic-Contaminated Runoff

This research aims to identify the role of natural wetlands in arsenic (As) removal. Phu Lek wetland in Loei Province, Thailand, was selected as the study area. Monthly samples of water (144), plant (360), and sediment (144) were collected from the wetland for 24 months. As concentration in the surface water at the wetland inlet was 0.85±0.26 mg L-1, and 0.02±0.01 mg L-1 at the wetland outlet. It was observed that the As level in water decreased significantly along its flow path, with an As removal efficiency of 98 %. As concentration in the sediment was 89.53-356.22 mg kg-1 at the inlet of wetland, but decreased gradually downstream of the water flow. Three dominant emergent plant species were observed in this wetland. As accumulation(0.02-2.37 mg kg-1) was noted in all the parts of the three plant species. As content was the highest in the rootlet(0.00-1.27 mg kg-1) compared to that in foliage (0.00-0.84 mg kg-1), leaf stalk (0.00-1.86 mg kg-1), and rhizome (0.00-2.64 mg kg-1). The level of As in the different vegetation species was in the order Diplazium esculentum > Colocasia esculenta > Lasia spinose. Further, As entrapment in the different plant plants followed the order rootlet > rhizome > foliage > leaf stalk. All the three plant species showed high bioconcentration factors, with values of 0.03-1.28, 0.02-0.93, 0.00-0.84, and 0.00-0.38 at the rootlet, rhizome, foliage, and leaf stalk, respectively, but had low translocation factors (foliage/rootlet: 0.02-0.90 and leaf stalk/rootlet: 0.00-0.44). In summary, As present in the surface water could be effectively removed by the wetland system

Visualization of Electrical Architectures In the Automotive Domain Based on the Needs of Stakeholders

The use of software in automotive engineering keeps on growing higher every year. This has an impact on a data stored in a database in such a way that a structure of data stored becomes complex due to hierarchy and hence difficult to understand. The benefit of visualizing a complex data structure of a system facilitates a quick learning of how a system work and a general understanding of where to locate a particular piece of data in a database. A large focus in the industries is placed more on innovating new features of a car by improving current software built in a car’s system and also developing new software. There is rather less focus in visualizing the software which have already been implemented in a car’s system since the visualization does not provide direct value. The purpose of this study is to provide an automated visualization of a current implementation of software data that is stored in a database and to understand the needs of different stakeholders who work with the database. The visualization is meant to cover the needs, which are functional and non-functional requirements, of different stakeholders interacting with a database to aid the understanding of a system and to facilitate decision making in their work. Our focus of the study has been to understand the field of automotive software engineering, its architecture, understanding how to get the needs of stakeholders, implementing an automated software visualization and finally gather more stakeholders’ needs regarding the visualization of data. The visualization was done on a small sub-system of the car showing how the logical components were connected to one another via input and output signals, this covers a view in an automotive architecture called a logical view. On the later stage of the thesis, we interviewed other stakeholders to gather more needs towards automated visualization. One of their needs we gathered was that the stakeholders wanted to have another view which is named a physical view in the automotive industry. In additional to that, the stakeholders proposed to have an interactive way when visualizing the data, meaning that the visualization should provide the ability to view less or more details, to be able to filter the contents, to sort the contents and also to have the output that can easily be understood without cracking your brain

Environmental education in Thailand : reproduction and reformation

This study was conducted to improve the pedagogy of a particular teacher education course and its teaching and learning activities. It was based on the principles of action research. Results indicate that through group process workshops and the action research projects the research and participants acquired skills in problem-solving and collaborative work

Chemical literacy levels of engineering students in Northeastern Thailand

The objective of this study was to investigate the chemical literacy levels of undergraduate engineering students in Faculties of Engineering in Northeastern Thailand. The subjects were 391 undergraduate engineering students who were enrolled in a basic chemistry course in the 2nd semester of the 2012 academic year in the Faculty of Engineering at the North-Eastern University and at the Rajamangala University of Technology Isan in KhonKaen province. The instruments were a chemical literacy test (CLT) and semi-structured interviews. The CLT had 3 assessment formats: 1) multiple-choice CLT, 2) written CLT, and 3) test of chemistry related attitudes. The holistic results of the CLT responses of the engineering students showed that the mean of percentage scores was 43.58 and about three-fifths (61.90%) of the engineering students' level of chemical literacy was categorized at the “low level”. In addition, the results of semi-structured interview responses of the engineering students (n = 40) showed that more than half (57.5%) of the engineering students’ chemical literacy level was also categorized at the “low level”. The overall chemical literacy of the engineering students was categorized at the “low level”. Hence, it is necessary for educational institutions to develop learning activities for engineering students to achieve higher chemical literacy and to avoid any impact caused by chemical usage applied with a lack of knowledge and understanding and social responsibility. Keywords: chemical literacy, chemical literacy test, engineering students, undergraduate student

A systematic scoping review and content analysis of policy recommendations for climate-resilient agriculture

Climate-resilient agriculture (CRA) is among the top policy priorities for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in their food, agriculture, and forestry sectors. However, the strategies that have been adopted to date have failed to produce positive changes or alter climate change trajectories. Scientific evidence is crucial for evidence-based policy making in this arena and elsewhere. We undertake a scoping review to explore what is known from the existing scientific literature about the policy recommendations for CRA in ASEAN. We follow the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines for new systematic reviews. Furthermore, we conduct a content analysis to classify the policy recommendations into eight CRA policy categories and to investigate how the policies identified in the reviewed articles reinforce the climate resilience capacities (CRC) needed for CRA. The synthesis review is based on 47 papers. This research contributes to climate resilience literature, and explains how the results of this study could be applied in policy analysis to build CRC within the agricultural sector. The knowledge generated by this study can support policy design, and therefore support the building of an enabling environment for CRA for ASEAN and elsewhere.Key policy insightsScientific literature on CRA typically recommends policies that support communication and knowledge sharing and advance research and technology development, often in combination with risk management- and/or environmental/climate support.There is insufficient evidence on actual policies enabling CRA. This result may also reflect a lack of research on some of the identified CRA policy categories, such as agricultural production support, investment support, infrastructural support, land use regulation and certification.This synthesis review identifies literature addressing policy capacity to achieve CRA goals. Adaptability and transformability are key dimensions of policy capacity enabling responsive actions to climate change, mainly via social learning, in-depth learning and research and technology development. Literature pays little attention to anticipation and robustness, facilitating proactive ex-ante initiatives and coping for climate change; we argue that these dimensions of capacity merit further research.This synthesis demonstrates key gaps in research and understanding of CRA and related policies targeting capacity building, followed by a need to raise awareness of the importance of such policies. It also points to the need to enable preparation for climate-related crisis planning, through use of anticipatory policies and tools, such as climate predictions to inform planning of robust prevention measures.Last but not least, the synthesis identifies that representation across the ASEAN countries and the type of agricultural systems in is unbalanced; research from Vietnam and Malesia and research on rice production or rice in combination with other crops or shrimp are over-represented. We argue that research on climate change adaptation for other important agricultural production systems, covering the remaining ASEAN countries, is needed to fill this gap