The cocoa sub-sector is an important pillar of Ghana’s economic stability and growth prospects; the sub-sector contributes to fiscal stability, infrastructure, and employment. In recent times, diversification has become a common observable feature in the industry. This study uses the conditional mixed process approach to examine the interaction between the diversification status and profitability of cocoa farming simultaneously in a single system. Using data from 401 farmers in the Western and Ashanti regions of Ghana in 2022, the study found that more profitable farmers were more likely to diversify. Conversely, diversified farmers were likely to be more profitable than non-diversified farmers. It also found that the farmer's age, experience, farm area, and location of the farm impacted both the profitability and diversification status of farmers. Thus, it is suggested that policymakers should direct policies and programs to support the creation of alternative farm-based livelihoods for farmers.

본 연구는 한국어 학습자들이 자신들의 언어학습 신념이 그들의 전반 적인 언어학습과 새로운 환경에 적응하는 것에 어떠한 관계가 있는지를 찾기 위함이 목적이다. 여섯 명의 한국대학교에 재학 중인 외국인 유학 생들을 대상으로 그들의 언어학습 신념에 대한 인터뷰가 진행되었다. Horwitz의 BALLI 문항을 기반으로 한 반구조적 인터뷰가 진행되었으며, 그들의 답변은 외국어 능력, 언어학습의 어려움, 언어학습의 본성, 학습 과 소통전략, 동기와 기대 등의 주제를 기반으로 비슷한 패턴을 보이는 항목별로 구분되어졌다. 연구 결과는 외국인 유학생들은 그들의 한국어 실력이 향상될수록 자신감을 가졌으며, 그들은 문화에 대한 학습이 언어 학습에 중요한 부분이라는 것을 인지했다. 또한, 가장 효과적인 학습법은 실제적인 상황과 사람들과 어울리는 것을 꼽았으며, 그들은 대학 졸업 이후에도 한국에 남아 있기를 희망했다.

For highly contaminated elements such as reactor pressure vessels or reactor internals, it is a viable option to cool-down and dismantle these elements in submerged (e.g. underwater) state. Several tools and processes such as saw cutting, water jet cutting or plasma cutting are currently used for underwater cutting, with each of them having their own advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage of these existing methods, especially saw and water jet cutting, is the generation of secondary waste that then needs to be filtered out of the water. In addition, in the case of water jet cutting, a considerable amount of abrasive material is added, which must also be stored. To overcome this drawback, the feasibility of using laser cutting under water to minimize secondary waste production has been actively studied recently. One of the challenges with the underwater laser cutting is to visually monitor the cutting process. Flowing air bubbles generated by the cutting gas and the flashing light emitted from the laser and melting material prohibit visual monitoring of the cutting process. This study introduces a method to enhance the video from a monitoring camera. Air bubbles can be detected by computing optical flows and the video quality can be enhanced by selective removal of the detected bubbles. In addition, suppressing the frame image update from flashing light area can also effectively enhance the video quality. This paper describes the simple yet effective video quality enhancement method and reports preliminary results.

The establishment of processes for the decommissioning a Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is one of the objects that must be prepared in carrying out the decommissioning project. In particular, in the domestic situation, where there is no experience of decommissioning commercial NPPs, it is necessary to organize the tasks and contents well in advance for the successful initiation of the project. Therefore, this study intends to present a guide-level approach to develop management for domestic decommissioning projects. As a documented template for recognizing a process, there may be a process map and description, and information such as the work structure and the relations between the activities should be indicated. In reality, activities will be managed through a set of computer system, so it would be better if the work content, activity flow, relation, management target information, computerization contents, etc. were materialized in the process. What is important here is to define the management areas and activities and draw the activity flow. Domestically, it has rich experience in construction of NPPs and has a track record of exporting NPPs to the UAE. From these experiences, we have established a framework for standardized work in construction management and construction processes, and are performing them through a computerized system. Since the work of decommissioning has a similar nature to that of construction, we will be able to benchmark the procedure for the decommissioning from the construction management procedures. Typically, in the case of schedule management, the concept and structure of the construction process will be applicable to the decommissioning. Meanwhile, the licensee of domestic decommissioning is the same as the licensee that performs the operation, and the members who will perform the decommissioning also have experience working in the operation period. Therefore, the decommissioning works are an extension of the task during operation. Representatively, there are some processes that can be applied as it is even when decommissioning, such as dismantling work and the safety management process of the radiation zone. Therefore, in carrying out the decommissioning of NPPs in Korea, processes and activities of the management area should be established from the construction processes with abundant experience and the processes during operation. Rather than making a completely new work process, this approach that properly reflects the existing work flow is expected to be an appropriate way to avoid the repulsion of employees and maladjustment to the new environment.

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of the process-genre approach on EFL learners’ writing improvement. A total of 48 Chinese college freshmen students participated in this study, and they were divided into high-level (n=20) and low-level (n=28) groups. All the participants were instructed by the same teacher in the College English class for 14 weeks, during which they were taught how to compose in three writing genres: narration, exposition, and argumentation. After comparing the writing scores of pre- and post-tests from both groups, it can be concluded that the processgenre approach is helpful in enhancing the EFL learners’ writing competence because both groups of students had significantly improved their writing abilities. Besides, both group learners attained a salient achievement in expository writing after they were trained by the process-genre approach. Compared with the high-level learners, the low-level learners made larger progress in all three writing genres. It indicates that enough teaching time and teacher’s scaffolding systems are crucial for the learners’ writing development.

Online consumer reviews have become a substantial part of consumers’ decision-making process as they provide consumers abundant information on products and services. Some individuals will pay attention to certain components (e.g. price), whereas some will focus on other components such as images.

The present study examined how writing tasks in high school English textbooks under the revised national curriculum reflected the key writing elements (process, genre, and context) of process-genre based approach. Concerning the latter, the focus was narrowed to audience since it was relatively neglected in writing instruction compared with other contextual factors. For this study, we analyzed 335 writing tasks in ten English textbooks for 1st- and 2nd-year high school students. Results showed that writing tasks largely incorporated the process-genre based approach. However, pre-writing activities mostly scaffolded the organization of ideas, rather than generated them. In the post-writing phase, editing was not targeted in some writing tasks. Both the diversity of genres/subgenres and genre awareness activities were also lacking. In addition, few writing tasks targeted the development of audience awareness through explicit activities. These findings provide pedagogical implications for writing task and curriculum development for material writers, curriculum designers, and practitioners.

Forward Osmosis process has no, as yet, reliable method to predict fouling. This study utilized the concept of fouling reversibility to develop the index. The osmotically-driven reversibility index, denoted as ORI, was acquired by measuring the flux recovery after physical cleaning cycle and the protocols of ORI were developed systematically by considering all the critical factors of FO process. The applicability of ORI was examined by investigating FO process when treating secondary effluents from various full-scale wastewater treatment plants. The results demonstrated that the normalized final flux by fouling in FO was closely correlated to the ORI measurements with high statistical reliability. The ORI has proven to be useful evaluation parameter for continuous operation and determining cleaning cycles of FO process.

본 연구의 목적은 생애사적 접근을 통해 조선족 1세대들이 몸소 체험하고 자신의 언어로 재구성한 문화 적응 과정을 심층적으로 이해하는 것이다. 연구의 초점은 이주의 동기, 문화적응 양상, 문화적응 맥락을 탐색하는 것이다. 연구 대상자들은 중국에 현재 거주하고 있는 이민 1세대로 직접 중국에 이주한 사람들이다. 분석결과 조선족 1세대의 이주동기는 대부분이 생활고와 차이나 드림에 기인한 것이었다. 그리고 조선족 1세대들의 문화적응 유형은 분리양상에 가까웠다. 중요한 점은, 이들이 수동적 타자로서가 아니 라 적극적 주체로서 스스로 중국 사회와 거리를 둔 것으로 나타났다. 조선족 1세대들은 중국에 거주하면 서도 본인들은 뼛속까지 조선족이라는 의식이 강했으며, 조선족 집성촌을 만들어 중국 사회와 거리를 두었고, 조선어만 사용하였다. 이런 분리의 양상에 영향을 미치는 맥락적 요인으로는 높은 민족적 우월감, 높은 민족 교육, 임시 체류자, 이중차별, 경쟁의식, 언어적 어려움으로 나타났다.

The significant exodus of containers inland due to the container revolution has increased the salience of inland terminals for efficient freight distribution. Further, the migration of containers gradually inland has forced seaports to depend on these inland terminals to determine their competitiveness and offer a mechanism for competitive freight price to the consumer. The performance of dry ports need to be improved along with the dynamic nature of maritime business, to efficiently fulfil the demand all the key players in the container seaport system, provide economies of scale and scope to their respective clients and enhances the importance of inland networks to improve and consistently elongate the competitiveness of container seaports. Predicated to these importance, this paper aims to enhance dry port performance by adapting a process benchmarking strategy among the Malaysian dry ports. Prior to the adaptation of the process benchmarking approach, a grounded theory had been conducted as a method of analysis among the key players of the Malaysian container seaport system in order to provide essential inputs for the benchmarking. Through this paper, the outcome shows all four Malaysian dry ports need to improve their transportation infrastructure and operation facilities, container planning strategy, competition, location and externalities in order to assist all the key players in the container seaport system efficiently and effectively.

The TRIZ is promoted by Altshuller of the former Soviet Union. It stands for the beginning of Russian Teoriya, Reshiniya, Izobretatelskikh, and Zadatch, which means theory, solution, invention and problem. The TRIZ problem solving method is a generalized method for the abstract area to find a concrete solution, while the approach of the existing problem solving methodologies directly finds solutions through trial and error for the problems that have occurred. The original TRIZ was spotlighted as a creative problem solving methodology. However, we are unable to distinguish between the 39 parameters of the approach methodology and the 40 inventive principles. In this study, we propose a methodology to apply the weighting to the parameters and the principle of the invention to improve the problem of TRIZ. For this purpose, this study proposes a methodology based on AHP and QFD among industrial engineering methodologies. This result suggests that future researchers will be able to suggest better decision - making methods.

This study inquires into the effectiveness of proactive approach to grammaring through explicit grammar instruction in developing linguistic accuracy of Korean EFL college students’ written products. Forty-eight students from two intact sections of mandatory English composition course participated in the experiment for 10 weeks. The control group was taught with traditional process writing methods, whereas a modified version of process writing pedagogy supplemented with two types of grammar instruction―15-minute in-class grammar lessons and individualized online grammar practice―were applied to the experimental group. Linguistic accuracy of the pre- and post-treatment essays was measured by obligatory occasion analysis in the use of subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, the articles in front of count nouns, the present perfect tense, and passive construction. The statistical analyses show that the experimental group outperformed the control group in three of five grammatical categories. Variations in linguistic accuracy development over a 10-week period support earlier second language acquisition discoveries that some grammatical categories are more resistant to instructional treatment than others and that linguistic characteristic of the structures interact with individual learner’s cognitive maturity

Greece wine production has shown swinging trends: in 2013 it grew by 17,9% reaching 3.7 Million Hectoliters (USDA), but it 2014 it decreased by 15% (Greek Wine Federation), whilst grape prices went up. Greece has a huge potential, but it is still a small producer in Europe. The Greek wine industry got through several phases: before the 80s the product was quite “poor”, but with the entrance in the market of some educated winemakers who have introduced a new business philosophy and approach to wine, production has changed (GaiaWines.gr). The population of firms consist of a few larger producers, and most of the companies are relatively small. Although the quality has been improved, most of the production is addressed to the domestic market, since only few producers have established export networks (Vlachvei et al., 2012). Thus, the economic crisis that affected Greece has created difficulties also for domestic sales. Background research has outlines some of the limits of the Greek wine industry: according to Vlachvei et al. (2012),the new competitive challenges require owner and managers to achieve a better understanding of operational and marketing process that can contribute to the development of their brand in order to develop an integrated marketing communication approach. The Greek wine sector is extremely fragmented with a high predominance of small size firms; as size increases, the degree of professional organization grows, as well as the relative presence of foreign markets (Papalexiou, 2009). Thus, it has been recognized that Greek wine export is disorganized (Baiocchi, 2011; Papalexiou, 2009). The limits imposed by UE to plantings have affected Greece growth strategy: Greece is still a small producer and although it shows similarities with the south of Italy, it is impossible to think to follow the “Italian Style” (Baiocchi, 2011). Thus the urgency of undertaking a propter model for the development of the industry is seen as a priority for the Greek wine system. Wineries have seen in related businesses an effective tool for improving the competitiveness of the wine industry (Papalexiou, 2009); a lot has been done for achieving an integration between wine tourism and the wine business. Background research describes the experiments undertaken around wine routes, conceived as a useful tool for improving the wine sector (Hall & Mitchell, 2000) and for the development of rural areas (Karafolas, 2007). In 2014 the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission has undertaken a Smart Specialization pilot project that involves rural areas in Northern Greece, in order to foster local economic development by adopting an entrepreneurial discovery approach (EDP). JRC can be considered as a source of technology generation and a service that provides expert advice to the institutions of the European Union and more specifically to the European Commission and the European Parliament (Moncada-Paterno`-Castello, 2003). It can be guessed how JRC outcomes could impact citizens’ lives. From September 2014 for 15 months JRC has been involved in the European Parliament Preparatory Action; the aims of this project are: to facilitate the refinement and implementation of the RIS3 strategy in a region heavily hit by the crisis; and to serve as a model for other convergence regions in Greece and Europe (from JRC website). The project has seen the collaboration of JRC – IPTS (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies) with DG Regio and the Managing Authority of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace. The wine sector has been selected, together with few others for the preparatory action. The approach that has been adopted was the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP), in order to allocate resources under the guide of entrepreneurial actors, from the public and private sector. EDP is “a process in which the entrepreneurial actors are discovering and producing information about new business and innovation activities and the government is collecting, assessing and transforming this knowledge into policy action” (http://s3platform.jrc.ec.europa.eu/s3-governance).EDP plays a leading role in the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3): EDP suggests that the allocation of resources is the result of a process undertaken by entrepreneurial actors. It emerges how innovative this process is, if compared to past industrial policies. EDP contributed to minimise failures of market innovation. The Smart Specialisation perspective let entrepreneurs discovering the right domains of future specializations (Foray, 2012). A newer approach to regional competitiveness (Ketels, 2013) has been followed by European Commission, that, in order to promote an efficient and effective public funding policy in regional economic development (Mempel-Śnieżyk, 2013), has actively supported Smart Specialisation Initiatives. On the other side, S3 has a prior role in the EU Regional and Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 (Martínez-López & Palazuelos-Martínez, 2014). This paper examines the role that EDP and S3 have had in the definition of a strategy for the development of the local wine industry. The paper aims to answering to the following research questions: What are the elements seen as priorities from entrepreneurs for developing the local wine industry in Greece? Is there an overlapping between the findings emerging from JRC workshops and those that have been pointed out by relevant opinion makers and experts in the Greek wine industry? What about the effectiveness of EDP in wine? The paper is structured as follows: In the first part a description of the Greek wine industry will be carried out; in a second section authors will point out JRC’s EDP approach; thirdly an analysis of data collected from JRC sessions and from interviews with international experts in Greece will be performed. 9 experts that took part to the workshop will be interviewed. Data will be collected through telephone interviews and web based survey; once collected data will be analyzed through a text analysis. A literature review on EDP and theoretical issues that have inspired the organization of JRC sessions will be presented in order to support Research Questions. The papers ends up with a discussion and conclusions in order to provide inputs for professionals, and policy makers.

For the sustainable development, companies are making a lot of efforts such as activities of sales increase and cost reduction. Among these, efforts to use limited resources efficiently and effectively is still being made steadily. And many methods for management innovation are being introduced and used. However there were partial or temporary effects only. So there are not enough to achieve operations performance to cover the entire system. Therefore, in order to maximize performance or to improve sustainability across the companies, it is necessary to rebuild the existing system with process perspective not with existing functional perspective. This study was performed to achieve the objective that is operation performance improvement of certification body. So literature review was researched and analyed about the process innovation and the process approach. And basic model which is compatible with ISO/IEC 17021 requirement for the certification body was established in this study. Based on this model, one of the certification body was selected and operation system for this organization was established, documented and implemented through the process approach method. In the result, operations performance of certification body on the side of efficiency and effectiveness is analyzed and the effect of reconstruction of system on operations performance was figu

산업기술의 비약적인 발전으로 인해 오늘날 우리가 개발하거나 사용하는 시스템은 보다 기술의 고도화 양상을 보이고 있다. 따라서, 기존의 시스템이 지니고 있어 제공하는 단일 특성에서 벗어나 다양한 학제간 결합된 기술로 기존 시스템이 지니고 있는 관념적인 기능에서 벗어나 다기능을 제공하고 있다. 이로 인해, 기존의 개발단계에서는 보다 높은 설계 신뢰성이 요구되고 있다. 특히, 오늘날 우리사회는 시스템의 개발성공이라는 안도에서 벗어나 시스템 운용·유지단계에서도 안전성 측면에서 매우 중요성을 인식하고 대비하고 있다. 따라서, 국내에서는 미흡한 상위 단계에서의 설계활동과 또한, 같은 시스템 수명주기 상에서의 시스템 안전활동을 동시에 고려한 동시공학적인 접근에 관한 연구를 본 연구팀은 지속적으로 수행해왔다. 따라서, 기존의 연구결과인 설계와 안전을 동시에 고려한 통합 설계 프로세스 모델에 대해, 시스템개발에 관련한 모든 이해당사자가 공통된 이해를 바탕으로 시스템설계와 안전 활동에 대해 상호 호완성과 공통된 인식을 갖고 접근할 수 있는 방안을 본 연구를 통해 수행하였다. 따라서, 본 연구는 모델기반 시스템공학 기법중 보편적인 언어인 공통 언어를 통해 기존 연구를 통해 제시한 통합설계 프로세스 모델을 구현에 관한 연구 수행을 통한 접근 방안에 관하여 논의하고 있다. 본 연구를 기반으로 향후 추가 연구를 수행한다면, 국내 대형복합시스템의 설계단계에서의 안전성을 동시 고려한 시스템 설계 신뢰성 확보를 위해 도움이 될 것으로 기대 된다.

The optimization of dewatering and impregnation soaking (DIS) process for a concentrated Aloe vera product was investigated using Taguchi method in combination with desirability function analysis. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) as osmotic agent was adopted, and soaking temperature (T), immersion time (t), PEG concentration (C), PEG molecular weight (MW), and thickness of Aloe vera leaf slice (x) were selected as affecting variables. L16 (45) orthogonal array was designed by Taguchi method with four parameters such as water loss, solid gain, glucomannan, and anthraquinone contents as objective functions. An overall quality index was transformed from individual objective functions, and was optimized finally. The optimal setting for maximum overall desirability was obtained at 55oC (T), 2 hr (t), 40% w/v (C), 0.5 cm (x), and 4,000 Da. (MW). The obtained overall desirability was 0.7842. The order of affecting factors was T>C>x>MW≈x>t and the experimental results under optimum condition were similar to the prediction of an overall desirability of 0.8384. Also, it was found that the optimized DIS condition could be reproduced for a minimally processed Aloe vera product with high quality.

공정제어시스템과 같은 복잡한 시스템을 감시하고 제어하기 위한 정보 디스플레이를 설계하기 위해 두 가지의 세부적인 설계문제를 효과적으로 다루어야 한다. 정보디스플레이에서 표현할 정보의 내용을 파악하고 조직화하는 문제와 그 표현할 정보를 시각적으로 잘 표현하는 문제로 구분이 된다. Ecological Interface Design (EID)는 두 문제를 다루기 위한 이론적 배경지식과 방법을 제공하는 정보디스플레이 설계의 틀이다. EID는 1990년대 초반에