Sport Participation and Community Capacity Building in Disadvantaged Urban Communities

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between sport and community by examining the role played by sports participation in community engagement and community capacity building in disadvantaged urban communities.From a conceptual standpoint,the study is based on the sociological theory of the community and Community Capacity Building(CCB)theory,which provide overviews of the concept of community and community capacity and its characteristics.Four disadvantaged urban communities were investigated.Two of these communities had sports programs,while the other two did not.The online questionnaire methodology was adopted to assess the socio-demographic characteristics and community engagement of the participants(knowledge of programs and participation in community activities),and subsequently,an analysis of the online social media narratives of the community members themselves was developed to measure the characteristics of their community capacity building.We found that community engagement and community capacity values were higher in the communities with sports programs.These findings are promising and suggest that approaches based on sports participation development could be fruitful,particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Inquiry of Modernization Management of Rural Community Self-organizing on the Perspective of Social Work

The current rural community self-organizing of China is closely related with the rural social stability as well as economic and social development. However, the current rural community self-organizing construction falls far behind the requirements of realistic practice all over China, which greatly affects the advancement of the rural modernization of China. On the other hand, social work provides a unique perspective and method to deal with these problems. Its service philosophy of selfservice as well as its humanitarian value and practical working methods provide reality conformity for the intervention into rural community self-organizing, making it conductive to improving the social relations between rural community residents and possible to realize the mutual development of rural community and rural community residents.

A Fairness Resource Allocation Algorithm for Coverage and Capacity Optimization in Wireless Self-Organized Network

To achieve the higher resource efficiency, Coverage and Capacity Optimization(CCO) as an important role of the network self-healing and self-optimization, has become a focus topic in wireless Self-Organized Network(SON). In this paper, a novel CCO scheme is proposed to maximize utility function of the integrated coverage and capacity. It starts with the analysis on the throughput proportional fairness(PF) algorithm and then proposes the novel Coverage and Capacity Proportional Fairness(CCPF) allocation algorithm along with a proof of the algorithms convergence. This proposed algorithm is applied in a coverage capacity optimization scheme which can guarantee the reasonable network capacity by the coverage range accommodation. Next, we simulate the proposed CCO scheme based on telecom operators' real network data and compare with three typical resource allocation algorithms: round robin(RR), proportional fairness(PF) and max C/I. In comparison of the PF algorithm, the numerical results show that our algorithm increases the average throughput by 1.54 and 1.96 times with constructed theoretical data and derived real network data respectively.

Community capacity for sustainable community—based dengue prevention and control:study of a sub—district in Southern Thailand

Objective:To assess the level of community capacity for dengue prevention and control and to study household environments and larval indices in southern Thailand.Methods:A crosssectional survey was designed for the study,enrolling two communities with higher dengue incidence rate than the standard over the past five years.Data gathering was conducted by the dengue leader group(DLG),including 15 leaders and 15 non-leaders trained by the research team.The dengue community capacity assessment tool(DCCAT) for leaders(115 items.14 domains) and non-leaders(83 items,11 domains).Participants were selected by the DLG based on their communities’ dengue risk.In the low-dengue incidence(LDI) community,32 leaders and 177 non-leaders were selected;while in the high-dengue incidence(HDI) community,31 leaders and 199 non-leaders were chosen.Results:The leaders from the LDI and the HDI communities demonstrated high levels of dengue community-capacity(360.47±58.82,416.22±57.72). Non-leaders in the LDI community demonstrated a moderate level of dengue community capacity competence(205.90±60.76),while the non-leaders in the HDI community had a high level (254.78±50.34).Conclusions:These initial levels of dengue community capacity serves as a baseline for diagnosing each community.For a community that needed to improve its capacity, the DCCAT is essential tool to conduct a pre-post intervention assessment or a serial assessment. A participatory approach is taken to enable local communities to carry out anti-dengue efforts on their own,rather than have intervention by an outsider.

A novel self-organizing E-Learner community model with award and exchange mechanisms

How to share experience and resources among learners is becoming one of the hottest topics in the field of E-Learning collaborative techniques. An intuitive way to achieve this objective is to group learners which can help each other into the same community and help them learn collaboratively. In this paper, we proposed a novel community self-organization model based on multi-agent mechanism, which can automatically group learners with similar preferences and capabilities. In particular, we proposed award and exchange schemas with evaluation and preference track records to raise the performance of this algorithm. The description of learner capability, the matchmaking process, the definition of evaluation and preference track records, the rules of award and exchange schemas and the self-organization algorithm are all discussed in this paper. Meanwhile, a prototype has been built to verify the validity and efficiency of the algorithm. Experiments based on real learner data showed that this mechanism can organize learner communities properly and efficiently; and that it has sustainable improved efficiency and scalability.

Community capacity domains of dengue prevention and control

Objective:To explore the meanings and domains for giving communities the capacity to be successful in dengue prevention and control.Methods:One hundred and twenty participants were purposely selected from 4 sub-districts of 4 provinces in Southern Thailand with a high dengue incidence.Sixty community leaders and sixty non-community leaders participated in this study.In-depth interviews(IDIs),as well as focus group discussions (FGDs) with tape-recorders and note-taking,were used to collect data.All records were transcribed verbatim and analyzed by using the Colaizzi method for content analysis.Results:The findings showed that people view the creation of a sustainable dengue community program as possible only with the support of each community in its entirety:"everyone,every sector,all participating,and with continuing activities." Community capacity for dengue prevention and control was dependent on ten domains:1) stakeholder participation, 2) community leadership,3) a core-activities group,4) a problem-solving needs assessment,5) dengue information transfer,6) resource mobilization,7 ) a sense of community for the dengue problem,8) a dengue network partnership,9) critical dengue situation-management,and 10) continuing dengue prevention and control activities.Conclusion:These community capacity domains can be developed into an assessment tool for the community capacity-building process.Community capacity domains require community leaders and non-community leaders to clarify dengue prevention and control assistance required.

A model of community capacity building for sustainable dengue problem solution in Southern Thailand

Dengue community capacity (DCC) is important for developing a sustainable approach to over-coming the problem of dengue. The objectives were 1) to develop and 2) evaluate a dengue community capacity building model for the leader and non-leader group in three communities selected by purposive technique. A mixed method research design was used employing both qualitative and quantitative methods with qualitative studies conducted for community capacity building model: assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. DCC level was assessed by the Dengue Community Capacity Assessment Tool (DCCAT) including larval indices, and morbidity and mortality rate. To analyze the differences of the leader and non-leader’s DCC levels both pre and post-interventions in each model, the Mann-Whitney and Independent T-test were used and to analyze the difference of the DCC level among the three models (Ban Mon, Ban Nangpraya and Ban Kang), the Kruskal-Wallis Test, ANOVA, and ANCOVA were used. The findings showed that there were some differences among the three models in dengue community capacity building in terms model. The participants consisted of leader (n = 26, 24 and 28) and non-leader groups (n = 200, 215 and 176 respectively). The DCC levels of both leader and non-leader groups increased post-intervention in each model (p < 0.001) and in all three models, showing a statistically significant difference between pre and post-intervention (p < 0.001). Ban Kang model demonstrated the highest DCC levels of leader and non-leader groups, the lowest larval indices (HI, BI, and CI), and no dengue morbidity. In contrast, Ban Mon and Ban Nangpraya model showed low DCC level in both leader and non-leader groups, a high rate of larval indices and high dengue morbidity rate. However, there was no mortality rate in three areas. The conclusion indicates that the model with a high DCC level showed low risk on the dengue index both entomological and epidemiology index. The model of dengue community capacity building for dengue solution was sustainability not only needs to be maintained DCC levels but also increased dependent upon the contexts of each community.

The community capacity building for sustainable dengue problem solution (CCB-SDPS) model: The results from studies in community, southern region, Thailand

This paper provides an approach for sustainable dengue problem solution by the community capacity building model and the results of two studies from implementation the model in Southern region, Thailand. The conceptual framework of the CCB-SDPS model consisted of three dimensions;1) community-based (leader and non-leader in community), 2) community capacity building process, and 3) sustainable dengue problem solution (outcomes). The outcomes of studies focused on the capacity level by the DCCAT (14 domains of leader group, and 11 domains of non-leader group), dengue entomology (Larval) index, and epidemiological (morbidity and mortality) rate. The two studies were pilot study in high risk dengue areas. These studies were application of CCB-SDPS model. First study was the process of using the tool for testing the DCCAT in two communities. The results showed only three steps of using assessment tool;community preparation, assessment, and community hearing. The second study was the fully testing model in three communities. Participatory action research and mix methods;quantitative and qualitative collecting data were preparation community-based, building capacity process (assessment, plan, implement, and reassessment), and outcomes monitoring. The results of second study showed three models of the CCB-SDPS. The two studies confirmed the sustainable in after intervention of community capacity building such as increased capacity level of leader and non-leader group, deceased entomological indices (HI, BI, and CI), and non presentation of morbidity and mortality rate in during study period. These results showed the model conducing on contexts of each community such the three dimensions of the conceptual framework of the model, community-based, building capacity process, and measurement of outcomes of sustainable dengue problem solution. These experiences in Southern Thailand demonstrated the main keys to the approach of CCB-SDPS were in the use of strategies planning to initiate community capacity building towards sustained dengue problem solution.

Evolution of Commercial Space near the Subway Stations of Community Type Based on Self-Organization Theory: A Case Study of Chengdu Wannianchang Subway Station

The subway stations of urban community type are not only main nodes in the urban traffic network, but also important places for peopled daily life. Widi the rapid development of urban metro and urban economy, the commercial space near tiie subway station has become the focus of urban planning and urban spatial development, and commercial self-oiganization pkys an important role in the development of commercial operations, commercial structures, and commercial scales, so how to make effective use of the inherent laws of the commercial space evolution, and further guide the rational development of community businesses needs more attention and research. This paper takes Chengdu Wannianchang Subway Station as an example to study the evolution stage, influencing factors, evolution characteristics and laws of the neatby commercial space. Moreover, suggestions were put forward such as coordinating competition and collaboration, optimizing space design and management, co-directional self-organization and heter-oiganizations, in order to provide a new reference for the healthy and ordedy development of the neighboring commefdal space near the subway stations of community type.

Geospatial Analysis of Flood Vulnerability Levels Based on Physical Characteristics and Resilience Capacity of Peri-Urban Settlements in Nigeria

Flooding is becoming a yearly reoccurring event in many communities and cities in Nigeria, leading to the destruction of properties and deaths;hence, we must take measures to either prepare for the impact or curb the occurrence. The study identified flood vulnerability levels of communities in Isoko North LGA based on physical environmental domains such as land use, elevation, and proximity to river channel (drainage) using geospatial techniques. Also, attributes that could contribute to the resilience capacity building of the communities were assessed. From the study, 73.93% of the entire area is moderately and highly vulnerable to flood, while among the communities, seventeen (17) are categorized as moderately vulnerable, and four (4) are lowly vulnerable. The overall resilience capacity of the communities indicated can build a substantial capacity towards community resilience (3.02, 0.06). However, there is a need to encourage collaboration with stakeholders to improve mitigation action and enhance various shortcomings toward resilience capacity building.

Collective Action as a New Approach to Rural Rejuvenation:Exploring Mobilization of Indigenous Community in Eastern Taiwan

The“Rural Rejuvenation Act”was legislated on 4th August,2010 by the government,which was designed to revitalize the overall development of rural areas in Taiwan.As rural decline fell into a vicious circle,problems such as rural migration,aging,lower education,lower average labor productivity,and overall low levels of public service,the government would like to actively solve the so-called“declining industry”.It is enacted to establish a rural rejuvenation fund and hope to take care of the farmers and fishermen in rural areas.The aim of this fund is to make the rural community filling with“vitality,health,and happiness”.To implement rural rejuvenation policy,besides top-down integrating strategies,the bottom-up promoting strategies are also considered as an important method.The Amis indigenous community in Eastern Taiwan was encouraged to apply Empowerment Program.According to the rejuvenation course rule,once organizations which make their farmers or residents finish four stages of course(including beginner’s course,advanced course,core course,and rejuvenation course)are qualified to propose a Rural Rejuvenation Plan.The indigenous community was very happy about the four-year project which was approved by the government.However,whether the mobilization of whole community to execute Rural Rejuvenation Plan and achieve their rejuvenated goal of community development is needed to be investigated deliberatively.We propose an analytical framework to understand the role of collective action based on the interaction of two dimensions:group characteristics of the indigenous community and external environment which is depended on external support by government and non-government organizations.The implementation of the project depends on financial and non-financial support,such as subsidy to verification fees of organic farming or training and empowering farmers with specific knowledge.This study finds that:(1)The community did retain Amis culture;the leaders have been directly involved in strengthening operational capacity;(2)Leaders’efforts of mobilizing the whole community to implement the project collectively resulted in rational ignorance of the villagers and even resource centralization;(3)The central and local government were lack of coordination;the inequality of resource allocation may hinder the indigenous community development.Our findings reveal that collective action is not a panacea to mobilize the villagers to attend community-oriented project.

Framework for capacity based sustainable design ■ development: towards resilient communities

The most fundam ental struggle for realizing a sustainable built environm ent still lies in the use of non-renew able resources in its articulation.Although efforts have been taken to increase the use of sustainable materials the vast majority of the building sector still relies heavily on depletable resources.This article debates that the most fundam ental contributors to sustainable developm ent are the evaluation and incorporation of inhabitant capacities.Evaluating the available natural materials,inhabitant skills and tools could play a fundam ental role in creating sustainable solutions.However,inhabitant capacity-models insufficiently cover all instrum ental capacities into one model(both inhabitant and community).Therefore,this article describes:a framework for evaluating inhabitant capacities;how to map available resource capacities;how these capacities can be incorporated into sustainable housing development and planning.The framework was developed as a part of a support tool,which helps designers and engineers to evaluate inhabitant capacities.To describe the fram ework and support tool a rural Sub-Saharan community is used,as their capacities are relatively less com plicated com pared to a‘western’context.The article concludes that the framework shows great potential in reducing the use of unsustainable materials.Furtherm ore,that it could enable social sustainability by creating self-reliant and resilient communities.

SELF-ORGANIZING MAP OF COMPLEX NETWORKS FOR COMMUNITY DETECTION

Detecting communities from complex networks is an important issue and has attracted attention of researchers in many fields. It is relevant to social tasks, biological inquiries, and technological problems since various networks exist in these systems. This paper proposes a new self-organizing map （SOM） based approach to community detection. By adopting a new operation and a new weightupdating scheme, a complex network can be organized into dense subgraphs according to the topological connection of each node by the SOM algorithm. Extensive numerical experiments show that the performance of the SOM algorithm is good. It can identify communities more accurately than existing methods. This method can be used to detect communities not only in undirected networks, but also in directed networks and bipartite networks.

Different dietary protein sources influence growth performance,antioxidant capacity,immunity,fecal microbiota and metabolites in weaned piglets

The inclusion of high-quality proteins are commonly used in swine production.Our research investigated the effects of hydrolyzed wheat protein(HWP),fermented soybean meal(FSBM),and enzyme-treated soybean meal(ESBM)on growth performance,antioxidant capacity,immunity,fecal microbiota and metabolites of weaned piglets.A total of 144 piglets(weaned at 28 d)were allotted to 3 dietary treatments with 6 replicate pens per treatment and 8 piglets per pen.This study included 2 periods:d 0 to14 for phase 1 and d 15 to 28 for phase 2.Dietary treatments contained 15.90%HWP,15.80%FSBM,and 15.10%ESBM in phase 1,and 7.90%HWP,7.80%FSBM,and 7.50%ESBM in phase 2,respectively.The ADG of piglets in ESBM was increased(P<0.05)compared with HWP and FSBM during d 1e28.Compared with HWP and FSBM,ESBM increased(P<0.05)the ferric reducing ability of plasma(FRAP),and the serum level of superoxide dismutase(SOD)in piglets on d 14,as well as increased(P<0.05)the serum FRAP level in piglets on d 28.ESBM decreased(P<0.05)serum levels of DAO and IL-1b in piglets compared with HWP on d 28.ESBM enhanced(P<0.05)the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes,Oscillospiraceae and Christensenellaceae,as well as reduced the relative abundance of Clostridiaceae in the feces compared with HWP and FSBM.The PICRUSt analysis revealed that the number of gene tags related to degradation of valine,leucine and isoleucine,as well as lysine degradation in ESBM were lower(P<0.05)than that in HWP and FSBM.ESBM increased(P<0.05)the fecal butyrate level in piglets compared with FSBM,and ESBM tended to decrease(P=0.076)the fecal cadaverine level.Overall,ESBM had advantages over HWP and FSBM in improving antioxidant status,immune function,fecal bacteria and metabolites for weaned piglets.

Semantic Social Service Organization Mechanism in Cyber Physical System

Cyber physical system(CPS)provides more powerful service by cyber and physical features through the wireless communication.As a kind of social organized network system,a fundamental question of CPS is to achieve service self-organization with its nodes autonomously working in both physical and cyber environments.To solve the problem,the social nature of nodes in CPS is firstly addressed,and then a formal social semantic descriptions is presented for physical environment,node service and task in order to make the nodes communicate automatically and physical environment sensibly.Further,the Horn clause is introduced to represent the reasoning rules of service organizing.Based on the match function,which is defined for measurement between semantics,the semantic aware measurement is presented to evaluate whether environment around a node can satisfy the task requirement or not.Moreover,the service capacity evaluation method for nodes is addressed to find out the competent service from both cyber and physical features of nodes.According to aforementioned two measurements,the task semantic decomposition algorithm and the organizing matrix are defined and the service self-organizing mechanism for CPS is proposed.Finally,examinations are given to further verify the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed mechanism.

Exploratory Analyses for Water Quality of the Gulf of Mexico Basin, Texas, 2005-2014

With the increased demand for more water sources, the issues of water quality have become more important. This study presents exploratory data analyses on water quality issues related to the Gulf of Mexico Basin in Texas for the last decade: 2005-2014. Dissolved oxygen, water temperature, specific conductance, PH, transparency, sampling depth and Enterococci observations for the ten years from 2005 to 2014 were analyzed. Statistical testing showed that the observations followed similar distributions between the years. Thus they were combined for each of the variables. Throughout the ten years transparency, water temperature, specific conductance, and Enterococci showed higher variances. Pair-wise correlations were negligible but they had positive spatial autocorrelation. Sampling was constantly conducted in the four months of February, May, August, and November. Water temperature, dissolved oxygen and Enterococci concentrations varied significantly during these four months. Univariate spatial regressions showed that Enterococci is predicted to increase whereas dissolved oxygen, PH, water temperature, specific conductances were predicted to decrease.

A successful TB defaulter control in a war zone with high HIV prevalence

War zones in Sub-Saharan Africa represent a challenge for public health projects like TB control programs because planning and communication have been disrupted,doctors and medical workers flied to secure zones.We present a TB control program carried out by an Italian NGO,Italian Association for Solidarity among People(AISPO) in a referral Hospital of North Uganda(Lacor H).

Co-occurrence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and their composite impacts on microbial consortium in soil: A field study

This is the first study to report the co-occurrence of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances(PFASs),heavy metals,and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs)and their impacts on the native microbial consortium in soil due to the long-term exposure.The PFASs,heavy metals,and PAHs were detected in soil samples collected at 2–6 m below the ground surface at different sampling locations in a steel-making factory.The total concentrations of PFASs varied from 6.55 to 19.79 ng g^(-1),with perfluorooctane sulfonate(PFOS),perfluorobutane sulfonate,and 6:2 chlorinated polyfluorinated ether sulfonate(alternative of PFOS)being the predominant PFASs.The concentrations of arsenic,cadmium,and lead were detected in the ranges of 4.40–1270.00,0.01–8.67,and 18.00–647.00 mg kg^(-1),respectively,and the concentration of total PAHs was detected in the range of 1.02–131.60 mg kg^(-1).The long-term exposure to mixed contaminants of PFASs,heavy metals,and PAHs led to lower richness and diversity of microbial communities in soil.The soil bacterial communities were mainly composed of Pseudomonas,norank_p_GAL15,Leptothrix,norank_o_Rokubacteriales,and Acinetobacter.Correlations between soil environmental factors and microbial communities indicated that cation exchange capacity and total phosphorus were two key factors in shaping the composition of native microbial communities.Furthermore,Arthrobacter,Leptothrix,and Sphingobium were found to be significantly positively correlated with PFAS concentrations,indicating that these genera could tolerate the stress exerted by PFASs,along with the stress imposed due to the presence of heavy metals or/and PAHs.