In recent years, cycling has emerged as an increasingly important consideration for national and local authorities around the world, primarily because of the public’s growing awareness about its health benefits and greenhouse emissions reduction. In the last decade, transport related policies in Malaysia and particularly in Kuala Lumpur have been seeking to support cycling as a travel mode, yet, cycling levels in Kuala Lumpur remain low and evidence about interventions are mixed. Data from an exploratory case study is used here to understand the transportation system planning and urban growth of Kuala Lumpur and their impact on cycling uptake, ex- amining current status of cycling facilities in KL, evaluating effectiveness of the cycling interventions, and the attitudes of participants of cycling events towards using bicycle. Using a combination of evidences from existing literature, observation referring to the quality and use of the first bicycle pathway in Kuala Lumpur, interviews with city officials and a survey of people’s attitudes towards using bicycle, this exploratory research highlights the challenges that a car dependent city faces in its urban transformation and in promoting cycling, as well as the residents’ motivations and deterrents to use bicycle for commuting.
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Ict is vrouwenwerk. Je krijgt geen vuile handen en je hoeft er de deur niet voor uit. De omgekeerde wereld? Niet in Maleisië. Vrouwen zijn daar goed vertegenwoordigd in de ict-sector en driekwart van de ict-studenten is vrouw. Dat zijn cijfers waar wij hier alleen van kunnen dromen. Maar het is geen rozengeur en maneschijn. Vrouwen in Maleisië hebben, ook in de ict, een achtergestelde positie. De strijd voor gendergelijkheid in de ict is universeel. Dat bleek tijdens het internationale congres 'Research on Women in ICT' in Kuala Lumpur. Een feest van herkenning in een wereld van verschil.
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In recent years, the importance of sustaining social innovation initiatives, onceinitiated, has gained increasing attention and, in particular, the role that design(ers) can play in this process. However, both the academic study and the practice of design and social innovation are currently lacking sufficient insight into how initiatives are sustained outside of experimental or academic settings and rarely move beyond the involvement of designers and/or researchers. The paper shares experiences from practitioners from Asia-Pacific that are operating in the real world, highlighting their precarious working conditions. The significance of building and maintaining healthy social relations in essential in this context, as these enable the weaving of a strong social fabric around the initiatives that will provide necessarily shelter and to endure long after the practitioners’ involvement. Therefore, facilitating the creation of meaningful social relations should be the key objective for design, instead of designing artefacts.
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Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face unique challenges in developing AI-enabled products and services, with traditional innovation processes proving too resource-intensive and poorly adapted to AI's complexities. Following design science research methodology, this paper introduces Innovation Process for AI-enabled Products and Services (IPAPS), a framework specifically designed for SMBs developing AI-enabled solutions. Built on a semi-formal ontology that synthesizes literature on innovation processes, technology development frameworks, and AI-specific challenges, IPAPS guides organizations through five structured phases from use case identification to market launch. The framework integrates established innovation principles with AI-specific requirements while emphasizing iterative development through agile, lean startup, and design thinking approaches. Through polar theoretical sampling, we conducted ex-post analysis of two contrasting cases. Analysis revealed that the successful case naturally aligned with IPAPS principles, while the unsuccessful case showed significant deviations, providing preliminary evidence supporting IPAPS as a potentially valid innovation process for resource-constrained organizations.
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Peat swamp forests in Southeast Asia are under heavy pressure. Deforestation, forest degradation, wildfires, and drainage have damaged or destroyed substantial areas of the once extensive peat swamp forest formations. Several efforts are underway to rehabilitate degraded peat forests areas in order to restore some of the valuable ecosystem services these forested areas once provided. However, these efforts often result in (mixed)-plantations that only partly resemble the original peat forests. Information about these peat swamp forests' complex origin and ecology is needed to improve restoration outcomes further. Our paper analyses historical data from coastal peat swamp forests in Sarawak and Brunei and discusses the potential to use this as the reference value for intact peat forests. We describe the observed stand structure and species composition for pristine peat swamp forest, and we analyze the population structure of three dominant peat swamp forest species: Gonystylus bancanus (ramin), Dactylocladus stenostachys (jongkong) and Shorea albida (alan batu). We compare the historical data with data from recently measured, degraded peat swamp forests. We discuss our results in relation to processes of peat dome formation, nutrient availability and hydrology, and give recommendations for peat swamp forest management and restoration.
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This study evaluates the maximum theoretical exposure to radiofrequency (RF) electromag- netic fields (EMFs) from a Fifth-generation (5G) New Radio (NR) base station (BS) while using four commonly used mobile applications: YouTube for video streaming, WhatsApp for voice calls, Instagram for posting pictures and videos, and running a Video game. Three factors that might affect exposure, i.e., distance of the measurement positions from the BS, measurement time, and induced traffic, were examined. Exposure was assessed through both instantaneous and time-averaged extrapolated field strengths using the Maximum Power Extrapolation (MPE) method. The former was calculated for every measured SS-RSRP (Secondary Synchronization Reference Signal Received Power) power sample obtained with a sampling resolution of 1 second, whereas the latter was obtained using a 1-min moving average applied on the applications’ instantaneous extrapolated field strengths datasets. Regarding distance, two measurement positions (MPs) were selected: MP1 at 56 meters and MP2 at 170 meters. Next, considering the measurement time, all mobile application tests were initially set to run for 30 minutes at both MPs, whereas the video streaming test (YouTube) was run for an additional 150 minutes to investigate the temporal evolution of field strengths. Considering the traffic, throughput data vs. both instantaneous and time-averaged extrapolated field strengths were observed for all four mobile applications. In addition, at MP1, a 30-minute test without a User Equipment (UE) device was conducted to analyze exposure levels in the absence of induced traffic. The findings indicated that the estimated field strengths for mobile applications varied. It was observed that distance and time had a more significant impact than the volume of data traffic generated (throughput). Notably, the exposure levels in all tests were considerably lower than the public exposure thresholds set by the ICNIRP guidelines.INDEX TERMS 5G NR, C-band, human exposure assessment, mobile applications, traffic data, maximum extrapolation method, RF-EMF.
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Den Haag en Genève zijn beide gastheer van vele Internationale Organisaties (IO’s) en non-gouvernementele organisaties (ngo’s). West-Europese, middelgrote steden kampen met toegenomen concurrentie op het gebied van het gastheerschap van organisaties als gevolg van de globalisering. Het doel van dit artikel is om Den Haag en Genève te vergelijken op het gebied van hun beleid ten aanzien van IO’s en ngo’s. Dit artikel behandelt de volgende onderzoeksvraag: Hoe is het beleid van Den Haag en Genève op het gebied van aantrekken en behouden van IO’s en ngo’s veranderd en op welke wijze kan de concurrentiepositie van beide steden worden verbeterd? De uitkomsten: Genève richt zich meer op het behouden terwijl Den Haag daarnaast ook focust op het aantrekken van organisaties. Genève is een omnivoor terwijl Den Haag zich vooral richt op thema’s als Vrede en Recht. Verbeterpunten zijn: internationale bereikbaarheid en medische voorzieningen (Den Haag), de woningmarkt en het parkeerprobleem (Genève), kinderopvang en het scheppen van discussiecentra (beide).
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Het toenemend gebruik van internet en mobiele telefoons vormt soms aanleiding voor bezorgdheid over de kwaliteit van onze sociale netwerken. Toch scheppen de digitale mogelijkheden eerder nieuwe kansen voor communicatie dan dat zij bijdragen aan bijvoorbeeld vereenzaming. Internet wordt weliswaar veel gebruikt voor surfen en spelletjes, maar ook voor e-mail en chatten. Onduidelijk is nog of de internettijd ten koste gaat van tijd die eerder besteed werd aan televisie, lezen, deelname aan verenigingsleven of een andere activiteit. Dit artikel geeft ook aan dat de relatie tussen nieuwe media en sociale netwerken georganiseerd kan worden, dat via beleid de 'sociale winst' van technologie gekapitaliseerd kan worden.
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In this article, we assess the potential of alternative land use systems using non-drainage peatland species which could eventually phase out or partly replace oil palm plantations on undrainable peatlands. We have used the ecosystem services approach to analyse what scenarios using drainage-free peatland species could be suitable alternatives for oil palm cultivation on peat and how these scenarios compare to oil palm plantations in terms of selected ecosystem services. Our results indicate that alternative paludiculture systems will provide more direct and indirect ecosystem services than oil palm plantations on peat. We also found that stakeholders were aware of issues with growing oil palm on peat, and that there was a general intention for sustainable use of peatlands amongst several groups of stakeholders. Replacing oil palm with alternative systems such as paludiculture in Malaysia is not yet realistic. The most important impediments are a lack of knowledge on potential of non-drainage peatland species and its associated value chains, as well as the technical difficulty for smallholders to implement such a system. We recommend starting experimental plantings with paludiculture systems to further test species performance, life cycle analysis, growth, intercropping limitations and possibilities, yields and improvements in the value chain.
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