Search results for "Focu"
showing 10 items of 1182 documents
Why nurturing curiosity is an ethical endeavour: exploring practitioners’ reflections on the importance of curiosity
2018
Several authors have argued that early childhood education and care (ECEC) is essentially an ethical practice based on certain values and conceptions about the purpose of education. Is this also th...
Batch Methods for Resolution Enhancement of TIR Image Sequences
2015
Thermal infrared (TIR) time series are exploited by many methods based on Earth observation (EO), for such applications as agriculture, forest management, and meteorology. However, due to physical limitations, data acquired by a single sensor are often unsatisfactory in terms of spatial or temporal resolution. This issue can be tackled by using remotely sensed data acquired by multiple sensors with complementary features. When nonreal-time functioning or at least near real-time functioning is admitted, the measurements can be profitably fed to a sequential Bayesian algorithm, which allows to account for the correlation embedded in the successive acquisitions. In this work, we focus on appli…
Development of an earth observation processing chain for crop bio-physical parameters at local scale
2015
This paper proposes a full Earth observation processing chaing for biophysical parameter estimation at local scales. In particular, we focus on the Leaf Area Index (LAI) as an essential climate variable required for the monitoring and modeling of land surfaces at local scale. The main goal of this study is tied to the use of optical satellite images to retrieve Earth Observation (EO) biophysical parameters able to describe the spatio-temporal changes in agro-ecosystems at local scale. The objective of this work is two-fold: (i) to set up and update the EO products processing chain at high resolution (local) scale; and (ii) derive multitemporal LAI maps at 30 m resolution to be fed into a cr…
Rural Society, Social Inclusion and Landscape Change in Central and Eastern Europe:A Case Study of Latvia
2009
The countryside of Europe is undergoing many social, economic and environmental changes as a result of depopulation and agricultural land abandonment. This trend, driven in part by the wide disparity of income levels between rural and urban inhabitants, is particularly evident in the Central and Eastern European countries such as Latvia, which joined the EU in 2004 and in 2007. Research was undertaken in Latvia in 2003, the year before it joined the EU, to explore this trend, as manifested in the relationship of people to the countryside, using focus groups and a questionnaire survey. The results showed that, although Latvians retain a strong regard for their traditional countryside landsca…
Consumers' perceptions of sustainably produced food: a focus group study
2009
The purpose of this study is to provide information on consumers' perceptions of sustainably produced food products and the main product attributes that influence consumers' buying behaviour in the case of organic, Fair Trade and locally produced food. The paper draws on data from four focus groups. The results provide empirical insight into the motivating as well as the restricting factors that influence consumers' purchasing behaviour in the case of sustainably produced food and introduce the emerging key themes associated with the attributes of sustainably produced food products.
Economic Cooperation Between Latvia and China on the Background of Belt and Road Initiative with Focus on Cargo Potential
2018
Latvia is a Belt and Road Initiative country and can contribute to its Eurasian Land Bridge. The existing railway infrastructure can be used for establishing the Eurasian Land Bridge Northern Branch via Latvia, but the problem is a lack of cargo for this route. It can be integrated into the existing Eurasian Land Bridge with specialization to connect China and some European countries—the Scandinavian countries. The aim of the study is to assess the potential volume of Latvian cargo for the Eurasian Land Bridge Northern Branch through Latvia. The methods of the study are statistical analyses and the forecasts of experts. Forecast of experts is an innovative method for investigating this top…
Rising Educational Attainment and Opportunity Equalization: Evidence from France
2020
Educational policies are widely recognized as the means par excellence to equalize opportunities among children with different social and family backgrounds and to promote intergenerational mobility. In this chapter, we focus on the French case and we apply the opportunity equalization criterion proposed by Andreoli, Havnes, and Lefranc (2019) for evaluating the effect of rising compulsory schooling requirements in secondary education. Our results show that such education expansion has a limited redistributive effect on students’ earnings distribution. Nonetheless, we provide evidence of opportunity equalization among groups of students defined by family background circumstances.
DEVELOPMENT OF MARITIME HUMAN RESOURCES AND EDUCATION. CAREER EDUCATION IN LATVIAN MARITIME ACADEMY
2013
Seafaring profession has traditionally been considered a romantic profession among young people, but in today's labor market has dramatically changed priorities of career choices. At present, the maritime industry has more than 40 thousand vacancies, in addition to the growing trend. If the recent level of sailors (rating) applies for a job from Asia and other developing countries, than the shipping officers with University level are particularly difficult to recruit for crew shipping companies. Standard defines the profession demanding skippers and navigators. Latvia is in good situation in comparison with other EU countries - Latvia is the 5th place in Europe (13 thousand seamen), two Mar…
A new approach to modelling the input-output structure of regional economies using non-survey methods
2021
AbstractThis paper proposes a new approach to the regionalization of national input–output tables where suitable regional data are scarce and analysts are considering using location quotients (LQs). We focus on the FLQ formula, which frequently yields the best results of the pure LQ-based methods, and develop an enhanced way of implementing this approach. We use a modified cross-entropy (MCE) method, along with a regression model, to estimate values of the unknown parameter δ in the FLQ formula, specific to both region and country. An analysis of survey-based data for 16 South Korean regions reveals that the proposed FLQ+ approach yields more accurate estimates of both input coefficients an…
The role of innovation and knowledge for entrepreneurship and regional development
2021
The impact of entrepreneurial activity on regional economic growth continues to be a focus of research and policy-makers throughout our global environment (Carree and Thurik 2000; Agarwal, Audretsc...