20 research outputs found
Banking intermediation and SMEs in Morocco: Assessing Financial Performance Dynamics
No full textThis article explores the impact of bank intermediation on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) by synthesizing insights from previous research. Beyond providing capital, banks offer essential financial products and services like cash management tools and loans tailored to SMEs. The article proposes a theoretical model to analyze how bank-SME interactions influence SME performance, emphasizing the importance of relevant products and efficient service delivery in fostering SME growth and economic contribution. By prioritizing not just access to financial services, but also informed use and relevant products, banks can become transformative partners for SMEs. This comprehensive approach, informed by ongoing research through empirical modeling, will pave the way for a more dynamic financial landscape, where SMEs can thrive, fueling economic growth and innovation
Machine learning-based prediction of toxic metals concentration in an acid mine drainage environment, northern Tunisia
No full textIn northern Tunisia, Sidi Driss sulfide ore valorization had produced a large waste amount. The long tailings exposure period and in situ minerals interactions produced an acid mine drainage (AMD) which contributed to a strong increase in the mobility and migration of huge heavy metal (HM) quantities to the surrounding soils. In this work, the soil mineral proportions, grain sizes, physicochemical properties, SO42− and S contents, and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms such as the Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models were used to predict the soil HM quantities transferred from Sidi-Driss mine drainage to surrounding soils. The results showed that the HM concentrations had significantly increased with the increase of decomposition and oxidation of galena, marcasite, pyrite, and sphalerite-marcasite and Fe-oxide-hydroxides quantities and the sulfate dissolution (marked with SO42− ions increase) that produced the decreased soil pH. Compared to SVM, and ANN models outputs, the RF model that revealed higher R2val, RPD, RPIQ, and lower error indices had satisfactorily predicted the soil HM accumulation coming from the AMD environment. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
SRC_Num_TDOA: Multiple speech sources’ number and their TDOA Estimation from a stereo recorded mixture
No full textAbstractWe consider the problem of sources counting and Time Delays of Arrival (TDOAs) estimation from a two-channel reverberant mixture in the underdetermined case. Most existing estimating TDOA implementations are based on a prior knowledge about the number of involved sources in the mixture. Whereas, we develop a new function that only takes the observed mixtures as input. In this paper, we describe the basic of the proposed function, its development and its evaluation on real recorded mixtures with reference to widely used methods. Through simulations and real environment experiments, we indicate that our method outperforms other state-of-the-art TDOA methods in terms of accuracy, while being significantly more efficient in terms of computational complexity
Reducing the prevalence of compassion fatigue in emergency department nurses through resilience training
No full textCompassion fatigue is exhaustion that limits the ability of caring relationships. Emergency department nurses deal with high stress situations that involve physical and emotional challenges that may result in compassion fatigue. Due to the challenges of the demands faced by emergency department nurses, compassion fatigue is a vast issue, which impacts the quality of care provided. Compassion fatigue affects patient satisfaction and staff turnover, ultimately leading to the nursing shortage. Therefore, it is a problem worth investigating and working to resolve.
Methodology: Resilience techniques such as self-care strategies (i.e, sleep, adequate hydration and nutrition) as well as guided meditation and self-affirmation were discussed in a one-hour resilience training to help emergency department nurses in a level two trauma hospital develop resiliency techniques to overcome compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue was scored on a Professional Quality of Life tool developed by Hudnall Stamm (2009) before and after the training to assess the effectiveness of the training on emergency department nurses.
Results: A Mann Whitney U statistical analysis showed statistically significant results for the subsets of burnout, compassion satisfaction, and secondary traumatic stress (p = .000). The mean scores for each subset of the Professional Quality of Life tool have also improved post-intervention.
Conclusion: The results of this project correlate with evidence in the literature, stating that resiliency training works to improve compassion fatigue by improving compassion satisfaction and decreasing burnout and secondary traumatic stress. The resilience training for this project used strategies that include self-care, mentoring, and exercise, which gave nurses different techniques to improve resiliency such as guided meditation and tips on improving their health and lifestyle. It was concluded that resilience training has a positive effect on reducing the prevalence of compassion fatigue in emergency department nurses.DNPIncludes bibliographical reference
The shallow bond: the profit motive figuring into Virginia Woolf’s feminist message
No full textWoolf’s vocabulary of feminist emancipation was the vector of her migration towards the genre of the novel. For all the vindictiveness it bears against gender inequality, exploring feminism as potential (i.e., as future-oriented) was not untouched by the writer’s inward-turned contradictions despite her choice of the variety of the narrative to intercept the strain of reminiscence (therefore the sentimentalism) of her poetry. “After being ill and suffering every form and variety of nightmare” (Letters IV, 231), Virginia Woolf “by the light of reason, tr[ies] to put into prose” (ibid) her idea of female empowerment to “keep entirely off” (ibid) the danger of patriarchy. Proving the efficiency of her feminist message as an author was within Woolf’s battle against a stretched life of introversion with a view to explore the broader opportunity presented by prose. However, a conspicuous part of her mental instability was Woolf’s unclear relation to the profit motif behind the project of female authorship which acquired a significance that always threatened to frustrate her very feminist concept
Experiencias reflexivas de sentido de vida y enseñanza de la filosofía en la educación media
No full textThis reflective essay is part of a research exercise on the reflective experiences of meaning in life and the teaching of philosophy in high school students in Colombia. The main goal is to reflect on the importance of redefining the role of the school in the construction of meaning of life in young people through the teaching of philosophy as a way of life, in a context in which the school has become a territory of tension between two discourses; an institutional one represented by educational policies and their concern for results and continuous improvement; and the discourse of students who are deprived of the meaning of education. It is proposed, then, to think of the school as a place of resistance, understanding resistance not as opposition or denial but as a synonym of contemporary, a school in which the main concern and central axis is the formation of the being. The author followed an approach of paradigmatic articulation between modern hermeneutics, critical theory and the philosophy of education based on authors such as Gadamer, Bauman, Han, Larrosa and Bárcena. Consequently, the conceptual approach addresses some characteristics of contemporary society, the challenges it represents for secondary school and the reflective experiences of meaning in life as a pedagogical commitment to confront the exclusion from the world of life that characterizes contemporary school.Hoy es posible ver la escuela como lugar de tensión entre dos discursos; por un lado, el discurso institucional con su preocupación por la calidad educativa y los resultados de las pruebas externas. Y por el otro lado, el vaciamiento del sentido de la educación que experimentan los jóvenes; ante este panorama la escuela pareciera enfrentar una exclusión de la experiencia vital y son las maestras y maestros quienes deben ayudar a resignificarla como un lugar de resistencia; entendiendo la resistencia no como oposición o negación sino como sinónimo de contemporánea, una escuela que propicie escenarios de reflexión en los que el estudiantado analice su experiencia vital como un paso hacia la construcción de su subjetividad, en este contexto la clase de filosofía se convierte en un escenario clave. Es aquí donde surge la inquietud por ¿Cómo influye la enseñanza de la filosofía en la experiencia reflexiva del sentido de vida en estudiantes de educación media de la Institución Educativa General Santander?; el propósito general de la investigación que se está adelantado es comprender y analizar la influencia de la enseñanza de la filosofía en la experiencia reflexiva del sentido de vida en estudiantes de educación media de la Institución Educativa General Santander de la ciudad de Montería, Colombia. Para su desarrollo se propone un enfoque de articulación paradigmática entre la hermenéutica moderna, la teoría crítica y la filosofía de la educación, teniendo cuatro conceptos claves; experiencia reflexiva, sentido de vida, enseñanza de la filosofía y género
La symbolique de trois prénoms féminins dans "Les Vertueux" de Yasmina Khadra
No full textThe literary first name serves as the linguistic sign around which the understanding of the narrative isconstructed. The author of Les Vertueux demonstrates an immoderate worship for first names. In fact, he himself writes under a penna mere lated to the first names of hiswife, Yasmina Khadra. Our various readings of the author'sworks, particularly the most recent one, have prompted us to focus on the first names given to the three female characters in the novel, Abla, Lalla, and Mariem. We believe that for the author, first names belong to lexico-semantic classes just like a subject or a verb in a sentence. For Khadra, the first nameshapes the character, not the other way around. To him, the first name is real and not fictitious, appearing as an essential component of novelistic writing. The act of naming these characters is more social than literary because not only is the semantic-cultural significance profound, but also, the informed reader can grasp the depth of the character through the first name. Through a semio-onomastic analysis, we will attempt to understand the symbolic significance of the female first names chosen by the author. Three female first names, linked to the three emblematic figures in the narrative, will form the starting point of this exploration. We will inventory all discursive elements related to the three female characters and compare their eponymous first names with local historical, cultural, and religious data to highlight the extent of the symbolic charge of the names. This approach builds upon the works of Zonabend (2001) and Iliescu (2013), which emphasize the character'sawareness as an act intimately linked to naming.Le prénom littéraire est le signe linguistique autour duquel se construit la compréhension du récit. L’auteur deLes Vertueux voue un culte immodéré pour les prénoms. D’ailleurs, lui-même écrit sous un nom de plume relatif aux prénoms de sa femmeYasminaKhadra.Nos différentes lectures des œuvres de l’auteur et en particulier la dernière en date, nous a poussé à nous intéresser aux prénoms attribués aux trois personnages féminins dans le roman, Abla, Lalla et Mariem. Nous pensons que, pour l’auteur,les prénoms appartiennent à des classes lexico-sémantiques au même titre qu’un sujet ou un verbe dans une phrase. Le prénom chez Khadraforge le personnage et non le contraire. Pour lui, le prénom est réel et non fictif et il apparaît comme une composante essentielle de l’écriture romanesque. L’acte de prénommer ces personnages est plus social que littéraire, car non seulement la portée sémantico-culturelle est prégnante, mais en plus, le lecteur averti[1] arrive à cerner l’épaisseur du personnage à travers le prénom.Nous tenterons à travers une analyse sémio-onomastique de cerner la portée symbolique du choix des prénoms féminins utilisés par l’auteur. Trois prénoms féminin relatifs aux trois figures emblématiques dans le récit constitueront le point de départ de cette progression. Nous allons inventorier tous les éléments discursifs relatifs aux trois personnages féminins et comparer leurs prénoms éponymes avec les données historiques, culturelles et religieuses locales pour mettre en exergue l’ampleur de la charge symbolique des prénoms. Cette progression s’appuie sur les travaux de Zonabend (2001) et Iliescu (2013) qui valorisent la conscientisation du personnage qui demeure un acte intimement lié à la dénomination.
