Implementing smart community engagement should consider careful planning and collaboration with numerous stakeholders, including the community. The technology and program must be designed to frame its purpose and should link back to specific goals of implementing smart community engagement. Digital services do not guarantee a smart engagement between the community and the local government. This is the case for the Kubang Pasu local government where several online services have been provided in their attempt to implement the smart community concept. However, understanding on the preferences of features and requirements of existing web-based systems and the impact of these systems is lacking. Therefore, a perception study needs to be conducted to obtain information regarding smart community engagement implementation. This study aimed to discover the community’s perceptions on smart community engagement, specifically for Kubang Pasu in terms of its local context. To achieve this, a combination of interview and online survey was employed involving stakeholders of several organizations and 309 respondents among the community in Kubang Pasu. Result of the interview and survey revealed moderate engagement between the community and organizations due to low awareness, moderate engagement between the community and local authorities, low exposure to online services, as well as the weaknesses of the current online systems. It can be concluded that the satisfaction level of the respondents with officers at the organizations was only moderate. The implementation of e-services could reduce face-to-face interactions, which could help to improve the satisfaction level. This could also help in moving toward the smart community engagement concept. Therefore, the smart communication method via social media, email, and website could be employed to increase the low rating of public engagement with the authorities. This move will foster the prompt implementation of smart community engagement.
Compelling evidence proved that coronavirus disease (COVID-19) disproportionately affects minorities. The goal of the present study was to explore the effects of intersected discrimination and discrimination types on COVID-19, mental health, and cognition. A sample of 542 Iraqis, 55.7% females, age ranged from 18 to 73, with (M = 31.16, SD = 9.77). 48.7% were Muslims, and 51.3% were Christians (N = 278). We used measures for COVID-19 stressors, executive functions, intersected discrimination (gender discrimination, social groups-based discrimination, sexual orientation discrimination, and genocidal discrimination), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, status and death, existential anxieties, and health. We conducted in
... Show MoreRainwater harvesting could be a possible solution to decrease the consequences of water scarcity and energy deficiency in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). This study aims to calculate the water and energy (electricity) saved by rainwater harvesting for rooftops and green areas in Sulaimani city, KR, Iraq. Various data were acquired from different formal entities in Sulaimani city. Moreover, Google Earth and ArcMap 10.4 software were used for digitizing and calculating the total rooftop and green areas. The results showed that for the used runoff coefficients (0.8 and 0.95), the harvested rainwater volumes were 2901563 and 12197131 m³ during the study period (2005 – 2006) and (2019-2020). Moreover, by compa
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