Search results for: road- users

Authors: Salah Kayed Kayed, Jessica Hong Yang

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This study investigates, whether earnings management in the audited financial statements is associated with tone management in the narrative sections of the annual report in the UK. Earnings management and narrative disclosure are communication strategies used from managers to communicate with investors or other users. Because earnings management and narrative disclosure stem from managers, they can exploit this by doing manipulation in their earnings, and simultaneously disclosing qualitative text (narrative information) in their reports as a tone of words, which will affect users’ perception, and hence users will be misinformed. The association between earnings and tone management can be explained by the self-serving, through cognitive reference points, theory. The sample period lasts from 2010 to 2015, and the sample comprises all non-financial firms that consider under FTSE 350 in any year during the sample period. A list of words from previous research is used to measure the tone in the narrative sections of the annual report. Because this study focuses on the managerial strategic choice and the subjective issues that come from management, it uses the abnormal tone to capture the managerial discretion on tone, and a number of different discretionary accruals proxies to measure earnings management, where accruals management is considered as a manipulation tool from managers to change the users' perception. This research is motivated to fulfil the literature gap by examining the association between earnings and tone management. Moreover, if firms that apply earnings management use tone management to mislead investors, it is beneficial for investors, policy makers, standard setters, or other users to know whether there is an association between earnings management and tone management. Clearly, we believe that this study is fundamental in the accounting context, where it evaluates the communication strategies that are used in firms' financial reports. Consistent with prior research, it is expected that tone management is positively associated with earnings management. This means that firms that use earnings management have incentives to manipulate in their narrative disclosure through tone of words, to reflect a good perception for users, which will conceal the earnings management techniques used in their reporting.

Keywords: earnings management, FTSE 350, narrative disclosure, tone management

Procedia PDF Downloads 234

Authors: Sariyapa Kantawan, Muanfun Kongsomsawaeng

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Chanthaburi River community is an old mixed-culture village established in the 16th century. The town advanced more rapidly than others due to the ease of transportation at the time, which used the river as a road. Therefore, the province's first road begins here, propelling it to become an important commercial and trading center for almost a century. As a result of diverse culture, the architecture has been affected by Western, Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese, resulting in a new and distinctive style. To share the realm of memory, digital media enable the city to communicate its history and culture. This article describes a project that combines the concepts of digital storytelling and augmented reality and connects them to Chanthaburi River Community Culture by using QR codes as makers to display 3D models on mobile screens.

Keywords: digital storytelling, community culture, river community, cultural heritage, augmented reality

Procedia PDF Downloads 27

Authors: Rachael Bentley, Callahan Gergen, Brodie Thiede

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Roadways have a significant impact on the environment in so far as they function as barriers to wildlife movement, both through road mortality and through resultant road avoidance. Roads have an im-mense presence worldwide, and it is predicted to increase substantially in the next thirty years. As roadways become even more common, it is important to consider their environmental impact, and to mitigate the negative effects which they have on wildlife and wildlife mobility. In a thorough analysis of several related studies, a common conclusion was that roads cause habitat fragmentation, which can lead split populations to evolve differently, for better or for worse. Though some populations adapted positively to roadways, becoming more resistant to road mortality, and more tolerant to noise and chemical contamination, many others experienced maladaptation, either due to chemical contamination in and around their environment, or because of genetic mutations from inbreeding when their population was fragmented too substantially to support a large enough group for healthy genetic exchange. Large mammals were especially susceptible to maladaptation from inbreed-ing, as they require larger areas to roam and therefore require even more space to sustain a healthy population. Regardless of whether a species evolved positively or negatively as a result of their proximity to a road, animals tended to avoid roads, making the genetic diversity from habitat fragmentation an exceedingly prevalent issue in the larger discussion of road ecology. Additionally, the consideration of solu-tions, such as overpasses and underpasses, is crucial to ensuring the long term survival of many wildlife populations. In studies addressing the effectiveness of overpasses and underpasses, it seemed as though animals adjusted well to these sorts of solutions, but strategic place-ment, as well as proper sizing, proper height, shelter from road noise, and other considerations were important in construction. When an underpass or overpass was well-built and well-shielded from human activity, animals’ usage of the structure increased significantly throughout its first five years, thus reconnecting previously divided populations. Still, these structures are costly and they are often unable to fully address certain issues such as light, noise, and contaminants from vehicles. Therefore, the need for further discussion of new, crea-tive solutions remains paramount. Roads are one of the most consistent and prominent features of today’s landscape, but their environmental impacts are largely overlooked. While roads are useful for connecting people, they divide landscapes and animal habitats. Therefore, further research and investment in possible solutions is necessary to mitigate the negative effects which roads have on wildlife mobility and to pre-vent issues from resultant habitat fragmentation.

Keywords: fences, habitat fragmentation, roadways, wildlife mobility

Procedia PDF Downloads 145

Authors: Meng-Yu Wun, Jiunde Lee

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Participatory design transfers the role of design team becoming the facilitator who manages to work collaboratively with the 'partners of innovation': users. This facilitator role not just concerns the users’ behaviors or insights under the common practice of user-centered design, it emphasizes the importance of communication experience conducted by various strategies and tools in a workshop session which could profoundly impact the quality of the co-creation process. To investigate the communication experience in the participatory design, this study proposed a qualitative research to analyze communication strategies and tools. A participatory design workshop and following in-depth interviews were carried out to explore how participants (facilitators, users) might apply different strategies and tools to enhance the communication process. The major study findings are as follows: (a) roles had influence on communication experience; facilitators’ principles and methods influenced the usage of facilitation strategies in various situations, while users put more emphasis on communication activities and goals aimed to complete the design tasks, (b) communication tools should be both fixed and changeable: participants had fixed cognition on different forms of communication tools; with the fundamental cognition, they could choose and make use of tools according to their needs, (c) the management of workshop communication should be flexible: controlling the schedule, stimulating innovations, and creating the space for conversation are crucial to facilitate in a participatory workshop.

Keywords: communication experience, facilitation, participatory design, workshop

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Authors: Hadj Miloua, Abbes Azzi

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The objective of the present paper is to understand, predict and modeled the fire behavior in confined and open area in different conditions and diverse fuels such as liquid pool fire and the vegetative materials. The distinctive problems are a ventilated road tunnel used for urban transport, by the characterization installations of ventilation and his influence in the mode of smoke dispersion and the flame shape. A general investigation is relatively traditional, based on the modeling and simulation the scenario of the pool fire interacted with wind ventilation by the use of numerical software fire dynamic simulator FDS ver.5 to simulate the fire in ventilated tunnel. The second simulation by WFDS.5 is Wildland fire which is always occurs in forest and rangeland fire environments and will thus have an impact on people, property and resources.

Keywords: fire, road tunnel, simulation, vegetation, wildland

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Authors: Jessica Achebe, Susan Tighe

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The reduction of material consumption and greenhouse gas emission when maintain and rehabilitating road networks can achieve added benefits including improved life cycle performance of pavements, reduced climate change impacts and human health effect due to less air pollution, improved productivity due to an optimal allocation of resources and reduced road user cost. This is the essence of incorporating environmental sustainability into pavement management. The functionality of performance measurement approach has made it one of the most valuable tool to Pavement Management Systems (PMSs) to account for different criteria in the decision-making process. However measuring the environmental performance of road network is still a far-fetched practice in road network management, more so an ostensive agency-wide environmental sustainability or sustainable maintenance specifications is missing. To address this challenge, this present research focuses on the environmental sustainability performance of network-level pavement management. The ultimate goal is to develop a framework to incorporate environmental sustainability in pavement management systems for network-level maintenance programming. In order to achieve this goal, this paper present the first step, the intention is to review the previous studies that employed environmental performance measures, as well as the suitability of environmental performance indicators for the evaluation of the sustainability of network-level pavement maintenance strategies. Through an industry practice survey, this paper provides a brief forward regarding the pavement manager motivations and barriers to making more sustainable decisions, and data needed to support the network-level environmental sustainability. The trends in network-level sustainable pavement management are also presented, existing gaps are highlighted, and ideas are proposed for network-level sustainable maintenance and rehabilitation programming.

Keywords: pavement management, environment sustainability, network-level evaluation, performance measures

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Authors: Lali Khurtsia, Vano Tsertsvadze

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Georgian drug policy is directed to reduce the supply of drugs. Retrospective analysis has shown that law enforcement activities have been followed by the expulsion of particular injecting drugs. The demand remains unchanged and drugs are substituted by the hand-made, even more dangerous homemade drugs entered the market. To find out expected new trends on the Georgian drug market, qualitative study was conducted with Georgian drug users to determine drug supply routes. It turned out that drug suppliers and consumers for safety reasons and to protect their anonymity, use Skype to make deals. IT in illegal drug trade is even more sophisticated in the worldwide. Trading with Bitcoins in the Darknet ensures high confidentiality of money transactions and the safe circulation of drugs. In 2014 largest Bitcoin mining enterprise in the world was built in Georgia. We argue that the use of Bitcoins and Darknet by Georgian drug consumers and suppliers will be an incentive to response adequately to the government's policy of restricting supply in order to satisfy market demand for drugs.

Keywords: bitcoin, darknet, drugs, policy

Procedia PDF Downloads 414

Authors: Ahmad. A. Kardan, Amir Narimani, Foozhan Ataiefard

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Recommender Systems have been developed to provide contents and services compatible to users based on their behaviors and interests. Due to information overload in online discussion forums and users diverse interests, recommending relative topics and threads is considered to be helpful for improving the ease of forum usage. In order to lead learners to find relevant information in educational forums, recommendations are even more needed. We present a hybrid thread recommender system for MOOC forums by applying social network analysis and association rule mining techniques. Initial results indicate that the proposed recommender system performs comparatively well with regard to limited available data from users' previous posts in the forum.

Keywords: association rule mining, hybrid recommender system, massive open online courses, MOOCs, social network analysis

Procedia PDF Downloads 266

Authors: Jamaiah H. Yahaya, Aziz Deraman, Abdul Razak Hamdan, Yusmadi Yah Jusoh

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One of the most essential issues in software products is to maintain it relevancy to the dynamics of the user’s requirements and expectation. Many studies have been carried out in quality aspect of software products to overcome these problems. Previous software quality assessment models and metrics have been introduced with strengths and limitations. In order to enhance the assurance and buoyancy of the software products, certification models have been introduced and developed. From our previous experiences in certification exercises and case studies collaborating with several agencies in Malaysia, the requirements for user based software certification approach is identified and demanded. The emergence of social network applications, the new development approach such as agile method and other varieties of software in the market have led to the domination of users over the software. As software become more accessible to the public through internet applications, users are becoming more critical in the quality of the services provided by the software. There are several categories of users in web-based systems with different interests and perspectives. The classifications and metrics are identified through brain storming approach with includes researchers, users and experts in this area. The new paradigm in software quality assessment is the main focus in our research. This paper discusses the classifications of users in web-based software system assessment and their associated factors and metrics for quality measurement. The quality model is derived based on IEEE structure and FCM model. The developments are beneficial and valuable to overcome the constraints and improve the application of software certification model in future.

Keywords: software certification model, user centric approach, software quality factors, metrics and measurements, web-based system

Procedia PDF Downloads 380

Authors: Delband Yekta Moazami

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Background: For proper care and treatment of HIV patients and drug users, the medical staff and physicians must have a correct and positive attitude and knowledge towards such patients. We aimed to assess the attitudes in a sample of health care workers (HCW) working in different hospitals and clinics and medical students in Georgia towards HIV infected people and drug users in Tbilisi. Method: We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess attitudes of health care workers towards people living with HIV and drug users in hospitals and clinics in Tbilisi. The study was carried out from 1st of May 2020 till 30th of September 2020. Data were collected using a self-administered structured online questionnaire. With this tool we evaluated four facets of attitudes: Discrimination, Acceptance of HIV/AIDS patients, Acceptance of drug users and Fear. All data were imported and analyzed with the software SPSS 22 for windows. Results: In total data was collected from168 respondents, that among them 107 (65%) were women and majority of the participants were medical doctors. Women had more acceptance attitudes rather than men towards drug abusers. We found significant differences regarding expressing negative attitudes among HCW who were more than 50 years old comparing with other age groups in all four aspects. Medical doctors expressed more acceptances towards people with HIV and drug users comparing two other groups. Also our study revealed that the group with working experience 21 years and more, showed more discriminatory attitudes comparing other groups. Conclusion: Based on our study findings, there are significant differences regarding respondent’s attitudes based on gender, medical specialty and working experience in health care system. People struggling with HIV and drug use need nonjudgmental and positive behaviors from health care workers and physicians in order to help them for harm reduction and receiving appropriate treatment.

Keywords: hiv, addiction, attitudes, healthcare workers

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Authors: Brahmia Nadjet

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The growing needs of displacements led advanced countries in this field install new specific transport systems, able to palliate any deficiencies, especially when regular public transport does not adequately meet the requests of users. In this context, on-demand transport systems (ODT) are very efficient. They rely on techniques based on the location of trip generators which should be assured effectively with the use of operators responsible for the advance reservation, planning and organization, and studying the different ODT criteria (organizational, technical, geographical, etc.). As the advanced countries in the field of transport, some developing countries are involved in the adaptation of the new technologies to reduce the deficit in their communication system. This paper presents the study of an ODT implementation in the west of Algeria, by developing the geomatics side of the study. This part requires the use of specific systems such as Geographic Information System (GIS), Road Database Management System (RDBMS). So, we developed the process through an application in an environment of mobility by using the computer tools dedicated to the management of the entities related to the transport field.

Keywords: ODT, geomatics, GIS, transport systems

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Authors: Rumesh Liyanage, S. B. Nawaratne, K. K. D. S. Ranaweera, Indira Wickramasinghe, K. G. S. C. Katukurunda

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Study it was attempted to identify an effect of food habits and publics’ attitudes on micro-sleepiness and preventive measures to develop a food product to combat. Statistical data pertaining to road accidents were collected from, Sri Lanka Police Traffic Division and a pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect data from 250 respondents. They were selected representing drivers (especially highway drivers), private and public sector workers (shift based) and cramming students (university and school). Questionnaires were directed to fill independently and personally and collected data were analyzed statistically. Results revealed that 76.84, 96.39 and 80.93% out of total respondents consumed rice for all three meals which lead to ingesting higher glycemic meals. Taking two hyper glycemic meals before 14.00h was identified as a cause of micro-sleepiness within these respondents. Peak level of road accidents were observed at 14.00 - 20.00h (38.2%)and intensity of micro-sleepiness falls at the same time period (37.36%) while 14.00 to 16.00h was the peak time, 16.00 to 18.00h was the least; again 18.00 to 20.00h it reappears slightly. Even though respondents of the survey expressed that peak hours of micro- sleepiness is 14.00-16.00h, according to police reports, peak hours fall in between 18.00-20.00h. Out of the interviewees, 69.27% strongly wanted to avoid micro-sleepiness and intend to spend LKR 10-20 on a commercial product to combat micro sleepiness. As age-old practices to suppress micro-sleepiness are time taken, modern day respondents (51.64%) like to have a quick solution through a drink. Therefore, food habits of morning and noon may cause for micro- sleepiness while dinner may cause for both, natural and micro-sleepiness due to the heavy glycemic load of food. According to the study micro-sleepiness, can be categorized into three zones such as low-risk zone (08.00-10.00h and 18.00-20.00h), manageable zone (10.00-12.00h), and high- risk zone (14.00-16.00h).

Keywords: food habits, glycemic load, micro-sleepiness, road accidents

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Authors: B. O. Adegoke, B. O. Ola, D. T. Ademiluyi

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This paper examines the use of computer and its related health hazard among computer users in South-Western zone of Nigeria. Two hundred and eighteen (218) computer users constituted the population used to evaluate association between posture, extensive computer use and related health hazard. The instruments for the study are a questionnaire on demographics, lifestyle, body features and work ability index while mean rating, standard deviation and t test were used for data analysis. Identified health related hazard include damages to the eyesight, bad posture, arthritis, musculoskeletal disorders, headache, stress and so on. The results showed that factors such as work demand, posture, closeness to computer screen and excessive working hours on computers constitute health hazards in both old and young computer users of various gender. It is therefore recommended that total number of hours spent with computer should be monitored and controlled.

Keywords: computer-related health hazard, musculoskeletal disorders, computer usage, work ability index

Procedia PDF Downloads 464

Authors: Henok Girma Abebe

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The Vision Zero is a long-term goal of preventing all road traffic fatalities and serious injuries which was first adopted in Sweden in 1997. It is based on the assumption that death and serious injury in the road system is morally unacceptable. In order to approach this end, vision zero has put in place strategies that are radically different from the traditional safety work. The vision zero, for instance, promoted the adoption of the best available technology to promote safety, and placed the ultimate responsibility for traffic safety on system designers. Despite Vision Zero’s moral appeal and its expansion to different safety areas and also parts of the world, important philosophical concerns related to the adoption and implementation of the vision zero remain to be addressed. Moreover, the vision zero goal has been criticized on different grounds. The aim of this paper is to identify and systematically categorize criticisms that have been put forward against vision zero. The findings of the paper are solely based on a critical analysis of secondary sources and snowball method is employed to identify the relevant philosophical and empirical literatures. Two general categories of criticisms on the vision zero goal are identified. The first category consists of criticisms that target the setting of vision zero as a ‘goal’ and some of the basic assumptions upon which the goal is based. Among others, the goal of achieving zero fatalities and serious injuries, together with vision zero’s lexicographical prioritization of safety has been criticized as unrealistic. The second category consists of criticisms that target the strategies put in place to achieve the goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries. For instance, Vision zero’s responsibility ascription for road safety and its rejection of cost-benefit analysis in the formulation and adoption of safety measures has both been criticized as counterproductive. In this category also falls the criticism that Vision Zero safety measures tend to be too paternalistic. Significant improvements have been recorded in road safety work since the adoption of vision zero, however, for the vision zero to even succeed more, it is important that issues and criticisms of philosophical nature associated with it are identified and critically dealt with.

Keywords: criticisms, systems approach, traffic safety, vision zero

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Authors: Xizhen Zhou, Yanjie Ji

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In advancing the management of integrated electric vehicle (EV) parking-charging behaviors, this study uses Changshu City in Suzhou as a case study to establish a data association mechanism for parking-charging platforms and to develop a database for EV parking-charging behaviors. Key indicators, such as charging start time, initial state of charge, final state of charge, and parking-charging time difference, are considered. Utilizing the K-S test method, the paper examines the heterogeneity of parking-charging behavior preferences among pure EV and non-pure EV users. The K-means clustering method is employed to analyze the characteristics of parking-charging behaviors for both user groups, thereby enhancing the overall understanding of these behaviors. The findings of this study reveal that using a classification model, the parking-charging behaviors of pure EVs can be classified into five distinct groups, while those of non-pure EVs can be separated into four groups. Among them, both types of EV users exhibit groups with low range anxiety for complete charging with special journeys, complete charging at destination, and partial charging. Additionally, both types have a group with high range anxiety, characterized by pure EV users displaying a preference for complete charging with specific journeys, while non-pure EV users exhibit a preference for complete charging. Notably, pure EV users also display a significant group engaging in nocturnal complete charging. The findings of this study can provide technical support for the scientific and rational layout and management of integrated parking and charging facilities for EVs.

Keywords: traffic engineering, potential preferences, cluster analysis, EV, parking-charging behavior

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Authors: Pedro B. Antunes, Paulo J. Ramísio

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Road runoff is a linear source of diffuse pollution that can cause significant environmental impacts. During rainfall events, pollutants from both stationary and mobile sources, which have accumulated on the road surface, are dragged through the superficial runoff. Road runoff in coastal zones may present high levels of salinity and chlorides due to the proximity of the sea and transported marine aerosols. Appearing to be correlated to this process, organic matter concentration may also be significant. This study assesses this phenomenon with the purpose of identifying the relationships between monitored water quality parameters and intrinsic site variables. To achieve this objective, an extensive monitoring program was conducted on a Portuguese coastal highway. The study included thirty rainfall events, in different weather, traffic and salt deposition conditions in a three years period. The evaluations of various water quality parameters were carried out in over 200 samples. In addition, the meteorological, hydrological and traffic parameters were continuously measured. The salt deposition rates (SDR) were determined by means of a wet candle device, which is an innovative feature of the monitoring program. The SDR, variable throughout the year, appears to show a high correlation with wind speed and direction, but mostly with wave propagation, so that it is lower in the summer, in spite of the favorable wind direction in the case study. The distance to the sea, topography, ground obstacles and the platform altitude seems to be also relevant. It was confirmed the high salinity in the runoff, increasing the concentration of the water quality parameters analyzed, with significant amounts of seawater features. In order to estimate the correlations and patterns of different water quality parameters and variables related to weather, road section and salt deposition, the study included exploratory data analysis using different techniques (e.g. Pearson correlation coefficients, Cluster Analysis and Principal Component Analysis), confirming some specific features of the investigated road runoff. Significant correlations among pollutants were observed. Organic matter was highlighted as very dependent of salinity. Indeed, data analysis showed that some important water quality parameters could be divided into two major clusters based on their correlations to salinity (including organic matter associated parameters) and total suspended solids (including some heavy metals). Furthermore, the concentrations of the most relevant pollutants seemed to be very dependent on some meteorological variables, particularly the duration of the antecedent dry period prior to each rainfall event and the average wind speed. Based on the results of a monitoring case study, in a coastal zone, it was proven that SDR, associated with the hydrological characteristics of road runoff, can contribute for a better knowledge of the runoff characteristics, and help to estimate the specific nature of the runoff and related water quality parameters.

Keywords: coastal zones, monitoring, road runoff pollution, salt deposition

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Authors: Charisse H. Tay

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Background: Schizophrenia is a severe chronic mental disorder that can result in hallucinations, delusions, reduced social engagement, and lack of motivation. While antipsychotic medications often provide the basis for treatment, psychosocial strategies complement the benefit of medications and can result in meaningful improvements in symptoms and functioning. The aim of the study was to investigate psychosocial strategies used by internet self-help forum participants to effectively manage symptoms caused by schizophrenia. Internet self-help forums are a resource for medical and psychological problems and are commonly used to share information about experiences with symptom management. Method: Three international self-help internet forums on schizophrenia were identified using a search engine. 1,181 threads regarding non-pharmacological, psychosocial self-management of schizophrenia symptoms underwent screening, resulting in the final identification and coding of 91 threads and 191 posts from 134 unique forum users that contained details on psychosocial strategies endorsed personally by users that allowed them to effectively manage symptoms of schizophrenia, including positive symptoms (e.g., auditory/visual/tactile hallucinations, delusions, paranoia), negative symptoms (e.g.., avolition, apathy, anhedonia), symptoms of distress, and cognitive symptoms (e.g., memory loss). Results: Effective symptom management strategies personally endorsed by online forum users were psychological skills (e.g., re-focusing, mindfulness/meditation, reality checking; n = 94), engaging in activities (e.g., exercise, working/volunteering, hobbies; n = 84), social/familial support (n = 48), psychotherapy (n = 33), diet (n = 18), and religion/spirituality (n = 14). 44.4% of users reported using more than one strategy to manage their symptoms. The most common symptoms targeted and effectively managed, as specified by users, were positive symptoms (n = 113), negative symptoms (n = 17), distress (n = 8), and memory loss (n = 6). 10.5% of users reported more than one symptom effectively targeted. 70.2% of users with positive symptoms reported that psychological skills were effective for symptom relief. 88% of users with negative symptoms and 75% with distress symptoms reported that engaging in activities was effective. Discussion: Individuals with schizophrenia rely on a variety of different psychosocial methods to manage their symptoms. Different symptomology appears to be more effectively targeted by different types of psychosocial strategies. This may help to inform treatment strategy and tailored for individuals with schizophrenia.

Keywords: psychosocial treatment, qualitative methods, schizophrenia, symptom management

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Authors: Jelili Kunle Adedeji, Toeb Akorede Akinbola

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The problem of vehicle mishap as a result of miscalculation, recklessness, or malfunction of some part in a vehicle is acknowledged to be a global issue. In most of the cases, it results into death or life injuries, all over the world; the issue becomes a nightmare to the stakeholders on how to curb mishaps on our roads due to these endemic factors. Hence this research typically examined the design of a device, specifically for learners that can lead to a society of intelligent vehicles (traffic) without withdrawing the driving authority from them, unlike pre-existing systems. Though ILASS shears a lot of principle with existing advance drivers assistance systems, yet there are two fundamental differences between ILASS system and existing systems. Firstly ILASS is meant to accept continuous input from the throttle at all time such that the devices will not constraint the driving process unnecessarily and ensure a change of speed at any point in time. Secondly, it made use of a variable threshold distance between the host vehicle and front vehicle which can be set by the host driver under the constraint of road maintenance agency, who communicates the minimum possible threshold for a different lane to the host vehicle. The results obtained from the simulation of the ILASS system concluded that ILASS is a good solution to road accidents, particularly road accident which occurs as a result of driving at high speed.

Keywords: front-vehicle, host-speed, threshold-distance, ILASS

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Authors: Panas Gerasimos, Kotidou Varvara, Halkiopoulos Constantinos, Gkintoni Evgenia

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As a result of growing technology and briefing by the internet, users resort to the internet and subsequently to the opinion of an expert. In many cases, they take control of their health in their hand and make a decision without the contribution of a doctor. According to that, this essay intends to analyze the confidence of searching health issues on the internet. For the fulfillment of this study, there has been a survey among doctors in order to find out the reasons a patient uses the internet about their health problems and the consequences that health information could lead by searching on the internet, as well. Specifically, the results regarding the research of the users demonstrate: a) the majority of users make use of the internet about health issues once or twice a month, b) individuals that possess chronic disease make health search on the internet more frequently, c) the most important topics that the majority of users usually search are pathological, dietary issues and the search of issues that are associated with doctors and hospitals. However, it observed that topic search varies depending on the users’ age, d) the most common sources of information concern the direct contact with doctors, as there is a huge preference from the majority of users over the use of the electronic form for their briefing and e) it has been observed that there is large lack of knowledge about e-health services. From the doctor's point of view, the following conclusions occur: a) almost all doctors use the internet as their main source of information, b) the internet has great influence over doctors’ relationship with the patients, c) in many cases a patient first makes a visit to the internet and then to the doctor, d) the internet significantly has a psychological impact on patients in order to for them to reach a decision, e) the most important reason users choose the internet instead of the health professional is economic, f) the negative consequence that emerges is inaccurate information, g) and the positive consequences are about the possibility of online contact with the doctor and contributes to the easy comprehension of the doctor, as well. Generally, it’s observed from both sides that the use of the internet in health issues is intense, which declares that the new means the doctors have at their disposal, produce the conditions for radical changes in the way of providing services and in the doctor-patient relationship.

Keywords: cognitive models, health marketing, e-health, psychological factors, digital marketing, e-health services

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Authors: Marcelino Caetano Noronha, Vosco Pereira, Jose Soares Pinto, Ferdinando Da C. Saores

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One particularly popular social media platform is Youtube. It’s a video-sharing platform where users can submit videos, and other users can like, dislike or comment on the videos. In this study, we conduct a binary classification task on YouTube’s video comments and review from the users regarding the accession process of Timor Leste to become the eleventh member of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). We scrape the data directly from the public YouTube video and apply several pre-processing and weighting techniques. Before conducting the classification, we categorized the data into two classes, namely positive and negative. In the classification part, we apply Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm. By comparing with Naïve Bayes Algorithm, the experiment showed SVM achieved 84.1% of Accuracy, 94.5% of Precision, and Recall 73.8% simultaneously.

Keywords: classification, YouTube, sentiment analysis, support sector machine

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Authors: Joud Basyouni, Rama Zagzoog, Mashael Al Faleh, Jana Alireza

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AI is changing many fields and speeding up tasks that used to take a long time. It used to take too long to edit photos. However, many AI-powered apps make photo editing, automatic effects, and animations much easier than other manual editing apps with no AI. The mobile app Photoleap edits photos and creates digital art using AI. Editing photos with text prompts is also becoming a standard these days with the help of apps like Photoleap. Now, users can change backgrounds, add animations, turn text into images, and create scenes with AI. This project report discusses the photo editing app's history and popularity. Photoleap resembles Photoshop, Canva, Photos, and Pixlr. The report includes survey questions to assess Photoleap user satisfaction. The report describes Photoleap's features and functions with screenshots. Photoleap uses AI well. Charts and graphs show Photoleap user ratings and comments from the survey. This project found that most Photoleap users liked how well it worked, was made, and was easy to use. People liked changing photos and adding backgrounds. Users can create stunning photo animations. A few users dislike the app's animations, AI art, and photo effects. The project report discusses the app's pros and cons and offers improvements.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, photoleap, images, background, photo editing

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Authors: Ouaaz Oum Essaad, Melbouci Bachir

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The experimental study conducted has a dual purpose: to valorize the clay material in the road domain and improve the lift of the shape layers by strengthening with plastic waste (in the form of aggregates). To do this, six mixtures of Clay and sand of different percentages were studied: 100% Clay, 95% Clay + 05% Sand, 90% Clay + 10% Sand, 85% Clay + 15% Sand, 80% Clay + 20% Sand, 75% Clay + 25% Sand. Proctor compaction and simple compression tests have been carried out on mixtures (sand + clay + plastic waste). The results obtained show a clear evolution of the characteristics of the Proctor test and the compressive strength of the mixtures according to the different types and percentages of the recycled plastic Plasticity and consistency index are important parameters that play a role in the toughness of plastic soil.

Keywords: valorization, recycling, soil mixture, mechanical tests

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Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Hsi-Ya Chang

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Cloud virtualization technologies are becoming more and more prevalent, cloud users usually encounter the problem of how to access to the virtualized remote desktops easily over the web without requiring the installation of special clients. To resolve this issue, we took advantage of the HTML5 technology and developed web-based remote desktop. It permits users to access the terminal which running in our cloud platform from anywhere. We implemented a sketch of web interface following the cloud computing concept that seeks to enable collaboration and communication among users for high performance computing. Given the development of remote desktop virtualization, it allows to shift the user’s desktop from the traditional PC environment to the cloud platform, which is stored on a remote virtual machine rather than locally. This proposed effort has the potential to positively provide an efficient, resilience and elastic environment for online cloud service. This is also made possible by the low administrative costs as well as relatively inexpensive end-user terminals and reduced energy expenses.

Keywords: virtualization, remote desktop, HTML5, cloud computing

Procedia PDF Downloads 316

Authors: Prisa Damrongsiri, Kittinan Pongpianskul, Mario Kubek, Herwig Unger

Abstract:

Apps are today the most important possibility to adapt mobile phones and computers to fulfill the special needs of their users. Location- and context-sensitive programs are hereby the key to support the interaction of the user with his/her environment and also to avoid an overload with a plenty of dispensable information. The contribution shows, how a trusted, secure and really bi-directional communication and interaction among users and their environment can be established and used, e.g. in the field of home automation.

Keywords: apps, context-sensitive, location-sensitive, self-configuration, mobile computing, smart home

Procedia PDF Downloads 372

Authors: Wipada Chaiwchan, Patcharee Klinhom

Abstract:

This research is aimed to develop the online-class scheduling management system and improve as a complex problem solution, this must take into consideration in various conditions and factors. In addition to the number of courses, the number of students and a timetable to study, the physical characteristics of each class room and regulations used in the class scheduling must also be taken into consideration. This system is developed to assist management in the class scheduling for convenience and efficiency. It can provide several instructors to schedule simultaneously. Both lecturers and students can check and publish a timetable and other documents associated with the system online immediately. It is developed in a web-based application. PHP is used as a developing tool. The database management system was MySQL. The tool that is used for efficiency testing of the system is questionnaire. The system was evaluated by using a Black-Box testing. The sample was composed of 2 groups: 5 experts and 100 general users. The average and the standard deviation of results from the experts were 3.50 and 0.67. The average and the standard deviation of results from the general users were 3.54 and 0.54. In summary, the results from the research indicated that the satisfaction of users was in a good level. Therefore, this system could be implemented in an actual workplace and satisfy the users’ requirement effectively

Keywords: timetable, schedule, management system, online

Procedia PDF Downloads 216

Authors: H. Bakhshi, E. Khayyamian

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Cognitive radios have been recognized as one of the most promising technologies dealing with the scarcity of the radio spectrum. In cognitive radio systems, secondary users are allowed to utilize the frequency bands of primary users when the bands are idle. Hence, how to accurately detect the idle frequency bands has attracted many researchers’ interest. Detection performance is sensitive toward noise power and gain fluctuation. Since signal to noise ratio (SNR) between primary user and secondary users are not the same and change over the time, SNR and noise power estimation is essential. In this paper, we present a cooperative spectrum sensing algorithm using SNR estimation to improve detection performance in the real situation.

Keywords: cognitive radio, cooperative spectrum sensing, energy detection, SNR estimation, spectrum sensing, rayleigh fading channel

Procedia PDF Downloads 427

Authors: Essam Mansour

Abstract:

This study purposes to explore the adoption and use of social media as a source of information by Egyptian government journalists. It applied a survey with a total of 386 journalists representing the three official newspapers of Egypt. Findings showed that 27.2% of journalists were found to not use social media, mainly males (69.7%), older than 40 years (77.7%) and mostly with a BA degree (80.4%). On the other hand, 72.8% of them were found to use these platforms who were also males (59.1%), younger than 40 years (65.9%) and mostly with a BA degree (93.2%). More than two-thirds (69.9%) were somewhat old users whose experience ranged from seven to ten years, and more than two-thirds (73.5%) have been heavily using these platforms (four to more than six hours a day. Such results confirm that a large number (95.7%) of users were found to be at least advanced users. Social media users’ home and work were the most significant places to access these platforms, which were found to be easy and useful to use. Most types of social media used were social news, media sharing and micro blogging, blogs comments and forums, social networking sites and bookmarking sites to perform tasks, such as finding information, making communication, keeping up to date, checking materials, sharing information and making discussions. A large number of users tend to accept these media platforms to be a source of information since they are accessible, linked references updated sources, accurate, promote current work, convenient, secured, credible, reliable, stabled, easily identified, copyrighted, build confident and contain filtered information. However, lack of know-how to cite sources, followed by lack of credibility of the source of news, lack of quality of information sources and lack of time were at least significant to journalists when using social media platforms.

Keywords: social media, social networking sites, newspapers, journalists, Egypt

Procedia PDF Downloads 235

Authors: Henry Hexmoor, Kailash Yelasani

Abstract:

We present vehicular platooning as a special case of crowd-sensing framework where sharing sensory information among a crowd is used for their collective benefit. After offering an abstract policy that governs processes involving a vehicular platoon, we review several common scenarios and components surrounding vehicular platooning. We then present a simulated prototype that illustrates efficiency of road usage and vehicle travel time derived from platooning. We have argued that one of the paramount benefits of platooning that is overlooked elsewhere, is the substantial computational savings (i.e., economizing benefits) in acquisition and processing of sensory data among vehicles sharing the road. The most capable vehicle can share data gathered from its sensors with nearby vehicles grouped into a platoon.

Keywords: cloud network, collaboration, internet of things, social network

Procedia PDF Downloads 168

Authors: K. K. Kaidarova, Ye. K. Aibuldinov, Zh. B. Iskakova, G. Zh. Alzhanova, S. Zh. Zayrova

Abstract:

Currently, the existing road infrastructure of Kazakhstan needs the reconstruction of existing highways and the construction of new roads. The solution to this problem can be achieved by replacing traditional building materials with industrial waste, which in their chemical and mineralogical composition are close to natural raw materials and can partially or completely replace some natural binding materials in road construction. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to develop building materials based on the red sludge of the Pavlodar aluminum plant, blast furnace slag of the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant, lime production waste of the Pavlodar Aluminum Plant as a binder for natural loam. Changes in physical and mechanical properties were studied for uniaxial compression strength, linear expansion coefficient, water resistance, and frost resistance of the samples. Nine mixtures were formed with different percentages of these wastes 1-20:25:4; 2-20:25:6; 3-20:25:8; 4-30:30:4; 5-30:30:6; 6-30:30:8; 7-40:35:4; 8-40:35:6; 9-40:35:8 and the mixture identifier were labeled based on the waste content and composition number. The results of strength measurement during uniaxial compression of the samples showed an almost constant increase in strength and amounted to 0.67–3.56 MPa after three days and 3.33–7.38 MPa after 90 days. This increase in compressive strength is a consequence of the addition of lime and becomes more pronounced over time. The water resistance of the developed materials after 90 days was 7.12 MPa, and the frost resistance for the same period was 7.35 MPa. The maximum values of strength determination were shown by a sample of the composition 9-40:35:8. The study of the mineral composition showed that there was no contamination with heavy metals or dangerous substances. It was determined that road materials made of red sludge, blast furnace slag, lime production waste, and natural loam mixture could be used due to their strength indicators and environmental characteristics.

Keywords: production waste, uniaxial compression, water resistance of materials, frost resistance of samples

Procedia PDF Downloads 88

Authors: Chien-Wen Chen, Nguyen Duong Thuy Trang, Yu-Hsuan Chang

Abstract:

With the development of information technology, social networking sites are inseparable from life and have become an important way for people to communicate. Nonetheless, privacy issues are raised by the presence of personal information on social networking sites. However, users can benefit from using the functions of social networking sites, which also leads to users worrying about the leakage of personal information without corresponding privacy protection behaviors, which is called the privacy paradox. However, previous studies have questioned the viewpoint of the privacy paradox, believing that users are not so naive and that people with privacy concerns will conduct privacy management. Consequently, this study is based on the view of privacy calculation perspective to investigate the privacy behavior of users on social networking sites. Among them, social benefits and privacy concerns are taken as the expected benefits and costs in the viewpoint of privacy calculation. At the same time, this study also explores the antecedents, including positive feedback, self-presentation, privacy policy, and information sensitivity, and the consequence of privacy behavior of weighing benefits and costs, including self-disclosure and three privacy management strategies by interpersonal boundaries (Preventive, Censorship, and Corrective). The survey respondents' characteristics and prior use experience of social networking sites were analyzed. As a consequence, a survey of 596 social network users was conducted online to validate the research framework. The results show that social benefit has the greatest influence on privacy behavior. The most important external factors affecting privacy behavior are positive feedback, followed by the privacy policy and information sensitivity. In addition, the important findings of this study are that social benefits will positively affect privacy management. It shows that users can get satisfaction from interacting with others through social networking sites. They will not only disclose themselves but also manage their privacy on social networking sites after considering social benefits and privacy management on social networking sites, and it expands the adoption of the Privacy Calculus Perspective framework from prior research. Therefore, it is suggested that as the functions of social networking sites increase and the development of social networking sites, users' needs should be understood and updated in order to ensure the sustainable operation of social networking.

Keywords: privacy calculus perspective, self-disclosure, privacy management, social benefit, privacy concern

Procedia PDF Downloads 61