Search results for: threshold experience

Authors: Amanda Aliende da Matta, Maria del Pilar Fogueiras Bertomeu, Valeria de Ormaechea Otalora, Maria Paz Sandin Esteban, Miriam Comet Donoso

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This communication presents proposed questions about the existential in research on the political participation of young women. The study follows a qualitative methodology, in particular, the applied hermeneutic phenomenological (AHP) method, and the general objective of the research is to give an account of the experience of political participation as a young woman. The study participants are women aged 18 to 35 who have experience in political participation. The techniques of data collection are the descriptive story and the phenomenological interview. Hermeneutic phenomenology as a research approach is based on phenomenological philosophy and applied hermeneutics. The ultimate objective of HP is to gain access to the meaning structures of lived experience by appropriating them, clarifying them, and reflectively making them explicit. Human experiences are always lived through existential: fundamental themes that are useful in exploring meaningful aspects of our life worlds. Everyone experiences the world through the existential of lived relationships, the lived body, lived space, lived time, and lived things. The phenomenological research, then, also tacitly asks about the existential. Existentials are universal themes useful for exploring significant aspects of our life world and of the particular phenomena under study. Four main existentials prove especially helpful as guides for reflection in the research process: relationship, body, space, and time. For example, in our case, we may ask ourselves how can the existentials of relationship, body, space, and time guide us in exploring the structures of meaning in the lived experience of political participation as a woman and a young person. The study is still not finished, as we are currently conducting phenomenological thematic analysis on the collected stories of lived experience. Yet, we have already identified some fragments of texts that show the existential in their experiences, which we will transcribe below. 1) Relationality - The experienced I-Other. It regards how relationships are experienced in our narratives about political participation as young women. One example would be: “As we had known each other for a long time, we understood each other with our eyes; we were all a little bit on the same page, thinking the same thing.” 2) Corporeality - The lived body. It regards how the lived body is experienced in activities of political participation as a young woman. One example would be: “My blood was boiling, but it was not the time to throw anything in their face, we had to look for solutions.”; “I had a lump in my throat and I wanted to cry.”. 3) Spatiality - The lived space. It regards how one experiences the lived space in political participation activities as a young woman. One example would be: “And the feeling I got when I saw [it] it's like watching everybody going into a mousetrap.” 4) Temporality - Lived time. It regards how one experiences the lived time in political participation activities as a young woman. One example would be: “Then, there were also meetings that went on forever…”

Keywords: applied hermeneutic phenomenology, existentials, hermeneutics, phenomenology, political participation

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Authors: Said Baadel, Fadi Thabtah, Joan Lu

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Clustering involves the partitioning of n objects into k clusters. Many clustering algorithms use hard-partitioning techniques where each object is assigned to one cluster. In this paper, we propose an overlapping algorithm MCOKE which allows objects to belong to one or more clusters. The algorithm is different from fuzzy clustering techniques because objects that overlap are assigned a membership value of 1 (one) as opposed to a fuzzy membership degree. The algorithm is also different from other overlapping algorithms that require a similarity threshold to be defined as a priority which can be difficult to determine by novice users.

Keywords: data mining, k-means, MCOKE, overlapping

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Authors: Prerna Mohan Saxena, Avni Joshi, Raju K Parasher

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Disability is a state of decreased functioning associated with disease, disorder, injury, or other health condition, which in the context of one’s environment is experienced as an impairment, activity limitation, or participation restriction. With the concept of disability evolving over the years, the current ICF model of disability has integrated this concept into a comprehensive whole of multiple dimensions of human functioning, including biological, psychological, social, and environmental aspects. Wheelchair basketball is one of the greatest examples of adapted sports for the disabled. Through this study, we aim to evaluate the functional performance and self-esteem levels in differently-abled pediatric wheelchair basketball players, providing an insight on their abilities and deficits and how they can be worked on at a larger level to improve overall performance. The study was conducted on 9 pediatric wheelchair basketball players at Amar Jyoti school for inclusive education Delhi their physical performance was assessed using a battery of tests, and physical self esteem was assessed using the Physical self-description instrument (PSDQ-S). Results showed that 9 participants age ranged between 10-21 years, mostly males with BMI ranging between 16.7 to 28.9 kg/m2 most of them had the experience of 5 to 6 years of playing the sport. The data showed physical performance in accordance to years of experience of playing, physical self esteem showed a different perspective, with experience players scoring less on it. This study supports a multidimensional construct of physical performance and physical self-esteem, suggesting that both may be applied on the wheelchair basketball players at competitive levels.

Keywords: ase series, physical performance, physical self-esteem, wheelchair basketball

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Authors: Chrysoula Bousiouta

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Throughout the history of theatre, technology has played an important role both in influencing the relationship between performance and audience and offering different kinds of experiences. The use of technology dates back in ancient times, when the introduction of artifacts, such as “Deus ex machine” in ancient Greek theatre, started. Taking into account the key techniques and experiences used throughout history, this paper investigates how technology, through new media, influences contemporary theatre. In the context of this research, technology is defined as projections, audio environments, video-projections, sensors, tele-connections, all alongside with the performance, challenging audience’s participation. The theoretical framework of the research covers, except for the history of theatre, the theory of “experience economy” that took over the service and goods economy. The research is based on the qualitative and comparative analysis of two case studies, Contact Theatre in Manchester (United Kingdom) and Bios in Athens (Greece). The data selection includes desk research and is complemented with semi structured interviews. Building on the results of the research one could claim that the intended experience of modern/contemporary theatre is that of engagement. In this context, technology -as defined above- plays a leading role in creating it. This experience passes through and exists in the middle of the realms of entertainment, education, estheticism and escapism. Furthermore, it is observed that nowadays, theatre is not only about acting but also about performing; it is that one where the performances are unfinished without the participation of the audience. Both case studies try to achieve the experience of engagement through practices that promote the attraction of attention, the increase of imagination, the interaction, the intimacy and the true activity. These practices are achieved through the script, the scenery, the language and the environment of a performance. Contact and Bios consider technology as an intimate tool in order to accomplish the above, and they make an extended use of it. The research completes a notable record of technological techniques that modern theatres use. The use of technology, inside or outside the limits of film technique’s, helps to rivet the attention of the audience, to make performances enjoyable, to give the sense of the “unfinished” or to be used for things that take place around the spectators and force them to take action, being spect-actors. The advantage of technology is that it can be used as a hook for interaction in all stages of a performance. Further research on the field could involve exploring alternative ways of binding technology and theatre or analyzing how the performance is perceived through the use of technological artifacts.

Keywords: experience of engagement, interactive theatre, modern theatre, performance, technology

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Authors: Sudkhanoung Ritruechai, Somrak Choovanichwong, Kruawon Tiengtom, Peanchanan Leeudomwong

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The purposes of this qualitative research were to study the recovery experience of people with bipolar disorder and also to propose a development approach to the Bipolar Friends Club. The participants were eight people with bipolar disorder for six to twenty years (four women and four men). They have been members of the Bipolar Friends Club for two to ten years. They have no mental symptoms in order to provide sufficient information about their recovery experiences and have returned to everyday life with their family, community, and work. The data were collected by doing an in-depth interview. Two interviews were done, each from 45-90 minutes and four to five weeks apart. The researcher sent the results of the preliminary data analysis to the participants two to three days beforehand. Confirmation of the results of the preliminary data analysis from the first interview was done at the second interview. The research study found that the participants had a positive experience of being a Bipolar Club member. The club continued its activities following Recovery Oriented Service: ROS to the participants. As a result, they recovered in eight areas as follows. 1) Intellectual: The wisdom of joining the group has brought knowledge and experiences from an exchange with others in self-care as well as a positive thinking in life. 2) Social: The participants have set up a group to take care of each other and to do activities which have brought warmth. Their social network which was normally little has also been increased. 3) Spiritual: The concept of religion has been used to lead the life of the participants. 4) Occupational: One participant is a student while the others do work. All of them have done well. 5) Environmental: The participants would be able to adapt to the environment and cope with their problems better. 6) Physical: Most female participants have difficulties with losing weight which leads them saying that they are ‘not fully recovered’. 7) Emotional: The participants feel calmer than before entering the club. They have also developed more tolerance to problems. 8) Financial: The participants would be able to control their spending by themselves and with the help of their family members. The people with bipolar disorder have suggested that the services of the club are perfect and should be continued. The results of the study encourage the Bipolar Friends Club, as well as other clubs/associations that support the recovery of patients. Consideration of the recovery has highlighted the need for ongoing and various life-enhancing programs for the caregivers and their loved ones with bipolar disorder. Then, they would be able to choose the program that suits their needs to improve their life.

Keywords: people with bipolar disorder, recovery, club, experience

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Authors: Bernardo Cortez, Florian Peter, Thomas Lausenhammer, Paulo Oliveira

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Designing missiles’ autopilot controllers have been a complex task, given the extensive flight envelope and the nonlinear flight dynamics. A solution that can excel both in nominal performance and in robustness to uncertainties is still to be found. While Control Theory often debouches into parameters’ scheduling procedures, Reinforcement Learning has presented interesting results in ever more complex tasks, going from videogames to robotic tasks with continuous action domains. However, it still lacks clearer insights on how to find adequate reward functions and exploration strategies. To the best of our knowledge, this work is a pioneer in proposing Reinforcement Learning as a framework for flight control. In fact, it aims at training a model-free agent that can control the longitudinal non-linear flight dynamics of a missile, achieving the target performance and robustness to uncertainties. To that end, under TRPO’s methodology, the collected experience is augmented according to HER, stored in a replay buffer and sampled according to its significance. Not only does this work enhance the concept of prioritized experience replay into BPER, but it also reformulates HER, activating them both only when the training progress converges to suboptimal policies, in what is proposed as the SER methodology. The results show that it is possible both to achieve the target performance and to improve the agent’s robustness to uncertainties (with low damage on nominal performance) by further training it in non-nominal environments, therefore validating the proposed approach and encouraging future research in this field.

Keywords: Reinforcement Learning, flight control, HER, missile autopilot, TRPO

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Authors: Rana F. Obeidat, Suzanne S. Dickerson, Gregory G. Homish, Nesreen M. Alqaissi, Robin M. Lally

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Background: Despite the fact that breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among Jordanian women, practically nothing is known about their perceptions of early stage breast cancer and surgical treatment. Objective: To gain understanding of the diagnosis and surgical treatment experience of Jordanian women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. Methods: An interpretive phenomenological approach was used for this study. A purposive sample of 28 Jordanian women who were surgically treated for early stage breast cancer within 6 months of the interview was recruited. Data were collected using individual interviews and analyzed using Heideggerian hermeneutical methodology. Results: Fear had a profound effect on Jordanian women’s stories of diagnosis and surgical treatment of early stage breast cancer. Women’s experience with breast cancer and its treatment was shaped by their pre-existing fear of breast cancer, the disparity in the quality of care at various health care institutions, and sociodemographic factors (e.g., education, age). Conclusions: Early after the diagnosis, fear was very strong and women lost perspective of the fact that this disease was treatable and potentially curable. To control their fears, women unconditionally trusted God, the health care system, surgeons, family, friends, and/or neighbors, and often accepted treatment offered by their surgeons without questioning. Implications for practice: Jordanian healthcare providers have a responsibility to listen to their patients, explore meanings they ascribe to their illness, and provide women with proper education and support necessary to help them cope with their illness.

Keywords: breast cancer, early stage, Jordanian, experience, phenomenology

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Authors: Benyapa Thitimapong

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Teenage pregnancy and adolescent mothers have become a matter of increasing concern in Thailand. Since adolescent mothers have been a big problem for two main consequences; health outcomes and socio-economic impacts. Adolescent mothers often endure poor living conditions; limited financial resources while also experience high stress, family instability, and limited educational opportunities. These disadvantages are negative and have long-term effects on adolescent mothers, their families, and the community. The majority of pregnant students and adolescent mothers dropped out of school after becoming pregnant, and some of them return to study again after they gave birth. This research aimed to explain the meaning of adolescent mothers who had undergone with childrearing and studying simultaneously after childbirth. A phenomenological qualitative approach was undertaken to investigate this study. The participants were 20 adolescent mothers each of whom became a mother and a student concurrently within less than 2 years after giving birth to a healthy baby and had also undergone the experience of childrearing and studying in non-formal education. In-depth interview was carried out for data collection, and the data were analyzed using content analysis method. ‘Learning to move forward’ was the meaning of adolescent mothers who experienced with childrearing and studying simultaneously. Their expressions were classified into two categories 1) having more responsibility, and 2) conceding and going on. The result of this study can be used as evidence for health care providers, especially nurses to facilitate and support pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers to continue their education. Also, it can be used to guide policy to promote in all educational system to enable these groups to remain in school for their life-long success in the future.

Keywords: adolescent mothers, childrearing, studying, teenage pregnancy

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Authors: Thomas Rockstuhl, Kok Yee Ng, Guido Gianasso, Soon Ang

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Two meta-analyses show that intercultural experience is not related to intercultural adaptation or performance in international assignments. These findings have prompted calls for a deeper grounding of research on international experience in the phenomenon of global work. Two issues, in particular, may limit current understanding of the relationship between international experience and global work performance. First, intercultural experience is too broad a construct that may not sufficiently capture the essence of global work, which to a large part involves sensemaking and managing intercultural conflicts. Second, the psychological mechanisms through which intercultural experience affects performance remains under-explored, resulting in a poor understanding of how experience is translated into learning and performance outcomes. Drawing on recognition primed decision-making (RPD) research, the current study advances a cognitive processing model to highlight the importance of intercultural conflict familiarity. Compared to intercultural experience, intercultural conflict familiarity is a more targeted construct that captures individuals’ previous exposure to dealing with intercultural conflicts. Drawing on RPD theory, we argue that individuals’ intercultural conflict familiarity enhances their ability to make accurate judgments and generate effective responses when intercultural conflicts arise. In turn, the ability to make accurate situation judgements and effective situation responses is an important predictor of global work performance. A relocation program within a multinational enterprise provided the context to test these hypotheses using a time-lagged, multi-source field study. Participants were 165 employees (46% female; with an average of 5 years of global work experience) from 42 countries who relocated from country to regional offices as part a global restructuring program. Within the first two weeks of transfer to the regional office, employees completed measures of their familiarity with intercultural conflicts, cultural intelligence, cognitive ability, and demographic information. They also completed an intercultural situational judgment test (iSJT) to assess their situation judgment and situation response. The iSJT comprised four validated multimedia vignettes of challenging intercultural work conflicts and prompted employees to provide protocols of their situation judgment and situation response. Two research assistants, trained in intercultural management but blind to the study hypotheses, coded the quality of employee’s situation judgment and situation response. Three months later, supervisors rated employees’ global work performance. Results using multilevel modeling (vignettes nested within employees) support the hypotheses that greater familiarity with intercultural conflicts is positively associated with better situation judgment, and that situation judgment mediates the effect of intercultural familiarity on situation response quality. Also, aggregated situation judgment and situation response quality both predicted supervisor-rated global work performance. Theoretically, our findings highlight the important but under-explored role of familiarity with intercultural conflicts; a shift in attention from the general nature of international experience assessed in terms of number and length of overseas assignments. Also, our cognitive approach premised on RPD theory offers a new theoretical lens to understand the psychological mechanisms through which intercultural conflict familiarity affects global work performance. Third, and importantly, our study contributes to the global talent identification literature by demonstrating that the cognitive processes engaged in resolving intercultural conflicts predict actual performance in the global workplace.

Keywords: intercultural conflict familiarity, job performance, judgment and decision making, situational judgment test

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Authors: Ahmad Sabry Mohamad, Kai F. Hoettges, Michael Pycraft Hughes

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This study investigates nanowires using Dielectrophoresis (DEP) in non-aqueous suspension of Tin (IV) Oxide (SnO2) nanoparticles dispersed in N,N-dimenthylformamide (DMF). The self assembly of nanowires in DEP impedance spectroscopy can be determined. In this work, dielectrophoretic method was used to measure non-organic molecules for estimating the permittivity and conductivity characteristic of the nanowires. As in aqueous such as salt solution has been dominating the transport of SnO2, which are the wire growth threshold, depend on applied voltage. While DEP assembly of nanowires depend on applied frequency, the applications of dielectrophoretic collection are measured using impedance spectroscopy.

Keywords: dielectrophoresis, impedance spectroscopy, nanowires, N, N-dimenthylformamide, SnO2

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Authors: Stefanie Behncke

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This paper analyses the effects of different macroprudential policy measures that have recently been implemented in Switzerland. Among them is the activation and the increase of the countercyclical capital buffer (CCB) and a tightening of loan-to-value (LTV) requirements. These measures were introduced to limit systemic risks in the Swiss mortgage and real estate markets. They were meant to affect mortgage growth, mortgage risks, and banks’ capital buffers. Evaluation of their quantitative effects provides insights for Swiss policymakers when reassessing their policy. It is also informative for policymakers in other countries who plan to introduce macroprudential instruments. We estimate the effects of the different macroprudential measures with a Differences-in-Differences estimator. Banks differ with respect to the relative importance of mortgages in their portfolio, their riskiness, and their capital buffers. Thus, some of the banks were more affected than others by the CCB, while others were more affected by the LTV requirements. Our analysis is made possible by an unusually informative bank panel data set. It combines data on newly issued mortgage loans and quantitative risk indicators such as LTV and loan-to-income (LTI) ratios with supervisory information on banks’ capital and liquidity situation and balance sheets. Our results suggest that the LTV cap of 90% was most effective. The proportion of new mortgages with a high LTV ratio was significantly reduced. This result does not only apply to the 90% LTV, but also to other threshold values (e.g. 80%, 75%) suggesting that the entire upper part of the LTV distribution was affected. Other outcomes such as the LTI distribution, the growth rates of mortgages and other credits, however, were not significantly affected. Regarding the activation and the increase of the CCB, we do not find any significant effects: neither LTV/LTI risk parameters nor mortgage and other credit growth rates were significantly reduced. This result may reflect that the size of the CCB (1% of relevant residential real estate risk-weighted assets at activation, respectively 2% at the increase) was not sufficiently high enough to trigger a distinct reaction between the banks most likely to be affected by the CCB and those serving as controls. Still, it might be have been effective in increasing the resilience in the overall banking system. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that targeted macroprudential policy measures can contribute to financial stability. In line with findings by others, caps on LTV reduced risk taking in Switzerland. To fully assess the effectiveness of the CCB, further experience is needed.

Keywords: banks, financial stability, macroprudential policy, mortgages

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Authors: D. Nam Kim, D. Jin Kim, Jeonghwan Jeon

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Defense Defensive Modeling and Simulation (M&S) is a system which enables impracticable training for reducing constraints of time, space and financial resources. The necessity of defensive M&S has been increasing not only for education and training but also virtual fight. Soldiers who are using defensive M&S for education and training will obtain empirical knowledge and know-how. However, the obtained knowledge of individual soldiers have not been managed and utilized yet since the nature of military organizations: confidentiality and frequent change of members. Therefore, this study aims to develop a management system for the experience of defensive M&S based on data mining approach. Since individual empirical knowledge gained through using the defensive M&S is both quantitative and qualitative data, data mining approach is appropriate for dealing with individual empirical knowledge. This research is expected to be helpful for soldiers and military policy makers.

Keywords: data mining, defensive m&s, management system, knowledge management

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Authors: P. W. Tsai, J. W. Chen, C. W. Chen, C. Y. Chen

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In recent years, many researchers are involved in the field of fuzzy theory. However, there are still a lot of issues to be resolved. Especially on topics related to controller design such as the field of robot, artificial intelligence, and nonlinear systems etc. Besides fuzzy theory, algorithms in swarm intelligence are also a popular field for the researchers. In this paper, a concept of utilizing one of the swarm intelligence method, which is called Bacterial-GA Foraging, to find the stabilized common P matrix for the fuzzy controller system is proposed. An example is given in in the paper, as well.

Keywords: half-circle fuzzy numbers, predictions, swarm intelligence, Lyapunov method

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Authors: Jarrod Sio Jyh Lih

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This paper discusses the factors contributing to student achievement in literacy and numeracy in primary schools within Sibu division. The study involved 694 level 1 primary schoolteachers. Using descriptive statistics, the study observed high levels of practice for teacher efficacy, instructional leadership and professional learning communities (PLCs). The differences between gender, teaching experience and academic qualification were analyzed using the t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The study reported significant differences in respondent perceptions based on teaching experience vis-à-vis teacher efficacy. Here, the post hoc Tukey test revealed that efficaciousness grows with experience. A correlation test observed positive and significant correlations between all independent variables. Binary logistic regression was applied to predict the independent variables’ influence on student achievement. The findings revealed that a dimension of instructional leadership – ‘monitoring student progress’ - emerged as the best predictor of student achievement for literacy and numeracy. The result indicated the students were more than 4 times more likely to achieve the national key performance index for both literacy and numeracy when student progress was monitored. In conclusion, ‘monitoring student progress’ had a positive influence on students’ achievement for literacy and numeracy, hence making it a possible course of action for school heads. However, more comprehensive studies are needed to ascertain its consistency within the context of Malaysia.

Keywords: efficacy, instructional, literacy, numeracy

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Authors: Jaeyoung Lee, Minji Je

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Objectives: In adolescence, adolescents are curious about sex, but sexual experience before becoming an adult can cause the risk of high probability of sexually transmitted infection. Therefore, it is very important to prevent sexually transmitted infections so that adolescents can grow in healthy and upright way. Adolescent females, especially, have sexual behavior distinguished from that of male adolescents. Protecting female adolescents’ reproductive health is even more important since it is directly related to the childbirth of the next generation. This study, thus, investigated the predictors of sexually transmitted infection in adolescent females with sexual experiences based on the National Health Statistics in Korea. Methods: This study was conducted based on the National Health Statistics in Korea. The 11th Korea Youth Behavior Web-based Survey in 2016 was conducted in the type of anonymous self-reported survey in order to find out the health behavior of adolescents. The target recruitment group was middle and high school students nationwide as of April 2016, and 65,528 students from a total of 800 middle and high schools participated. The study was conducted in 537 female high school students (Grades 10–12) among them. The collected data were analyzed as complex sampling design using SPSS statistics 22. The strata, cluster, weight, and finite population correction provided by Korea Center for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC) were reflected to constitute complex sample design files, which were used in the statistical analysis. The analysis methods included Rao-Scott chi-square test, complex samples general linear model, and complex samples multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: Out of 537 female adolescents, 11.9% (53 adolescents) had experiences of venereal infection. The predictors for venereal infection of the subjects were ‘age at first intercourse’ and ‘sexual intercourse after drinking’. The sexually transmitted infection of the subjects was decreased by 0.31 times (p=.006, 95%CI=0.13-0.71) for middle school students and 0.13 times (p<.001, 95%CI=0.05-0.32) for high school students whereas the age of the first sexual experience was under elementary school age. In addition, the sexually transmitted infection of the subjects was 3.54 times (p < .001, 95%CI=1.76-7.14) increased when they have experience of sexual relation after drinking alcohol, compared to those without the experience of sexual relation after drinking alcohol. Conclusions: The female adolescents had high probability of sexually transmitted infection if their age for the first sexual experience was low. Therefore, the female adolescents who start sexual experience earlier shall have practical sex education appropriate for their developmental stage. In addition, since the sexually transmitted infection increases, if they have sexual relations after drinking alcohol, the consideration for prevention of alcohol use or intervention of sex education shall be required. When health education intervention is conducted for health promotion for female adolescents in the future, it is necessary to reflect the result of this study.

Keywords: adolescent, coitus, female, sexually transmitted diseases

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Authors: Ivy Rose Mathew

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The purpose of this study is to outline the efficacy of technology and the opportunities it can bring to implement a successful delivery model in Distance Learning. Distance Learning has proliferated over the past few years across the world. Some of the current challenges faced by current students of distance education include lack of motivation, a sense of isolation and a need for greater and improved communication. Hence the author proposes a creative technology supported model for distance learning exactly mirrored on the traditional face to face learning that can be adopted by distance learning providers. This model suggests the usage of a range of technologies and social networking facilities, with the aim of creating a more engaging and sustaining learning environment to help overcome the isolation often noted by distance learners. While discussing the possibilities, the author also highlights the complexity and practical challenges of implementing such a model. Design/methodology/approach: Theoretical issues from previous research related to successful models for distance learning providers will be considered. And also the analysis of a case study from one of the largest private tertiary institution in Botswana, Botho University will be included. This case study illustrates important aspects of the distance learning delivery model and provides insights on how curriculum development is planned, quality assurance is done, and learner support is assured for successful distance learning experience. Research limitations/implications: While some of the aspects of this study may not be applicable to other contexts, a number of new providers of distance learning can adapt the key principles of this delivery model.

Keywords: distance learning, efficacy, learning experience, technology supported model

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Authors: Nor Sahida Ibrahim, Ruhaila Maskat, Aishah Ahmad

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Almost all tertiary-level students will undergo some form of training in organisations prior to their graduation. This practice provides the necessary exposure and experience to allow students to cope with actual working environment and culture in the future. Nevertheless, a particular degree of “matching” between what is expected and what can be offered between students and organisations underpins how effective and enriching the experience is. This matching of students and organisations is challenging when preferences from both parties must be satisfied. This work developed a web-based system, namely the OrganisationMatcher, which leverage on the use of preference weights to score each organisation and rank them based on “suitability”. OrganisationMatcher has been implemented on a relational database, designed using object-oriented methods and developed using PHP programming language for browser front-end access. We outline the challenges and limitations of our system and discuss future improvements to the system, specifically in the utilisation of intelligent methods.

Keywords: student industrial placement, information system, web-based, ranking

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Authors: Fasanmi Samuel Sunday

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The study examines the relationship between procedural justice and turnover intent among survivors in a consolidated Nigeria bank. Opinions of eight hundred and eighty five staff of First City Monumental Bank and Finbank who survived the consolidated process were conveniently sampled using battery of tests. Two hypotheses were tested for this study. Results revealed that procedural justice and demographic variables (sex, age, previous banking job experience, and year of work experience) were significantly, independently and jointly influence turnover intent among survivors in consolidated banks in Nigeria. Also, there was a significant relationship between procedural justice and turnover intent among survivors in a consolidated bank in Nigeria. It was recommended that if the workers perceived the process of downsizing to be fair, they tend to reason with their management and coast along with the process rather than increasing in their turnover intent which will eventually drastically reduce the profitability matrix which the banks desired so desperately.

Keywords: bankers, procedural justice, sex, turnover intent

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Authors: Cristina Greco

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The spread of the digital and we-based technologies has led to a transformation process, which has coincided with an increase in the number of cases who are beyond the mainstream storytelling and its codes on the interaction with the user. On the base of a previous research on i-docs and virtual museums, this study analyses interactive and immersive online Graphic Novel – one-page, animated, illustrated, and hybrid – to reflect on the transformational implications of this expressive form on the user perception, remembrance, and awareness. The way in which the user experiences a certain level of interaction with the story and immersion in the semantic and figurative universe would bring user’s attention, activating introspection and self-reflection processes, perception, imagination, and creativity. This would have to do with the involvement of different senses – visual, proprioceptive, tactile, auditory, and vestibular – and the activation of a phenomenon of synaesthesia (involuntary cross-modal sensory association) – where, for example, the aural reconnect the user to another sense, providing a multisensory experience. The case studies show specific forms of interactive and immersive graphic novel and reflect on application that has sought to engage innovative ways to communicate different messages and stimulate cultural memory and collective awareness. The visual semiotic and narrative analysis of the distinctive traits of such a complex textuality, along with a study of the user’s experience through observation in naturalistic settings and interviews, allows us to question the functioning of these configurations, with regard to the relationships between the figurative dimension, the perceptive activity, and their impact on the user’s engagement.

Keywords: collective awareness, cultural memory, graphic novel, interactive and immersive storytelling

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Authors: Shilpa Sharma, Lakshmi Ganesh, Mantra Gurumurthy, Shweta Sharma

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Board games provide affordances of 21st-century skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and strategy. Board games such as chess, Catan, Battleship, Scrabble, and Taboo can enhance learning in these areas. While board games are popular in informal child settings, their use in formal K-12 education is limited. To encourage teachers to incorporate board games, it's essential to grasp their perceptions and tailor professional development programs accordingly. This paper aims to explore teacher attitudes toward board games and propose interventions to motivate teachers to integrate and create board games in the classroom. A user study was conceived, designed, and administered with teachers (n=38) to understand their experience in playing board games and using board games in the classroom. Purposive sampling was employed as the questionnaire was floated to teacher groups that the authors were aware of. The teachers taught in K-12 affordable private schools. The majority of them had experience ranging from 2-5 years. The questionnaire consisted of questions on teacher perceptions and beliefs of board game usage in the classroom. From the responses, it was observed that ~90% of teachers, though they had experience of playing board games, rarely did it translate to using board games in the classroom. Additionally, it was observed that translating learning objectives to board game objectives is the key factor that teachers consider while using board games in the classroom. Based on the results from the questionnaire, a professional development workshop was co-designed with the objective of motivating teachers to design, create and use board games in the classroom. The workshop is based on the principles of gamification. This is to ensure that the teachers experience a board game in a learning context. Additionally, the workshop is based on the principles of andragogy, such as agency, pertinence, and relevance. The workshop will begin by modifying and reusing known board games in the learning context so that the teachers do not find it difficult and daunting. The intention is to verify the face validity and content validity of the workshop design, orchestration and content with experienced teacher development professionals and education researchers. The results from this study will be published in the full paper.

Keywords: board games, professional development, teacher motivation, teacher perception

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Authors: Marianna De Almeida

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Greek secondary education is a highly selective system with regard to the access of students to Greek universities. Since access from elementary to lower secondary education and afterward to upper secondary education is rather liberal and almost free of selective mechanisms, the basic selection process comes after graduating from upper secondary school into play when students go through a highly selective process for university entry. This structure is responsible for the experience of extreme stress on the part of the candidates during a period of at least two years before the entrance examination leading to a radical change in students' everyday life routines. Instead of the school being an important agent for academic and psychological support, it seems that other agents, such as the informal private preparatory school and the student's families, take on the supportive role.

Keywords: stress, entrance examinations, family support, secondary education

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Authors: Romisaa Ali

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The Policy Gradient approach is one of the deep reinforcement learning families that combines deep neural networks (DNN) with reinforcement learning RL to discover the optimum of the control problem through experience gained from the interaction between the robot and its surroundings. In contrast to earlier policy gradient algorithms, which were unable to handle these two types of error because of over-or under-estimation introduced by the deep neural network model, this article will discuss the state-of-the-art SOTA policy gradient technique, trust region policy optimization (TRPO), by applying this method in various environments compared to another policy gradient method, the Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), to explain their robust optimization, using this SOTA to gather experience data during various training phases after observing the impact of hyper-parameters on neural network performance.

Keywords: deep neural networks, deep reinforcement learning, proximal policy optimization, state-of-the-art, trust region policy optimization

Procedia PDF Downloads 149

Authors: J. Marchand

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While university dropout entrepreneurs are celebrated in the practitioner literature, students’ intentions of becoming entrepreneurs have increasingly been the focus of student entrepreneur studies. However, students who are already running a business have rarely been examined. The experience of these students is a phenomenon that requires further research. Entrepreneurial identity represents a gap in the organisational studies literature. This paper utilises studentpreneurs’ self-narratives of their entrepreneurial journey. More specifically, the aim is to answer the following question: what are the types of identity work that individuals go through to build their entrepreneurial identity during that journey? Through long interviews, this paper studies the lived experience of 14 studentpreneurs who have achieved $54,000 in income and who participated publicly in entrepreneurial competitions. A general inductive analysis is performed on their narrative. With its focus on the journey, this paper makes a contribution to the literature on identity work and the entrepreneurial journey. A key contribution is the study of identity work on the journey to becoming an (established) entrepreneur in contrast to routine identity work.

Keywords: entrepreneurial identity, student entrepreneur, identity work, student entrepreneurship

Procedia PDF Downloads 643

Authors: Inyoung Park, Youngjoo Woo, Euiseong Seo

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With the advent of WebGL, Web apps are now able to provide high quality graphics by utilizing the underlying graphic processing units (GPUs). Despite that the Web apps are becoming common and popular, the current power management schemes, which were devised for the conventional native applications, are suboptimal for Web apps because of the additional layer, the Web browser, between OS and application. The Web browser running on a CPU issues GL commands, which are for rendering images to be displayed by the Web app currently running, to the GPU and the GPU processes them. The size and number of issued GL commands determine the processing load of the GPU. While the GPU is processing the GL commands, CPU simultaneously executes the other compute intensive threads. The actual user experience will be determined by either CPU processing or GPU processing depending on which of the two is the more demanded resource. For example, when the GPU work queue is saturated by the outstanding commands, lowering the performance level of the CPU does not affect the user experience because it is already deteriorated by the retarded execution of GPU commands. Consequently, it would be desirable to lower CPU or GPU performance level to save energy when the other resource is saturated and becomes a bottleneck in the execution flow. Based on this observation, we propose a power management scheme that is specialized for the Web app runtime environment. This approach incurs two technical challenges; identification of the bottleneck resource and determination of the appropriate performance level for unsaturated resource. The proposed power management scheme uses the CPU utilization level of the Window Manager to tell which one is the bottleneck if exists. The Window Manager draws the final screen using the processed results delivered from the GPU. Thus, the Window Manager is on the critical path that determines the quality of user experience and purely executed by the CPU. The proposed scheme uses the weighted average of the Window Manager utilization to prevent excessive sensitivity and fluctuation. We classified Web apps into three categories using the analysis results that measure frame-per-second (FPS) changes under diverse CPU/GPU clock combinations. The results showed that the capability of the CPU decides user experience when the Window Manager utilization is above 90% and consequently, the proposed scheme decreases the performance level of CPU by one step. On the contrary, when its utilization is less than 60%, the bottleneck usually lies in the GPU and it is desirable to decrease the performance of GPU. Even the processing unit that is not on critical path, excessive performance drop can occur and that may adversely affect the user experience. Therefore, our scheme lowers the frequency gradually, until it finds an appropriate level by periodically checking the CPU utilization. The proposed scheme reduced the energy consumption by 10.34% on average in comparison to the conventional Linux kernel, and it worsened their FPS by 1.07% only on average.

Keywords: interactive applications, power management, QoS, Web apps, WebGL

Procedia PDF Downloads 175

Authors: Yu-Ching Huang

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Background: Delivery bridges the antepartum and postpartum period. Subsequent fatigue can affect indices, including postpartum recovery and life quality. Milk secretion, breastfeeding quality, and newborn participation may be compromised. Correspondingly, using proper pushing skills during the second stage of labor has the potential to effectively reduce postpartum fatigue and enhance birth satisfaction in new mothers. Purpose: To compare the effects of using different pushing skills on maternal pushing perception, postpartum fatigue, and birth satisfaction. Methodology: The present study used a descriptive research approach and recruited 382 participants from a medical center in northern Taiwan. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire, which included a demographic and obstetrics information datasheet, the Labor Pushing Experience Scale, a fatigue scale, and a birth satisfaction scale. Research Results: Using pushing skills (including upright position [t= 2.28, p < .05] and delayed pushing [t= -1.98, p < .05] during the second stage of labor was shown to enhance birth satisfaction in participants. Additionally, open glottis pushing ( t = 5.46, p < .001) resulted in a mean duration of second-stage labor that was 17.67 minutes less than that achieved using Valsalva pushing. Moreover, a better perceived pushing experience was associated with lower perceived postpartum fatigue (r = .46, p < .05) and higher birth satisfaction (r = -.16, p < .05). Finally, postpartum fatigue perception was negatively associated with birth satisfaction (r = -.16, p < .05). Conclusion and Clinical Application: The findings suggest that midwives should advocate that women adopt upright positions, delayed pushing, and open glottis pushing during the second stage of labor in order to enhance their birth satisfaction.

Keywords: second stage labor duration of pushing skill, pushing experience perception, postpartum fatigue, birth satisfaction

Procedia PDF Downloads 247

Authors: C. Román, M. Guevara, P. Salas, D. Duclap, J. Houenou, C. Poupon, J. F. Mangin, P. Guevara

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Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) allows the non-invasive study of human brain white matter. From diffusion data, it is possible to reconstruct fiber trajectories using tractography algorithms. Our previous work consists in an automatic method for the identification of short association bundles of the superficial white matter (SWM), based on a whole brain inter-subject hierarchical clustering applied to a HARDI database. The method finds representative clusters of similar fibers, belonging to a group of subjects, according to a distance measure between fibers, using a non-linear registration (DTI-TK). The algorithm performs an automatic labeling based on the anatomy, defined by a cortex mesh parcelated with FreeSurfer software. The clustering was applied to two independent groups of 37 subjects. The clusters resulting from both groups were compared using a restrictive threshold of mean distance between each pair of bundles from different groups, in order to keep reproducible connections. In the left hemisphere, 48 reproducible bundles were found, while 43 bundles where found in the right hemisphere. An inter-hemispheric bundle correspondence was then applied. The symmetric horizontal reflection of the right bundles was calculated, in order to obtain the position of them in the left hemisphere. Next, the intersection between similar bundles was calculated. The pairs of bundles with a fiber intersection percentage higher than 50% were considered similar. The similar bundles between both hemispheres were fused and symmetrized. We obtained 30 common bundles between hemispheres. An atlas was created with the resulting bundles and used to segment 78 new subjects from another HARDI database, using a distance threshold between 6-8 mm according to the bundle length. Finally, a laterality index was calculated based on the bundle volume. Seven bundles of the atlas presented right laterality (IP_SP_1i, LO_LO_1i, Op_Tr_0i, PoC_PoC_0i, PoC_PreC_2i, PreC_SM_0i, y RoMF_RoMF_0i) and one presented left laterality (IP_SP_2i), there is no tendency of lateralization according to the brain region. Many factors can affect the results, like tractography artifacts, subject registration, and bundle segmentation. Further studies are necessary in order to establish the influence of these factors and evaluate SWM laterality.

Keywords: dMRI, hierarchical clustering, lateralization index, tractography

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Authors: Naseem Fatima, A. N. Srivastava, Tasleem Raza, Vijay Kumar

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Introduction: Carcinoma gallbladder is third most common gastrointestinal lethal disease with the highest incidence and mortality rate among women in Northern India. Scientists have found several risk factors that make a person more likely to develop gallbladder cancer; among these risk factors, deregulation of miRNAs has been demonstrated to be one of the most crucial factors. The changes in the expression of specific miRNA genes result in the control of inflammation, cell cycle regulation, stress response, proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and invasion thus mediate the process in tumorgenesis. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of MiRNA-335 and may as a molecular marker in early detection of gallbladder cancer in suspected cases. Material and Methods: A total of 20 consecutive patients with gallbladder cancer aged between 30-75 years were registered for the study. Total RNA was extracted from tissue by using the mirVANA MiRNA isolation Kit according to the manufacturer’s protocol. The MiRNA- 335 and U6 snRNA-specific cDNA were reverse-transcribed from total RNA using Taqman microRNA reverse-transcription kit according to the manufacturer’s protocol. TaqMan MiRNA probes hsa-miR-335 and Taqman Master Mix without AmpEase UNG, Individual real-time PCR assays were performed in a 20 μL reaction volume on a Real-Time PCR system (Applied Biosystems StepOnePlus™) to detect MiRNA-335 expression in tissue. Relative quantification of target MiRNA expression was evaluated using the comparative cycle threshold (CT) method. The correlation was done in between cycle threshold (CT Value) of target MiRNA in gallbladder cancer with respect to non-cancerous Cholelithiasis gallbladder. Each sample was examined in triplicate. The Newman-Keuls Multiple Comparison Test was used to determine the expression of miR-335. Results: MiRNA335 was found to be significantly downregulated in the gallbladder cancer tissue (P<0.001), when compared with non-cancerous Cholelithiasis gallbladder cases. Out of 20 cases, 75% showed reduced expression of MiRNA335, were at last stage of disease with low overall survival rate and remaining 25% were showed up-regulated expression of MiRNA335 with high survival rate. Conclusion: The present study showed that reduced expression of MiRNA335 is associated with the advancement of the disease, and its deregulation may provide important clues to understanding it as a prognostic marker and opportunities for future research.

Keywords: carcinoma gallbladder, downregulation, MiRNA-335, RT-PCR assay

Procedia PDF Downloads 341

Authors: Mariana Paz Sajon, Paula Cecilia Primogerio, Mariana Albarracin

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This study recovers an experience of teacher training carried out in an Undergraduate Business School from a private university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The purpose of the project was to provide teachers with an opportunity to reflect on their teaching practices at the university. The aim of the study is to systematize lessons and challenges that emerge from this teacher training experience. A group of teachers who showed a willingness to learn teaching abilities was selected to work. They completed a formative journey working in learning communities starting from the immersion in different aspects of teaching and learning, class observations, and an individual and collaborative reflection exercise in a systematic way among colleagues. In this study, the productions of the eight teachers who are members of the learning communities are analyzed, framed in an e-portfolio that they prepared during the training journey. The analysis shows that after the process of shared reflection, traits related to powerful teaching and meaningful learning have appeared in the classes. For their part, teachers reflect having reached an awareness of their own practices, identifying strengths and opportunities for improvement, and the experience of sharing their own way and knowing the successes and failures of others was valued. It is an educational journey of pedagogical transformation of the teachers, which is infrequent in business education, which could lead to a change in teaching practices for the entire Business School. The present study involves theoretical and pedagogic aspects of education in a business school in Argentina and its flow-on implications for the workplace that may be transferred to other educational contexts.

Keywords: Argentina, learning community, meaningful learning, powerful teaching, reflective practice

Procedia PDF Downloads 197

Authors: Z. Hamed, K. Sa'deya, E. Abdelrasheed, I. Mahamid

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The construction industry is one of the main sectors that play basic role in the urban and rural development of a society. It provides important ingredients for the development of an economy. However, many construction projects experience extensive cost overrun. This study was conducted to identify the causes of cost overrun in building construction contracts in Al Madinah, Saudi Arabia and test the importance of these causes from contractors' perspective. To achieve the study objectives, a questionnaire survey was conducted to identify and rank cost overrun causes from the perspective of contractors. The findings found that the top five cost overrun causes are: lack of experience in the line of work, lack of labor productivity, delay in payments, rework and material waste. It is hoped that the findings will guide efforts to improve the performance of construction industry in Saudi Arabia and other developing countries.

Keywords: building, contractor, cost increase, cost overrun

Procedia PDF Downloads 130

Authors: Mustafa Gülen, Eylem Güzel, Soner Guler

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The studies concentrated on the historical background of Van show the fact that Van has had a significant position as a settlement since ancient times and that it has hosted many civilizations during history. With the dominance of Ottoman Empire in 16th century, the region had been re-constructed by building new walls at the southern side of Van Castle. These construction activities had mostly been fulfilled by the usage of adobe which had been a fundamental material for thousands of years. As a result of natural disasters, battles and the move at the threshold of 20th century to the new settlement which is 9 kilometers away from the Ancient City Van is an open-air museum with the ruins of churches, mosques and baths. In this study, the usage of adobe in historical structures of Van city is evaluated in detail.

Keywords: historical structures, adobe, Van city, adobe

Procedia PDF Downloads 594