Search results for: media manipulation

Authors: Fredrik Hartwig, Peter Lindberg

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In 2004, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued new accounting standards for impairment testing of goodwill. IFRS 3 Business Combinations and IAS 36 Impairment of Assets prohibited amortization of acquired goodwill and instead required companies to test goodwill for impairment annually or more often if necessary. The goodwill impairment test is based on management’s judgement and estimations, making the impairment-only-approach subjective and unreliable. Management can use the discretion opportunistically by managing goodwill impairments. The IASB’s remedy to the reliability problem has been to demand transparent financial reports. IAS 36 paragraph 134 requires detailed disclosures regarding the impairment test in order to make potentially unreasonable assumptions and estimations visible. The disclosure requirements should thus (in theory) make it more difficult for management to ‘choose’ assumptions and estimations that suit an agenda. Whether the requirement to disclose detailed disclosures regarding the impairment test leads to less opportunism is however an empirical question. This work analyses whether one of the required disclosures in IAS 36 paragraph 134, the reported discount rate, differs from an independently estimated risk-adjusted discount rate. Estimates of discount rates that are either lower or higher than the independently estimated discount rate are here defined as opportunism. In the former case - i.e. when the reported discount rate is lower - the objective may be to avoid profit reducing impairment charges. In the latter case - i.e. when the reported discount rate is higher - the objective may be to reduce profits or take ‘big baths’. This paper differs in one important respect from previous similar studies, the majority of which are based on purely descriptive statistics; we use multivariate regression analysis to analyze what factors affect deviations between disclosed discount rates and independently estimated discount rates. The sample consists of Swedish and Finnish listed companies. Swedish and Finnish listed companies are analysed since the accounting oversight bodies differ between the two countries. The results show that discount rate deviations in Swedish and Finnish listed companies are significantly related to accounting oversight, size and industry but not financial risk, business risk and goodwill intensity.

Keywords: discount rate, manipulation, goodwill impairment test, disclosures

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Authors: Reza Shakoori

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This paper presents a structural correction of Arabic and Persian strokes using manipulation of their chain codes in order to improve the rate and performance of Persian and Arabic handwritten word recognition systems. It collects pure and effective features to represent a character with one consolidated feature vector and reduces variations in order to decrease the number of training samples and increase the chance of successful classification. Our results also show that how the proposed approaches can simplify classification and consequently recognition by reducing variations and possible noises on the chain code by keeping orientation of characters and their backbone structures.

Keywords: Arabic, chain code normalization, OCR systems, image processing

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Authors: Amir Farouk Ahmed Ali Hussin

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Social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Ex-Twitter have experienced exponential growth and a remarkable adoption rate in recent years. They give fantastic means of online social interactions and communications with family, friends, and colleagues from around the corner or across the globe, and they have become an important part of daily digital interactions for more than one and a half billion users around the world. The personal information sharing practices that social network providers encourage have led to their success as innovative social interaction platforms. Moreover, these practices have outcome in concerns with respect to privacy and security from different stakeholders. Guiding these privacy and security concerns in social networks is a must for these networks to be sustainable. Real security and privacy tools may not be enough to address existing concerns. Some points should be followed to protect users from the existing risks. In this research, we have checked the various privacy and security issues and concerns pertaining to social media. However, we have classified these privacy and security issues and presented a thorough discussion of the effects of these issues and concerns on the future of the social networks. In addition, we have presented a set of points as precaution measures that users can consider to address these issues.

Keywords: international legal, consultation mix, legal research, small and medium-sized enterprises, strategic International law, strategy alignment, house of laws, deployment, production strategy, legal strategy, business strategy

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Authors: John Ayodele Oyewole

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Investigative journalism in Nigeria is increasingly declining as a result of some challenges associated with its practice, where corruption, incessant insecurity, embezzlement, religion, tribalism, and nepotism have indeed become a routine to the detriment of the country in every aspect of life. Investigative journalism is hardly being practised in Nigeria today because journalists fear for their lives. With in-depth interviews, this research uses the theory of media responsibility to examine the nature of investigative journalism in Nigeria, coupled with the exploration of secondary data - looking into how the Nigerian media disseminate news that is supposed to be continuous but is never brought to a conclusive end - where the hope of the audience with the current momentum of such news, as well as the enthusiasm of the audience to follow such stories is dashed, for lack of follow up of such stories. Therefore the paper suggests the need to resuscitate investigative journalism in Nigeria and the need to promulgate special laws to protect journalists.

Keywords: dearth, investigative journalism, Nigeria, journalism

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Authors: Colm Barcoe, Garvan Whelan

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Over the past five years, visitations of American holidaymakers to Ireland have grown exponentially owing to the online strategies of Tourism Ireland, a Destination Marketer (DMO) with a meagre budget which is extended by their understanding of best practices to maximise their monetary allowance. This suggested framework incorporates a range of Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as financial, marketing, and operational that offer a scale of measurement from which the Irish DMO can monitor the success of each promotional campaign when targeting the US and Canada. These are presented not as final solutions but rather as suggestions based on empirical evidence obtained from both primary and secondary sources. This research combines the wisdom extracted through qualitative methodologies with the objective of understanding the processes that drive both emergent and agile strategies. The Study extends the work relative to performance and examines the role of social media in the context of promoting Ireland to North America. There are two main themes that are identified and analysed in this investigation, these are the approach of the DMO when advocating Ireland as a brand and the benefits of digital platforms set against a proposed scale of KPIs, such as destination marketing, brand positioning, and identity development. The key narrative of this analysis is to focus on the power of social media when capitalising upon marketing opportunities, operating on a relatively small budget. This will always be a relevant theme of discussion due to the responsibility of an organisation like Tourism Ireland operating under the restraints imposed by government funding. The overall conclusions of this research may help inform those concerned with the implementing of social media strategies develop clearer models of measurement when promoting a destination to North America. The suggestions of this study will benefit small and medium enterprises particularly.

Keywords: destination marketing, framework, measure, performance

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Authors: Andrea Miconi

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The research will focus on the results of the Tempus European Project eMEDia dedicated to Cross-Media Journalism. The project is founded by the European Commission as it involves four European partners - IULM University, Tampere University, University of Barcelona, and the Mediterranean network Unimed - and three Tunisian Universities – IPSI La Manouba, Sfax and Sousse – along with the Tunisian Ministry for Higher Education and the National Syndicate of Journalists. The focus on Tunisian condition is basically due to the role played by digital activists in its recent history. The research is dedicated to the relationship between political participation, news-making practices and the spread of social media, as it is affecting Tunisian society. As we know, Tunisia during the Arab Spring had been widely considered as a laboratory for the analysis the use of new technologies for political participation. Nonetheless, the literature about the Arab Spring actually fell short in explaining the genesis of the phenomenon, on the one hand by isolating technologies as a casual factor in the spread of demonstrations, and on the other by analyzing North-African condition through a biased perspective. Nowadays, it is interesting to focus on the consolidation of the information environment three years after the uprisings. And what is relevant, only a close, in-depth analysis of Tunisian society is able to provide an explanation of its history, and namely of the part of digital media in the overall evolution of political system. That is why the research is based on different methodologies: desk stage, interviews, and in-depth analysis of communication practices. Networked journalism is the condition determined by the technological innovation on news-making activities: a condition upon which professional journalist can no longer be considered the only player in the information arena, and a new skill must be developed. Along with democratization, nonetheless, the so-called citizen journalism is also likely to produce some ambiguous effects, such as the lack of professional standards and the spread of information cascades, which may prove to be particularly dangerous in an evolving media market as the Tunisian one. This is why, according to the project, a new profile must be defined, which is able to manage this new condition, and which can be hardly reduced to the parameters of traditional journalistic work. Rather than simply using new devices for news visualization, communication professionals must also be able to dialogue with all new players and to accept the decentralized nature of digital environments. This networked nature of news-making seemed to emerge during the Tunisian revolution, when bloggers, journalists, and activists used to retweet each other. Nonetheless, this intensification of communication exchange was inspired by the political climax of the uprising, while all media, by definition, are also supposed to bring some effects on people’s state of mind, culture and daily life routines. That is why it is worth analyzing the consolidation of these practices in a normal, post-revolutionary situation.

Keywords: cross-media, education, Mediterranean, networked journalism, social media, Tunisia

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Authors: Faguna Barmahalia

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Politics of ethnic identity in the north-east India is well-known phenomenon. The ethnic assertion in this region is mostly linguistic and cultural in nature. Most of the ethnic groups in the north-east region have been demanding either autonomous or separate state to maintain their socio-cultural identity. After the Indian Independence, the ethnic groups of people think that they have not developed till. Despite having many natural resources, North East India remained backward in terms of economic, education as well as politics. In this scenario, many educated and middle-class elite people have involved in working for the all-round development of their community. The Bodos are one of the major tribes in North Eeast India. In Assam, the Bodos are assumed by themselves to be exploited and suppressed by the Assamese Hindu society. Consequently, the socio-cultural identity movement has emerged among the Bodos.The main aims of my study are: i. to focus on how the Bodos of Assam are using the folk media in their political movement and iii. To analyse the role of folklore towards serving the ethnic unity and nationalism among the Bodos. Methodology: The study is based on the primary and secondary sources. Interview and observation method was conducted for collecting the primary data. For secondary source, some printed books, magazines and others materials published by the distinguished publishers and websites have been used.

Keywords: media, culture, nationalism, politics

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Authors: Hasan Topacoglu

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The Meiji Restoration was a chain of events that restored Japan in 1868 and considered as the beginning of Japanese Modernization by many scholars. In 1968, to honor its modern incarnation, Japan celebrated Meiji Centennial as one of the biggest Media Events in the country after the World War II. It was celebrated all around the country throughout the year following with a central event in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Japanese scholars started an opposition movement and claimed that Government was using this event to raise nationalism, pointing at Government’s statement on the meaning of Meiji. Most of the scholars, unfortunately, were hooked into the ideological problem of the Government’s way of planning and evaluated it as a failure. However, scholars missed out an important point that apart from the central event in Tokyo, each city planned its own event and celebrated it on a different date, also with a different theme. For example, Kyoto showed a regional characteristic and focused on Kyoto’s own culture, tradition etc., and highlighted a further past than 100 years. This was mainly because some areas/cities had a different ‘memory’ for Meiji Restoration than Tokyo which was reflected through the way they celebrated Meiji Centennial. On the other hand, 2023 will be the year of Turkish Republic Centennial. A year which will be marked by national and maybe even international events. Although an official committee has not been announced yet, The 2023 Vision, a list of goals has been released by the Government to coincide with the centenary of the Republic of Turkey in 2023 and there are some ongoing projects that are planned to be completed by then. By looking at the content of these projects, it is possible to say that Government is aiming to focus on Modernization through the Centennial. However, some of the projects are already showing some interesting characteristics such as the Istanbul New Airport whose design is inspired by Selimiye Mosque’s Islamic-Ottoman figure. It is true that Turkey and Japan have different historical backgrounds and the timeline of the Meiji Restoration and Foundation of Turkish Republic are different. Therefore, a particular comparison between these two events is not justified. However, they may have more in common than we are up to think because, each country marked the start of a new nation conceived on modern principles. For that reason, it is important to understand the similarities or differences between Meiji Centennial and Turkish Republic Centennial as a media event. This study introduces Meiji Centennial as a media event and analyses opposition movement along with the meaning of Meiji Centennial. Additionally, it explains regional characteristic differences and gives Kyoto as an example. Moreover, it introduces some of the ongoing Centennial projects in Turkey and analyses the meaning of the Turkish Republic Centennial through these projects. Without comparing Japan and Turkey, it explains the case of Japan but the discussion centers on deepening our understanding of Centennial as a Media Event and remarks some important aspects for Turkey’s upcoming Centennial events.

Keywords: media events, Meiji centennial, the 2023 vision, Turkish republic centennial

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Authors: Frantisek Kalenda

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With the ultimate triumph of the republican movement in 1889 in Brazil and adoption of constitution promoting religious freedom, formerly dominant Roman Catholic Church entered a long period of struggle to recover its lost position, fighting both liberal and secular character of the new regime and rising competition on the “market of faith”. Spiritism in its originally Brazilian form proved to be one if its key adversaries during the First (1889-1930) and Second Republic (1930-1937), provoking significant attempt within official Church to discredit and destroy the movement. This paper explores this effort through Catholic portrayal of Spiritism in its official media, focusing, on the creation of stereotypes and both theological and “scientific” arguments used against it. Its core is based on primary sources’ analysis, mainly influential A Ordem and Mensageiro da Fé.

Keywords: Catholic Church, media, other, spiritism, stereotype

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Authors: Olivine Lo

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Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) consist of a broad variety of businesses, ranging from small grocery shops to manufacturing concerns. Some are dynamic and innovative, while others are more traditional. The definition of SMEs varies by country but is most determined by the number of employees, though business assets and sales revenues are alternative measures. There are eight main types of SME industries in Hong Kong: garment, electronics, plastics, metal and machinery, trading and logistics, building, manufacturing, and service industries. Information exchange is a key goal of human communication, and communicators have used a variety of media to maintain relationships through traditional face-to-face interactions and written forms like letters and faxes. With the advancement of mediated-interpersonal communication media from telephone to synchronic online tools like email, instant messaging, voice messaging, and video conferencing for sustaining relationships, particularly enabling geographically distanced relationships. Although these synchronous tools are gaining popularity, they are facilitating relationship maintenance in everyday life and complementing rather than replacing the more conventional face-to-face interactions. This study will test if there are any variances in effects by industry type among Hong Kong SMEs. The competitiveness of the business environment refers to the competition faced by a business within its particular industry. The more intense the competition in a given sector, the greater the potential for strategic uses of specific needs in a business. Both internal organization characteristics and external environments may affect firm performance and financial resources. The level of competitiveness within an industry will be a more reliable indicator to show how Hong Kong SMEs are striving to achieve their business goals using different techniques in their communication media preferences, rather than mere classification by industry type. This study thus divides the competitiveness of the business environment into internal and external: (1) the internal environment competition is the inherent competitiveness of the products or services provided by the SMEs, whereas (2) the external environment competition includes the economic and political realities and competitors joining the market. This study will test various organizational characteristics and competitiveness of the business environment to predict entrepreneurs’ communication media preferences.

Keywords: competitiveness of business environment, small- and medium-sized enterprises, organizational characteristics, communication media preference

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Authors: Mohammad Ali Aazami Mavaloo, Mohammad Bagher Hassanpouraghdam

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Intact leaves, leaf segments and petiole sections derived from nodal explants in vitro were employed for the optimization of Pelargonium odoratissimum micropropagation. MS and ½ MS media enriched with BAP (1, 1.5, 2 and 4.5 mg/l) and NAA (0.1, 1 and 1.5 mg/l) were the treatment combinations used for. With leaf segments, the lowest browning incidence, the greatest callogenesis and the highest number of shoots were obtained with the media containing 1.5 mg/L BAP and 1 mg/L NAA. Two mg/L BAP + 0.1 mg/L NAA hold the same results for petiole explants. Intact leaves showed the best results for the three before-mentioned traits with 1 mg/L BAP + 1 mg/L NAA. 0.2 mg/L NAA caused the highest rooting percentage and the greatest mean data for the number and length of the roots. Rooted plantlets were transferred to the pots containing 1:1 peat-moss and perlite. Acclimatization of the plantlets was followed by 90 percent of survival rate in the greenhouse.

Keywords: Pelargonium odoratissimum, micropropagation, BAP, NAA

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Authors: Theng Theng Ong

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This study adopts a multidisciplinary method by combining the corpus-based discourse analysis study and language attitude study to explore the construction of Malaysia airline tragedies: MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 in the selected Malaysian and United Kingdom (UK) online news. The study aims to determine the ways in which Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 are linguistically defined and constructed in terms of keyword and collocation. The study also seeks to identify the types of discourse that are presented in the new articles. The differences or similarities in terms of keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media will also be examined. Finally, the language attitude study will be carried out to examine the Malaysia and UK university students’ attitudes toward the keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501. The analysis is divided into two parts with the first part focusing on corpus-based discourse analysis on the media text. The second part of the study is to investigate Malaysians and UK news readers’ attitudes towards the online news being reported by the Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to the Airline tragedies. The main findings of corpus-based discourse analysis are essential in designing the questions in the questionnaires and interview and therefore led to the identification of the attitudes among Malaysian and UK news. This study adopts a multidisciplinary method by combining the corpus-based discourse analysis study and language attitude study to explore the construction of Malaysia airline tragedies: MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 in the selected Malaysian and United Kingdom (UK) online news. The study aims to determine the ways in which Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501 are linguistically defined and constructed in terms of keyword and collocation. The study also seeks to identify the types of discourse that are presented in the new articles. The differences or similarities in terms of keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media will also be examined. Finally, the language attitude study will be carried out to examine the Malaysia and UK university students’ attitudes toward the keywords, topics or issues covered by the selected Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to Malaysian Airline tragedies MH370, MH17 and QZ8501. The analysis is divided into two parts with the first part focusing on corpus-based discourse analysis on the media text. The second part of the study is to investigate Malaysians and UK news readers’ attitudes towards the online news being reported by the Malaysian and UK news media pertaining to the Airline tragedies. The main findings of corpus-based discourse analysis are essential in designing the questions in the questionnaires and interview and therefore led to the identification of the attitudes among Malaysian and UK news.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, news media, tragedies study

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Authors: D. van der Merwe

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Walter Benjamin observed a marked difference in test performances versus final performances, with special regard to film and the cinema setting versus the stage as the site of performance, exhibition, and consumption. The attention given to film is justifiable and valid given its position as the best example of media convergence of Benjamin’s era, that of late modernity. In contemporary terms, however, the film has been supplanted by content as the prime example of convergence at work, and the digital domain, materialized in the form of the mobile internet, as the substituted site for the cinema. By examining the performance of the polymediated self within social media content, this paper hopes to establish the practice of content creation as a cultural artefact evidencing exhibition value on par with -or at least comparable with- performance art.

Keywords: content creation, convergence, stage performance, test performance, polymediation, Walter Benjamin

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Authors: Ashish Kumar Dwivedi

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Uttar Pradesh is largest part of Indian Federal system encapsulating twenty two million populations and has huge cultural, economic and religious diversity. The newly elected 18 months old state leadership of Uttar Pradesh has envisaged and initiated various proactive strides for the public grievance redressal and inclusive development schemes for all the sections of population from its very day of assumption of the office by Hon’ble Chief Minster Shri Yogi Adtiyanath. These initiatives also include Departmental responses via social media handles as Twitter, Facebook Page, and Web interaction. In the same course, every department of state government has been guided for the correct usage of verified social media handle separately and in co-ordination with other departments. These guidelines included making new WhatsApp groups to connect technocrats and politicians to communicate on common platform. Minister for Department of Infrastructure and Industrial Development, Shri Satish Mahana is a very popular leader and very intuitive statesman, has thousands of followers on social media and his accounts receive almost three hundred individually mentioned notifications from the various parts of Uttar Pradesh. These notifications primarily include problems related to livelihood and grievances concerned to department. To address these communications, a body of five experts has been set who are actively responding on various levels and increase bureaucratic engagements with marginalized sections of society. With reference to above background, this piece of research was conducted to analyze, categorize and derive effective implementation of public policies via social media platforms. This act of responsiveness has brought positive change in the mindset of population for the government, which was missed earlier. Department of Industrial Development in the Government is also inclined to attract investors aiming to become first trillion-dollar economy of India henceforth department also organized two major successful events in last one year. These events were also frame worked on social media platform to update 2.5 million population of state who is actively using social media in many ways. To analyze change scientifically, this study has been conducted and big data has been collected from October 2017 to September 2018 from the departmental social media handles as Twitter, Facebook, and emails. For this data, a statistical study has been conducted to analyze sentiments and expectations, specific and common requirement of communities, nature of grievances and their effective elucidation fitted into government policies. The control sample has also been taken from previous government activities to analyze the change. The statistical study used tools such as correlation study and principal component analysis. Also in this research communication, the modus operandi of grievance redressal, proliferation of government policies, connections to their beneficiaries and quick response procedure will be discussed.

Keywords: correlation study, principal component analysis, bureaucratic engagements, social media

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Authors: Sudha Subramani, Hua Wang

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Domestic Violence (DV) against women is now recognized to be a serious and widespread problem worldwide. There is a growing concern that violence against women has a global public health impact, as well as a violation of human rights. From the existing statistical surveys, it is revealed that there exists a strong relationship between DV and health issues of women like bruising, lacerations, depression, anxiety, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, hyper-arousal, emotional distress, sexually transmitted diseases and so on. This social problem is still considered as behind the closed doors issue and stigmatized topic. Women conceal their sufferings from family and friends, as they experience a lack of trust in others, feelings of shame and embarrassment among the society. Hence, women survivors of DV experience some barriers in seeking the support of specialized services such as health care access, crisis support, and legal guidance. Fortunately, with the popularity of social media like Facebook and Twitter, people share their opinions and emotional feelings to seek the social and emotional support, for sympathetic encouragement, to show compassion and empathy among the public. Considering the DV, social media plays a predominant role in creating the awareness and promoting the support services to the public, as we live in the golden era of social media. The various professional people like the public health researchers, clinicians, psychologists, social workers, national family health organizations, lawyers, and victims or their family and friends share the unprecedentedly valuable information (personal opinions and experiences) in a single platform to improve the social welfare of the community. Though each tweet or post contains a less informational value, the consolidation of millions of messages can generate actionable knowledge and provide valuable insights about the public opinion in general. Hence, this paper reports on an exploratory analysis of the effectiveness of social media for unobtrusive assessment of attitudes and awareness towards DV. In this paper, mixed methods such as qualitative analysis and text mining approaches are used to understand the social media disclosures of DV through the lenses of opinion sharing, anonymity, and support seeking. The results of this study could be helpful to avoid the cost of wide scale surveys, while still maintaining appropriate research conditions is to leverage the abundance of data publicly available on the web. Also, this analysis with data enrichment and consolidation would be useful in assisting advocacy and national family health organizations to provide information about resources and support, raise awareness and counter common stigmatizing attitudes about DV.

Keywords: domestic violence, social media, social stigma and support, women health

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Authors: Chih-Ping Chen

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Today, technology does not necessitate change; rather, social media has afforded a new arena and digital tools for users/individuals to be symbolized and marketed in meaningful exchanges of digital identities. We argue that these symbolic interactions may afford individuals the ability to create and present less restricted Line person-to-person (P2P) chats than would be possible in face-to-face communications. Individuals can select flexible influence strategies to market themselves, which enables them to create and present their digital identities and impressions in alternative ways within a dynamic sociocultural context. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the novel phenomenon of how individuals market themselves to manage their digital identities and impressions to connect with other users through the symbolic interactions created by new digital tools (e.g., stickers). A netnographic approach was developed by applying a triangulated methodology consisting of user self-diary reports, in-depth interviews, and observations. Totally, 20 participants (10 females and 10 males) were of Taiwanese origin, and their ages ranged from 20–47 years old. The findings of this research showed that individuals on Line P2P social media where traditional cultural gender norms have shifted. Both male and female participants market their modern digital identities by adopting a combination of flexible influence tactics/strategies when using digital stickers. Some findings showed that their influence tactics/strategies often flouted Taiwanese cultural gender norms or skirted traditional rules to fit individual or P2P needs. Finally, these findings potentially contributed to the literature regarding the consumer culture theory and symbolic interaction theory in digital marketing and social media fields.

Keywords: Consumer culture theory, Digital sticker, Self-marketing, Impression, Symbolic interaciton

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Authors: Vincenzo Piemonte

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The liver is a complex, large-scale biochemical reactor which plays a unique role in the human physiology. When liver ceases to perform its physiological activity, a functional replacement is required. Actually, liver transplantation is the only clinically effective method of treating severe liver disease. Anyway, the aforementioned therapeutic approach is hampered by the disparity between organ availability and the number of patients on the waiting list. In order to overcome this critical issue, research activities focused on liver support device systems (LSDs) designed to bridging patients to transplantation or to keep them alive until the recovery of native liver function. In recirculating albumin dialysis devices, such as MARS (Molecular Adsorbed Recirculating System), adsorption is one of the fundamental steps in albumin-dialysate regeneration. Among the albumin-bound toxins that must be removed from blood during liver-failure therapy, bilirubin and tryptophan can be considered as representative of two different toxin classes. The first one, not water soluble at physiological blood pH and strongly bounded to albumin, the second one, loosely albumin bound and partially water soluble at pH 7.4. Fixed bed units are normally used for this task, and the design of such units requires information both on toxin adsorption equilibrium and kinetics. The most common adsorptive media used in LSDs are activated carbon, non-ionic polymeric resins and anionic resins. In this paper, bilirubin adsorption isotherms on different adsorptive media, such as polymeric resin, albumin-coated resin, anionic resin, activated carbon and alginate beads with entrapped albumin are presented. By comparing all the results, it can be stated that the adsorption capacity for bilirubin of the five different media increases in the following order: Alginate beads < Polymeric resin < Albumin-coated resin < Activated carbon < Anionic resin. The main focus of this paper is to provide useful guidelines for the optimization of liver support devices which implement adsorption columns to remove albumin-bound toxins from albumin dialysate solutions.

Keywords: adsorptive media, adsorption equilibrium, artificial liver devices, bilirubin, mathematical modelling

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Authors: Ayesha Hasan

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This study offers unique perspectives and analyses of peace and conflict journalism through interpretative repertoire, media frames, and critical discourse analyses. Two major English publications in Pakistan, representing both long and short-form journalism, are investigated to uncover how the Afghan refugee repatriation from Pakistan in 2016-17 has been framed in Pakistani English media. Peace journalism focuses on concepts such as peace initiatives and peace building, finding common ground, and preventing further conflict. This study applies Jake Lynch’s Coding Criteria to guide the critical discourse analysis and Lee and Maslog’s Peace Journalism Quotient to examine the extent of peace journalism in each text. This study finds that peace journalism is missing in Pakistani English press, but represented, to an extent, in long-form print and online coverage. Two new alternative frames are also proposed. This study gives an in-depth understanding of if and how journalists in Pakistan are covering conflicts and framing stories that can be identified as peace journalism. This study represents significant contributions to the remarkably limited scholarship on peace and conflict journalism in Pakistan and extends Shabbir Hussain’s work on critical pragmatic perspectives on peace journalism in Pakistan.

Keywords: Afghan refugee repatriation, Critical discourse analysis, Media framing , Peace and conflict journalism

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Authors: Vijaya Madhuri Devraj, Swarnalatha Guditi, Kiran Kumar Bokara, Gangadhar Taduri

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Cell-based strategies may open therapeutic approaches that promote tolerance through manipulation of macrophages to increase long-term transplant survival rates and minimize side effects of the current immune suppressive regimens. The aim of the present study was, therefore, to test and compare the therapeutic potential of MSC and Tregs on macrophage polarization to develop an alternate cell-based treatment option in kidney transplantation. In the current protocol, macrophages from kidney transplant recipients with graft dysfunction were co-cultured with MSCs and Treg cells with and without cell-cell contact on transwell plates, further to quantitatively assess macrophage polarization in response to MSC and Treg treatment over time, M1 and M2 cell surface markers were used. Additionally, multiple soluble analytes were analyzed in cell supernatant by using bead-based immunoassays. Furthermore, to confirm our findings, gene expression analysis was done. MSCs induced the formation of M2 macrophages more than Tregs when macrophages M0 were cultured in transwell without cell contact. From this, we deduced the mechanism that soluble factors present in the MSCs condition media are involved in skewing of macrophages towards type 2 macrophages; similarly, in co-culture with cell-cell contact, MSCs resulted in more M2 type macrophages than Tregs. And an important finding of this study is the combination of both MSC-Treg showed significantly effective and consistent results in both with and without cell contact setups. Hence, it is suggestive to prefer MSCs over Tregs for secretome-based therapy and a combination of both for either therapy for effective transplantation outcomes. Our findings underline a key role of Tregs and MSCs in promoting macrophage polarization towards anti-inflammatory type. The study has great importance in prolongation of allograft and patient survival without any rejection by cell-based therapy, which induce self-tolerance and controlling infection.

Keywords: graft rejection, graft tolerance, macrophage polarization, mesenchymal stem cells, regulatory T cells, transplant immunology

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Authors: Andrew Kurochkin, Kostiantyn Bokhan

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In this study, a new meme dataset of ~650K meme instances was created, a technology of meme generation based on the state of the art deep learning technique - GPT-2 model was researched, a comparative analysis of machine-generated memes and human-created was conducted. We justified that Amazon Mechanical Turk workers can be used for the approximate estimating of users' behavior in a social network, more precisely to measure engagement. It was shown that generated memes cause the same engagement as human memes that produced low engagement in the social network (historically). Thus, generated memes are less engaging than random memes created by humans.

Keywords: content generation, computational social science, memes generation, Reddit, social networks, social media interaction

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Authors: Gameel Abdelmageed

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Arabs have a rhetorical heritage which has greatly contributed to the monitoring and analyzing of the rhetoric of the Holy Quran, Hadith, and Arabic texts on poetry and oratory. But Arab scholars - as far as the researcher knows – have not contributed to monitoring and analyzing the rhetoric of digital Arabic discourse although it has prominence, particularly in social media and has strong effectiveness in the political and social life of Arab society. This discourse has made its impact by using very new rhetorical techniques in language, voice, image, painting and video clips which are known as “Multimedia” and belong to “Digital Rhetoric”. This study suggests that it is time to draw the attention of Arab scholars and invite them to monitor and analyze the rhetoric of digital Arabic discourse.

Keywords: digital discourse, digital rhetoric, Facebook, social media

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Authors: Gaurav Kumar

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An information literate person is one who uses information effectively in all its forms. When presented with questions or problems, an information literate person would know what information to look for, how to search efficiently and be able to access relevant sources. In addition, an information literate person would have the ability to evaluate and select appropriate information sources and to use the information effectively and ethically to answer questions or solve problems. Information literacy has become an important element in higher education. The information literacy movement has internationally recognized standards and learning outcomes. The step-by-step process of achieving information literacy is particularly crucial in an era where knowledge could be disseminated through a variety of media. What is the relationship between information literacy as we define it in higher education and information literacy among non-academic populations? What forces will change how we think about the definition of information literacy in the future and how we will apply the definition in all environments?

Keywords: information literacy, human beings, visual media and computer network etc, information literacy

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Authors: Julianne Cai, Weili Xue, Yibin Wu

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Social media retailing (SMR) platforms have become popular nowadays. It is characterized by a creative combination of content creation and product selling, which differs from traditional e-tailing (TE) with product selling alone. Motivated by real-world practices like social media platforms “TikTok” and douyin.com, we endeavor to study if the SMR model performs better than the TE model in a monopoly setting. By building a stylized economic model, we find that the SMR model does not always outperform the TE model. Specifically, when the SMR platform collects less commission from the seller than the TE platform, the seller, consumers, and social welfare all benefit more from the SMR model. In contrast, the platform benefits more from the SMR model if and only if the creator’s social influence is high enough or the cost of content creation is small enough. For the incentive structure of the content rewards in the SMR model, we found that a strong incentive mechanism (e.g., the quadratic form) is more powerful than a weak one (e.g., the linear form). The previous one will encourage the creator to choose a much higher quality level of content creation and meanwhile allowing the platform, consumers, and social welfare to become better off. Counterintuitively, providing more generous content rewards is not always helpful for the creator (seller), and it may reduce her profit. Our findings will guide the platform to effectively design incentive mechanisms to boost the content creation and retailing in the SMR model and help the influencers efficiently create content, engage their followers (fans), and price their products sold on the SMR platform.

Keywords: content creation, creator economy, incentive strategy, platform retailing

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Authors: Sayaka Ono, Ryutaro Imai, Tomoko Ehara, Tetsuya Matsumoto, Hajime Matsumura

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Background: Wound pH affects a number of important factors in wound healing. We previously measured the pH value of the exudates collected from second-degree burns and found that the increase in pH was observed in the burn wounds in which colonized by Staphylococcus spp., and the increase in pH was evident prior to the clinical findings of local infection. To investigate the relationship between the changes of pH value and bacterial growth, we performed in vitro study using Pseudomonas aeruginosa and liquid medium as a locally infected wound equivalent model. Methods: Pseudomonas aeruginosa standard strain (ATCCR 10145TM) was cultured at 37 °C environment in Luria Broth Miller medium. The absorbance rate which means the amount of bacteria was measured by a microplate reader 2300EnSpireTM). The pH was measured using pH-indicator strips (MColorpHastTM). The statistical analysis was performed using the product-moment correlation coefficient of Pearson's. Results: The absorbance rate and pH value were increased along with culture period. There was a positive correlation between pH value and absorbance rate (n = 27, Pearson's r = 0.985). Moreover, there was a positive correlation between pH value and the culture period (n = 18, Pearson's r = 0.901). The bacteria was well growth in the media from pH 6.6 to pH 8.0 and the pH of culture media converged at 8 -9 along with the bacterial growth. Conclusion: From these results, we conclude that pH value of the wound is correlated with the number of viable bacteria and bacterial growth periods.

Keywords: colonization, potential of hydrogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, wound

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Authors: Suchart Tripopsakul

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This paper uses data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) to investigate the difference of attitudes towards entrepreneurial intention (EI). EI is generally assumed to be the single most relevant predictor of entrepreneurial behavior. The aim of this paper is to examine a range of attitudes effect on individual’s intent to start a new venture. A cross-cultural comparison between Asia and Europe is used to further investigate the possible differences between potential entrepreneurs from these distinct national contexts. The empirical analysis includes a GEM data set of 10 countries (n = 10,306) which was collected in 2013. Logistic regression is used to investigate the effect of individual’s attitudes on EI. Independent variables include individual’s perceived capabilities, the ability to recognize business opportunities, entrepreneurial network, risk perceptions as well as a range of socio-cultural attitudes. Moreover, a cross-cultural comparison of the model is conducted including six ASEAN (Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand) and four European nations (Spain, Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom). The findings support the relationship between individual’s attitudes and their entrepreneurial intention. Individual’s capability, opportunity recognition, networks and a range of socio-cultural perceptions all influence EI significantly. The impact of media attention on entrepreneurship and was found to influence EI in ASEAN, but not in Europe. On the one hand, Fear of failure was found to influence EI in Europe, but not in ASEAN. The paper develops and empirically tests attitudes toward Entrepreneurial Intention between ASEAN and Europe. Interestingly, fear of failure was found to have no significant effect in ASEAN, and the impact of media attention on entrepreneurship and was found to influence EI in ASEAN. Moreover, the resistance of ASEAN entrepreneurs to the otherwise high rates of fear of failure and high impact of media attention are proposed as independent variables to explain the relatively high rates of entrepreneurial activity in ASEAN as reported by GEM. The paper utilizes a representative sample of 10,306 individuals in 10 countries. A range of attitudes was found to significantly influence entrepreneurial intention. Many of these perceptions, such as the impact of media attention on entrepreneurship can be manipulated by government policy. The paper also suggests strategies by which Asian economy in particular can benefit from their apparent high impact of media attention on entrepreneurship.

Keywords: an entrepreneurial intention, attitude, GEM, ASEAN and Europe

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Authors: Nikou Javadi, Uğur Dağlı

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The importance of culture and tourism in the attractiveness and competitiveness of the countries is central, and many regions are evidencing their cultural assets, tangible and intangible, as a means to create comparative advantages in tourism and produce a distinctive place in response to the pressures of globalization. Culture and tourism are interlinked because of their obvious combination and growth potential. Cultural tourism is a crucial global tourism market with fast growing. Regions can develop significant relations between culture and tourism to increase their attractiveness as places to visit, live and invest, increasing their competitiveness. Accordingly, having new and creative approach to historical areas as cultural value-based destinations can improve their conditions to promote tourism. Furthermore, in 21st century, media become the most important factor affecting the development of urban cities, including public places. As a result of the digital revolution, re-imaging and re-linkage public places by media are essential to create more interactions between public spaces and users, interaction media display, and urban screens, one of the most important defined media. This interaction can transform the urban space from being neglected to be more interactive space with users, especially the pedestrians. The paper focuses on The Walled City of Famagusta. As many other historic quarters elsewhere in the world, is in a process, of decay and deterioration, and its functionally distinctive areas are severely threatened by physical, functional, locational, and image obsolescence at varying degrees. So the focus on the future development of this area through tourism promotion can be an appropriate decision for the monument enhancement of the spatial quality in Walled City of Famagusta. In this paper, it is aimed to identify the effects of these new digital factors to transform public spaces especially in historic urban areas to promote creative tourism. Accordingly, two different analysis methods are used as well as a theoretical review. The first is case study on site and the second is Close ended questionnaire, test many concepts raised in this paper. The physical analysis on site carried out in order to evaluate the walled city restoration for touristic purpose. Besides, theoretical review is done in order to provide background to the subject and cleared Factors to attract tourists.

Keywords: historical areas, media façade, sustainable tourism, Walled city of Famagusta

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Authors: Valarmathi Subramaniam

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Ever since the first Indian feature film was produced and released by Shri Dada Saheb Phalke in the year 1931, the Indian Film Industry has grown leaps and bounds. The Indian Film Industry stands as the largest film industry in the world, and it produces more than a thousand films every year with investments and revenues worth several billion rupees. As per the official report published by UNESCO in the year 2017 on their website, it states that in the year 2015, India has produced one thousand nine hundred and seven feature films using digital technology. Not only is the cinema adapted to digital technologies, but the digital technologies also opened up avenues for talents to enter the cinema industry. This paper explores such talents who have emerged in the film industry without any background, neither academic nor from their family background, but holding digital media as their weapon. The research involves two variants of filmmaking technology – Celluloid and Digital. The study used a selective sampling of films that were released from the year 2020-to 2022. The sample has been organized, resulting in popular and fresh talents in the editing phase of filmmaking. There were 48 editors, of which 12 editors were not popular and 6 of them were fresh into the film without any background. Interview methods were used to collect data on what helped them to get into the industry straight. The study found that the digital medium and the digital technology enabled them to get into the film industry.

Keywords: digital media, digital in cinema, digital era talents, emerging new talents

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Authors: Virginia Melnyk

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This paper explores the design for catenary structure using knitted textiles. Using the advantages of Grasshopper and Kangaroo parametric software to simulate and pre-design an overall form, the design is then translated to a pattern that can be made with hand manipulated stitches on a knitting machine. The textile takes advantage of the structure of knitted materials and the ability for it to stretch. Using different types of stitches to control the amount of stretch that can occur in portions of the textile generates an overall formal design. The textile is then hardened in an upside-down hanging position and then flipped right-side-up. This then becomes a structural catenary form. The resulting design is used as a small Cat House for a cat to sit inside and climb on top of.

Keywords: architectural materials, catenary structures, knitting fabrication, textile design

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Authors: Sajee A. Gamage, Champa J. Wijesinghe, Patricia Burtner, Ananda R. Wickremasinghe

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Background: Teachers working in the context of special education have an enormous responsibility of enhancing performance skills of children in their classroom settings. Fine Motor Skills (FMS) are essential functional skills for children to gain independence in Activities of Daily Living. Children with Down Syndrome (DS) are predisposed to specific challenges due to deficits in FMS. This study is aimed to determine the teachers’ experience on improving FMS of children with DS in the context of special education of Southern Province, Sri Lanka. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was conducted among all consenting eligible teachers (n=147) working in the context of special education in government schools of Southern Province of Sri Lanka. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on literature and expert opinion to assess teachers’ experience regarding deficits of FMS, limitations of classroom activity performance and barriers to improve FMS of children with DS. Results: Approximately 93% of the teachers were females with a mean age ( ± SD) of 43.1 ( ± 10.1) years. Thirty percent of the teachers had training in special educationand 83% had children with DS in their classrooms. Major deficits of FMS reported were deficits in grasping (n=116; 79%), in-hand manipulation (n=103; 70%) and bilateral hand use (n=99; 67.3%). Paperwork (n=70; 47.6%), painting (n=58; 39.5%), scissor work (n=50; 34.0%), pencil use for writing (n=45; 30.6%) and use of tools in the classroom (n=41; 27.9%) were identified as major classroom performance limitations of children with DS. Parental factors (n=67; 45.6%), disease specific characteristics (n=58; 39.5%) and classroom factors (n=36; 24.5%), were identified as major barriers to improve FMS in the classroom setting. Lack of resources and standard tools, social stigma and late school admission were also identified as barriers to FMS training. Eighty nine percent of the teachers informed that training fine motor activities in a special education classroom was more successful than work with normal classroom setting. Conclusion: Major areas of FMS deficits were grasping, in-hand manipulation and bilateral hand use; classroom performance limitations included paperwork, painting and scissor work of children with DS. Teachers recommended regular practice of fine motor activities according to individual need. Further research is required to design a culturally specific FMS assessment tool and intervention methods to improve FMS of children with DS in Sri Lanka.

Keywords: classroom activities, Down syndrome, experience, fine motor skills, special education, teachers

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Authors: Florian Kiebert, Hagen Schmidt

Abstract:

Standing surface acoustic waves (sSAWs) have already been used to manipulate particles in a microfluidic channel made of polydimethylsiloxan (PDMS). Usually two identical facing interdigital transducers (IDTs) are exploited to form an sSAW. Further, it has been reported that an sSAW can be generated by a single IDT using a superstrate resonating cavity or a PDMS post. Nevertheless, both setups utilising a traveling surface acoustic wave (tSAW) to create an sSAW for particle manipulation are costly. We present a simplified setup with a tSAW and a PDMS channel to form an sSAW. The incident tSAW is reflected at the rear PDMS channel wall and superimposed with the reflected tSAW. This superpositioned waves generates an sSAW but only at regions where the distance to the rear channel wall is smaller as the attenuation length of the tSAW minus the channel width. Therefore in a channel of 500µm width a tSAW with a wavelength λ = 120 µm causes a sSAW over the whole channel, whereas a tSAW with λ = 60 µm only forms an sSAW next to the rear wall of the channel, taken into account the attenuation length of a tSAW in water. Hence, it is possible to concentrate and trap particles in a defined region of the channel by adjusting the relation between the channel width and tSAW wavelength. Moreover, it is possible to generate a particle gradient over the channel width by picking the right ratio between channel wall and wavelength. The particles are moved towards the rear wall by the acoustic streaming force (ASF) and the acoustic radiation force (ARF) caused by the tSAW generated bulk acoustic wave (BAW). At regions in the channel were the sSAW is dominating the ARF focuses the particles in the pressure nodes formed by the sSAW caused BAW. On the one side the ARF generated by the sSAW traps the particle at the center of the tSAW beam, i. e. of the IDT aperture. On the other side, the ASF leads to two vortices, one on the left and on the right side of the focus region, deflecting the particles out of it. Through variation of the applied power it is possible to vary the number of particles trapped in the focus points, because near to the rear wall the amplitude of the reflected tSAW is higher and, therefore, the ARF of the sSAW is stronger. So in the vicinity of the rear wall the concentration of particles is higher but decreases with increasing distance to the wall, forming a gradient of particles. The particle gradient depends on the applied power as well as on the flow rate. Thus by variation of these two parameters it is possible to change the particle gradient. Furthermore, we show that the particle gradient can be modified by changing the relation between the channel width and tSAW wavelength. Concluding a single IDT generates an sSAW in a PDMS microchannel enables particle gradient generation in a well-defined microfluidic flow system utilising the ARF and ASF of a tSAW and an sSAW.

Keywords: ARF, ASF, particle manipulation, sSAW, tSAW

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