Search results for: online trust

Authors: M. Fikriansyah Wicaksono, Rafael Arief Budiman, M. Very Setiawan

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Currently, a wide range of innovative mobile library (M-Library) service is provided for the users in the library. The M-Library service is an innovation that aims to bring the collections of the library to users who currently use their smartphone so often. With M-Library services, it is expected that the users can fulfill their information needs more conveniently and practically. This study aims to find out how users use M-Library services provided by UGM library. This study applied a quantitative approach to investigate how to use the application M-Library. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) theory is applied to perform the analysis in terms of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude towards behavior, behavioral intention and actual system usage. The results show that overall the users found that the M-Library application is useful to meet their information needs. Such as facilitate user to access e-resources, search UGM library collections, online booking collections, and reminder for returning book.

Keywords: m-library, mobile library services, technology acceptance, library of UGM

Procedia PDF Downloads 229

Authors: Shieh Shiow-fang

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Superstitious thoughts or actions often occur during athletic competitions. Often "superstitious rituals" have a positive impact on the performance of competitive athletes. Athletes affirm the many psychological benefits of religious beliefs mostly in a positive way. Method: By snowball sampling, we recruited 10 experienced competitive athletes as participants. We used in-person and online one-to-one in-depth interview to collect their experiences about sport superstition. The total interview time was 795 minutes. We analyzed the raw data with the grounded theory processes suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1990). Results: The factors affecting athlete performance are ritual beliefs, taboo awareness, learning norms, and spontaneous attribution behaviors. Conclusion: We concluded that sports superstition reflects several psychological implications. The analysis results of this paper can provide another research perspective for the future study of sports superstition behavior.

Keywords: superstition, taboo awareness, learning norms, competitive athlete

Procedia PDF Downloads 86

Authors: V. Iakovoglou, G. N. Zaimes, M. P. Arraiza Bermúdez-Cañete, J. L. García, M. C. Giménez, C. Calderón-Guerrero, F. Ioras, I. Abrudan

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A new fast growing trend in tourism is ecotourism, in which tourists visit natural ecosystems under low impact, non-consumptive and locally oriented activities. Through these activities species and habitats are maintained and typically, underdeveloped regions are emphasized. Ecotourism provides a great alternative, especially for rural and undeveloped area. At the same time, despite its many benefits, it also poses many risks for the naturally protected areas. If ecotourism is practiced improperly degradation and irreversible damages could be the unwanted result. In addition, the lack of MSc programs in the field of Ecotourism in Europe makes it a necessity to be developed. Such an MSc program is being implemented with the lead partner the Technical University of Madrid. The entire partnership has six Universities, seven SMEs and one National Park from seven different countries all over Europe. The MSc will have 10 educational modules that will be available online and will prepare professionals that will be able to implement ecotourism in a sustainable way. Only through awareness and education a sustainable ecotourism will be achieved in the protected areas of Europe.

Keywords: ERASMUS, MSc program, protected Areas, sustainability

Procedia PDF Downloads 455

Authors: Mustafa Oz

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This study compares how do people express their opinions on the Facebook versus on Twitter. It was sought to understand whether people were more willing to express their opinions on some social media channels than others. It was assumed that fear of isolation and affordances may influence users’ opinion expression behaviors on social media websites. Thus two most popular social media websites, Twitter and Facebook, were compared. This study aims to provide the comprehensive understanding of political expression on social media platforms. An online survey (N=535) was conducted to understand respondents’ opinion expression behaviors. Overall, the results suggested that people were more likely to express their opinion on Twitter than Facebook when they think the majority does not support their opinion. The study concluded that people operate differently on Facebook versus Twitter.

Keywords: social media, spiral of silence, affordances, political expression

Procedia PDF Downloads 138

Authors: Maggie Shen

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Ever since the late 20th century, business giants have been competing to provide better experiences for their users. One way they strive to do so is through more efficiently connecting users with their goals, with recommendation systems that filter out unnecessary or less relevant information. Today’s top online platforms such as Amazon, Netflix, Airbnb, Tiktok, Facebook, and Google all utilize algorithmic recommender systems for different purposes—Product recommendation, movie recommendation, travel recommendation, relationship recommendation, etc. However, while bringing unprecedented convenience and efficiency, the prevalence of algorithmic recommendation systems also influences society in many ways. In using a variety of primary, secondary, and social media sources, this paper explores the impacts of algorithms, particularly algorithmic recommender systems, on different sectors of society. Four fields of interest will be specifically addressed in this paper: economy, international relations, political ideologies, and education.

Keywords: algorithms, economy, international relations, political ideologies, education

Procedia PDF Downloads 200

Authors: Jasmin H. Kwon , Thomas M. Brinthaupt

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There is a general lack of consumer behavior research on seasonal shopping events. Studying these kinds of events is interesting and important for several reasons. First, global shopping opportunities have implications for cross-cultural shopping events and effects on seasonal events in other countries. Second, seasonal shopping events are subject to economic conditions and may wane in popularity, especially with e-commerce options. Third, retailers can expand the success of their seasonal shopping events by taking advantage of cross-cultural opportunities. Fourth, it is interesting to consider how consumers from other countries might take advantage of different countries’ seasonal shopping events. Many countries have seasonal shopping events such as Black Friday. Research on these kinds of events can lead to the identification of cross-cultural similarities and differences in consumer behavior. We compared shopping motivations of college students who did (n=36) and did not (n=81) shop on Cyber Monday. The results showed that the groups did not differ significantly on any of the shopping motivation subscales. The Cyber Monday shoppers reported being significantly more likely to agree than disagree that their online shopping experience was enjoyable and exciting. They were more likely to disagree than agree that their experience was overwhelming. In addition, they agreed that they shopped only for deals, purchased the exact items they wanted, and thought that their efforts were worth it. Finally, they intended to shop again at next year’s Cyber Monday. It appears that there are many positive aspects to online seasonal shopping, independent of one’s typical shopping motivations. Different countries have seasonal events similar to the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping holiday (e.g., Boxing Day, Fukubukuro, China’s Singles Day). In Korea, there is increasing interest in taking advantage of U.S. Black Friday and Cyber Monday opportunities. Government officials are interested in adapting the U.S. holiday to Korean retailers, essentially recreating the Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday there. Similarly, the Japanese Fukubukuro ('Lucky Bag') holiday is being adapted by other countries such as Korea and the U.S. International shipping support companies are also emerging that help customers to identify and receive products from other countries. U.S. department stores also provide free shipping on international orders for certain items. As these structural changes are occurring and new options for global shopping emerge, the need to understand the role of shoppers’ motivations becomes even more important. For example, the Cyber Monday results are particularly relevant to the new landscape with e-commerce and cross-cultural opportunities, since many of these events involve e-commerce. Within today’s global market, physical location of a retail store is no longer a limitation to growing one’s market share. From a consumer perspective, it is important to investigate how shopping motivations are related to e-commerce seasonal events. From a retail perspective, understanding the shopping motivations of international customers would help retailers to expand and better tailor their seasonal shopping events beyond the boundaries of their own countries. From a collaborative perspective, research on this topic can include interdisciplinary researchers, including those from fashion merchandising, marketing, retailing, and psychology.

Keywords: Black Friday, cross-cultural research, Cyber Monday, seasonal shopping behavior

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Authors: Sonja Grobler

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Background: Leadership and specifically Leader, member exchange has a definite impact on employee behaviour and attitudes, and specifically their state of psychological capital. The interactionist construct of person-organisational fit (P-O fit), consisting of a combination of supplementary fit (indirect fit or value congruence) and complementary fit (direct or person-job fit, as well as needs-supply fit) may, however, impact on the relationship between LMX and psychological capital. The unique permutations of these relationships are important not only for conceptualisation purposes but also for intervention design to enhance the employees’ psychological capital; this would contribute to positive employee behaviour and attitudes. Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine whether a relationship exists between Leader, Member Exchange (LMX) and psychological capital, with possible mediation by P-O fit. Setting: The research was conducted with ± 60 employees from each of 43 private sectors and four public sector organisations in South Africa. Method: This study utilised a positivist methodology based on an empirical approach while using a cross-sectional design and quantitative analysis. The sample is relatively representative (in terms of race, gender, and the South African work force), as it consisted of 60 employees from each of the 43 South African organisations that participated in the study, with 2 486 respondents in total. Results: Significant, positive relationships were found between LMX, P-O fit, and psychological capital. Additionally, it was found that P-O fit partially mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and supervisory trust, confirming the proposed model. Conclusion: A strong, positive relationship exists between LMX (consisting of Affect, Loyalty, Contribution, and Professional Respect) and psychological capital (consisting of Self-efficacy, Hope, Resilience and Optimism) which is partially mediated by P-O fit (consisting of supplementary fit and complementary fit).

Keywords: leader and member exchange, person-organisational fit, psychological capital, positive psychology, interactionist approach

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Authors: Sadia Anwara, Weng Qingxionga, Jahan Zeb Aslamb

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Drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory and Theory of Displaced Aggression, current research study aims to explore the impact of an emerging destructive leadership style i.e., Punitive Supervision on the Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior (IWB) and Employee’s Knowledge Hiding (EKH) within the hospitality sector of Pakistan. This paper further elaborates the underlying mechanism by introducing job security as the mediator and Perceived Organisational Support (POS) as the coping mechanism to manage the deteriorating effects of Punitive supervision on the IWS and EKH. Two wave data (N=267) was obtained from the frontline employees of the hospitality sector of Pakistan in order to test the hypothesized moderation mediation model. Study findings unveiled that, punitive supervision negatively affects employees' innovative work behavior (IWB) and increases employee’s knowledge hiding (EKH), with job insecurity serving as a significant mediator in these relationships. Specifically, punitive supervision increases employees' perceptions of job insecurity, decreasing their innovative work behaviors and increasing their tendencies to engage in knowledge hiding. From a managerial perspective, this research study suggests that managers must evaluate their behavior and leadership style to prevent the drastic effect of dark leadership on the employee’s IWB and EKH. In addition, organizations must strive to foster an organizational culture of trust and open communication to reduce job insecurity. Employees should receive sufficient training and development opportunities to reduce job insecurity, while clear performance expectations and constructive feedback should be encouraged to help them excel.

Keywords: punitive supervision, job insecurity, perceived organisational support, innovative work behavior, knowledge hiding

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Authors: Laszlo Vari

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In the digital age, the spread of the mobile world and the nature of the cyberspace, offers many new opportunities for the prevalence of the fundamental right to free expression, and therefore, for free speech and freedom of the press; however, these new information communication technologies carry many new challenges. Defamation, censorship, fake news, misleading information, hate speech, breach of copyright etc., are only some of the violations, all of which can be derived from the harmful exercise of freedom of expression, all which become more salient in the internet. Here raises the question: how can we eliminate these problems, and practice our fundamental freedom rightfully? To answer this question, we should understand the elements and the characteristic of the nature of freedom of expression, and the role of the actors whose duties and responsibilities are crucial in the prevalence of this fundamental freedom. To achieve this goal, this paper will explore the European practice to understand instructions found in the case-law of the European Court of Human rights for the rightful exercise of freedom of expression.

Keywords: collision of rights, European case-law, freedom opinion and expression, media law, freedom of information, online expression

Procedia PDF Downloads 139

Authors: Salomé Elizabeth Scholtz

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Reviewers are the gatekeepers of knowledge dissemination and promote the scientific validity of the research. However, the literature indicates that authors often receive questionable feedback on qualitative manuscripts. Thus, this qualitative descriptive study sought to explore the qualitative knowledge and experiences of reviewers of psychology journals. A purposive and snowball sample (n=27) of psychology journal reviewers completed an online questionnaire, and data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Reviewers felt their postgraduate education, reading, and the process of reviewing qualitative articles equipped them to review qualitative manuscripts. Less than half of the reviewer’s published articles were qualitative and male reviewers published more than females. Despite not expecting authors to have the same level of research skills, reviewers still experienced authors as unskilled and biased, creating difficulty in accepting and reviewing qualitative articles. The applicability of the qualitative method and recommendations in preparing qualitative manuscripts for reviewing are reported.

Keywords: journal reviewers, psychology, qualitative research, research method, research skills

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Authors: J. Lino Alves, L. Lopes

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It is not new that industrial design projects are a result of cooperative work from different areas of knowledge. However, in the academic teaching of Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering courses, it is not recurrent that those competences are mixed before the professional life arrives. This abstract intends to describe two semester experiences carried out by two professors - a mechanical engineer and an industrial designer - in the last two academic years, for which they created mixed teams of Industrial Design and Mechanical Engineering (UPorto University). The two experiences differ in several factors; the main one is related to the challenges of online education, a constraint that affected the second experience. In the first year, even before foreseeing the effects that the pandemic would reconfigure the education system, a partnership with the Education Service of Águas do Porto was established. The purpose of the exercise was the project development of a game that could be an interaction element oriented to potentiate a positive experience and as an educational contribution to the children. In the second year, already foreseeing that the teaching experience would be carried out online, it was decided to design an open briefing, which allowed the groups to choose among three themes: a hand scale game using additive manufacturing; a modular system for ventilated facade using a parametric design basis; or, a modular system for vertical gardens. In methodological terms, besides the weekly follow-up, with the simultaneous support of the two professors, a group self-evaluation was requested; and a form to be filled individually to evaluate other groups. One of the first conclusions is related to the briefing format. Industrial Design students seem comfortable working on an open briefing that allows them to draw the project on a conceptual basis created for that purpose; on the other hand, Mechanical Engineering students were uncomfortable and insecure in the initial phase due to the absence of concrete, closed "order." In other words, it is not recurrent for Mechanical Engineering students that the creative component is stimulated, seemingly leaving them reserved to the technical solution and execution, depriving them of the co-creation phase during the conceptual construction of the project's own brief. Another fact that was registered is related to the leadership positions in the groups, which alternated according to the state of development of the project: design students took the lead during the ideation/concept phase, while mechanical engineering ones took a greater lead during the intermediate development process, namely in the definition of constructive solutions, mass/volume calculations, manufacturing, and material resistance. Designers' competences were again more evident and assumed in the final phase, especially in communication skills, as well as in simulations in the context of use. However, at some moments, it was visible the capacity for quite balanced leadership between engineering and design, in a constant debate centered on the human factor of the project - evidenced in the final solution, in the compromise and balance between technical constraints, functionality, usability, and aesthetics.

Keywords: education, industrial design, mechanical engineering, teaching ethodologies

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Authors: Shimaa Abdel-Rahman Amin El-Badawy

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Commercial law is the set of legal rules that apply to business and regulates the trade of trade. The meaning of this is that the commercial law regulates certain relations only that arises as a result of carrying out certain businesses. which are business, as it regulates the activity of a specific sect, the sect of merchants, and the commercial law as other branches of the law has characteristics that distinguish it from other laws and various, and various sources from which its basis is derived from It is the objective or material source. the historical source, the official source and the interpretative source, and we are limited to official sources and explanatory sources. so what do you see what these sources are, and what is their degree and strength in taking it in commercial disputes. The first topic / characteristics of commercial law. Commercial law has become necessary for the world of trade and economics, which cannot be dispensed with, given the reasons that have been set as legal rules for commercial field.In fact, it is sufficient to refer to the stability and stability of the environment, and in exchange for the movement and the speed in which the commercial environment is in addition to confidence and credit. the characteristic of speed and the characteristic of trust, and credit are the ones that justify the existence of commercial law.Business is fast, while civil business is slow, stable and stability. The person concludes civil transactions in his life only a little. And before doing any civil action. he must have a period of thinking and scrutiny, and the investigation is the person who wants the husband, he must have a period of thinking and scrutiny. as if the person who wants to acquire a house to live with with his family, he must search and investigate. Discuss the price before the conclusion of a purchase contract. In the commercial field, transactions take place very quickly because the time factor has an important role in concluding deals and achieving profits. This is because the merchant in contracting about a specific deal would cause a loss to the merchant due to the linkage of the commercial law with the fluctuations of the economy and the market. The merchant may also conclude more than one deal in one and short time. And that is due to the absence of commercial law from the formalities and procedures that hinder commercial transactions.

Keywords: law, commercial law, Islamic law, custom and Islamic law

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Authors: Roman Kulikov, Svetlana Kolesnikova

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Last decade Cloud Computing technologies have been rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Each year more and more organizations, corporations, internet services and social networks trust their business sensitive information to Public Cloud. The data storage in Public Cloud is protected by security mechanisms such as firewalls, cryptography algorithms, backups, etc.. In this way, however, only outsider attacks can be prevented, whereas virtualization tools can be easily compromised by insider. The protection of Public Cloud’s critical elements from internal intruder remains extremely challenging. A hypervisor, also called a virtual machine manager, is a program that allows multiple operating systems (OS) to share a single hardware processor in Cloud Computing. One of the hypervisor's functions is to enforce access control policies. Furthermore, it prevents guest OS from disrupting each other and from accessing each other's memory or disk space. Hypervisor is the one of the most critical and vulnerable elements in Cloud Computing infrastructure. Nevertheless, it has been poorly protected from being compromised by insider. By exploiting certain vulnerabilities, privilege escalation can be easily achieved in insider attacks on hypervisor. In this way, an internal intruder, who has compromised one process, is able to gain control of the entire virtual machine. Thereafter, the consequences of insider attacks in Public Cloud might be more catastrophic and significant to virtual tools and sensitive data than of outsider attacks. So far, almost no preventive security countermeasures have been developed. There has been little attention paid for developing models to assist risks mitigation strategies. In this paper formal model of insider attacks on hypervisor is designed. Our analysis identifies critical hypervisor`s vulnerabilities that can be easily compromised by internal intruder. Consequently, possible conditions for successful attacks implementation are uncovered. Hence, development of preventive security countermeasures can be improved on the basis of the proposed model.

Keywords: insider attack, public cloud, cloud computing, hypervisor

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Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Hsi-Ya Chang

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

Keywords: virtualization, remote desktop, HTML5, cloud computing

Procedia PDF Downloads 339

Authors: Paulu Saramge Shalika Nirupani Seram

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The study delves into the complex dynamics of social networks and how they affect paddy farmers’ adoption of agricultural technologies, which are included in Yaya Development program, Weedy rice program and Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) program in Matara district. Identify the social networks among the farmers of ongoing Extension Programs in Matara district, examine the farmers’ adoption level to the ongoing extension programs in Matara district, analyze the impacts of social networks for the adoption to the technologies of ongoing extension programs and give suggestions and recommendations to improve the social network of paddy farmers in Matara District for ongoing extension programs are the objectives of this research. A structured questionnaire survey was conducted with 25 farmers from Matara-North (Wilpita), 25 farmers from Matara-Central (Kamburupitiya), and 25 farmers from Matara-South (Malimbada). UCINET (Version -6.771) software was used for social network analysis, and other than that, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyze the findings. Matara-North has the highest social network density, and Matara-South has the lowest social network density according to the social network analysis. Dissemination of intensive technologies requires the most prominent actors of the social network, and in Matara district, agricultural instructors have the highest ability to disseminate technologies. The influence of actors in the social network, the trustworthiness of AI officers, and the trust of indigenous knowledge about paddy cultivation have a significant effect on the technology adoption of farmers. The research endeavors to contribute a nuanced understanding of the social networks and agricultural technology adoption in Matara District, offering practical insights for stakeholders involved in agricultural extension services.

Keywords: agricultural extension, paddy cultivation, social network, technology adoption

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Authors: Shu-Lu Hsu, Fang-Yi Chu

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With the advances in information and communications technology, mobile context-aware applications have become powerful marketing tools. In Apple online store, there are numerous mobile applications (APPs) developed for destination tour. This study investigated the determinants of adoption of context-aware APPs for destination tour services. A model is proposed based on Technology Acceptance Model and privacy concern theory. The model was empirically tested based on a sample of 259 users of a tourism APP published by Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau, Taiwan. The results showed that the fitness of the model is well and, among all the factors, the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use have the most significant influences on the intention to adopt context-aware destination APPs. Finally, contrary to the findings of previous literature, the effect of privacy concern on the adoption intention of context-aware APP is insignificant.

Keywords: mobile application, context-aware, privacy concern, TAM

Procedia PDF Downloads 258

Authors: Zenaide Carvalho da Silva, Leandro Rodrigues Ferreira, Andrey Ricardo Pimentel

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Learning styles (LS) refer to the ways and forms that the student prefers to learn in the teaching and learning process. Each student has their own way of receiving and processing information throughout the learning process. Therefore, knowing their LS is important to better understand their individual learning preferences, and also, understand why the use of some teaching methods and techniques give better results with some students, while others it does not. We believe that knowledge of these styles enables the possibility of making propositions for teaching; thus, reorganizing teaching methods and techniques in order to allow learning that is adapted to the individual needs of the student. Adapting learning would be possible through the creation of online educational resources adapted to the style of the student. In this context, this article presents the structure of a learning object interface adaptation based on the LS. The structure created should enable the creation of the adapted learning object according to the student's LS and contributes to the increase of student’s motivation in the use of a learning object as an educational resource.

Keywords: adaptation, interface, learning object, learning style

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Authors: Brahim Ferdi, Samira Dib

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The unified power quality conditioner (UPQC), a combination of shunt and series active power filter, is one of the best solutions towards the mitigation of voltage and current harmonics problems in distribution power system. PI controller is very common in the control of UPQC. However, one disadvantage of this conventional controller is the difficulty in tuning its gains (Kp and Ki). To overcome this problem, an adaptive fuzzy logic PI controller is proposed. The controller is composed of fuzzy controller and PI controller. According to the error and error rate of the control system and fuzzy control rules, the fuzzy controller can online adjust the two gains of the PI controller to get better performance of UPQC. Simulations using MATLAB/SIMULINK are carried out to verify the performance of the proposed controller. The results show that the proposed controller has fast dynamic response and high accuracy of tracking the current and voltage references.

Keywords: adaptive fuzzy PI controller, current harmonics, PI controller, voltage harmonics, UPQC

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Authors: Ernawati Mustafa Kamal, Hasnanywati Hassan, Atasya Osmadi

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The housing industry is crucial for sustainable development of every country. Housing is a basic need that can enhance the quality of life. Owning a house is therefore the main aim of individuals. However, affordability has become a critical issue towards homeownership. In recent years, housing price in the main cities has increased tremendously to unaffordable level. This paper investigates factors influencing the housing price from developer’s perspective and provides recommendation on strategies to tackle this issue. Online and face-to-face survey was conducted on housing developers operating in Penang, Malaysia. The results indicate that (1) location; (2) macroeconomics factor; (3) demographic factors; (4) land/zoning and; (5) industry factors are the main factors influencing the housing price. This paper contributes towards better understanding on developers’ view on how the housing price is determined and form a basis for government to help tackle the housing affordability issue.

Keywords: factors influence, house price, housing developers, Malaysia

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Authors: Martina Maria Keitsch

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Critical Design (CD) confronts traditional design practice. Instead of reproducing and reinforcing contemporary perceptions of products and services, CD seeks to challenge them with the goal to stimulate debates and visions on societal innovation. CD methods comprise, among other narratives and design of critical objects. The oral presentation is based on a study that discusses concepts, methods, and applications of CD links CD to traditional design, and identifies CD benefits and challenges for design research and practice. The objective of the study is to introduce CD as an alternative for design researchers and practitioners supplementing commercially oriented design approaches. The study utilizes a literature review on CD concepts and methods based on current publications and online documents and illustrates CD practice with help of selected case studies. Findings of the study indicate that CD contribute, among others, to create new societal roles for designers, foster innovative relationships between designers and users, and encourage creativity through imaginative aesthetics.

Keywords: critical design, postmodern design theories, narratives, rhizome

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Authors: Sasiphan Nitayaprapha

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A commercially-supported social network has become an emerging channel for an organization to communicate with and provide services to customers. The success of the commercially-supported social network depends on the ability of the organization to keep the customers in participating in the network. Drawing from the theories of information adoption, information systems continuance, and web usability, the author develops a model to explore how a commercially-supported social network can encourage customers to continue participating and using the information in the network. The theoretical model will be proved through an online survey of customers using the commercially-supported social networking sites of several high technology companies operating in the same sector. The result will be compared with previous studies to learn about the explanatory power of the research model, and to identify the main factors determining users’ intention to continue using a commercially-supported social network. Theoretical and practical implications, and limitations are discussed.

Keywords: social network, information adoption, information systems continuance, web usability, user satisfaction

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Authors: Saif Obaid Alkaabi, Nabil Ayad

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Governments constantly seek to offer faster, more secure, efficient and effective services for their citizens. Recent changes and developments to communication services and technologies, mainly due the Internet, have led to immense improvements in the way governments of advanced countries carry out their interior operations Therefore, advances in e-government services have been broadly adopted and used in various developed countries, as well as being adapted to developing countries. The implementation of advances depends on the utilization of the most innovative structures of data techniques, mainly in web dependent applications, to enhance the main functions of governments. These functions, in turn, have spread to mobile and wireless techniques, generating a new advanced direction called m-government. This paper discusses a selection of available m-government applications and several business modules and frameworks in various fields. Practically, the m-government models, techniques and methods have become the improved version of e-government. M-government offers the potential for applications which will work better, providing citizens with services utilizing mobile communication and data models incorporating several government entities. Developing countries can benefit greatly from this innovation due to the fact that a large percentage of their population is young and can adapt to new technology and to the fact that mobile computing devices are more affordable. The use of models of mobile transactions encourages effective participation through the use of mobile portals by businesses, various organizations, and individual citizens. Although the application of m-government has great potential, it does have major limitations. The limitations include: the implementation of wireless networks and relative communications, the encouragement of mobile diffusion, the administration of complicated tasks concerning the protection of security (including the ability to offer privacy for information), and the management of the legal issues concerning mobile applications and the utilization of services.

Keywords: e-government, m-government, system dependability, system security, trust

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Authors: Phornpat Chewasoonthorn, Surat Kwanmuang

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Indoor positioning technologies have been evolved rapidly. They augment the Global Positioning System (GPS) which requires line-of-sight to the sky to track the location of people or objects. This study developed an error correction method for an indoor real-time location system (RTLS) based on an ultra-wideband (UWB) sensor from Decawave. Multiple stationary nodes (anchor) were installed throughout the workspace. The distance between stationary and moving nodes (tag) can be measured using a two-way-ranging (TWR) scheme. The result has shown that the uncorrected ranging error from the sensor system can be as large as 1 m. To reduce ranging error and thus increase positioning accuracy, This study purposes an online correction algorithm using the Kalman filter. The results from experiments have shown that the system can reduce ranging error down to 5 cm.

Keywords: indoor positioning, ultra-wideband, error correction, Kalman filter

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Authors: Khan Farhan Rafat, Riaz Ahmed

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Renowned offshore organizations are drifting towards collaborative exertion to win and implement international projects for business gains. However, devoid of financial constraints, with the availability of skilled professionals, and despite improved project management practices through state-of-the-art tools and techniques, project delays have become a norm these days. This situation calls for exploring the factor(s) affecting the bonding between project management performance and project success. In the context of the well-known 3M’s of project management (that is, manpower, machinery, and materials), machinery and materials are dependent upon manpower. Because the body of knowledge inveterate on the influence of national culture on men, hence, the realization of the impact on the link between project management performance and project success need to be investigated in detail to arrive at the possible cause(s) of project delays. This research initiative was, therefore, undertaken to fill the research gap. The unit of analysis for the proposed research excretion was the individuals who had worked on skyscraper construction projects. In reverent studies, project management is best described using construction examples. It is due to this reason that the project oriented city of Dubai was chosen to reconnoiter on causes of project delays. A structured questionnaire survey was disseminated online with the courtesy of the Project Management Institute local chapter to carry out the cross-sectional study. The Construction Industry Institute, Austin, of the United States of America along with 23 high-rise builders in Dubai were also contacted by email requesting for their contribution to the study and providing them with the online link to the survey questionnaire. The reliability of the instrument was warranted using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.70. The appropriateness of sampling adequacy and homogeneity in variance was ensured by keeping Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity in the range ≥ 0.60 and < 0.05, respectively. Factor analysis was used to verify construct validity. During exploratory factor analysis, all items were loaded using a threshold of 0.4. Four hundred and seventeen respondents, including members from top management, project managers, and project staff, contributed to the study. The link between project management performance and project success was significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed), and 0.05 level (2-tailed) for Pearson’s correlation. Before initiating the moderator analysis test for linearity, multicollinearity, outliers, leverage points and influential cases, test for homoscedasticity and normality were carried out which are prerequisites for conducting moderator review. The moderator analysis, using a macro named PROCESS, was performed to verify the hypothesis that national culture has an influence on the said link. The empirical findings, when compared with Hofstede's results, showed high power distance as the cause of construction project delays in Dubai. The research outcome calls for the project sponsors and top management to reshape their project management strategy and allow for low power distance between management and project personnel for timely completion of projects.

Keywords: causes of construction project delays, construction industry, construction management, power distance

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Authors: Iva Nedelcheva

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This study is part of a doctoral thesis on the topic of Hyperfiction: Past, Present and Future of Storytelling through Hypertext. It explores in depth the impact of transmedia storytelling and the role of hypertext in the realm of the currently popular social media phenomenon Pokémon GO. Storytelling is a powerful method to engage and unite people. Moreover, the technology progress adds a whole new angle to the method, with hypertext and cross-platform sharing that enhance the traditional storytelling so much that transmedia storytelling gives unlimited opportunities to affect the everyday life of people across the globe. This research aims at examining the transmedia storytelling approach in Pokémon GO, and explaining how that contributed to its establishment as a massive worldwide hit in less than a week. The social engagement is investigated in all major media platforms, including traditional and online media channels. Observation and content analyses are reported in this paper to form the conclusion that transmedia storytelling with the input of hypertext has a promising future as a method of establishing a productive and rewarding communication strategy.

Keywords: communication, hypertext, Pokemon Go, storytelling, transmedia

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Authors: Lejla Mušić

Abstract:

Gender dimension of migration analyzes the intersection in between the world statistics on male and female migrations, around the world, involving the questions of youth migrations. Comparative analyses of world migration statistics as methodology offer the insight into the position of women in labor market around world. There are different forms of youth debris in contemporary world. The main problems are illegal migration, feminization of poverty, kidnapping the girls in Nigeria, femicides in Juarez and Mexico. Illegal migrations involve forced labor, rape and prostitution. Transgender youth share ideas through the online media (anti-bullying videos) and develop their own styles such as anarcho-punk, rave, or rock. Therefore, the stronger gender equality laws and laws for protection of women on work should be enforced.

Keywords: hyperfeminisation, rape, gangs of girls, rent boys masculinities, Varoç in Istanbul, forced labor, rape and prostitution, illegal emigrations

Procedia PDF Downloads 257

Authors: Najla Alhkalaf

Abstract:

The focus of this study is answering the following question: How do e-government services in Bahrain support the productivity of SMEs? This study examines the current E-government function in enhancing SME productivity in Bahrain through analysing the efficiency of e- government by viewing its facilitators and barriers from the perspective of different stakeholders. The study aims to identify and develop best practice guidelines with the end-goal of creating a standardised channel of communication between e-government and SMEs that fulfil the requirement of SME owners, and thus achieve the prime objective of e-government. E-government services for SMEs have been offered in Bahrain since 2005. However, the current services lack the required mechanism for SMEs to fully take advantage of these services because of lagging communication between service provider and end-user. E-government employees believe that a lack of awareness and trust are the main stumbling block, whereas the SME owners believe that there is a lack of sufficiency in the content and efficiency provided through e- services. A questionnaire has been created based on a pilot study that highlighted the main indicators of e-government efficiency and SMEs productivity as well as previous studies conducted on this subject. This allowed for quantitative data to be extracted. Also interviews were conducted with SME owners and government employees from both case studies, which formed the qualitative data for this study. The findings portray that both the service provider and service receiver largely agree on the existence of most of the technical and administrative barriers. However, the data reflects a level of dissatisfaction from the SME side, which contradicts with the perceived level of satisfaction from the government employees. Therefore, the data supports the argument that assures the existence of a communication gap between stakeholders. To this effect, this research would help build channels of communication between stakeholders, and then induces a plan unlocking the potential of e-government application. The conclusions of this study will help devise an optimised E-government strategy for Bahrain.

Keywords: e-government, SME, e-services, G2B, government employees' perspective, entrepreneurs' perspective, enterprise

Procedia PDF Downloads 236

Authors: Jiao Li

Abstract:

Language teachers have been expected to play diversified new roles in times of educational changes. Considering the critical role that materials play in teaching and learning, language teachers have been increasingly involved in developing materials. Using identity as an analytic lens, this study aims to explore language teachers’ experiences as materials developers in China, focusing on the challenges they face and responses to them. It will adopt a multimethod approach. At the first stage, about 12 language teachers who have developed or are developing materials will be interviewed to have a broad view of their experiences. At the second stage, three language teachers who are developing materials will be studied by collecting interview data, policy documents, and data obtained from online observation of their group meetings so as to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences in materials development. It is expected that this study would have implications for teacher development, materials development, and curriculum development as well.

Keywords: educational changes, teacher development, teacher identity, teacher learning, materials development

Procedia PDF Downloads 129

Authors: Kehinde K. Agbele, Kehinde Daniel Aruleba, Eniafe F. Ayetiran

Abstract:

When using Information Retrieval Systems (IRS), users often present search queries made of ad-hoc keywords. It is then up to the IRS to obtain a precise representation of the user’s information need and the context of the information. This paper investigates optimization of IRS to individual information needs in order of relevance. The study addressed development of algorithms that optimize the ranking of documents retrieved from IRS. This study discusses and describes a Document Ranking Optimization (DROPT) algorithm for information retrieval (IR) in an Internet-based or designated databases environment. Conversely, as the volume of information available online and in designated databases is growing continuously, ranking algorithms can play a major role in the context of search results. In this paper, a DROPT technique for documents retrieved from a corpus is developed with respect to document index keywords and the query vectors. This is based on calculating the weight (

Keywords: information retrieval, document relevance, performance measures, personalization

Procedia PDF Downloads 241

Authors: A. Baloglu, A. Çınar

Abstract:

Different tools and technologies were implemented for Crisis Response and Management (CRM) which is generally using available network infrastructure for information exchange. Depending on type of disaster or crisis, network infrastructure could be affected and it could not be able to provide reliable connectivity. Thus any tool or technology that depends on the connectivity could not be able to fulfill its functionalities. As a solution, a new message exchange framework has been developed. Framework provides offline/online information exchange platform for CRM Information Systems (CRMIS) and it uses XML compression and packet prioritization algorithms and is based on open source web technologies. By introducing offline capabilities to the web technologies, framework will be able to perform message exchange on unreliable networks. The experiments done on the simulation environment provide promising results on low bandwidth networks (56kbps and 28.8 kbps) with up to 50% packet loss and the solution is to successfully transfer all the information on these low quality networks where the traditional 2 and 3 tier applications failed.

Keywords: crisis response and management, XML messaging, web services, XML compression, mining

Procedia PDF Downloads 339