Search results for: office computer users

Authors: Mladen Milicevic

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This paper explores how the explosion of computer technologies has allowed for the democratization of many aspects of human activities, which were in the past only available through the institutionalized channels of production and distribution. We will going to use as an example the music recording industries, just to illustrate this process, but the analogies to other activities and aspects of human life can easily be extrapolated from it.

Keywords: aura, democratization, music industry, music sharing, paradigm-shift

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Authors: Arun Sanjel, Greg Speegle

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Every second, massive amounts of data are generated, and Data Intensive Scalable Computing (DISC) frameworks have evolved into effective tools for analyzing such massive amounts of data. Since the underlying architecture of these distributed computing platforms is often new to users, building a DISC application can often be time-consuming and prone to errors. The automated conversion of a sequential program to a DISC program will consequently significantly improve productivity. However, synthesizing a user’s intended program from an input specification is complex, with several important applications, such as distributed program synthesizing and code refactoring. Existing works such as Tyro and Casper rely entirely on deductive synthesis techniques or similar program synthesis approaches. Our approach is to develop a data-driven synthesis technique to identify sequential components and translate them to equivalent distributed operations. We emphasize using reinforcement learning and unit testing as feedback mechanisms to achieve our objectives.

Keywords: program synthesis, distributed computing, reinforcement learning, unit testing, DISC

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Authors: Rhaetian Bern D. Azaula

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The Philippines' indigenous population, estimated to be 10%-20%, is protected by the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA), passed in 1997. However, due to their isolation and limited access to basic services such as health education or needs for health assistance, the law's implementation remains a challenge. As traditional medicine continues to play a significant role in society as the prevention and treatment of some illnesses, it is still customary and widely used to use plants in both traditional and modern ways; however, commercially prepared drugs are progressively advanced as time goes by. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study is to investigate the indigenous community at Barangay Magsikap General Nakar, Quezon, and analyze the factors that affect the respondent’s preferences in an indigenous community and reasons for patronizing traditional and commercially prepared medicines and proposes updated health education strategies and instructional materials. Slovin's formula was utilized to reduce the total population representation, followed by stratified sampling for proportional allocation of respondents. The study selects respondents (1) from an Indigenous Community in Barangay Magsikap, General Nakar, Quezon, (2) aged 60 and above, and (3) who are willing to participate. The researcher utilized a checklist-based questionnaire with a Tagalog version, and a Likert Scale was utilized to assess the respondent's choices on selected items. The researcher obtained informed consent from the indigenous community's regional and local office, the chieftain of the tribe, and the respondents, ensuring confidentiality in the collection and retrieval of data. The study revealed that respondents aged 60-69, males with no formal education, are unemployed and have no income source. They prefer traditional medicines due to their affordability, availability, and cultural practices but lack safe preparation, dosages, and contraindications of used medicines. Commercially prepared medications are acknowledged, but respondents are not fully aware of proper administration instructions and dosage labels. Recommendations include disseminating approved herbal medicines and ensuring proper preparation, indications, and contraindications.

Keywords: traditional medicine, commercially prepared medicine, indigenous community, elderly adult

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Authors: Bulelani Ngamntwini, Liezel Cilliers

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South Africa has one of the highest prevalence of obese people on the African continent. Forty-six percent of the adults in South Africa are physically inactive. Fitness applications can be used to increase physical inactivity. However, the uptake of mobile fitness applications in South Africa has been found to be poor due to usability challenges with the technology. The study developed a usability framework to influence the intention to use mobile fitness applications in South Africa. The study made use of a positivistic approach to collect data. A questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 377 respondents that have used mobile fitness applications in the past. A response rate of 80.90% was recorded. To analyse the data, the Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationships between the various hypotheses. There are four usability factors, efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction, and learnability, which contribute to the intention of users to make use of mobile fitness applications. The study, therefore, recommends that for a mobile fitness application to be successful, these four factors must be considered and incorporated by developers when designing the applications.

Keywords: obese, overweight, physical inactivity, mobile fitness application, usability factors

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Authors: Eui Jun Jeong, Hye Rim Lee, Ji Hye Yoo

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Recent studies have verified the significant relationship of user personality with Internet use. However, in game studies, little research has emphasized on the effects of personality traits on game addiction. This study examined whether big five personality traits affect game addiction with control of psychological, social, and demographic factors. Specifically, using data from a survey of 789 game users in Korea, we conducted a regression analysis to see the associations of psychological (loneliness/depression), social (activities with family/friends), self-efficacy (game/general), gaming (daily gaming time/perception), demographic (age/gender), and personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism conscientiousness, agreeableness, & openness) with the degree of game addiction. Results showed that neuroticism increase game addiction with no effect of extraversion on the addiction. General self-efficacy negatively affected game addiction, whereas game self-efficacy increased the degree of game addiction. Loneliness enhanced game addiction while depression showed a negative effect on the addiction. Results and implications are discussed.

Keywords: game addiction, big five personality, social activities, self-efficacy, loneliness, depression

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Authors: Li Ma, Meishuang Ma, Mengying Huang

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The quality of construction projects reflects the credit and responsibilities of construction contractors for the owners and the whole society. Because the construction contractors master more relevant information about the entrusted engineering project under construction while the owners are in unfavorable position of gaining information, asymmetric information may lead the contractors act against the owners in order to pursue their own interests. Building a powerful motivation mechanism is the key to guarantee investor economic interests and the life and property of users in construction projects. Based on principal-agent theory and game theory, the authors develop relevant mathematical models to analyze and compare the contractor’s utility functions under different combinations of contracts’ explicit incentive mechanism and reputation’s implicit incentive mechanism aiming at finding out the conditions for incentive validity. The research concludes that the most rational motivation way is to combine the explicit and implicit incentive effects of both contracts and reputation mechanism, and puts forth some measures for problems on account of China’s current situation.

Keywords: construction contractors, contract, reputation, incentive mechanism

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Authors: Marine Kobalava

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The article analyzes the level of Georgia's tourism potential usage during the pandemic. The conclusion is drawnthat Georgia, as a tourism brand, is in a significant crisis at this stage, revenues from this sector have been substantially reduced, communication with potential customers is interrupted, no international marketing and PR communication strategies have been developed for the post-pandemic period. In order to rehabilitate the tourism industry of Georgia, it is considered vital to take measures using international marketing and PR communication strategies adjusted to the needs of the sectorthat will improve the use of tourism potential and stimulate the development of the sector. The goal of the research is to identify the factors hindering the use of tourism potential in the direction of international marketing and PR communication strategies in the post-pandemic period and to develop recommendations on ways to solve them. Research methods. The paper uses various theoretical and methodological tools of research, including Bibliographic research has been conducted on the main research issues; Analysis, synthesis, induction, and other methods are used to select and group data, identify similarities and differences, and identify trends; Endogenous and exogenous factors affecting the field of tourism have been studied by means of SWOT and PESTEL analyzes. A comparison model is used to analyze the strategy documents. Primary accounting materials are obtained from the National Statistics Office and the relevant ministries. Based on the results of the research, the directions of correct positioning of tourism products and marketing communication in the post-pandemic period have been developed. It is substantiated that a short-term international marketing strategy should include: probable goals of communication, maintaining a position on a potential traveler's “radar,” focusing communication on key motivating factors (gastronomy, winemaking, folklore, protected areas, mountainous regions). From a marketing point of view, it is important: holding international marketing events, compiling a list of target countries, formation of stimulus mechanisms, development of incentive programs for international tour operators, etc. The paper draws conclusions about the problems of using the tourism potential, recommendations on ways to solve this problems through international marketing and PR communication strategies are offered

Keywords: PR communication, international marketing strategy, tourism potential, post-pandemic period

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Authors: Shu-Hsien Liao, Yao-Hsuan Yang

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Social media is a virtual community and online platform that people use to create, share, and exchange opinions/experiences. Internet celebrities are people who become famous on the Internet, increasing their popularity through their social networking or video websites. Social commerce (s-ecommerce) is the combination of social relations and commercial transaction activities. The combination of social media and Internet celebrities is an emerging model for the development of s-ecommerce. With recent advances in system sciences, recommendation systems are gradually moving to develop intentional and behavioral recommendations. This background leads to the research issues regarding digital and social media in enterprises. Thus, this study implements data mining analytics, including clustering analysis and association rules, to investigate Taiwanese users (n=2,102) to investigate social media and Internet celebrities’ preferences to find knowledge profiles/patterns/rules for s-ecommerce intentional and behavioral recommendations.

Keywords: social media, internet celebrity, social commerce (s-ecommerce), data mining analytics, intentional and behavioral recommendations

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Authors: S. O. Uwaifo

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The paper examines the pivotal role of the library in university education through the provision of a wide range of information materials (print and non- print) required for the teaching, learning and research activities of the university. However certain impediments to the effectiveness of Nigerian university libraries, such as financial constraints, high foreign exchange, global disparities in accessing the internet, lack of local area networks, erratic electric power supply, absence of ICT literacy, poor maintenance culture, etc., were identified. Also, the necessity of repositioning Nigerian university libraries for effective information provision and delivery was stressed by pointing out their dividends, such as users’ access to Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC), Institutional Repositories, Electronic Document Delivery, Social Media Networks, etc. It therefore becomes necessary for the libraries to be repositioned by way of being adequately automated or digitized for effective service delivery, in this age of globalization. Based on the identified barriers by this paper, some recommendations were proffered.

Keywords: repositioning, Nigerian university libraries, effective information provision and delivery, globalization

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Authors: Mihretu Erjabo

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Halaba special district is characterized by drought, soil erosion, high population pressure, poor livestock production, lack of feed for livestock, very deep water table, very low productivity of crops and food insufficiency. In order to address these problems, the woreda agricultural development office along with other management practices such as soil physical conservation measures agroforestry was introduced decades ago as a means to alleviate the problem. However, the level of agroforestry adoption remains low. Objective of this study was to identify the factors that influence adoption of agroforestry technologies by farmers in the district. Random sampling was employed to select two kebele administrations and respondents. Data collection was conducted by rural household questionnaire survey, participatory rural appraisal, questionnaires for local and woreda extension staff, secondary data resources and field observation. A sample of 12 key informants, 6 extension staffs, and 182 households, were used in the data collection. Chi square test used to determine significant relationships between adoption of agroforestry and 15 selected variables. Out of which eleven were found to be significant to affect farmers’ adoptiveness. These were frequency of visits of farmers (13.39%), participation in training (11.49%), farmers’ attitude towards agroforestry practices (10.61%), frequency of visits of extensionists (10.38%), participation in extension meeting (10.34%), participation in field day (10.28%), land holding size (9.29%), level of literacy (8.78%), awareness about the importance of agroforestry technology packages (7.06%), time taken from their residence to nearest extension (5.04%) and gender of respondents (3.34%). This study also identified various factors that result in low adoption rates of agroforestry including fear of competition, seedling, rainfall and labour shortage, free grazing, financial problem, expecting trees as soil degrader and long span of trees and lack of need ranking. To improve farmers’ adoption, the factors identified should be well addressed by launching a series and recurrent outreach extension program appropriate and suitable to farmers need.

Keywords: farmers attitude, farmers participation, soil degradation, technology packages

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Authors: Samira Karimi-Mansoub, Rahem Abri

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Currently, users expect high quality and personalized information from search results. To satisfy user’s needs, personalized approaches to web search have been proposed. These approaches can provide the most appropriate answer for user’s needs by using user context and incorporating information about query provided by combining search technologies. To carry out personalized web search, there is a need to make different techniques on whole of user search process. There are the number of possible deployment of personalized approaches such as personalized web search, personalized recommendation, personalized summarization and filtering systems and etc. but the common feature of all approaches in various domains is that user modeling is utilized to provide personalized information from the Web. So the most important work in personalized approaches is user model mining. User modeling applications and technologies can be used in various domains depending on how the user collected information may be extracted. In addition to, the used techniques to create user model is also different in each of these applications. Since in the previous studies, there was not a complete survey in this field, our purpose is to present a survey on applications and techniques of user modeling from the viewpoint of improvement in search results by considering the existing literature and researches.

Keywords: filtering systems, personalized web search, user modeling, user search behavior

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Authors: Seyed Alireza Mirmohammadi

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Tehran Metro vendors are one of the working minorities in the capital, which is an essential cross-cultural case study. Today, with difficult economic conditions, subway vendors are increasing. Tehran metro vendors are in daily contact with many people in different metro stations. Due to the ban on their activities in this place and sometimes the humiliating look of some people, they experience special conditions compared to other people in the community. One of the most critical sources of shaping people's mentality toward their social status and identity in the media and, in the meantime, virtual social networks, due to various communication facilities such as Dualism and the possibility of high activity of users have a special place. Statistics have shown that virtual social networks have become an indispensable source of communication, information, and entertainment today. In this study, 15 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 metro vendors in Tehran about their membership in various virtual social networks and their mental perception of using them. The research results indicate that the obtained mentality of metro peddlers towards themselves is negative in virtual social networks, and they do not receive a good image of themselves in these networks.

Keywords: metro, tehran, intercultural communication, metro vendors, self image

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Authors: Aparna Soni

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The much-celebrated foretold story of Indian city engines driving the growth of India has been scrutinized to have serious consequences. A wide spectrum of scholarship has brought to light the un-equalizing effects and the need to adopt a rights-based approach to development planning in India. Notably, these concepts and discourses ubiquitously entail the study of land struggles in the making of Urban. In fact, the very progression of the primitive accumulation theory to accumulation by dispossession, followed by ‘dispossession without development,’ thereafter Development without dispossession and now as Dispossession by financialization noticeably the last three developing in a span of mere three decades, is evidence enough to trace the centrality and evolving role of land in the making of urban India. India, in the last decade, has seen its regional governments actively experimenting with alternative models of land assembly (Amaravati and Delhi land pooling models, the loudly advertised ones). These are publicized as a replacement to the presumably cost and time antagonistic, prone to litigation land acquisition act of 2013. It has been observed that most of the literature treats these models as a generic large bracket of land expropriation and do not, in particular, try to differentially analyse to granularly find a pattern in these alternatives. To cater to this gap, this research comparatively studies these alternative land, assembly models. It categorises them based on their basic architecture, spatial and sectoral application, and governance frameworks. It is found that these alternatives are ad-hoc and fragmented pieces of legislation. These are fit for profit models commodifying land to ease its access by the private sector for real estate led growth. The research augments the literature on the privatization of land use planning in India. Further, it attempts to discuss the increasing role a landowner is expected to play in the future and suggests a way forward to safeguard them from market risks. The study involves a thematic analysis of the policy elements contained in legislative/policy documents, notifications, office orders. The study also derives from the various widely circulated print media information. With the present field-visit limitations, the study relies on documents accessed open-source in the public domain.

Keywords: commodification, dispossession, land acquisition, landowner

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Authors: Amaal Almigal

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Neurotypical children learn to ask questions from natural exposure and this skill is fundamental for their academic success. However, children with autism spectrum disorder may not learn to ask in the same way due to earlier communication impairments, and some may need to use Augmentative and Alternative Communication systems (AAC) to ask questions. This paper aims to highlight issues related to questioning skills in children with autism giving a specific attention to asking questions within preverbal or minimally verbal children. Different procedures have been employed to teach these children, including AAC users, to ask questions. Therefore, these procedures will also be discussed to administrate how they were used and what they were aimed to teach. This paper also provides a suggested procedure to assist preverbal or minimally verbal children to ask questions using an iPad application for communication (Proloquo2Go) as AAC. This suggested procedure was used with 3 children with autism. Initial results will be discussed to clarify ways in which this procedure was used with each child based on his skills and which questioning skills each child has acquired using this procedure.

Keywords: AAC, autism, communication, information, iPad, requesting

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Authors: V. Vicente E. Mujica, Gustavo Gonzalez

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The global coverage of broadband multimedia and internet-based services in terrestrial-satellite networks demand particular interests for satellite providers in order to enhance services with low latencies and high signal quality to diverse users. In particular, the delay of on-board processing is an inherent source of latency in a satellite communication that sometimes is discarded for the end-to-end delay of the satellite link. The frame work for this paper includes modelling of an on-orbit satellite payload using an agent model that can reproduce the properties of processing delays. In essence, a comparison of different spatial interpolation methods is carried out to evaluate physical data obtained by an GEO satellite in order to define a discretization function for determining that delay. Furthermore, the performance of the proposed agent and the development of a delay discretization function are together validated by simulating an hybrid satellite and terrestrial network. Simulation results show high accuracy according to the characteristics of initial data points of processing delay for Ku bands.

Keywords: terrestrial-satellite networks, latency, on-orbit satellite payload, simulation

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Authors: Dmitriy Chernov, Maria Karavassilis, Suhyoun Youn, Amna Izhar, Devasenan Devendra

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Introduction and Background: A well-structured and comprehensive departmental induction improves patient safety and job satisfaction amongst doctors. The aims of our Project were as follows: 1. Assess the perceived preparedness of junior doctors starting their rotation in Acute Medicine at Watford General Hospital. 2. Develop a supplemental Induction Guide and Pocket reference in the form of an iOS mobile application. 3. To collect feedback after implementing the mobile application following a trial period of 8 weeks with a small cohort of junior doctors. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to all new junior trainees starting in the department of Acute Medicine to assess their experience of current induction. A mobile Induction application was developed and trialled over a period of 8 weeks, distributed in addition to the existing didactic induction session. After the trial period, the same questionnaire was distributed to assess improvement in induction experience. Analytics data were collected with users’ consent to gauge user engagement and identify areas of improvement of the application. A feedback survey about the app was also distributed. Results: A total of 32 doctors used the application during the 8-week trial period. The application was accessed 7259 times in total, with the average user spending a cumulative of 37 minutes 22 seconds on the app. The most used section was Clinical Guidelines, accessed 1490 times. The App Feedback survey revealed positive reviews: 100% of participants (n=15/15) responded that the app improved their overall induction experience compared to other placements; 93% (n=14/15) responded that the app improved overall efficiency in completing daily ward jobs compared to previous rotations; and 93% (n=14/15) responded that the app improved patient safety overall. In the Pre-App and Post-App Induction Surveys, participants reported: a 48% improvement in awareness of practical aspects of the job; a 26% improvement of awareness on locating pathways and clinical guidelines; a 40% reduction of feelings of overwhelmingness. Conclusions and recommendations: This study demonstrates the importance of technology in Medical Education and Clinical Induction. The mobile application average engagement time equates to over 20 cumulative hours of on-the-job training delivered to each user, within an 8-week period. The most used and referred to section was clinical guidelines. This shows that there is high demand for an accessible pocket guide for this type of material. This simple mobile application resulted in a significant improvement in feedback about induction in our Department of Acute Medicine, and will likely impact workplace satisfaction. Limitations of the application include: post-app surveys had a small number of participants; the app is currently only available for iPhone users; some useful sections are nested deep within the app, lacks deep search functionality across all sections; lacks real time user feedback; and requires regular review and updates. Future steps for the app include: developing a web app, with an admin dashboard to simplify uploading and editing content; a comprehensive search functionality; and a user feedback and peer ratings system.

Keywords: mobile app, doctor induction, medical education, acute medicine

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Authors: Shuen-Tai Wang, Yu-Ching Lin

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With more and more workflow systems adopting cloud as their execution environment, it presents various challenges that need to be addressed in order to be utilized efficiently. This paper introduces a method for resource provisioning based on our previous research of dynamic allocation and its pipeline processes. We present an abstraction for workload scheduling in which independent tasks get scheduled among various available processors of distributed computing for optimization. We also propose an integrated web-based workflow designer by taking advantage of the HTML5 technology and chaining together multiple tools. In order to make the combination of multiple pipelines executing on the cloud in parallel, we develop a script translator and an execution engine for workflow management in the cloud. All information is known in advance by the workflow engine and tasks are allocated according to the prior knowledge in the repository. This proposed effort has the potential to provide support for process definition, workflow enactment and monitoring of workflow processes. Users would benefit from the web-based system that allows creation and execution of pipelines without scripting knowledge.

Keywords: workflow systems, resources provisioning, workload scheduling, web-based, workflow engine

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Authors: C. Ah Gang Getrude, Iqbal Hashmi Shazia, Mohd Nawi Nurul Hudani

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This study examined the effectiveness of a Traffic Psychology Workshop in enhancing positive attitudes towards road safety awareness among youths. We predicted that youths’ attitudes towards road safety would be more positive after they participated in the one-day workshop. We examined their attitudes towards road safety awareness before and after they attended a one-day workshop. There were 21 participants who completed the pre and post-studies (9 males & 12 females, mean age 22.86, SD=2.03). A Wilcoxon signed-ranks test showed that the mean for post-test ranks for students’ attitudes towards road safety awareness was higher than the mean pre-test ranks, z =-3.16, p = .00. The study showed that the Traffic Psychology Module which focuses on the three elements: i) personality & emotion; Sensation, perception and visual; and mental workload could have positive effects on youths’ attitudes towards road safety awareness. We believe that the Traffic Psychology Module could be used as a guide by relevant authorities, such as the Sabah Road Safety Department, in implementing road safety awareness workshops and programs for the public, particularly road-users.

Keywords: attitude, road safety, traffic psychology, youth

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Authors: Omar Elharrouss, Youssef Hmamouche, Assia Kamal Idrissi, Btissam El Khamlichi, Amal El Fallah-Seghrouchni

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Edge detection is represented as one of the most challenging tasks in computer vision, due to the complexity of detecting the edges or boundaries in real-world images that contains objects of different types and scales like trees, building as well as various backgrounds. Edge detection is represented also as a key task for many computer vision applications. Using a set of backbones as well as attention modules, deep-learning-based methods improved the detection of edges compared with the traditional methods like Sobel and Canny. However, images of complex scenes still represent a challenge for these methods. Also, the detected edges using the existing approaches suffer from non-refined results while the image output contains many erroneous edges. To overcome this, n this paper, by using the mechanism of residual learning, a refined edge detection network is proposed (RED-Net). By maintaining the high resolution of edges during the training process, and conserving the resolution of the edge image during the network stage, we make the pooling outputs at each stage connected with the output of the previous layer. Also, after each layer, we use an affined batch normalization layer as an erosion operation for the homogeneous region in the image. The proposed methods are evaluated using the most challenging datasets including BSDS500, NYUD, and Multicue. The obtained results outperform the designed edge detection networks in terms of performance metrics and quality of output images.

Keywords: edge detection, convolutional neural networks, deep learning, scale-representation, backbone

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Authors: Paola Montenegro, Maria de los Angeles Balaguera Villa

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In February 2022 Colombia achieved a historic milestone in ensuring universal access to abortion rights with ruling C-055 of 2022 decriminalising abortion up to 24 weeks of gestation. In the context of this triumph and the expansion of telemedicine services in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this research studied the acceptability of self-care abortion in young people (13 - 28 years) through a telemedicine service and also explored the primary needs that should be the focus of such care. The results shine light on a more comprehensive understanding of opportunities and challenges of teleabortion practices in a context that combines overall higher access to technology and low access to reliable information of safe abortion, stigma, and scarcity especially felt by transnational migrants, racialised people, trans men and non-binary people. Through a mixed methods approach, this study collected 5.736 responses to a virtual survey disseminated nationwide in Colombia and 47 in-person interviews (24 of them with people who were assigned female at birth and 21 with local key stakeholders in the abortion ecosystem). Quantitative data was analyzed using Stata SE Version 16.0 and qualitative analysis was completed through NVivo using thematic analysis. Key findings of the research suggest that self-care abortion is practice with growing acceptability among young people, but important adjustments must be made to meet quality of care expectations of users. Elements like quick responses from providers, lower costs, and accessible information were defined by users as decisive factors to choose over the abortion service provider. In general, the narratives in participants about quality care were centred on the promotion of autonomy and the provision of accompaniment and care practices, also perceived as transformative and currently absent of most health care services. The most staggering findings from the investigation are related to current barriers faced by young people in abortion contexts even when the legal barriers have: high rates of scepticism and distrust associated with pitfalls of telehealth and structural challenges associated with lacking communications infrastructure, among a few of them. Other important barriers to safe self-care abortion identified by participants surfaced like lack of privacy and confidentiality (especially in rural areas of the country), difficulties accessing reliable information, high costs of procedures and expenses related to travel costs or having to cease economic activities, waiting times, and stigma are among the primary barriers to abortion identified by participants. Especially in a scenario marked by unprecedented social, political and economic disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the commitment to design better care services that can be adapted to the identities, experiences, social contexts and possibilities of the user population is more necessary than ever. In this sense, the possibility of expanding access to services through telemedicine brings us closer to the opportunity to rethink the role of health care models in transforming the role of individuals and communities to make autonomous, safe and informed decisions about their own health and well-being.

Keywords: contraception, family planning, premarital fertility, unplanned pregnancy

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Authors: Sadeq Al Yaari, Muhammad Alkhunayn, Ayman Al Yaari, Montaha Al Yaari, Adham Al Yaari, Sajedah Al Yaari, Fatehi Eissa

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Background & Aims: Audio-visual aids and computer-aided language instruction (CALI) have been documented to improve receptive skills, namely listening skills, in normal students. The increased listening has been attributed to the understanding of other interlocutors' speech, but recent experiments have suggested that audio-visual aids and CALI should be tested against the listening of students of special needs to see the effects of the former in the latter. This investigation described the effect of audio-visual aids and CALI on the performance of these students. Methods: Pre-and-posttests were administered to 40 students of special needs of both sexes at al-Malādh school for students of special needs aged between 8 and 18 years old. A comparison was held between this group of students and another similar group (control group). Whereas the former group underwent a listening course using audio-visual aids and CALI, the latter studied the same course with the same speech language therapist (SLT) with the classical method. The outcomes of the two tests for the two groups were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. Results: Significant improvement in the performance was found in the first group (treatment group) (posttest= 72.45% vs. pre-test= 25.55%) in comparison to the second (control) (posttest= 25.55% vs. pre-test= 23.72%). In comparison to the males’ scores, the scores of females are higher (1487 scores vs. 1411 scores). Suggested results support the necessity of the use of audio-visual aids and CALI in teaching listening at the schools of students of special needs.

Keywords: listening, receptive skills, audio-visual aids, CALI, special needs

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Authors: Amrah Maryam

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The emergence of online social networks (OSNs) has transformed the way we pursue and share information. On the one hand, OSNs provide great ease for the spreading of positive information while, on the other hand, they may also become a channel for the spreading of malicious rumors and misinformation throughout the social network. Thus, to assure the trustworthiness of OSNs to its users, it is of vital importance to detect the misinformation propagation in the network by placing network monitors. In this paper, we aim to place monitors near the suspected nodes with the intent to limit the diffusion of misinformation in the social network, and then we also detect the most significant nodes in the network for propagating true information in order to minimize the effect of already diffused misinformation. Thus, we initiate two heuristic monitor placement using articulation points and truth propagation using eigenvector centrality. Furthermore, to provide real-time workings of the system, we integrate both the monitor placement and truth propagation entities as well. To signify the effectiveness of the approaches, we have carried out the experiment and evaluation of Stanford datasets of online social networks.

Keywords: online social networks, monitor placement, independent cascade model, spread of misinformation

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Authors: Izian Idris, Melissa Ha, Mikkay Wong

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Social media marketing, including influencer marketing, is an ongoing phenomenon, and most companies as well as industries, are finding it crucial to implement social media marketing in their marketing strategies. However, social media influencer marketing still needs to be explored, and further research on this area needs to be carried out to fully understand the importance of social media influencer marketing in impacting consumer purchase decisions. Influencer endorsement has become a trend to grab users’ attention these days. Thus, the aim of this research paper is to explore the attributes of social media influencers/influencer as the endorser that impact consumer purchase intentions. The attributes that will be investigated include attitude homophily, physical attractiveness, and social attractiveness. Following this, the elaboration likelihood model from the theory of persuasion is implemented in this research to further examine the influence of social media influencer attributes on consumer purchase intentions. This study will be able to help marketers, businesses, and researchers understand the attributes of social media influencers as endorsers that will impact consumer purchase intentions and allow businesses to enhance their strategies to better cater to their target market.

Keywords: influencer, endorsement, consumer purchase, social media

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Authors: Seung-Ho Choi, Jae Yuel Oh, Chi Sung Lim, Ho Seong Jung, Kang Su Kim

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In recent years, various strengthening methods for buildings have been developed, but most of them require quite a long construction period during which the building users need to be patient on uncomfortable working environments including various lousy noises or even evacuation of the buildings. In this study, externally anchored precast wall-panel method (EPCW) for strengthening non-seismic reinforced concrete (RC) structures has been proposed, which is occupant-friendly technique because the strengthening walls are manufactured at factory and can be tightened to the members very quickly at the site. In order to investigate the structural performance of the specimens strengthened by the EPCW method, a total of four specimens were fabricated, and tested under axial and reversed cyclic lateral loads. The test results showed that the lateral resistances of the specimens strengthened by the EPCW method were greatly enhanced in both positive and negative directions, compared to the RC specimen having non-seismic details.

Keywords: precast wall, seismic strengthening, reinforced concrete, externally-anchored

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Authors: Delphine Vendryes, Dushyanth Sekhar, Baojia Tong, Matthew Theisen, Chester Curme

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Much of the data that inform the decisions of governments, corporations and individuals are harvested from unstructured documents. Data extraction is defined here as a process that turns non-machine-readable information into a machine-readable format that can be stored, for instance, in a database. In financial services, introducing more automation in data extraction pipelines is a major challenge. Information sought by financial data consumers is often buried within vast bodies of unstructured documents, which have historically required thorough manual extraction. Automated solutions provide faster access to non-machine-readable datasets, in a context where untimely information quickly becomes irrelevant. Data quality standards cannot be compromised, so automation requires high data integrity. This multifaceted task is broken down into smaller steps: ingestion, table parsing (detection and structure recognition), text analysis (entity detection and disambiguation), schema-based record extraction, user feedback incorporation. Selected intermediary steps are phrased as machine learning problems. Solutions leveraging cutting-edge approaches from the fields of computer vision (e.g. table detection) and natural language processing (e.g. entity detection and disambiguation) are proposed.

Keywords: computer vision, entity recognition, finance, information retrieval, machine learning, natural language processing

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Authors: Svilen Dimitrov, Manthan Pancholi, Norbert Schmitz, Didier Stricker

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This paper presents the end-to-end development of a wearable motion sensing harness consisting of computational unit and four inertial measurement units to control three smartphone therapeutic games for children. The inertial data is processed in real time to obtain lower body motion information like knee raises, feet taps and squads. By providing a Wi-Fi connection interface the sensor harness acts wireless remote control for smartphone applications. By performing various lower body movements the users provoke corresponding game state changes. In contrary to the current similar offers, like Nintendo Wii Remote, Xbox Kinect and Playstation Move, this product, consisting of the sensor harness and the applications on top of it, are fully wearable, which means they do not rely on the user to be bound to concrete soft- or hardwareequipped space.

Keywords: wearable harness, inertial measurement units, smartphone therapeutic games, motion tracking, lower-body activity monitoring

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Authors: Dominika Crnjac Milic, Martina Martinovic, Vladimir Simovic

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The case study method in this paper shows the implementation of Information Technology (IT) and the Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC) in a Croatian company that deals with logistics operations and provides logistics services in the cold chain segment. This company is aware of the sensitivity of the goods entrusted to them by the user of the service, as well as of the importance of speed and accuracy in providing logistics services. To that end, it has implemented and used the latest IT to ensure the highest standard of high-quality logistics services to its customers. Looking for efficiency and optimization of supply chain management, while maintaining a high level of quality of the products that are sold, today's users of outsourced logistics services are open to the implementation of new IT products that ultimately deliver savings. By analysing the positive results and the difficulties that arise when using this technology, we aim to provide an insight into the potential of this approach of the logistics service provider.

Keywords: logistics operations, serial shipping container code, information technology, cost optimization

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Authors: Erez Kita, Gil Luria

Abstract:

This study examines gender as a boundary condition for the relationship between the psychological variable of mindfulness and the social variable of income with regards to the use of smartphones by young drivers. The use of smartphones while driving increases the likelihood of a car accident, endangering young drivers and other road users. The study sample included 186 young drivers who were legally permitted to drive without supervision. The subjects were first asked to complete questionnaires on mindfulness and income. Next, their smartphone use while driving was monitored over a one-month period. This study is unique as it used an objective smartphone monitoring application (rather than self-reporting) to count the number of times the young participants actually touched their smartphones while driving. The findings show that gender moderates the effects of social and personal factors (i.e., income and mindfulness) on the use of smartphones while driving. The pattern of moderation was similar for both social and personal factors. For men, mindfulness and income are negatively associated with the use of smartphones while driving. These factors are not related to the use of smartphones by women drivers. Mindfulness and income can be used to identify male populations that are at risk of using smartphones while driving. Interventions that improve mindfulness can be used to reduce the use of smartphones by male drivers.

Keywords: mindfulness, using smartphones while driving, income, gender, young drivers

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Authors: Alena Nesterenko, Svetlana Petrikova

Abstract:

Research evaluation is one of the most important elements of self-regulation and development of researchers as it is impartial and independent process of assessment. The method of expert evaluations as a scientific instrument solving complicated non-formalized problems is firstly a scientifically sound way to conduct the assessment which maximum effectiveness of work at every step and secondly the usage of quantitative methods for evaluation, assessment of expert opinion and collective processing of the results. These two features distinguish the method of expert evaluations from long-known expertise widespread in many areas of knowledge. Different typical problems require different types of expert evaluations methods. Several issues which arise with these methods are experts’ selection, management of assessment procedure, proceeding of the results and remuneration for the experts. To address these issues an on-line system was created with the primary purpose of development of a versatile application for many workgroups with matching approaches to scientific work management. Online documentation assessment and statistics system allows: - To realize within one platform independent activities of different workgroups (e.g. expert officers, managers). - To establish different workspaces for corresponding workgroups where custom users database can be created according to particular needs. - To form for each workgroup required output documents. - To configure information gathering for each workgroup (forms of assessment, tests, inventories). - To create and operate personal databases of remote users. - To set up automatic notification through e-mail. The next stage is development of quantitative and qualitative criteria to form a database of experts. The inventory was made so that the experts may not only submit their personal data, place of work and scientific degree but also keywords according to their expertise, academic interests, ORCID, Researcher ID, SPIN-code RSCI, Scopus AuthorID, knowledge of languages, primary scientific publications. For each project, competition assessments are processed in accordance to ordering party demands in forms of apprised inventories, commentaries (50-250 characters) and overall review (1500 characters) in which expert states the absence of conflict of interest. Evaluation is conducted as follows: as applications are added to database expert officer selects experts, generally, two persons per application. Experts are selected according to the keywords; this method proved to be good unlike the OECD classifier. The last stage: the choice of the experts is approved by the supervisor, the e-mails are sent to the experts with invitation to assess the project. An expert supervisor is controlling experts writing reports for all formalities to be in place (time-frame, propriety, correspondence). If the difference in assessment exceeds four points, the third evaluation is appointed. As the expert finishes work on his expert opinion, system shows contract marked ‘new’, managers commence with the contract and the expert gets e-mail that the contract is formed and ready to be signed. All formalities are concluded and the expert gets remuneration for his work. The specificity of interaction of the examination officer with other experts will be presented in the report.

Keywords: expertise, management of research evaluation, method of expert evaluations, research evaluation

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Authors: Armagan Gokcearslan

Abstract:

The art of animation has developed very rapidly from the aspects of script, sound and music, motion, character design, techniques being used and technological tools being developed since the first years until today. Technical variety attracts a particular attention in the art of animation. Being perceived as a kind of illusion in the beginning; animations commonly used the Flash Sketch technique. Animations artists using the Flash Sketch technique created scenes by drawing them on a blackboard with chalk. The Flash Sketch technique was used by primary animation artists like Emile Cohl, Winsor McCay ande Blackton. And then tools like Magical Lantern, Thaumatrope, Phenakisticope, and Zeotrap were developed and started to be used intensely in the first years of the art of animation. Today, on the other hand, the art of animation is affected by developments in the computer technology. It is possible to create three-dimensional and two-dimensional animations with the help of various computer software. Cut-out technique is among the important techniques being used in the art of animation. Cut-out animation technique is based on the art of paper cutting. Examining cut-out animations; it is observed that they technically resemble the art of paper cutting. The art of paper cutting has a rooted history. It is possible to see the oldest samples of paper cutting in the People’s Republic of China in the period after the 2. century B.C. when the Chinese invented paper. The most popular artist using the cut-out animation technique is the German artist Lotte Reiniger. This study titled “Cut-out Animation as a Technic and Development Inside History Process” will embrace the art of paper cutting, the relationship between the art of paper cutting and cut-out animation, its development within the historical process, animation artists producing artworks in this field, important cut-out animations, and their technical properties.

Keywords: cut-out, paper art, animation, technic

Procedia PDF Downloads 276