Search results for: personal attributes

Authors: Alikeju F. Maji

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The role of girl child education on reproductive health of any nation cannot be over emphasized. Today this has become a global concern because of the awareness that girl child education has direct proven impact on reproductive health and sustainable development of a national. Thus, this paper attempts to re-emphasize and re-awaken the mind of humanity on the undisputable importance of girl-child education as a tool for improving reproductive health in Nigeria. The paper further examine that despite government’s effort in attaining education for all by the year 2015, the numbers of girls attending schools remain abysmally low in Nigeria. The paper noted that if the trend persists, personal health of women and their contribution to national development will reduce. The paper recommends that women in Nigeria should be availed with good educational opportunities to enhance their improved reproductive health, and greater participating in national development.

Keywords: girl-child education, reproductive health, sustainable development, personal health

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Authors: Elen Gasparyan, Naira Hakobyan

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One of the leading factors determining the effectiveness of work in a modern organization is the motivation of its employees. In the scientific psychological literature, this phenomenon is understood mainly as constructive forms of motivation and the search for ways to increase it. At the same time, the motivation of employees can sometimes lead to a decrease in the productivity of the organization, i.e., destructive motivation is usually not considered from the point of view of various motivational theories. This article provides an analysis of various forms of destructive motivation of employees. These forms include formalism in labor behavior, inadequate assessment of the work done, and an imbalance of personal and organizational interests. The destructive motivation of personnel has certain negative consequences both for the employees themselves and for the entire organization - it leads to a decrease in the rate of production and the quality of products or services, increased conflict in the behavior of employees, etc. Currently, there is an increase in scientific interest in the study of destructive motivation. The subject of psychological research is not only modern socio-psychological processes but also the achievements of scientific thought in the field of theories of motivation and management. This article examines the theoretical approaches of J. S. Adams and Porter-Lawler, provides an analysis of theoretical concepts, and emphasizes the main characteristics of the destructiveness of motivation. Destructive work motivation is presented at the macro, meso, and micro levels. These levels express various directions of development of motivation stimuli, such as social, organizational, and personal ones. At the macro level, the most important characteristics of destructive motivation are the high-income gap between employers and employees, а high degree of unemployment, weak social protection of workers, non-compliance by employers with labor legislation, and emergencies. At the organizational level, the main characteristics are decreasing the diversity of work and insufficient work conditions. At the personal level, the main characteristic of destructive motivation is a discrepancy between personal and organizational interests. A comparative analysis of the theoretical and methodological foundations of the study of motivation makes it possible to identify not only the main characteristics of destructive motivation but also to determine the contours of psychological counseling to reduce destructiveness in the behavior of employees.

Keywords: destructive, motivation, organization, behavior

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Authors: Maneka Marianne Britto, Hansraj Riteesh Bookun

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The ability of a junior doctor to deliver complex multi-disciplinary care to patients in a paradigm of respect and collaboration requires a multitude of interpersonal skills and competencies. A short survey was used to explore the perspective of allied health staff on the desirable attributes of a junior doctor which are conducive to good teamwork. 23 allied health professionals (14 nurses, 4 physiotherapists, 2 dietitians, 1 occupational therapist, 1 speech therapist and 1 audiologist) responded to this 17-item survey. There were 17 females. The mean age of the respondents was 34.9 ± 10.1 years. The salient findings of our survey are that 95% of our respondents rated friendliness and non-clinical small talk with average importance or greater. 45% of them viewed these 2 items as very important or absolutely essential. A single respondent viewed these 2 items with little importance. The other criteria which were rated with high levels of importance were the acknowledgment of allied health suggestions and good ward organizational skills. Training these collaborative skills is challenging, and an enhanced understanding of interprofessional perspectives will help a junior doctor to achieve better clinical outcomes. It is hoped that this paper will further stimulate discussion in this area and will encourage junior doctors to engage in non-clinical conversations with allied health staff in the spirit of promoting effective teamwork.

Keywords: allied health, collaboration, doctor, medicine, surgery

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Authors: F. Jiménez, R. Jódar, M. Martín, G. Sánchez, G. Sciavicco

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Abstract—Attribute or feature selection is one of the basic strategies to improve the performances of data classification tasks, and, at the same time, to reduce the complexity of classifiers, and it is a particularly fundamental one when the number of attributes is relatively high. Its application to unsupervised classification is restricted to a limited number of experiments in the literature. Evolutionary computation has already proven itself to be a very effective choice to consistently reduce the number of attributes towards a better classification rate and a simpler semantic interpretation of the inferred classifiers. We present a feature selection wrapper model composed by a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, the clustering method Expectation-Maximization (EM), and the classifier C4.5 for the unsupervised classification of data extracted from a psychological test named BASC-II (Behavior Assessment System for Children - II ed.) with two objectives: Maximizing the likelihood of the clustering model and maximizing the accuracy of the obtained classifier. We present a methodology to integrate feature selection for unsupervised classification, model evaluation, decision making (to choose the most satisfactory model according to a a posteriori process in a multi-objective context), and testing. We compare the performance of the classifier obtained by the multi-objective evolutionary algorithms ENORA and NSGA-II, and the best solution is then validated by the psychologists that collected the data.

Keywords: evolutionary computation, feature selection, classification, clustering

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Authors: Farooq Anwar, Gokhan Zengin, Khalid M. Alkharfy

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Wild rice (Zizania sp.) is an annual cross-pollinated, emergent, aquatic grass that mainly grows naturally in the Great Lakes region of the North America. The nutritional quality attributes of wild rice are superior to the conventional brown rice (Oryza sativa L.) in terms of higher contents of important minerals (especially phosphorous, potassium, magnesium and calcium), B-complex vitamins, vitamin E and amino acids. In some parts of the world, wild rice is valued as a primary food source. The lipids content of wild rice is reported to be low in the range of 0.7 and 1.1%, however, the lipids are recognized as a rich source of polyunsaturated fatty acids (including linoleic and α-linolenic acid) and phytosterols in addition to containing reasonably good amount of tocols. Besides, wild rice is reported to contain an appreciable amount of high-value compounds such as phenolics with antioxidant properties. Presence of such nutritional bioactives contributes towards medicinal benefits and multiple biological activities of this specialty rice. The present lecture is mainly designed to focus on the detailed nutritional attributes, profile of high-value bioactive components and pharmaceutical/biological activities of wild rice leading to exploring functional food and nutraceutical potential of this food commodity.

Keywords: alpha-linolenic acid, phenolics, phytosterols, tocols, wild rice lipids

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Authors: Sharon Ost Mor, Yuval Palgi, Ddikla Segel-Karpas

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Solitude and positive solitude (PS) are used in literature interchangeably, yet they have different attributes and effects. While solitude might have devastating outcomes such as depression or health deterioration, PS has beneficial outcomes. Yet, both solitude and PS have no clear unanimous definition. Most researches focus on solitude, while the phenomenon of PS is somewhat neglected. Most research deals with young people and adults, while the current research is interested in PS concepts especially in old age. A qualitative study, with 124 participants was performed in order to understand the essence of PS in different age groups. The findings revealed seven categories related to PS, including: Quietness, religious and spiritual experience, escapism, experience in nature or abroad, controlling stress or thoughts, facilitation achievements and recreation-hobbies-routines. Moreover, three meta-themes emerged: PS is a matter of choice, it is meaningful and enjoyable. One stand alone category was found: PS preconditions. Differences between younger and older adults were found in several categories and in PS preconditions, while the meta-themes were equally mentioned by all participants. Based on the participant's reflections and descriptions a new PS paradigm was built and will be presented as well as a new definition of PS. PS was renamed as 'Soulitude' in order to emphasize its' positive nature. Conclusions: PS serves well most people, yet it has different attributes in different ages. By giving PS a unanimous definition and by understanding its' contribution for the elderly, PS might be addressed as a legitimate, stand alone phenomenon. The paradigm might serve theory as well as clinicians for further PS research.

Keywords: old-old, positive solitude, solitude, soulitude

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Authors: Kinneret Segal

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Background: The work of a midwife is emotionally challenging, both positively and negatively. Midwives share moments of joy when a baby is welcomed into the world and also attend difficult events of loss and trauma. The relationship that develops with the maternity is the essence of the midwife's care, and it is a fundamental source of motivation and professional satisfaction. This close relationship with the maternity may be used as a double-edged sword in cases of exposure to traumatic events at birth. Birth problems, exposure to emergencies and traumatic events, and loss can affect the professional quality of life and the Compassion satisfaction of the midwife. It seems that the issue of traumatic experiences in the work of midwives has not been sufficiently explored. Aim: The present study examined the associations between exposure to traumatic events, personal resilience and post-traumatic symptoms, professional quality of life, and organizational commitment among midwifery nurses in Israeli hospitals. Methods: 131 midwives from three hospitals in the country's center in Israel participated in this study. The data were collected during 2021 using a self-report questionnaire that examined sociodemographic characteristics, the degree of exposure to traumatic events in the delivery room, personal resilience, post-traumatic symptoms, professional quality of life, and organizational commitment. Results: The three most difficult traumatic events for the midwives were death or fear of death of a newborn, death or fear of the death of a mother, and a quiet birth. The higher the frequency of exposure to traumatic events, the more numerous and intense the onset of post-trauma symptoms. The more numerous and powerful the post-trauma symptoms, the higher the level of professional burnout and/or compassion fatigue, and the lower the level of compassion satisfaction. High levels of compassion satisfaction and/or low professional burnout were expressed in a heightened sense of organizational commitment. Personal resilience, country of birth, traumatic symptoms, and organizational commitment predicted satisfaction from compassion. Conclusions: Midwives are exposed to traumatic events associated with dissatisfaction and impairment of the professional quality of life that accompanies burnout and compassion fatigue. Exposure to traumatic events leads to the appearance of traumatic symptoms, a decrease in organizational commitment, and psychological and mental well-being. The issue needs to be addressed by implementing training programs, organizational support, and policies to improving well-being and quality of care among midwives.

Keywords: organizational commitment, traumatic experiences, personal resilience, quality of life

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Authors: Priya Sharma

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As one think of fashion, the only things that come to mind are feminine activities such as acquiring high-end bags, clothing, and shoes. A person's personal style is defined by their clothing. Fashion been more feminine over the centuries, but the masculine identity has also dwindled. Fashion has an impact on social status, trends, and the socio-economic and political environment. The major focus of this study is on how the most prominent fast fashion businesses establish their gender identities in order to achieve industry legitimacy. A questionnaire survey was conducted to understand the people prospection. It also helps in understanding the different driving factors which contribute collectively from the Doman from social and economic norms across the different reign in India. A conceptual module was made which help to understand the future scope of fashion with respect to gender identity in India. The ways there feel to create their own personal style and their feelings and how fashion can make more confident and authentic in their minds.

Keywords: fashion, gender, identity, feminism, environment

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Authors: Md. Tawohidul Haque

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The main objective of this study is to explore the nature, types and, causes of the involvement of criminal activities of the university students using social media namely Social Networking Sites (SNS). The evidence shows that the students have greater chance to involve such criminal activities during sharing their personal messages, photos, and even sharing their academic works. Used qualitative case studies with six students from two universities, this study provides a detail information about the processes how this media provokes the students to commit to the criminal activities such as unethical pose, naked picture, post against persona’s prestige and dignity as well as social position, phone call at midnight, personal threats, sexual offer, kidnapping attitude, and so on. This finding would be an important guideline for the media persons, policy makers, restorative justice, and human rights workers.

Keywords: social media, criminal victimization, human gathering scheme, social code of ethics

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Authors: Zhaohan Xie, Yining Yu, Mingliang Chen

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As research has shown a convergent tendency for aversion to AI recommendation, it is imperative to find a way to promote AI usage and better harness the technology. In the context of e-commerce, this study has found evidence that people show less avoidance of algorithms when recommending search products compared to experience products. This is due to people’s different attribution of mind to AI versus humans, as suggested by mind perception theory. While people hold the belief that an algorithm owns sufficient capability to think and calculate, which makes it competent to evaluate search product attributes that can be obtained before actual use, they doubt its capability to sense and feel, which is essential for evaluating experience product attributes that must be assessed after experience in person. The result of the behavioral investigation (Study 1, N=112) validated that consumers show low purchase intention to experience products recommended by AI. Further consumer neuroscience study (Study 2, N=26) using Event-related potential (ERP) showed that consumers have a higher level of cognitive conflict when faced with AI recommended experience product as reflected by larger N2 component, while the effect disappears for search product. This research has implications for the effective employment of AI recommenders, and it extends the literature on e-commerce and marketing communication.

Keywords: algorithm recommendation, consumer behavior, e-commerce, event-related potential, experience product, search product

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Authors: Lun Lou, Jintu Fan

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While personal protective equipment (PPE) prevents the healthcare personnel from exposing to harmful surroundings, it creates a barrier to the dissipation of body heat and perspiration, leading to severe heat stress during prolonged exposure, especially in hot environments. It has been found that most of the existed personal cooling strategies have limitations in achieving effective cooling performance with long duration and lightweight. This work aimed to develop a lightweight (<1.0 kg) and less expensive wearable air cooling and dehumidifying system (WCDS) that can be applied underneath the protective clothing and provide 50W mean cooling power for more than 5 hours at 35°C environmental temperature without compromising the protection of PPE. For the WCDS, blowers will be used to activate an internal air circulation inside the clothing microclimate, which doesn't interfere with the protection of PPE. An air cooling and dehumidifying chamber (ACMR) with a specific design will be developed to reduce the air temperature and humidity inside the protective clothing. Then the cooled and dried air will be supplied to upper chest and back areas through a branching tubing system for personal cooling. A detachable ice cooling unit will be applied from the outside of the PPE to extract heat from the clothing microclimate. This combination allows for convenient replacement of the cooling unit to refresh the cooling effect, which can realize a continuous cooling function without taking off the PPE or adding too much weight. A preliminary thermal manikin test showed that the WCDS was able to reduce the microclimate temperature inside the PPE averagely by about 8°C for 60 minutes when the environmental temperature was 28.0 °C and 33.5 °C, respectively. Replacing the ice cooling unit every hour can maintain this cooling effect, while the longest operation duration is determined by the battery of the blowers, which can last for about 6 hours. This unique design is especially helpful for the PPE users, such as health care workers in infectious and hot environments when continuous cooling and dehumidifying are needed, but the change of protective clothing may increase the risk of infection. The new WCDS will not only improve the thermal comfort of PPE users but can also extend their safe working duration.

Keywords: personal thermal management, heat stress, ppe, health care workers, wearable device

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Authors: Namsoo Kim, So-Hee Son, Jin-Soo Maeng, Yong-Jin Cho, Chong-Tai Kim

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It has been reported that some enzymes such as trypsin and Alcalase 2.4L are tolerant to a medium high pressure of 300 MPa and preparation of protein hydrolyzates under 300 MPa was advantageous with regard to hydrolysis rate and thus production yield compared with the counterpart under ambient pressure.1,2) In this study, nine fish comprising halibut, soft shell clam and carp were hydrolyzed using Flavourzyme 500MG only, and the combination of Flavourzyme 500 mg, Alcalase 2.4 L, Marugoto E, and Protamex under 300 MPa. Then, the effects of single and multiple protease treatments were determined with respect to contents of soluble solid (SS) and soluble nitrogen, sensory attributes, electrophoretic profiles, and HPLC peak patterns of the fish hydrolyzates (FHs) from various species. The contents of SS of the FHs were quite species-specific and the hydrolyzates of halibut showed the highest SS contents. At this point, multiple protease treatment increased SS content conspicuously in all fish tested. The contents of total soluble nitrogen and TCA-soluble nitrogen were well correlated with those of SS irrespective of fish species and methods of enzyme treatment. Also, it was noticed that multiple protease treatment improved sensory attributes of the FHs considerably. Electropherograms of the FHs showed fast migrating peptide bands that had the molecular masses mostly lower than 1 kDa and this was confirmed by peptide patterns from HPLC analysis for some FHs that had good sensory quality.

Keywords: production, fish hydrolyzates, protease treatments, high pressure

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Authors: Aref Aasi, Sahar Ebrahimi Bajgani, Erfan Aasi

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Breast cancer (BC) continues to be the most frequent cancer in females and causes the highest number of cancer-related deaths in women worldwide. Inspired by recent advances in studying the relationship between different patient attributes and features and the disease, in this paper, we have tried to investigate the different classification methods for better diagnosis of BC in the early stages. In this regard, datasets from the University Hospital Centre of Coimbra were chosen, and different machine learning (ML)-based and neural network (NN) classifiers have been studied. For this purpose, we have selected favorable features among the nine provided attributes from the clinical dataset by using a random forest algorithm. This dataset consists of both healthy controls and BC patients, and it was noted that glucose, BMI, resistin, and age have the most importance, respectively. Moreover, we have analyzed these features with various ML-based classifier methods, including Decision Tree (DT), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Logistic Regression (LR), Naive Bayes (NB), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) along with NN-based Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) classifier. The results revealed that among different techniques, the SVM and MLP classifiers have the most accuracy, with amounts of 96% and 92%, respectively. These results divulged that the adopted procedure could be used effectively for the classification of cancer cells, and also it encourages further experimental investigations with more collected data for other types of cancers.

Keywords: breast cancer, diagnosis, machine learning, biomarker classification, neural network

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Authors: Karen Armstrong

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This paper considers the importance of acquiring, cultivating, and protecting one’s personal online reputation in a post-truth era. Although the idea of the individual is essential psychological construct, the concept necessarily now includes our online reputation. The idea of this online reputation has expanded to become almost more important than any other factor in terms of our professional, social and psychological development. The discussion will first consider philosophical ideas of the self, followed by an examination of underlying concepts of perception and interpretation in a post-truth world. Then, the idea of the recent shift to a consideration of posted images, through words and photos, in the construction of self, will be discussed. Next, the relation between private personal life and exterior social life, including our reputation in a variety of realms will be addressed. This will include the adoption of specific strategies and behaviors, which facilitate accuracy, currency and necessary modifications with regard to our online reputation. Finally, specific ways in which we can negotiate the fluid dynamic between reputation, and inner and outer selves to optimum effect will conclude the discussion.

Keywords: image, post-truth, privacy, reputation, surveillance

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Authors: Sebastião Pais, João Casal, Ricardo Ponciano, Sérgio Lorenço

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The adaptation paradigm is a basic defining feature for pervasive computing systems. Adaptation systems must work efficiently in a smart environment while providing suitable information relevant to the user system interaction. The key objective is to deduce the information needed information changes. Therefore relying on fixed operational models would be inappropriate. This paper presents a study on developing an Intelligent Personal Assistant to assist the user in interacting with their Smart Environment. We propose an Unsupervised and Language-Independent Adaptation through Intelligent Speech Interface and a set of methods of Acquiring Knowledge, namely Semantic Similarity and Unsupervised Learning.

Keywords: intelligent personal assistants, intelligent speech interface, unsupervised learning, language-independent, knowledge acquisition, association measures, symmetric word similarities, attributional word similarities

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Authors: Joao Barbosa

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After an intense dispute between the big bang cosmology and its big rival, the steady-state cosmology, some important experimental observations, such as the determination of helium abundance in the universe and the discovery of the cosmic background radiation in the 1960s were decisive for the progressive and wide acceptance of big bang cosmology and the inevitable abandonment of steady-state cosmology. But, despite solid theoretical support and those solid experimental observations favorable to big bang cosmology, Fred Hoyle, one of the proponents of the steady-state and the main opponent of the idea of the big bang (which, paradoxically, himself he baptized), never gave up and continued to fight for the idea of a stationary (or quasi-stationary) universe until the end of his life, even after decades of widespread consensus around the big bang cosmology. We can try to understand this persistent attitude of Hoyle by applying Holton’s thematic analysis to cosmology. Holton recognizes in the scientific activity a dimension that, even unconscious or not assumed, is nevertheless very important in the work of scientists, in implicit articulation with the experimental and the theoretical dimensions of science. This is the thematic dimension, constituted by themata – concepts, methodologies, and hypotheses with a metaphysical, aesthetic, logical, or epistemological nature, associated both with the cultural context and the individual psychology of scientists. In practice, themata can be expressed through personal preferences and choices that guide the individual and collective work of scientists. Thematic analysis shows that big bang cosmology is mainly based on a set of themata consisting of evolution, finitude, life cycle, and change; the cosmology of the steady-state is based on opposite themata: steady-state, infinity, continuous existence, and constancy. The passionate controversy that these cosmological views carried out is part of an old cosmological opposition: the thematic opposition between an evolutionary view of the world (associated with Heraclitus) and a stationary view (associated with Parmenides). Personal preferences seem to have been important in this (thematic) controversy, and the thematic analysis that was developed shows that Hoyle is a very illustrative example of a life-long personal commitment to some themata, in this case to the opposite themata of the big bang cosmology. His struggle against the big bang idea was strongly based on philosophical and even religious reasons – which, in a certain sense and in a Holtonian perspective, is related to thematic preferences. In this personal and persistent struggle, Hoyle always refused the way how some experimental observations were considered decisive in favor of the big bang idea, arguing that the success of this idea is based on sociological and cultural prejudices. This Hoyle’s attitude is a personal thematic attitude, in which the acceptance or rejection of what is presented as proof or scientific fact is conditioned by themata: what is a proof or a scientific fact for one scientist is something yet to be established for another scientist who defends different or even opposites themata.

Keywords: cosmology, experimental observations, fred hoyle, interpretation, life-long personal commitment, Themata

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Authors: Sebastião Pais, João Casal, Ricardo Ponciano, Sérgio Lourenço

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The adaptation paradigm is a basic defining feature for pervasive computing systems. Adaptation systems must work efficiently in smart environment while providing suitable information relevant to the user system interaction. The key objective is to deduce the information needed information changes. Therefore, relying on fixed operational models would be inappropriate. This paper presents a study on developing a Intelligent Personal Assistant to assist the user in interacting with their Smart Environment. We propose a Unsupervised and Language-Independent Adaptation through Intelligent Speech Interface and a set of methods of Acquiring Knowledge, namely Semantic Similarity and Unsupervised Learning.

Keywords: intelligent personal assistants, intelligent speech interface, unsupervised learning, language-independent, knowledge acquisition, association measures, symmetric word similarities, attributional word similarities

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Authors: Taekyun Doo, Cheongmin Ji, Manpyo Hong

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Like a closed-circuit television (CCTV), video surveillance system is widely placed for gathering video from unspecified people to prevent crime, surveillance, or many other purposes. However, abuse of CCTV brings about concerns of personal privacy invasions. In this paper, we propose an encryption method to protect personal privacy system in H.264 compressed video bitstream with encrypting only regions of interest (ROI). There is no need to change the existing video surveillance system. In addition, encrypting ROI in compressed video bitstream is a challenging work due to spatial and temporal drift errors. For this reason, we propose a novel drift mitigation method when ROI is encrypted. The proposed method was implemented by using JM reference software based on the H.264 compressed videos, and experimental results show the verification of our proposed methods and its effectiveness.

Keywords: H.264/AVC, video encryption, privacy protection, post compression, region of interest

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Authors: Abdul Manan, Choudhary Muhammad Ayyub, Rashid Ahmad, Muhammad Adnan Bukhari

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A project was designed to investigate the effect of foliar application of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) on physiological, biochemical and ionic attributes of salinity stressed and normal tomato plants at different stages. Salinity stress at every stage markedly reduced the net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, transpiration rate, water relations parameters, protein contents, total free aminoacids and potassium (K+) contents. While, antioxidant enzymes (peroxidase (POX) and catalase (CAT)), sodium (Na+) contents and proline contents were increased substantially. Foliar application of MeJA ameliorated the drastic effects of salinity regime by recovery of physiological and biochemical attributes by enhanced production of antioxidant enzymes and osmoprotectants. The efficacy of MeJA at very initial stage (15 days after sowing (15 DAS)).proved effective for attenuating the deleterious effects of salinity stress than other stages (15 days after transplanting (15 DAT) and 30 days after transplanting (30 DAT)). To the best of our knowledge, different times of foliar feeding of MeJA was observed first time for amelioration of salinity stress in tomato plants that would be of pivotal significance for scientist to better understand the dynamics of physiological and biochemical processes in tomato.

Keywords: methyl jasmonate, osmoregulation, salinity stress, stress tolerance, tomato

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Authors: Abdul Rahiman Kannam Kulam

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Reflecting the concepts of the development of the whole child, it is claimed that, purposeful engagement in physical activities or exercise involved ritual dances has the potential to engender in young people, the purpose of the present study was to analyze school children and their personal adjustment based on Ritual dance participation. For the purpose, two thousand and three hundred school children of Kerala were analyzed. AISS manual of A.K.P Sinha and R.P Singh was used to collect the data for adjustments. The adjustment qualities classifies as excellent, good, average, unsatisfactory and very unsatisfactory. The total performance denotes the state of adjustment based on the classifications. Findings of the study were subjected to percentages and ‘t’ ratio. The study enlightened that, the emotional, social and overall adjustments are better than non-athletes. But the study elucidated that, there is no difference in educational adjustment of school athletes and non athletes among school children.

Keywords: ritual dances, emotional adjustment, Poorakkali, Kolkkali, Margamkali

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Authors: N. Hadthamard, P. Chaumpluk, M. Buanong, P. Boonyaritthongchai, C. Wongs-Aree

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Ripe ‘Nam Dok Mai’ mango (Mangifera indica L.) is an important exported fruit of Thailand, but rapidly declined in the quality attributes mainly by infection of anthracnose and stem end rot diseases. Multilayer coating is considered as a developed technique to maintain the postharvest quality of mangoes. The utilization of alternated coating by matching oppositely electrostatic charges between 0.1% chitosan and 0.1% polystyrene sulfonate (PSS) was studied. A number of the coating layers (layer by layer) were applied on mature green ‘Nam Dok Mai No.4’ mangoes prior to storage at 25 ^oC, 65-70% relative humidity (RH). There were significant differences in some quality attributes of mangoes coated by 3½ layers, 4½ layers and 5½ layers. In comparison to coated mangoes, uncoated fruits were higher in weight loss, total soluble solids, respiration rate, ethylene production and disease incidence except the titratable acidity. Coating fruit at 3½ layers exhibited the ripening delay and reducing disease infection without off flavour. On the other hand, fruit coated with 5½ layers comprised the lowest acceptable score, caused by exhibiting disorders from fermentation at the end of storage. As a result, multilayer coating between chitosan and PSS could effectively maintain the postharvest quality of mango, but number of coating layers should be thoroughly considered.

Keywords: multilayer, chitosan, polystyrene sulfonate, Nam Dok Mai No.4

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Authors: Sana Maidullah, Ankita Sharma

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The present study takes naturalistic decision-making approach to examine the role of personality in information processing in consumer decision making. In the technological era, most of the information comes in form of HTML or similar language via the internet; processing of this situation could be ambiguous, laborious and painful. The present study explores the role of impulsivity in creating an extreme effect on consumer decision making. Specifically, the study explores the role of impulsivity in extreme effect, i.e., extremeness avoidance (compromise effect) and extremeness seeking; the role of demographic variables, i.e. age and gender, in the relation between impulsivity and extreme effect. The study was conducted with the help of a questionnaire and two experiments. The experiment was designed in the form of two shopping websites with two product types: Hotel choice and Mobile choice. Both experimental interfaces were created with the Xampp software, the frontend of interfaces was HTML CSS JAVASCRIPT and backend was PHP MySQL. The mobile experiment was designed to measure the extreme effect and hotel experiment was designed to measure extreme effect with alignability of attributes. To observe the possibilities of the combined effect of individual difference and context effects, the manipulation of price, a number of alignable attributes and number of the non-alignable attributes is done. The study was conducted on 100 undergraduate and post-graduate engineering students within the age range of 18-35. The familiarity and level of use of internet and shopping website were assessed and controlled in the analysis. The analysis was done by using a t-test, ANOVA and regression analysis. The results indicated that the impulsivity leads to compromise effect and at the same time it also increases the relationship between alignability of attribute among choices and the compromise effect. The demographic variables were found to play a significant role in the relationship. The subcomponents of impulsivity were significantly influencing compromise effect, but the cognitive impulsivity was significant for women, and motor impulsivity was significant for males only. The impulsivity was significantly positively predicted by age, though there were no significant gender differences in impulsivity. The results clearly indicate the importance of individual factors in decision making. The present study, with precise and direct results, provides a significant suggestion for market analyst and business providers.

Keywords: impulsivity, extreme effect, personality, alignability, consumer decision making

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Authors: Emilie Vandevelde, Ellen Claes

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This study aims to develop a comprehensive model for the civic socialization process of teachers. Citizenship has become one of the main objectives for the European education systems. It is expected that teachers are well prepared and equipped with the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to also engage students in democratic citizenship. While a lot is known about young peoples’ civic competence development and how schools and teachers (don’t) support this process, less is known about how teachers themselves engage with (the teaching of) civics. Other than the civic socialization process of young adolescents that focuses on personal competence development, the civic socialization process of teachers includes the development of professional, civic competences. These professional competences make that they are able to prepare pupils to carry out their civic responsibilities in thoughtful ways. Existing models for the civic socialization process of young adolescents do not take this dual purpose into account. Based on these observations, this paper will investigate (1)What personal and professional civic competences teachers need to effectively teach civic education and (2) how teachers acquire these personal and professional civic competences. To answer the first research question, a systematic review of literature of existing civic education frameworks was carried out and linked to literature on teacher training. The second research question was addressed by adapting the Octagon model, developed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), to the context of teachers. This was done by carrying out a systematic review of the recent literature linking three theoretical topics involved in teachers’ civic competence development: theories about the civic socialization process of young adolescents, Schulmans (1987) theoretical assumptions on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and Nogueira & Moreira’s (2012) framework for civic education teachers’ knowledge and literature on teachers’ professional development. This resulted in a comprehensive conceptual framework describing the personal and professional civic competences of civic education teachers. In addition, this framework is linked to the OctagonT model: a model that describes the processes through which teachers acquire these personal and professional civic competences. This model recognizes that teachers’ civic socialization process is influenced by interconnected variables located at different levels in a multi-level structure (the individual teacher (e.g., civic beliefs), everyday contacts (e.g., teacher educators, the intended, informal and hidden curriculum of the teacher training program, internship contacts, participation opportunities in teacher training, etc.) and the influence of the national educational context (e.g., vision on civic education)). Furthermore, implications for teacher education programs are described.

Keywords: civic education, civic competences, civic socialization, octagon model, teacher training

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Authors: Andy S.K. Cheng, Samuel Leung, Cindy Kwok, Hector Tsang

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Background: Telephone counselling is one of the essential interventions that can be found in most of the Employee Assistance Programs (EAP). The purposes of this study were to (1) explore the trend of the telephone counselling from 2003-2016 in Hong Kong; (2) explore which EAP issue requires more follow-up; and 3) examine the relationship between the EAP issues and demographic data such as gender and job ranking. Method: Date of EAP services usage was collected from EAP providers in Hong Kong during 2003-2016. EAP issues were categorized into two domains, namely workplace issues and personal issues. Each domain has 12 sub-categories. Two hypotheses were formulated in this study (1) there was a gender difference in EAP issues and the follow-up hours; and (2) there was a significant difference between job ranking, EAP issues and follow-up hours. Results: A total of eight hundred and ninety-three valid cases were identified for analysis. Of them, three hundred and forty-three cases sought for follow-up. The duration of follow-up by hours was calculated for each of the follow-up cases. The results of the study shows that the top three workplace issues that required the longest duration of follow-up were (1) workload, (2) supervisor-subordinate relationship; and (3) team member’s relationship. On the other hand, the top three personal issues that required the longest duration of follow-up were (1) parenting/parent-child relationship, (2) family care, and (3) marital relationship. Two-way ANOVA was performed to compare the total follow-up hours (excluding first intake) between gender and EAP issues. There was no statistical significance for gender (p =.891), but a statistically significant main effect for EAP issues (p <.001) was found. Post-hoc analysis (Tukey’s test) showed that total follow-up hour in personal issues was statistically significant higher than that in handling workplace issues (p <.001). However, there was no statistically significant interaction effect between gender and EAP issues (p=.879) and between job ranking and EAP issues (p=.843). Conclusion: Telephone counselling is a very common intervention in addressing EAP issues arising from workplace and personal level in Hong Kong. It was frequently used to handle interpersonal relationships and the service usage was independent of gender and job ranking.

Keywords: employee assistance program, follow-up time, interpersonal relationships, telephone counselling

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Authors: Emine Umran Topcu

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In both urban design and architecture, the primary goal is considered to be looking for ways in which people feel and think about space and place. Humans, in general, see a place as security and space as freedom and feel attached to place and long for space. Contemporary urban design manifests itself by addressing basic physical and psychological human needs. Not much attention is paid to transcendence. There seems to be a gap in the hierarchy of human needs. Usually, social aspects of public space are addressed through urban design. More personal and intimately scaled needs of an individual are neglected. How does built form contribute to an individual’s growth, contemplation, and exploration? In other words, a greater meaning in the immediate environment. Architects love to talk about meaning, poetics, attachment and other ethereal aspects of space that are not visible attributes of places. This paper aims at describing spirituality through built form with a personal experience of Kamppi Chapel of Helsinki. Experience covers various modes through which a person unfolds or constructs reality. Perception, sensation, emotion, and thought can be counted as for these modes. To experience is to get to know. What can be known is a construct of experience. Feelings and thoughts about space and place are very complex in human beings. They grow out of life experiences. The author had the chance of visiting Kamppi Chapel in April 2017, out of which the experience grew. The Kamppi Chapel is located on the South side of the busy Narinnka Square in central Helsinki. It offers a place to quiet down and compose oneself in a most lively urban space. With its curved wooden facade, the small building looks more like a museum than a chapel. It can be called a museum for contemplation. With its gently shaped interior, it embraces visitors and shields them from the hustle bustle of the city outside. Places of worship in all faiths signify sacred power. The author, having origins in a part of the world where domes and minarets dominate the cityscape, was impressed by the size and the architectural visibility of the Chapel. Anyone born and trained in such a tradition shares the inherent values and psychological mechanisms of spirituality, sacredness and the modest realities of their environment. Spirituality in all cultural traditions has not been analyzed and reinterpreted in new conceptual frameworks. Fundamentalists may reject this positivist attitude, but Kamppi Chapel as it stands does not look like it has a say like “I’m a model to be followed”. It just faces the task of representing a religious facility in an urban setting largely shaped by modern urban planning, which seems to the author as looking for a new definition of individual status. The quest between the established and the new is the demand for modern efficiency versus dogmatic rigidity. The architecture here has played a very promising and rewarding role for spirituality. The designers have been the translators for human desire for better life and aesthetic environment for an optimal satisfaction of local citizens and the visitors alike.

Keywords: architecture, Kamppi Chapel, spirituality, urban

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Authors: Rosa Amalia Safitri, Ine van der Fels-Klerx, Henk Hogeveen

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Halal is a dietary law observed by people following Islamic faith. It is considered as a type of credence food quality which cannot be easily assured by consumers even upon and after consumption. Therefore, Halal certification takes place as a practical tool for the consumers to make an informed choice particularly in a non-Muslim majority country, including the Netherlands. Discrete choice experiment (DCE) was employed in this study for its ability to assess the importance of attributes attached to Halal beef in the Dutch market and to investigate consumer utilities. Furthermore, willingness to pay (WTP) for the desired Halal certification was estimated. Four most relevant attributes were selected, i.e., the slaughter method, traceability information, place of purchase, and Halal certification. Price was incorporated as an attribute to allow estimation of willingness to pay for Halal certification. There were 242 Muslim respondents who regularly consumed Halal beef completed the survey, from Dutch (53%) and non-Dutch consumers living in the Netherlands (47%). The vast majority of the respondents (95%) were within the age of 18-45 years old, with the largest group being student (43%) followed by employee (30%) and housewife (12%). Majority of the respondents (76%) had disposable monthly income less than € 2,500, while the rest earned more than € 2,500. The respondents assessed themselves of having good knowledge of the studied attributes, except for traceability information with 62% of the respondents considered themselves not knowledgeable. The findings indicated that slaughter method was valued as the most important attribute, followed by Halal certificate, place of purchase, price, and traceability information. This order of importance varied across sociodemographic variables, except for the slaughter method. Both Dutch and non-Dutch subgroups valued Halal certification as the third most important attributes. However, non-Dutch respondents valued it with higher importance (0,20) than their Dutch counterparts (0,16). For non-Dutch, the price was more important than Halal certification. The ideal product preferred by the consumers indicated the product serving the highest utilities for consumers, and characterized by beef obtained without pre-slaughtering stunning, with traceability info, available at Halal store, certified by an official certifier, and sold at 2.75 € per 500 gr. In general, an official Halal certifier was mostly preferred. However, consumers were not willing to pay for premium for any type of Halal certifiers, indicated by negative WTP of -0.73 €, -0.93 €, and -1,03€ for small, official, and international certifiers, respectively. This finding indicated that consumers tend to lose their utility when confronted with price. WTP estimates differ across socio-demographic variables with male and non-Dutch respondents had the lowest WTP. The unfamiliarity to traceability information might cause respondents to perceive it as the least important attribute. In the context of Halal certified meat, adding traceability information into meat packaging can serve two functions, first consumers can justify for themselves whether the processes comply with Halal requirements, for example, the use of pre-slaughtering stunning, and secondly to assure its safety. Therefore, integrating traceability info into meat packaging can help to make informed decision for both Halal status and food safety.

Keywords: consumer utilities, discrete choice experiments, Halal certification, willingness to pay

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Authors: Xiaoming Yang, Abby Folberg, Carey Ryan, Lwetzel, Tgoering

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We examined gender differences in entrepreneurial career interests drawing on goal congruity theory, which posits that people adopt gender-stereotypic goal orientations in response to social pressures to conform to traditional gender roles. Aspiring entrepreneurs (N = 351) first wrote three to five sentences about what they believed made an entrepreneur successful. They then completed measures of agentic and communal goal orientations (i.e., male and female stereotypic orientations, respectively) and indicated their interests in starting ventures in stereotypically feminine (e.g., salon), masculine (e.g., auto-repair) and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; e.g., software developer) ventures. Qualitative analyses demonstrated that participants ascribed agentic and, more specifically, dominance, attributes to entrepreneurs; few participants ascribed communal attributes (e.g., warmth). Bifactor structural equation modeling indicated that, as expected, agentic goal orientations included dimensions of competence, self-direction, and dominance orientations and communal goal orientations were unidimensional. Further, as expected, dominance and communal orientations partially accounted for gender differences in all three career types. We discuss implications for entrepreneurial education and practice from a goal congruity perspective and the use of bifactor modeling to improve the measurement of goal orientations.

Keywords: gender, entrepreneurship, gender stereotypes, agentic and communal goal orientations, entrepreneurship education

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Authors: Ana Fouto

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Background: Continuing Personal Development (CPD) enables professionals to keep up to date with the professional requirements, broadening their knowledge and expertise. However, much of the research explores the registered professionals’ experiences and the factors that influence their choice of engaging, despite the unregistered staff providing the majority of the direct patient care. Aim: To explore the Nursing/Midwifery Assistants’ (NAs) perception of the concept of CPD, as well as explore the factors that influence the NAs to engage (or not) with CPD experiences. Methodology: This pilot study used a qualitative approach through a case study, where a semi-structured interview was applied to three NAs to explore the factors that influence the decision-making of process of CPD engagement. Thematic analysis was used to analyse their answers and interpret patterns and associations. Findings: All the participants agreed that CPD is important and relevant to their practice and personal lives. Five main categories were identified: NAs’ scope of practice, the impact of CPD; decision-making process; challenges; changes required. Although similar findings to the registered nurses were identified, the lack of CPD regulation for NAs and the rapid evolution of their role make the CPD engagement more problematic. Conclusion: Engagement with CPD is influenced by a wide range of professional (organisational and national) and personal factors. NAs perceive lack of management support at different stages of the CPD activities as a main influence. Organisations should be more flexible in the recruitment, offer of CPD choices, content, delivery, and contractual arrangements of NAs, which may increase engagement.

Keywords: nursing assistants, engagement, factors, pilot, continuing professional development (CPD)

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Authors: Jana Daher, Ammar Olabi, Elie-Jacques Fares, Samer Kharrroubi, Tarek Gherbal

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It has been previously suggested that the perception and acceptability of fluids significantly varies between exercise and non-exercise situations. The study investigates the influence of different types of sports on the taste perception and acceptability of a commercial sports drink. A sample of Gatorade – red orange flavor was evaluated pre and post exercise by 34 male university athletes (20 weightlifters, 14 runners) recruited from the American University of Beirut. Urine samples were collected from the participants to test for hydration. Sensory testing examined the change in the intensity of sweetness, saltiness, sourness, and the thirst-quenching ability of the drink as well as its acceptability with respect to the type of sport practiced. Results indicated that the acceptability of the drink increased as the hydration status of the athletes decreased (p<0.01). No significant change was found in the perception of the sensory attributes between exercise and non-exercise conditions. However, there were significant differences between the two sports groups in the ratings of the thirst-quenching ability of the drink where runners’ ratings increased after exercise while weightlifters’ ratings decreased after exercise (p<0.01). These findings suggest that exercise has a larger effect on the acceptability and overall liking of the beverage compared to other sensory attributes. An enhanced liking of the beverage is key for optimal replenishment of lost fluids and electrolytes after exercise.

Keywords: hedonic, liking, sweetness, thirst-quenching

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Authors: A. J. Julius, E. Imoagene, O. A. Ganiyu

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The purpose of this study is to estimate the economic value of the services and functions rendered by the forest landscape using a conditional logit model. For this study, attributes and levels of forest landscape were chosen; specifically, attributes include topographical forest type, forest type, forest density, recreational factor (side trip, accessibility of valley), and willingness to participate (WTP). Based on these factors, 48 choices sets with balanced and orthogonal form using statistical analysis system (SAS) 9.1 was adopted. The efficiency of the questionnaire was 6.02 (D-Error. 0.1), and choice set and socio-economic variables were analyzed. To reduce the cognitive load of respondents, the 48 choice sets were divided into 4 types in the questionnaire, so that respondents could respond to 12 choice sets, respectively. The study populations were citizens from seven metropolitan cities including Ibadan, Ilorin, Osogbo, etc. and annual WTP per household was asked by using the interview questionnaire, a total of 267 copies were recovered. As a result, Oshogbo had 0.45, and the statistical similarities could not be found except for urban forests, forest density, recreational factor, and level of WTP. Average annual WTP per household for forest landscape was 104,758 Naira (Nigerian currency) based on the outcome from this model, total economic value of the services and functions enjoyed from Nigerian forest landscape has reached approximately 1.6 trillion Naira.

Keywords: economic valuation, urban cities, services, forest landscape, logit model, nigeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 99