WorldWideScience

Sample records for popular online spaces

  1. TALKING POLITICS ONLINE WITHIN SPACES OF POPULAR CULTURE : THE CASE OF THE BIG BROTHER FORUM

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Graham, T.S.

    2010-01-01

    Talking politics online is not bound to spaces dedicated to politics, particularly the everyday political talk crucial to the public sphere. The aim of this article is to move beyond such spaces by examining political talk within a space dedicated to popular culture. The purpose is to see whether a

  2. Characterizing and modeling the dynamics of online popularity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ratkiewicz, Jacob; Fortunato, Santo; Flammini, Alessandro; Menczer, Filippo; Vespignani, Alessandro

    2010-10-08

    Online popularity has an enormous impact on opinions, culture, policy, and profits. We provide a quantitative, large scale, temporal analysis of the dynamics of online content popularity in two massive model systems: the Wikipedia and an entire country's Web space. We find that the dynamics of popularity are characterized by bursts, displaying characteristic features of critical systems such as fat-tailed distributions of magnitude and interevent time. We propose a minimal model combining the classic preferential popularity increase mechanism with the occurrence of random popularity shifts due to exogenous factors. The model recovers the critical features observed in the empirical analysis of the systems analyzed here, highlighting the key factors needed in the description of popularity dynamics.

  3. Characterizing popularity dynamics of online videos

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ren, Zhuo-Ming; Shi, Yu-Qiang; Liao, Hao

    2016-07-01

    Online popularity has a major impact on videos, music, news and other contexts in online systems. Characterizing online popularity dynamics is nature to explain the observed properties in terms of the already acquired popularity of each individual. In this paper, we provide a quantitative, large scale, temporal analysis of the popularity dynamics in two online video-provided websites, namely MovieLens and Netflix. The two collected data sets contain over 100 million records and even span a decade. We characterize that the popularity dynamics of online videos evolve over time, and find that the dynamics of the online video popularity can be characterized by the burst behaviors, typically occurring in the early life span of a video, and later restricting to the classic preferential popularity increase mechanism.

  4. Characterizing popularity dynamics of online videos

    OpenAIRE

    Ren, Zhuo-Ming; Shi, , Yu-Qiang; Liao, Hao

    2016-01-01

    Online popularity has a major impact on videos, music, news and other contexts in online systems. Characterizing online popularity dynamics is nature to explain the observed properties in terms of the already acquired popularity of each individual. In this paper, we provide a quantitative, large scale, temporal analysis of the popularity dynamics in two online video-provided websites, namely MovieLens and Netflix. The two collected data sets contain over 100 million records and even span...

  5. What Drives Politicians’ Online Popularity?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis; Vaccari, Cristian

    2013-01-01

    The number of website visits, Facebook friends, or Twitter followers that politicians attract varies greatly, but little is known about what drives politicians' online popularity. In this article, we use data from a systematic tracking of congressional candidates' popularity on four web platforms...... in the 112 most competitive congressional districts in the 2010 U.S. midterm elections to address that question. Using multivariate regression models, we show that while district-level socioeconomic characteristics have little effect on candidates' online popularity, challengers and candidates in open......-seat races tend to attract larger audiences online, as do candidates who are more visible on political blogs. Surprisingly, how intensely candidates are covered in news media, how popular they are in opinion polls, and how much money they spend during the campaign show no significant effect. These findings...

  6. Who is Everyone's Darling in Cyberspace? The Characteristics of Popular Online Daters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chih-Chien Wang

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available Online dating current is a popular activity in cyberspace. More and more people make new friends and find their partners through online dating web sites. There is an interesting observation that some people are more popular than others in online dating web sites. The current study focuses on the personal profile characteristics that make one a popular dater. By two field surveys, this study discusses the relationship between online daters' personal profiles and their popularity. The first survey investigated 800 online daters' profiles from dating web sites. The statistical analysis results indicated thatphysical body types and looks, education level, occupation, personality, and interests were characteristics that influenced the popularity of online daters, while significant gender differences were found in the characteristics that related to popularity of online daters. The second survey searched 960 online daters with profiles of popular and unpopular characteristics. By observing the popularity of these online daters, it was found that those with "popular" characteristics also were the popular daters and those with "unpopular" characteristics were the unpopular daters. This may serve as evidence that the found personal profile characteristics were indeed factors influencing the popularity of the online daters.

  7. Space activities and global popular music culture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wessels, Allison Rae; Collins, Patrick

    During the "space age" era, space activities appear increasingly as a theme in Western popular music, as they do in popular culture generally. In combination with the electronics and tele-communications revolution, "pop/rock" music has grown explosively during the space age to become an effectively global culture. From this base a number of trends are emerging in the pattern of influences that space activities have on pop music. The paper looks at the use of themes and imagery in pop music; the role of space technology in the modern "globalization" of pop music; and current and future links between space activities and pop music culture, including how public space programmes are affected by its influence on popular attitudes.

  8. Impact of Bursty Human Activity Patterns on the Popularity of Online Content

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiang Yan

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The dynamics of online content popularity has attracted more and more researches in recent years. In this paper, we provide a quantitative, temporal analysis about the dynamics of online content popularity in a massive system: Sina Microblog. We use time-stamped data to investigate the impact of bursty human comment patterns on the popularity of online microblog news. Statistical results indicate that the number of news and comments exhibits an exponential growth. The strength of forwarding and comment is characterized by bursts, displaying fat-tailed distribution. In order to characterize the dynamics of popularity, we explore the distribution of the time interval Δt between consecutive comment bursts and find that it also follows a power-law. Bursty patterns of human comment are responsible for the power-law decay of popularity. These results are well supported by both the theoretical analysis and empirical data.

  9. Popularity and user diversity of online objects

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jia-Hua; Guo, Qiang; Yang, Kai; Zhang, Yi-Lu; Han, Jingti; Liu, Jian-Guo

    2016-11-01

    The popularity has been widely used to describe the object property of online user-object bipartite networks regardless of the user characteristics. In this paper, we introduce a measurement namely user diversity to measure diversity of users who select or rate one type of objects by using the information entropy. We empirically calculate the user diversity of objects with specific degree for both MovieLens and Diggs data sets. The results indicate that more types of users select normal-degree objects than those who select large-degree and small-degree objects. Furthermore, small-degree objects are usually selected by large-degree users while large-degree objects are usually selected by small-degree users. Moreover, we define 15% objects of smallest degrees as unpopular objects and 10% ones of largest degrees as popular objects. The timestamp is introduced to help further analyze the evolution of user diversity of popular objects and unpopular objects. The dynamic analysis shows that as objects become popular gradually, they are more likely accepted by small-degree users but lose attention among the large-degree users.

  10. Popularity Evaluation Model for Microbloggers Online Social Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xia Zhang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Recently, microblogging is widely studied by the researchers in the domain of the online social network (OSN. How to evaluate the popularities of microblogging users is an important research field, which can be applied to commercial advertising, user behavior analysis and information dissemination, and so forth. Previous studies on the evaluation methods cannot effectively solve and accurately evaluate the popularities of the microbloggers. In this paper, we proposed an electromagnetic field theory based model to analyze the popularities of microbloggers. The concept of the source in microblogging field is first put forward, which is based on the concept of source in the electromagnetic field; then, one’s microblogging flux is calculated according to his/her behaviors (send or receive feedbacks on the microblogging platform; finally, we used three methods to calculate one’s microblogging flux density, which can represent one’s popularity on the microblogging platform. In the experimental work, we evaluated our model using real microblogging data and selected the best one from the three popularity measure methods. We also compared our model with the classic PageRank algorithm; and the results show that our model is more effective and accurate to evaluate the popularities of the microbloggers.

  11. Predicting Key Events in the Popularity Evolution of Online Information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Ying; Hu, Changjun; Fu, Shushen; Fang, Mingzhe; Xu, Wenwen

    2017-01-01

    The popularity of online information generally experiences a rising and falling evolution. This paper considers the "burst", "peak", and "fade" key events together as a representative summary of popularity evolution. We propose a novel prediction task-predicting when popularity undergoes these key events. It is of great importance to know when these three key events occur, because doing so helps recommendation systems, online marketing, and containment of rumors. However, it is very challenging to solve this new prediction task due to two issues. First, popularity evolution has high variation and can follow various patterns, so how can we identify "burst", "peak", and "fade" in different patterns of popularity evolution? Second, these events usually occur in a very short time, so how can we accurately yet promptly predict them? In this paper we address these two issues. To handle the first one, we use a simple moving average to smooth variation, and then a universal method is presented for different patterns to identify the key events in popularity evolution. To deal with the second one, we extract different types of features that may have an impact on the key events, and then a correlation analysis is conducted in the feature selection step to remove irrelevant and redundant features. The remaining features are used to train a machine learning model. The feature selection step improves prediction accuracy, and in order to emphasize prediction promptness, we design a new evaluation metric which considers both accuracy and promptness to evaluate our prediction task. Experimental and comparative results show the superiority of our prediction solution.

  12. Predicting Key Events in the Popularity Evolution of Online Information.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ying Hu

    Full Text Available The popularity of online information generally experiences a rising and falling evolution. This paper considers the "burst", "peak", and "fade" key events together as a representative summary of popularity evolution. We propose a novel prediction task-predicting when popularity undergoes these key events. It is of great importance to know when these three key events occur, because doing so helps recommendation systems, online marketing, and containment of rumors. However, it is very challenging to solve this new prediction task due to two issues. First, popularity evolution has high variation and can follow various patterns, so how can we identify "burst", "peak", and "fade" in different patterns of popularity evolution? Second, these events usually occur in a very short time, so how can we accurately yet promptly predict them? In this paper we address these two issues. To handle the first one, we use a simple moving average to smooth variation, and then a universal method is presented for different patterns to identify the key events in popularity evolution. To deal with the second one, we extract different types of features that may have an impact on the key events, and then a correlation analysis is conducted in the feature selection step to remove irrelevant and redundant features. The remaining features are used to train a machine learning model. The feature selection step improves prediction accuracy, and in order to emphasize prediction promptness, we design a new evaluation metric which considers both accuracy and promptness to evaluate our prediction task. Experimental and comparative results show the superiority of our prediction solution.

  13. Discovering the Unequal Interest in Popular Online Educational Games and Its Implications: A Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Meilan

    2016-01-01

    Despite the growing scholarly interest in educational computer games, research on popular online educational games is rare. Little is known about which online educational games are popular and to what extent, what kind of users are more interested in these games and how interest in the games is related to academic performance. To fill this gap,…

  14. Exploring Marijuana Advertising on Weedmaps, a Popular Online Directory

    OpenAIRE

    Bierut, Tatiana; Krauss, Melissa J.; Sowles, Shaina J.; Cavazos-Rehg, Patricia A.

    2017-01-01

    With an increase in the legalization of recreational marijuana across the U.S., advertising for marijuana products is more widespread, especially on the Internet where such practices pose a regulatory challenge. In this study, we examined the content of marijuana advertising on Weedmaps, a popular website that markets marijuana retailers online. A total of 146 recreational marijuana retailers in Colorado and Washington were examined on Weedmaps. We studied the age verification practices made ...

  15. Assessment of readability, quality and popularity of online information on ureteral stents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mozafarpour, Sarah; Norris, Briony; Borin, James; Eisner, Brian H

    2018-02-12

    To evaluate the quality and readability of online information on ureteral stents. Google.com was queried using the search terms "ureteric stent", "ureteral stent", "double J stent" and, "Kidney stent" derived from Google AdWords. Website popularity was determined using Google Rank and the Alexa tool. Website quality assessment was performed using the following criteria: Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks, Health on the Net (HON) criteria, and a customized DISCERN questionnaire. The customized DISCERN questionnaire was developed by combining the short validated DISCERN questionnaire with additional stent-specific items including definition, placement, complications, limitations, removal and "when to seek help". Scores related to stent items were considered as the "stent score" (SS). Readability was evaluated using five readability tests. Thirty-two websites were included. The mean customized DISCERN score and "stent score" were 27.1 ± 7.1 (maximum possible score = 59) and 14.6 ± 3.8 (maximum possible score = 24), respectively. A minority of websites adequately addressed "stent removal" and "when to seek medical attention". Only two websites (6.3%) had HON certification (drugs.com, radiologyinfo.org) and only one website (3.3%) met all JAMA criteria (bradyurology.blogspot.com). Readability level was higher than the American Medical Association recommendation of sixth-grade level for more than 75% of the websites. There was no correlation between Google rank, Alexa rank, and the quality scores (P > 0.05). Among the 32 most popular websites on the topic of ureteral stents, online information was highly variable. The readability of many of the websites was far higher than standard recommendations and the online information was questionable in many cases. These findings suggest a need for improved online resources in order to better educate patients about ureteral stents and also should inform physicians that popular websites may

  16. Votação online para iniciativas populares na Califórnia: coleta eletrônica de assinaturas

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Walter S. Baer

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available Este artigo discute o processo de coleta online de assinaturas para proposições legislativas, tendo por ponto de partida o processo vigente para iniciativa popular na Califórnia. Nele, descreve-se como a assinatura online de petições de iniciativa popular funcionaria, bem assim como questões de segurança e outras objeções à coleta de assinaturas via internet poderiam ser abordadas e, finalmente, os prós e contras de se aplicar este método de coleta de assinaturas às iniciativas populares.

  17. Optimal and Scalable Caching for 5G Using Reinforcement Learning of Space-Time Popularities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadeghi, Alireza; Sheikholeslami, Fatemeh; Giannakis, Georgios B.

    2018-02-01

    Small basestations (SBs) equipped with caching units have potential to handle the unprecedented demand growth in heterogeneous networks. Through low-rate, backhaul connections with the backbone, SBs can prefetch popular files during off-peak traffic hours, and service them to the edge at peak periods. To intelligently prefetch, each SB must learn what and when to cache, while taking into account SB memory limitations, the massive number of available contents, the unknown popularity profiles, as well as the space-time popularity dynamics of user file requests. In this work, local and global Markov processes model user requests, and a reinforcement learning (RL) framework is put forth for finding the optimal caching policy when the transition probabilities involved are unknown. Joint consideration of global and local popularity demands along with cache-refreshing costs allow for a simple, yet practical asynchronous caching approach. The novel RL-based caching relies on a Q-learning algorithm to implement the optimal policy in an online fashion, thus enabling the cache control unit at the SB to learn, track, and possibly adapt to the underlying dynamics. To endow the algorithm with scalability, a linear function approximation of the proposed Q-learning scheme is introduced, offering faster convergence as well as reduced complexity and memory requirements. Numerical tests corroborate the merits of the proposed approach in various realistic settings.

  18. Bisexual Safe Space(s) on the Internet: Analysis of an Online Forum for Bisexuals

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Maliepaard, E.M.

    2017-01-01

    Discussions on bisexual safe space(s) and online bisexual spaces are limited. This paper explores the potential of an online forum for bisexuals, their partners, and people who are interested in bisexuality to function as an online safe space. To understand whether the analysed forum is successful

  19. Uncovering the popularity mechanisms for Facebook applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Sheng-Nan; Guo, Qiang; Yang, Kai; Liu, Jian-Guo; Zhang, Yi-Cheng

    2018-03-01

    Understanding the popularity dynamics of online application(App) is significant for the online social systems. In this paper, by dividing the Facebook Apps into different groups in terms of their popularities, we empirically investigate the popularity dynamics for different kinds of Facebook Apps. Then, taking into account the influence of cumulative and recent popularities on the user choice, we present a model to regenerate the growth of popularity for different App groups. The experimental results of 917 Facebook Apps show that as the popularities of Facebook Apps increase, the recent popularity plays more important role. Specifically, the recent popularity plays more important role in regenerating the popularity dynamics for more popular Apps, and the cumulative popularity plays more important role for unpopular Apps. We also conduct temporal analysis on the growth characteristic of individual App by comparing the increment at each time with the average of historical records. The results show that the growth of more popular App tends to fluctuate more greatly. Our work may shed some lights for deeply understanding the popularity mechanism for online applications.

  20. Online Fan Fiction and Critical Media Literacy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Black, Rebecca W.

    2010-01-01

    This article explores English-language-learning (ELL) youths' engagement with popular media through composing and publicly posting stories in an online fan fiction writing space. Fan fiction is a genre that lends itself to critical engagement with media texts as fans repurpose popular media to design their own narratives. Analyses describe how…

  1. Popular Topics Spread Faster: New Dimension for Influence Propagation in Online Social Networks

    OpenAIRE

    Pan, Tianyi; Kuhnle, Alan; Li, Xiang; Thai, My T.

    2017-01-01

    Information can propagate among Online Social Network (OSN) users at a high speed, which makes the OSNs become important platforms for viral marketing. Although the viral marketing related problems in OSNs have been extensively studied in the past decade, the existing works all assume known propagation rates and are not able to solve the scenario when the rates may dynamically increase for popular topics. In this paper, we propose a novel model, Dynamic Influence Propagation (DIP), which allo...

  2. Empirical analysis of individual popularity and activity on an online music service system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Hai-Bo; Han, Ding-Yi

    2008-10-01

    Quantitative understanding of human behaviors supplies basic comprehension of the dynamics of many socio-economic systems. Based on the log data of an online music service system, we investigate the statistical characteristics of individual activity and popularity, and find that the distributions of both of them follow a stretched exponential form which interpolates between exponential and power law distribution. We also study the human dynamics on the online system and find that the distribution of interevent time between two consecutive listenings of music shows the fat tail feature. Besides, with the reduction of user activity the fat tail becomes more and more irregular, indicating different behavior patterns for users with diverse activities. The research results may shed some light on the in-depth understanding of collective behaviors in socio-economic systems.

  3. Constructing Public Space: Global Perspectives on Social Media and Popular Contestation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Poell, T.; van Dijck, J.

    2016-01-01

    This introduction to the special section on the construction of public space in social media activism discusses (1) the types of social media practices involved in the construction of publicness during contemporary episodes of popular contention, (2) the particular political institutional contexts

  4. Online Social Networks and the New Organizational Spaces

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cintia Rodrigues de Oliveira Medeiros

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available We analyzed the ‘virtuality’ of the social space and the boundaries of organizations from the emergence and dissemination of online social networking. The purpose is to identify how the use of social networks by 10 Brazilian companies enables the redefinition and expansion of organizational space. For the analysis of the data, we used the theory of social space of Lefebvre (2004, which defines three moments of space social production: the imagined space, the lived space and the perceived space. The methodological qualitative approach is done by document analysis from the websites of the companies. We show that the organizational space has new contours with the adoption of online social networks and we analyzed four spatial metaphors: the square, the museum, the temple and the market.

  5. The Online Classroom: A Thorough Depiction of Distance Learning Spaces

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKenna, Kelly

    2018-01-01

    This study investigated the online higher education learning space of a doctoral program offered at a distance. It explored the learning space, the stakeholders, utilization, and creators of the space. Developing a successful online classroom experience that incorporates an engaging environment and dynamic community setting conducive to learning…

  6. Atypical viral dynamics from transport through popular places

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manrique, Pedro D.; Xu, Chen; Hui, Pak Ming; Johnson, Neil F.

    2016-08-01

    The flux of visitors through popular places undoubtedly influences viral spreading—from H1N1 and Zika viruses spreading through physical spaces such as airports, to rumors and ideas spreading through online spaces such as chat rooms and social media. However, there is a lack of understanding of the types of viral dynamics that can result. Here we present a minimal dynamical model that focuses on the time-dependent interplay between the mobility through and the occupancy of such spaces. Our generic model permits analytic analysis while producing a rich diversity of infection profiles in terms of their shapes, durations, and intensities. The general features of these theoretical profiles compare well to real-world data of recent social contagion phenomena.

  7. Popular Culture and Academic Literacies Situated in a Pedagogical Third Space

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buelow, Stephanie

    2016-01-01

    This critical participatory action research study sought to understand what happens when students' interest and experiences with popular culture are integrated into a standards-based sixth grade English language arts curriculum. Multiple data sources were analyzed using the theoretical concept of third space. Findings showed that (a) a democratic,…

  8. Significance and popularity in music production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monechi, Bernardo; Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito D. P.; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio

    2017-07-01

    Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. `Significant' or `influential' works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the duality between what is successful and what is significant in the musical context. To this end, we consider a user-generated set of tags collected through an online music platform, whose evolving co-occurrence network mirrors the growing conceptual space underlying music production. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing music albums throughout history, and their relationships with the overall musical production. We show how these metrics allow to classify albums according to their current popularity or their belonging to expert-made lists of important albums. In this way, we provide the scientific community and the public at large with quantitative tools to tell apart popular albums from culturally or aesthetically relevant artworks. The generality of the methodology presented here lends itself to be used in all those fields where innovation and creativity are in play.

  9. Significance and popularity in music production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Monechi, Bernardo; Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito D P; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio

    2017-07-01

    Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. 'Significant' or 'influential' works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the duality between what is successful and what is significant in the musical context. To this end, we consider a user-generated set of tags collected through an online music platform, whose evolving co-occurrence network mirrors the growing conceptual space underlying music production. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing music albums throughout history, and their relationships with the overall musical production. We show how these metrics allow to classify albums according to their current popularity or their belonging to expert-made lists of important albums. In this way, we provide the scientific community and the public at large with quantitative tools to tell apart popular albums from culturally or aesthetically relevant artworks. The generality of the methodology presented here lends itself to be used in all those fields where innovation and creativity are in play.

  10. The sources and popularity of online drug information: an analysis of top search engine results and web page views.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Law, Michael R; Mintzes, Barbara; Morgan, Steven G

    2011-03-01

    The Internet has become a popular source of health information. However, there is little information on what drug information and which Web sites are being searched. To investigate the sources of online information about prescription drugs by assessing the most common Web sites returned in online drug searches and to assess the comparative popularity of Web pages for particular drugs. This was a cross-sectional study of search results for the most commonly dispensed drugs in the US (n=278 active ingredients) on 4 popular search engines: Bing, Google (both US and Canada), and Yahoo. We determined the number of times a Web site appeared as the first result. A linked retrospective analysis counted Wikipedia page hits for each of these drugs in 2008 and 2009. About three quarters of the first result on Google USA for both brand and generic names linked to the National Library of Medicine. In contrast, Wikipedia was the first result for approximately 80% of generic name searches on the other 3 sites. On these other sites, over two thirds of brand name searches led to industry-sponsored sites. The Wikipedia pages with the highest number of hits were mainly for opiates, benzodiazepines, antibiotics, and antidepressants. Wikipedia and the National Library of Medicine rank highly in online drug searches. Further, our results suggest that patients most often seek information on drugs with the potential for dependence, for stigmatized conditions, that have received media attention, and for episodic treatments. Quality improvement efforts should focus on these drugs.

  11. Significance and popularity in music production

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gravino, Pietro; Servedio, Vito D. P.; Tria, Francesca; Loreto, Vittorio

    2017-01-01

    Creative industries constantly strive for fame and popularity. Though highly desirable, popularity is not the only achievement artistic creations might ever acquire. Leaving a longstanding mark in the global production and influencing future works is an even more important achievement, usually acknowledged by experts and scholars. ‘Significant’ or ‘influential’ works are not always well known to the public or have sometimes been long forgotten by the vast majority. In this paper, we focus on the duality between what is successful and what is significant in the musical context. To this end, we consider a user-generated set of tags collected through an online music platform, whose evolving co-occurrence network mirrors the growing conceptual space underlying music production. We define a set of general metrics aiming at characterizing music albums throughout history, and their relationships with the overall musical production. We show how these metrics allow to classify albums according to their current popularity or their belonging to expert-made lists of important albums. In this way, we provide the scientific community and the public at large with quantitative tools to tell apart popular albums from culturally or aesthetically relevant artworks. The generality of the methodology presented here lends itself to be used in all those fields where innovation and creativity are in play. PMID:28791169

  12. Online and Offline Social Networks: Use of Social Networking Sites by Emerging Adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Reich, Stephanie M.; Waechter, Natalia; Espinoza, Guadalupe

    2008-01-01

    Social networking sites (e.g., MySpace and Facebook) are popular online communication forms among adolescents and emerging adults. Yet little is known about young people's activities on these sites and how their networks of "friends" relate to their other online (e.g., instant messaging) and offline networks. In this study, college students…

  13. Psychodynamic Factors Behind Online Social Networking and its Excessive Use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Thomas Cheuk Wing

    2016-03-01

    This article discusses the psychodynamic factors behind the popularity of one form of Internet activity, online social networking (SN). It views online SN as an extension of the social self, organized in a way that is more controllable than real life relating. The SN platforms reward its users with reassuring surfaces and novel self-object experiences while at the same time induces much anxiety. The addictive quality of online SN is understood in the context of collapse of dialectical space and the defensive use of this technology.

  14. Analysis of user activities on popular medical forums

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamalov, M. V.; Dobrynin, V. Y.; Balykina, Y. E.; Martynov, R. S.

    2017-10-01

    The paper is devoted to detailed investigation of users’ behavior and level of expertise on online medical forums. Two popular forums were analyzed in terms of presence of experts who answer health related questions and participate in discussions. This study provides insight into the quality of medical information that one can get from the web resources, and also illustrates relationship between approved medical experts and popular authors of the considered forums. During experiments several machine learning and natural language processing methods were evaluated against to available web content to get further understanding of structure and distribution of information about medicine available online nowadays. As a result of this study the hypothesis of existing correlation between approved medical experts and popular authors has been rejected.

  15. Embodiment, Virtual Space, Temporality and Interpersonal Relations in Online Writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adams, Catherine; van Manen, Max

    2006-01-01

    In this paper we discuss how online seminar participants experience dimensions of embodiment, virtual space, interpersonal relations, and temporality; and how interacting through reading-writing, by means of online technologies, creates conditions, situations, and actions of pedagogical influence and relational affectivities. We investigate what…

  16. Perceived Barriers and Strategies to Effective Online Earth and Space Science Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pottinger, James E.

    2012-01-01

    With the continual growth and demand of online courses, higher education institutions are attempting to meet the needs of today's learners by modifying and developing new student centered services and programs. As a result, faculty members are being forced into teaching online, including Earth and Space science faculty. Online Earth and Space…

  17. Managing Trust in Online Social Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bhuiyan, Touhid; Josang, Audun; Xu, Yue

    In recent years, there is a dramatic growth in number and popularity of online social networks. There are many networks available with more than 100 million registered users such as Facebook, MySpace, QZone, Windows Live Spaces etc. People may connect, discover and share by using these online social networks. The exponential growth of online communities in the area of social networks attracts the attention of the researchers about the importance of managing trust in online environment. Users of the online social networks may share their experiences and opinions within the networks about an item which may be a product or service. The user faces the problem of evaluating trust in a service or service provider before making a choice. Recommendations may be received through a chain of friends network, so the problem for the user is to be able to evaluate various types of trust opinions and recommendations. This opinion or recommendation has a great influence to choose to use or enjoy the item by the other user of the community. Collaborative filtering system is the most popular method in recommender system. The task in collaborative filtering is to predict the utility of items to a particular user based on a database of user rates from a sample or population of other users. Because of the different taste of different people, they rate differently according to their subjective taste. If two people rate a set of items similarly, they share similar tastes. In the recommender system, this information is used to recommend items that one participant likes, to other persons in the same cluster. But the collaborative filtering system performs poor when there is insufficient previous common rating available between users; commonly known as cost start problem. To overcome the cold start problem and with the dramatic growth of online social networks, trust based approach to recommendation has emerged. This approach assumes a trust network among users and makes recommendations

  18. An online learning space facilitating supervision pedagogies in ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Quality research supervision leading to timely completion and student satisfaction involves explicit pedagogy and effective communication. This article describes the development within an action research cycle of an online learning space designed to achieve these goals. The research 'spirals' involved interventions in the ...

  19. Exploring Marijuana Advertising on Weedmaps, a Popular Online Directory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bierut, Tatiana; Krauss, Melissa J.; Sowles, Shaina J.; Cavazos-Rehg, Patricia A.

    2016-01-01

    With an increase in the legalization of recreational marijuana across the U.S., advertising for marijuana products is more widespread, especially on the Internet where such practices pose a regulatory challenge. In this study, we examined the content of marijuana advertising on Weedmaps, a popular website that markets marijuana retailers online. A total of 146 recreational marijuana retailers in Colorado and Washington were examined on Weedmaps. We studied the age verification practices made in retailers’ own websites, the presence of health claims they made about marijuana on Weedmaps, and the characteristics of followers of Weedmaps on social media sites. Many retailers had no security measure to determine age (41% in Colorado, 35% in Washington). Approximately 61% of retailers in Colorado and 44% in Washington made health claims about the benefits of marijuana, including anxiety reduction, treatment of depression, insomnia, and pain/inflammation. Inferred demographic characteristics of followers of Weedmaps on Twitter and Instagram revealed that over 60% were male and nearly 70% or more were age 20–29 years old, yet some (15%–18%) were under the age of 20. Our findings indicate that marijuana retailers have a visible presence on the Internet. Potential customers might be enticed by retailers who tout health claims about marijuana use. It may also be appealing for a younger demographic to overlook age restrictions and engage with marijuana retailers via social media. As a whole, our findings can help to guide future policy making on the issue of marijuana-related advertising. PMID:27534665

  20. Exploring Marijuana Advertising on Weedmaps, a Popular Online Directory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bierut, Tatiana; Krauss, Melissa J; Sowles, Shaina J; Cavazos-Rehg, Patricia A

    2017-02-01

    With an increase in the legalization of recreational marijuana across the USA, advertising for marijuana products is more widespread, especially on the Internet where such practices pose a regulatory challenge. In this study, we examined the content of marijuana advertising on Weedmaps, a popular website that markets marijuana retailers online. A total of 146 recreational marijuana retailers in Colorado and Washington were examined on Weedmaps. We studied the age verification practices made in retailers' own websites, the presence of health claims they made about marijuana on Weedmaps, and the characteristics of followers of Weedmaps on social media sites. Many retailers had no security measure to determine age (41 % in Colorado, 35 % in Washington). Approximately 61 % of retailers in Colorado and 44 % in Washington made health claims about the benefits of marijuana, including anxiety reduction, treatment of depression, insomnia, and pain/inflammation. Inferred demographic characteristics of followers of Weedmaps on Twitter and Instagram revealed that over 60 % were male and nearly 70 % or more were age 20-29 years old, yet some (15-18 %) were under the age of 20. Our findings indicate that marijuana retailers have a visible presence on the Internet. Potential customers might be enticed by retailers who tout health claims about marijuana use. It may also be appealing for a younger demographic to overlook age restrictions and engage with marijuana retailers via social media. As a whole, our findings can help to guide future policy making on the issue of marijuana-related advertising.

  1. Question popularity analysis and prediction in community question answering services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Ting; Zhang, Wei-Nan; Cao, Liujuan; Zhang, Yu

    2014-01-01

    With the blooming of online social media applications, Community Question Answering (CQA) services have become one of the most important online resources for information and knowledge seekers. A large number of high quality question and answer pairs have been accumulated, which allow users to not only share their knowledge with others, but also interact with each other. Accordingly, volumes of efforts have been taken to explore the questions and answers retrieval in CQA services so as to help users to finding the similar questions or the right answers. However, to our knowledge, less attention has been paid so far to question popularity in CQA. Question popularity can reflect the attention and interest of users. Hence, predicting question popularity can better capture the users' interest so as to improve the users' experience. Meanwhile, it can also promote the development of the community. In this paper, we investigate the problem of predicting question popularity in CQA. We first explore the factors that have impact on question popularity by employing statistical analysis. We then propose a supervised machine learning approach to model these factors for question popularity prediction. The experimental results show that our proposed approach can effectively distinguish the popular questions from unpopular ones in the Yahoo! Answers question and answer repository.

  2. Online social networking issues within academia and pharmacy education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cain, Jeff

    2008-02-15

    Online social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are extremely popular as indicated by the numbers of members and visits to the sites. They allow students to connect with users with similar interests, build and maintain relationships with friends, and feel more connected with their campus. The foremost criticisms of online social networking are that students may open themselves to public scrutiny of their online personas and risk physical safety by revealing excessive personal information. This review outlines issues of online social networking in higher education by drawing upon articles in both the lay press and academic publications. New points for pharmacy educators to consider include the possible emergence of an "e-professionalism" concept; legal and ethical implications of using online postings in admission, discipline, and student safety decisions; how online personas may blend into professional life; and the responsibility for educating students about the risks of online social networking.

  3. Impact Factors and Prediction of Popular Topics in a Journal

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, M B; Seitz, K.

    2016-01-01

    been on peripheral nerves 23. Surprisingly many good scientific papers on obstetrics/fetal US and musculoskeletal US have low citation rates 24 25 26. Our predictions for 2016 based on the topics of submitted articles in the last 12 months are that CEUS and elastography will continue to be popular...... topics.It is also worth mentioning that there can be a discrepancy between which titles are cited and which are accessed online. In addition to international guidelines, our CME articles are usually popular according to online access. CME articles are well established educational papers...... and recommendations is important to UIM/EJU. Although we see popular topics like CEUS and elastography, it is not possible to predict which articles will be read or even cited based on the topic, with multicenter studies being the exception....

  4. Statistical properties of online avatar numbers in a massive multiplayer online role-playing game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Ren, Fei; Gu, Gao-Feng; Tan, Qun-Zhao; Zhou, Wei-Xing

    2010-02-01

    Massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) have been very popular in the past few years. The profit of an MMORPG company is proportional to how many users registered, and the instant number of online avatars is a key factor to assess how popular an MMORPG is. We use the online-offline logs on an MMORPG server to reconstruct the instant number of online avatars per second and investigate its statistical properties. We find that the online avatar number exhibits one-day periodic behavior and clear intraday pattern, the fluctuation distribution of the online avatar numbers has a leptokurtic non-Gaussian shape with power-law tails, and the increments of online avatar numbers after removing the intraday pattern are uncorrelated and the associated absolute values have long-term correlation. In addition, both time series exhibit multifractal nature.

  5. Muslim Young People Online: “Acts of Citizenship” in Socially Networked Spaces

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amelia Johns

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available This paper reviews the current literature regarding Muslim young people’s online social networking and participatory practices with the aim of examining whether these practices open up new spaces of civic engagement and political participation. The paper focuses on the experiences of young Muslims living in western societies, where, since September 11, the ability to assert claims as citizens in the public arena has diminished. The paper draws upon Isin & Nielsen’s (2008 “acts of citizenship” to define the online practices of many Muslim youth, for whom the internet provides a space where new performances of citizenship are enacted outside of formal citizenship rights and spaces of participation. These “acts" are evaluated in light of theories which articulate the changing nature of publics and the public sphere in a digital era. The paper will use this conceptual framework in conjunction with the literature review to explore whether virtual, online spaces offer young Muslims an opportunity to create a more inclusive discursive space to interact with co-citizens, engage with social and political issues and assert their citizen rights than is otherwise afforded by formal political structures; a need highlighted by policies which target minority Muslim young people for greater civic participation but which do not reflect the interests and values of Muslim young people.

  6. Predicting the future trend of popularity by network diffusion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, An; Yeung, Chi Ho

    2016-06-01

    Conventional approaches to predict the future popularity of products are mainly based on extrapolation of their current popularity, which overlooks the hidden microscopic information under the macroscopic trend. Here, we study diffusion processes on consumer-product and citation networks to exploit the hidden microscopic information and connect consumers to their potential purchase, publications to their potential citers to obtain a prediction for future item popularity. By using the data obtained from the largest online retailers including Netflix and Amazon as well as the American Physical Society citation networks, we found that our method outperforms the accurate short-term extrapolation and identifies the potentially popular items long before they become prominent.

  7. Predicting the future trend of popularity by network diffusion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeng, An; Yeung, Chi Ho

    2016-06-01

    Conventional approaches to predict the future popularity of products are mainly based on extrapolation of their current popularity, which overlooks the hidden microscopic information under the macroscopic trend. Here, we study diffusion processes on consumer-product and citation networks to exploit the hidden microscopic information and connect consumers to their potential purchase, publications to their potential citers to obtain a prediction for future item popularity. By using the data obtained from the largest online retailers including Netflix and Amazon as well as the American Physical Society citation networks, we found that our method outperforms the accurate short-term extrapolation and identifies the potentially popular items long before they become prominent.

  8. Designing After-School Learning Using the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

    Science.gov (United States)

    King, Elizabeth M.

    2015-01-01

    Digital games have become popular for engaging students in a range of learning goals, both in the classroom and the after-school space. In this article, I discuss a specific genre of video game, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO), which has been identified as a dynamic environment for encountering 21st-century workplace…

  9. On the Dynamics of Social Media Popularity: A YouTube Case Study

    OpenAIRE

    Figueiredo, Flavio; Almeida, Jussara M.; Gonçalves, Marcos André; Benevenuto, Fabrício

    2014-01-01

    Understanding the factors that impact the popularity dynamics of social media can drive the design of effective information services, besides providing valuable insights to content generators and online advertisers. Taking YouTube as case study, we analyze how video popularity evolves since upload, extracting popularity trends that characterize groups of videos. We also analyze the referrers that lead users to videos, correlating them, features of the video and early popularity measures with ...

  10. Online Distributed Learning Over Networks in RKH Spaces Using Random Fourier Features

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bouboulis, Pantelis; Chouvardas, Symeon; Theodoridis, Sergios

    2018-04-01

    We present a novel diffusion scheme for online kernel-based learning over networks. So far, a major drawback of any online learning algorithm, operating in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), is the need for updating a growing number of parameters as time iterations evolve. Besides complexity, this leads to an increased need of communication resources, in a distributed setting. In contrast, the proposed method approximates the solution as a fixed-size vector (of larger dimension than the input space) using Random Fourier Features. This paves the way to use standard linear combine-then-adapt techniques. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a complete protocol for distributed online learning in RKHS is presented. Conditions for asymptotic convergence and boundness of the networkwise regret are also provided. The simulated tests illustrate the performance of the proposed scheme.

  11. ECOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY THROUGH POPULAR SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ketevan KUPATADZE

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Popularization of Ecological Chemistry is the aim of scientific-popular articles, which are published in the online journal for teachers. With the articles of this type Ecological Chemistry is linked with literature and history. Due to this linkage articles, this module turns into an easily comprehensible one and it becomes fun. In all articles there is also included very useful and interesting information pertaining to Ecological Chemistry. It must be underlined the titles of such articles, because they should not only show the common meaning of article, but they should also attract readers.The utmost interest is generated by the historical papers, where chemical issues are connected with history. The period of alchemy is more popular and that’s why the alchemical stories are described in the articles.The outcome of the pedagogical experiment has made it clear, that such a method of teaching of Ecological Chemistry with scientific popular articles affects positively on school students motivation and changes their attitude towards the environmental pollution.CHIMIA ECOLOGICĂ ÎN ARTICOLELE ȘTIINȚIFICO-POPULAREPopularizarea Chimiei ecologice este scopul articolelor științifico-populare, care sunt publicate în reviste online pentru profesori. Prin intermediul articolelor de acest tip, Chimia ecologică este legată de literatură și istorie. Datorită respectivelor publicaţii, acest modul este ușor de înțeles și el devine distractiv. Toate articolele conțin informații foarte utile și interesante referitoarela Chimiaecologică. Trebuie de subliniat importanţa titlurilor acestor articole, deoarece ele ar trebui nu doar să redea succint înțelesul articolului, dar şi să atragă cititorul.Un interes deosebit trezesc documentele istorice, în cazul în care problemele chimiei sunt legate de istorie. Perioada alchimiei este mai populară, de aceea şi sunt descrise în articole poveștile alchimice.Rezultatul experimentului

  12. The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Melissa de Zwart

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available This article explores the concepts of player agency with respect to governance and regulation of online games. It considers the unique example of the Council of Stellar Management in EVE Online, and explores the multifaceted role performed by players involved in that Council. In particular, it considers the interaction between code, rules, contracts, and play with respect to EVE Online. This is used as a means to better understand the relations of power generated in game spaces.

  13. 'She met her (boy)friend online': Negotiating gender identity and sexuality among young Thai women in online space.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boonmongkon, Pimpawun; Ojanen, Timo T; Samakkeekarom, Ronnapoom; Samoh, Nattharat; Iamsilpa, Rachawadee; Topananan, Soifa; Cholratana, Mudjalin; Guadamuz, Thomas E

    2013-01-01

    This paper focuses on the experiences of women 15-24 years old living in one suburban district in Bangkok. Its objectives are to analyse processes of building and negotiating social identity and femininity in online spaces by young women; the ways in which young women express their sexuality using online technologies; connections between the 'online' and 'offline' worlds in terms of emotions as well as social and sexual networks; and traditional values regarding female sexuality reproduced through online media and how young women negotiate and resist these. Content and narrative analyses were conducted using qualitative data from 9 focus-group discussions and 14 narrative interviews. Findings indicated that the online media serve as tools that help young women develop and express their gender identities. Mobile phones and the Internet facilitate communication in order to express love, responsibility, intimacy and sexual desires. Discourse on women's chastity, which puts pressure on women to maintain their virginity, still influences online and mobile contents, messages and images among young women. However, women also exerted agency in negotiating and expressing their sexuality, both online and offline.

  14. "The Hunger Games": Literature, Literacy, and Online Affinity Spaces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Curwood, Jen Scott

    2013-01-01

    This article examines adolescent literacy practices related to "The Hunger Games," a young adult novel and the first of a trilogy. By focusing on the interaction of social identities, discourses, and media paratexts within an online affinity space, this ethnographic study offers insight into how young adults engage with contemporary…

  15. Making Space, Making Place: Digital Togetherness and the Redefinition of Migrant Identities Online

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sara Marino

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Immigrants have played a fundamental role in shaping the life and form of urban public spaces for generations. Their efforts, as many scholars have observed, mostly aimed at creating places of comfort in new and sometimes hostile receiving countries. In recent years, the combined contribution of the built environment and screen-based experiences have shaped migrants’ sense of community and belonging, thus making the concept of online community central to ideas about space and public life. Drawing upon a 3-year online ethnography, the article discusses to what extent new media constitute spaces of digital togetherness , where diasporic experiences and transnational identities are constructed and negotiated. It presents a transnational model of creative media consumption, which helps give insight as to how diasporas and ethnic minorities contribute to the transformation of public space in the Digital Age.

  16. Problems in the online marketing of online shops in China : Case study: the Taobao online marketing policy

    OpenAIRE

    Ding, Lu

    2013-01-01

    With the development and popularization of the Internet, more and more people are choosing to trade via the Internet. For the Chinese market, online marketing is still in its infancy, and inevitably several problems exist. Taobao is the fastest developing of all online marketing shopping platforms in China and accounts for the largest share of the online shopping market. In such a rapidly expanding market, Taobao's rise is a cause for concern. This thesis will examine the current online m...

  17. A Figment of Their Imagination: Adolescent Poetic Literacy in an Online Affinity Space

    Science.gov (United States)

    Padgett, Elizabeth R.; Curwood, Jen Scott

    2016-01-01

    Drawing on sociocultural perspectives, this case study investigated ways that youths write, read, and critique poetry in an online affinity space. Specifically, it used a thematic analysis of interviews, a linguistic analysis of online feedback mechanisms, and poetic analysis to gain insight into how four teens engaged with poetry on the Figment…

  18. The Public Sphere and Online Social Media: Exploring the Use of Online Social Media as Discursive Spaces in an Irish Context

    Science.gov (United States)

    English, Claire

    2013-01-01

    Online social media have become integral to individuals' media and communication repertoires globally. They provide spaces to meet with friends, reconnect with old acquaintances and gather around shared topics of interest. This chapter presents findings from a qualitative study into the role of online social media in the lives of 25 to 30 year…

  19. Longitudinal Investigation of the Associations between Adolescents' Popularity and Cyber Social Behaviors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wright, Michelle F.

    2014-01-01

    As adolescents become increasingly immersed in electronic technologies, popular adolescents may act in similar ways online as they do offline. This longitudinal study employed peer nominations and self-reports to examine perceived popularity and social preference in relation to cyber social behaviors among 256 adolescents during the fall (T1) and…

  20. A General State-Space Formulation for Online Scheduling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dhruv Gupta

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available We present a generalized state-space model formulation particularly motivated by an online scheduling perspective, which allows modeling (1 task-delays and unit breakdowns; (2 fractional delays and unit downtimes, when using discrete-time grid; (3 variable batch-sizes; (4 robust scheduling through the use of conservative yield estimates and processing times; (5 feedback on task-yield estimates before the task finishes; (6 task termination during its execution; (7 post-production storage of material in unit; and (8 unit capacity degradation and maintenance. Through these proposed generalizations, we enable a natural way to handle routinely encountered disturbances and a rich set of corresponding counter-decisions. Thereby, greatly simplifying and extending the possible application of mathematical programming based online scheduling solutions to diverse application settings. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of this model on a case study from the field of bio-manufacturing.

  1. Preventing Restricted Space Inference in Online Route Planning Services

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Florian Dorfmeister

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Online route planning services compute routes from any given location to a desired destination address. Unlike offline implementations, they do so in a traffic-aware fashion by taking into consideration up-to-date map data and real-time traffic information. In return, users have to provide precise location information about a route’s endpoints to a not necessarily trusted service provider. As suchlike leakage of personal information threatens a user’s privacy and anonymity, this paper presents PrOSPR, a comprehensive approach for using current online route planning services in a privacy-preserving way, and introduces the concept of k-immune route requests to avert inference attacks based on restricted space information. Using a map-based approach for creating cloaked regions for the start and destination addresses, our solution queries the online service for routes between subsets of points from these regions. This, however, might result in the returned path deviating from the optimal route. By means of empirical evaluation on a real road network, we demonstrate the feasibility of our approach regarding quality of service and communication overhead.

  2. The Fog of Online Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baggaley, Jon; James, Sheila

    2016-01-01

    The authors recognized a close similarity between practices used in online genealogy research and those common in online education. Uses of a popular online database service were examined within a peer instruction community dedicated to researching a family history topic. Three community subgroups were divided into leaders, who base their work on…

  3. Incorporating popularity in a personalized news recommender system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nirmal Jonnalagedda

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Online news reading has become a widely popular way to read news articles from news sources around the globe. With the enormous amount of news articles available, users are easily overwhelmed by information of little interest to them. News recommender systems help users manage this flood by recommending articles based on user interests rather than presenting articles in order of their occurrence. We present our research on developing personalized news recommendation system with the help of a popular micro-blogging service, “Twitter.” News articles are ranked based on the popularity of the article identified from Twitter’s public timeline. In addition, users construct profiles based on their interests and news articles are also ranked based on their match to the user profile. By integrating these two approaches, we present a hybrid news recommendation model that recommends interesting news articles to the user based on their popularity as well as their relevance to the user profile.

  4. Friending, IMing, and hanging out face-to-face: overlap in adolescents' online and offline social networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reich, Stephanie M; Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Espinoza, Guadalupe

    2012-03-01

    Many new and important developmental issues are encountered during adolescence, which is also a time when Internet use becomes increasingly popular. Studies have shown that adolescents are using these online spaces to address developmental issues, especially needs for intimacy and connection to others. Online communication with its potential for interacting with unknown others, may put teens at increased risk. Two hundred and fifty-one high school students completed an in-person survey, and 126 of these completed an additional online questionnaire about how and why they use the Internet, their activities on social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, MySpace) and their reasons for participation, and how they perceive these online spaces to impact their friendships. To examine the extent of overlap between online and offline friends, participants were asked to list the names of their top interaction partners offline and online (Facebook and instant messaging). Results reveal that adolescents mainly use social networking sites to connect with others, in particular with people known from offline contexts. While adolescents report little monitoring by their parents, there was no evidence that teens are putting themselves at risk by interacting with unknown others. Instead, adolescents seem to use the Internet, especially social networking sites, to connect with known others. While the study found moderate overlap between teens' closest online and offline friends, the patterns suggest that adolescents use online contexts to strengthen offline relationships. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

  5. Buying Imported Products Online : A quantitative study about Chinese Online consumer behavior towards imported products

    OpenAIRE

    Chen, Qianqian; Wang, Yuren

    2015-01-01

    With the fast growing Chinese online marketplace and the increasing popularity of shopping imported products online in China, more and more practitioners and researchers are interested in understanding the cues that Chinese consumers use to evaluate imported products consumption online. Our quantitative study aims to identify what factors affect the behavior of Chinese online consumers towards imported products and the relationships between the identified factors and purchase intention, and t...

  6. Popular Science Articles for Chemistry Teaching

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ketevan Kupatadze

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The presented paper reviews popular science articles (these articles are published in online magazine “The Teacher” as one of the methods of chemistry teaching. It describes which didactic principles they are in line with and how this type of articles can be used in order to kindle the interest of pupils, students and generally, the readers of other specialties, in chemistry.  The articles review the main topics of inorganic/organic chemistry, biochemistry and ecological chemistry in a simple and entertaining manner. A part of the articles is about "household" chemistry. Chemical topics are related to poetry, literature, history of chemistry or simply, to fun news. The paper delineates the structure of popular science articles and the features of engaging students. It also reviews the teachers' and students' interview results about the usage of popular science articles in chemistry teaching process. The aforementioned pedagogical study revealed that the popular science articles contain useful information not only for the students of other specialties, but also for future biologists and ecologists (having chemistry as a mandatory subject at their universities. The articles are effectively used by teachers on chemistry lessons to kindle students' interest in this subject. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17807/orbital.v9i3.960 

  7. The impact of the 2010 Polish smoke-free legislation on the popularity and sales of electronic cigarettes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goniewicz, Maciej L; Kosmider, Leon; Delijewski, Marcin; Knysak, Jakub; Ochota, Patryk; Sobczak, Andrzej

    2014-06-01

    Electronic cigarettes, also called e-cigarettes or electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), have become widely available globally, particularly via the Internet. They are considered by many users as a safe alternative to regular cigarettes, and some use them for smoking cessation. We investigated whether the implementation of new tobacco control legislation in Poland affected the popularity and sales of ENDS. This study monitored Google searches and online sales before and after the implementation of new tobacco control legislation in November 2010. The study demonstrated that the implementation of the smoke-free legislation was associated with only a temporary increase in ENDS online popularity in Poland. In longer time frames, there was decrease in ENDS online popularity and sales in Poland after implementation of the smoke-free policy. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

  8. Audiences, Journalists, and Forms of Capital in the Online Journalistic Field

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edson C. Tandoc Jr.

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available This study found divergence in how online journalists and student-audiences rated articles with varying popularity, as measured by audience metrics, and quality, as operationalized by winning a journalistic award. The findings revealed that while metrics and awards did not matter for young online news audiences, they were important for online journalists. But even among journalists, the importance of metrics and awards varied depending on whether the journalists were evaluating stories or their peers. For online journalists, popular stories were more newsworthy than those that were not. Awards did not influence their judgment of newsworthiness. But when evaluating the authors of the articles, online journalists rated authors of articles that won awards more favorably than authors of articles without awards. The popularity of stories did not matter in their evaluation of the authors.

  9. Subtle Nonlinearity in Popular Album Charts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bentley, R. Alexander; Maschner, Herbert D. G.

    Large-scale patterns of culture change may be explained by models of self organized criticality, or alternatively, by multiplicative processes. We speculate that popular album activity may be similar to critical models of extinction in that interconnected agents compete to survive within a limited space. Here we investigate whether popular music albums as listed on popular album charts display evidence of self-organized criticality, including a self-affine time series of activity and power-law distributions of lifetimes and exit activity in the chart. We find it difficult to distinguish between multiplicative growth and critical model hypotheses for these data. However, aspects of criticality may be masked by the selective sampling that a "Top 200" listing necessarily implies.

  10. Online Counseling Using Email: A Qualitative Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salleh, Amla; Hamzah, Ramlan; Nordin, Norazah; Ghavifekr, Simin; Joorabchi, Toktam Namyandeh

    2015-01-01

    Despite numerous studies in increasingly popular online mental health service, the nature of the relationship between online counselors and their clients, particularly in the email modality, deserves more attention. To enhance the knowledge in this area, this study was conducted to explore whether the online counseling relationship could be…

  11. Online Classes See Cheating Go High-Tech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Young, Jeffrey R.

    2012-01-01

    Easy A's may be even easier to score these days, with the growing popularity of online courses. Tech-savvy students are finding ways to cheat that let them ace online courses with minimal effort, in ways that are difficult to detect. The issue of online cheating may rise in prominence, as more and more institutions embrace online courses, and as…

  12. Recursive prediction error methods for online estimation in nonlinear state-space models

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dag Ljungquist

    1994-04-01

    Full Text Available Several recursive algorithms for online, combined state and parameter estimation in nonlinear state-space models are discussed in this paper. Well-known algorithms such as the extended Kalman filter and alternative formulations of the recursive prediction error method are included, as well as a new method based on a line-search strategy. A comparison of the algorithms illustrates that they are very similar although the differences can be important for the online tracking capabilities and robustness. Simulation experiments on a simple nonlinear process show that the performance under certain conditions can be improved by including a line-search strategy.

  13. Speech-Language Pathology production regarding voice in popular singing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Drumond, Lorena Badaró; Vieira, Naymme Barbosa; Oliveira, Domingos Sávio Ferreira de

    2011-12-01

    To present a literature review about the Brazilian scientific production in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology regarding voice in popular singing in the last decade, as for number of publications, musical styles studied, focus of the researches, and instruments used for data collection. Cross-sectional descriptive study carried out in two stages: search in databases and publications encompassing the last decade of researches in this area in Brazil, and reading of the material obtained for posterior categorization. The databases LILACS and SciELO, the Databasis of Dissertations and Theses organized by CAPES, the online version of Acta ORL, and the online version of OPUS were searched, using the following uniterms: voice, professional voice, singing voice, dysphonia, voice disorders, voice training, music, dysodia. Articles published between the years 2000 and 2010 were selected. The researches found were classified and categorized after reading their abstracts and, when necessary, the whole study. Twenty researches within the proposed theme were selected, all of which were descriptive, involving several musical styles. Twelve studies focused on the evaluation of the popular singer's voice, and the most frequently used data collection instrument was the auditory-perceptual evaluation. The results of the publications found corroborate the objectives proposed by the authors and the different methodologies. The number of studies published is still restricted when compared to the diversity of musical genres and the uniqueness of popular singer.

  14. Measurement of Online Social Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gjoka, Mina

    2010-01-01

    In recent years, the popularity of online social networks (OSN) has risen to unprecedented levels, with the most popular ones having hundreds of millions of users. This success has generated interest within the networking community and has given rise to a number of measurement and characterization studies, which provide a first step towards their…

  15. Video games as American popular culture

    OpenAIRE

    Wolf, Mark J.P.

    2017-01-01

    Video games have moved, possibly surpassing even movies, into a central role in American popular culture in a relatively short time, and today there is increasing evidence that the video game console –to some extent, as much as the personal computer– has emerged as a central media device through which “convergence culture” is taking place. In the world of massively multiplayer online games, new (and very real) economies and cultures have evolved with striking rapidity, while on a very differe...

  16. The aesthetic discourse space of popular music: 1985-86 and 2004-05

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Venrooij, A.

    2009-01-01

    This article presents a comparison of the aesthetic classification system of popular music, as employed by newspaper critics in the Los Angeles Times during 1985-86 and 2004-05. Through a relational discourse analysis of popular music album reviews, which applies the ecological technique of

  17. Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blackburn, Mollie V.

    2010-01-01

    This article reviews Driver's monograph, "Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media," reporting on queer girls' active engagement with television characters, films, lesbian magazines, online communities, and music. She explores the consequences of their engagements with these media on their lives and their…

  18. Digital Social Norm Enforcement: Online Firestorms in Social Media.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rost, Katja; Stahel, Lea; Frey, Bruno S

    2016-01-01

    Actors of public interest today have to fear the adverse impact that stems from social media platforms. Any controversial behavior may promptly trigger temporal, but potentially devastating storms of emotional and aggressive outrage, so called online firestorms. Popular targets of online firestorms are companies, politicians, celebrities, media, academics and many more. This article introduces social norm theory to understand online aggression in a social-political online setting, challenging the popular assumption that online anonymity is one of the principle factors that promotes aggression. We underpin this social norm view by analyzing a major social media platform concerned with public affairs over a period of three years entailing 532,197 comments on 1,612 online petitions. Results show that in the context of online firestorms, non-anonymous individuals are more aggressive compared to anonymous individuals. This effect is reinforced if selective incentives are present and if aggressors are intrinsically motivated.

  19. Perceptions of Online Learning Spaces and Their Incorporation in Mathematics Teacher Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moore-Russo, Deborah; Wilsey, Jillian; Grabowski, Jeremiah; Bampton, Tina M.

    2015-01-01

    While digital environments can offer convenient, viable options for preservice and inservice teachers to engage in or continue their studies, little is known about teachers' experiences with and perceptions of various existing online learning spaces. This paper describes an initial investigation using data from a group of preservice and in-service…

  20. Evaluating Online Bilingual Dictionaries: The Case of Popular Free English-Polish Dictionaries

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lew, Robert; Szarowska, Agnieszka

    2017-01-01

    Language learners today exhibit a strong preference for free online resources. One problem with such resources is that their quality can vary dramatically. Building on related work on monolingual resources for English, we propose an evaluation framework for online bilingual dictionaries, designed to assess lexicographic quality in four major…

  1. Local Variation of Hashtag Spike Trains and Popularity in Twitter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanlı, Ceyda; Lambiotte, Renaud

    2015-01-01

    We draw a parallel between hashtag time series and neuron spike trains. In each case, the process presents complex dynamic patterns including temporal correlations, burstiness, and all other types of nonstationarity. We propose the adoption of the so-called local variation in order to uncover salient dynamical properties, while properly detrending for the time-dependent features of a signal. The methodology is tested on both real and randomized hashtag spike trains, and identifies that popular hashtags present regular and so less bursty behavior, suggesting its potential use for predicting online popularity in social media. PMID:26161650

  2. Demographic Composition of the Online Buyers in Turkey

    OpenAIRE

    Sinan NARDALI

    2011-01-01

    Demographic variables may have an impact on Internet usage patterns. Online buyers’ characteristics keeps changing time along with the shifting dynamics of Turkish consumers’ demographic profile and day by day online shopping becomes a safe and popular option in Turkey. Current study investigates demographic composition of the online buyers that influence consumer attitudes towards online shopping behavior in Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey. This study examines attitudes toward online...

  3. Performing Gender to Dangdut’s Drum: Place, Space, and Infrastructure in Indonesian Popular Music

    OpenAIRE

    Decker, Andrea Louise

    2016-01-01

    Few genres of popular music around the world are more infamous for objectification of women’s bodies than dangdut, a popular dance music of Indonesia, which has thrived among audiences of lower classes for more than forty years. In Dangdut Stories: A Social and Musical History of Indonesia’s Most Popular Music, Andrew Weintraub credits dangdut’s popularity in part to its easy danceability. The steps are simple: back and forth, in duple meter, a basic step anyone can join or elaborate upon. Bu...

  4. The Key Points of Building an Online Store

    OpenAIRE

    Etuaro, Mari

    2014-01-01

    Online shopping is becoming more popular in Finland and online shopping sales levels have increased. There has been concern that brick and mortar stores are losing their customers to online stores and that Finnish stores are losing their customers to international online stores. One solution to this concern is that Finnish brick and mortar stores also start selling online. But how to build online stores? The aim of this thesis was to study about building an online store based on theory and...

  5. Feel the Fear: Learning Graphic Design in Affective Places and Online Spaces

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nottingham, Anitra

    2017-01-01

    This article explores the idea of pedagogic affect in both onsite and online graphic design learning spaces, and speculates on the role that this affect plays in the formation of the design student. I argue that embodied design knowledge is built by interactions with design professionals, activities that mimic the daily work of designers, and…

  6. Accommodating Students' Sensory Learning Modalities in Online Formats

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allison, Barbara N.; Rehm, Marsha L.

    2016-01-01

    Online classes have become a popular and viable method of educating students in both K-12 settings and higher education, including in family and consumer sciences (FCS) programs. Online learning dramatically affects the way students learn. This article addresses how online learning can accommodate the sensory learning modalities (sight, hearing,…

  7. Generating Heat Maps of Popular Routes Online from Massive Mobile Sports Tracking Application Data in Milliseconds While Respecting Privacy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jani Sainio

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The breakthrough of GPS-equipped smartphones has enabled the collection of track data from human mobility on massive scales that can be used in route recommendation, urban planning and traffic management. In this work we present a fast map server that can generate and visualize heat maps of popular routes online from massive sports track data based on client preferences, e.g., running routes lasting less than an hour. The heat maps shown respect user privacy by not showing routes with less than a predefined number of different users, for instance five. The results are represented to the client using a dynamic tile layer. The current implementation uses data collected by the Sports Tracker mobile application with over 800,000 different tracks and 2.8 billion GPS data points. Stress tests indicate that the server can handle hundreds of simultaneous client requests in a single server configuration.

  8. Exploring problematic online gaming: A qualitative approach

    OpenAIRE

    Waters, Joseph M

    2016-01-01

    Online gaming, specifically Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs), has become a very popular pastime and often is the subject of scrutiny in the literature regarding problematic play. This study aimed to develop a better understanding of problematic online gaming by recruiting and interviewing MMORPG players who potentially played at problematic levels. Ten participants (9 males, 1 female) from a Mid-Western university were screened and interviewed regarding their online g...

  9. Value Creation in Online Communities for Educators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Booth, Sharon E.; Kellogg, Shaun B.

    2015-01-01

    The popularity and pervasiveness of online communities have led researchers and practitioners alike to closely examine the utility of online communities for supporting and facilitating professional learning. As economic constraints leave fewer resources available for professional development, educators in particular are examining the potential of…

  10. Strategies for Instructors on How to Improve Online Groupwork

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koh, Myung Hwa; Barbour, Michael; Hill, Janette R.

    2010-01-01

    Online groupwork is becoming an increasingly popular instructional strategy. Although researchers have questioned the benefits of groupwork in online learning environments, little empirical research has examined the challenges it presents. The purpose of this study was to investigate the experience of students involved in online groupwork to find…

  11. Teaching Math Online: Current Practices in Turkey

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akdemir, Omur

    2011-01-01

    Changing nature of student population, developments in technology, and insufficient number of traditional universities have made online courses popular around the globe. This study was designed to investigate the current practices of teaching mathematics online in Turkish Universities through a qualitative inquiry. The snowball sampling method was…

  12. Online Social Networking: Usage in Adolescents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raju, Nevil Johnson; Valsaraj, Blessy Prabha; Noronha, Judith

    2015-01-01

    Online social networking (OSN) has played a significant role on the relationship among college students. It is becoming a popular medium for socializing online and tools to facilitate friendship. Young adults and adolescents are the most prolific users of OSN sites. The frequent use of OSN sites results in addiction toward these sites and…

  13. OnlineMin

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Brodal, Gerth Stølting; Moruz, Gabriel; Negoescu, Andrei

    2015-01-01

    OnlineMin that has optimal competitiveness and allows fast implementations. In fact, if k pages fit in internal memory the best previous solution required O(k2) time per request and O(k) space. We present two implementations of OnlineMin which use O(k) space, but only O(logk) worst case time and O...

  14. Second Language Writing Online: An Update

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godwin-Jones, Robert

    2018-01-01

    This article provides an update to the author's overview of developments in second language (L2) online writing that he wrote in 2008. There has been renewed interest in L2 writing through the wide use of social media, along with the rising popularity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and telecollaboration (class-based online exchanges).…

  15. A Comparative Analysis of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course Platforms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria CONACHE

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The MOOC platforms have known a considerable development in recent years due to the enlargement of online space and the shifting between traditional to virtual activities. These plat-forms made it possible for people almost everywhere to take online academic courses offered by top universities via open access to web and with unlimited participation. Thus, it came naturally to us to address the question what makes them so successful? The purpose of this paper is to report comparatively MOOC platforms in terms of features, based on the user’s implication and demands. First, we chose four relevant lifelong learning platforms and then we structured three main categories for the platforms' qualification, depending on which we built our theory regarding the comparison between them. Our analysis consists of three sets of criteria: business model, course design and popularity among online users. Starting from this perspective, we built a range of representative factors for which we highlighted the major aspects for each plat-form in our comparative research

  16. Determinants Of Online Shopping In Manado

    OpenAIRE

    Halim, Ellen

    2013-01-01

    Retailers utilize online media to reach more potential customers. Internet connects the retailer and customers without any geographic location boundaries. Internet growth has a positive impact for business world. There is a new shopping method in non-store shopping as people can buy products or services without having to travel to the outlets like traditional retail does. With the increase of online retailers on internet world, online shopping became popular. The objective of this research is...

  17. A Qualitative Analysis of Online Gaming:

    OpenAIRE

    Hussain, Z; Griffiths, MD

    2014-01-01

    The popularity of Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) has risen dramatically over the last decade. Some gamers spend many hours a day in these virtual environments interacting with others gamers, completing quests, and forming social groups. The present study set out to explore the experiences and feelings of online gamers. The study comprised 71 interviews with online gamers (52 males and 19 females) from 11 different countries. Many themes emerged from the analyses of...

  18. Playing with Sims as a space of one's own

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Iversen, Sara Mosberg

    2014-01-01

    Studies of women’s use of popular media have highlighted how these contested genres may be used by women to create a space of their own. Is this also the case when the media text in question is a digital game and the community around it moves online? Investigated via a netnographic approach...... according to mood,” “managing and taking control,” “experimentation,” “get what one does not have,” “making something one’s own,” and “creative outlet.” A central denominator of these seven categories is the notion of a space of one’s own in the widest sense of the phrase. In the discussed accounts playing...

  19. How popular is waterpipe tobacco smoking? Findings from internet search queries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salloum, Ramzi G; Osman, Amira; Maziak, Wasim; Thrasher, James F

    2015-09-01

    Waterpipe tobacco smoking (WTS), a traditional tobacco consumption practice in the Middle East, is gaining popularity worldwide. Estimates of population-level interest in WTS over time are not documented. We assessed the popularity of WTS using World Wide Web search query results across four English-speaking countries. We analysed trends in Google search queries related to WTS, comparing these trends with those for electronic cigarettes between 2004 and 2013 in Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. Weekly search volumes were reported as percentages relative to the week with the highest volume of searches. Web-based searches for WTS have increased steadily since 2004 in all four countries. Search volume for WTS was higher than for e-cigarettes in three of the four nations, with the highest volume in the USA. Online searches were primarily targeted at WTS products for home use, followed by searches for WTS cafés/lounges. Online demand for information on WTS-related products and venues is large and increasing. Given the rise in WTS popularity, increasing evidence of exposure-related harms, and relatively lax government regulation, WTS is a serious public health concern and could reach epidemic levels in Western societies. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  20. Searching for Student Success: Implementing Immediacy in Online Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jennings, Amy B.

    2013-01-01

    Growing demand for higher education has contributed to the popularity of online education. While online courses can be effective in terms of student learning and success, and there are many potential benefits, there are also still areas that can be improved. There is evidence that students can experience online courses as impersonal and lacking…

  1. Popular Mobilization Messaging

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    James Garrison

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available This Research Paper examines the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Unit’s (PMU messaging on the organisation’s website and social media platforms through early January 2017 to develop a more nuanced understanding of the PMU’s outlook, both present and future. After providing an overview of the PMU’s media presence online, the paper discusses how the organisation promotes its core narrative: that it is a cross-confessional and patriotic force for the defence of all Iraqis against a brutal and evil IS. The paper then addresses the PMU’s use of messaging to refute the sectarian portrayal of the organisation in some quarters before turning to the way the PMU approaches regional and international states in its media. Finally, the paper summarises the PMU’s messaging strategy and discusses how this strategy implies a less threatening future for the organisation than is often anticipated.

  2. Robust online belief space planning in changing environments: Application to physical mobile robots

    KAUST Repository

    Agha-mohammadi, Ali-akbar

    2014-05-01

    © 2014 IEEE. Motion planning in belief space (under motion and sensing uncertainty) is a challenging problem due to the computational intractability of its exact solution. The Feedback-based Information RoadMap (FIRM) framework made an important theoretical step toward enabling roadmap-based planning in belief space and provided a computationally tractable version of belief space planning. However, there are still challenges in applying belief space planners to physical systems, such as the discrepancy between computational models and real physical models. In this paper, we propose a dynamic replanning scheme in belief space to address such challenges. Moreover, we present techniques to cope with changes in the environment (e.g., changes in the obstacle map), as well as unforeseen large deviations in the robot\\'s location (e.g., the kidnapped robot problem). We then utilize these techniques to implement the first online replanning scheme in belief space on a physical mobile robot that is robust to changes in the environment and large disturbances. This method demonstrates that belief space planning is a practical tool for robot motion planning.

  3. Individual Popularity, Peer Group Popularity Composition and Adolescents' Alcohol Consumption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gommans, Rob; Müller, Christoph M; Stevens, Gonneke W J M; Cillessen, Antonius H N; Ter Bogt, Tom F M

    2017-08-01

    Previous studies have convincingly shown associations between popularity and adolescent drinking. This study examined whether the popularity composition of the peer group and the relative difference in popularity between adolescents and their peers are also associated with adolescent drinking. Participants were 800 adolescents (M age  = 14.73; SD age  = 1.00; 51.6 % girls) from 31 classrooms who completed peer ratings of popularity and self-reports of alcohol consumption. Results showed that drinking was higher among popular than unpopular adolescents, higher among popular adolescents surrounded by less popular classmates, and lower in classrooms with more variability in popularity. Thus, beyond individual popularity, peer group popularity composition also should be taken into account when investigating antisocial and health risk behaviors in adolescence such as drinking.

  4. Student Migration to Online Education: An Economic Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eisenhauer, Joseph G.

    2013-01-01

    The popularity of distance education has increasingly led universities to consider expanding their online offerings. Remarkably few financial models have been presented for online courses, however, and fewer still have investigated the economic consequences of the migration, or cross-over, of students from traditional classes within the…

  5. Transient Universe: Popular, Not so Popular & Knowable Unknowns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bildsten, L.; Fryer, C.; Kulkarni, S.

    2006-03-01

    MOTIVATION & PURPOSE: This informal two day workshop is intended to bring together astronomers who monitor the sky for transient phenomena - a field which is poised to take off in the optical band, thanks to the exponential growth in the availability of giga pixel detectors, rapid computing and communication. For somewhat similar technological reasons, decimeter and decameter radio astronomy is also poised to grow in this area. The workshop will focus on astronomical opportunities with ongoing searches and discuss the possibilities with planned facilities in the near term. We hope to rapidly review the status of 'popular' sources (e.g. GRB afterglows, Supernovae, Machos), less popular events (e.g. Novae, geysers and gushers) and then move onto 'odd' but not hopelessly rare events. The spirit is to anticipate some of the discoveries by extending the astrophysical parameter space of known (or knowable) classes of transients. This workshop is part of the ongoing KITP Program "The Supernova Gamma Ray Burst Connection" and has received funding Los Alamos National Laboratory. We will follow the well honed KITP tradition of having fewer talks at the expense of long discussions. All talks will be recorded (per KITP tradition) and made available on the web for enjoyment, education and posterity. In lieu of a traditional poster sessions with old-fashioned easels we offer the Virtual Presence (organized by J. Bloom).

  6. African American Males and Online Education: A Review of the Literature

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salvo, Susan; Shelton, Kaye; Welch, Brett

    2017-01-01

    Online education is continuing to grow in popularity with students with more and more institutions offering fully online degrees. In addition, online education potentially offers a color free environment where students are less likely to be judged by race and treated more equally as this is one of the benefits of online education. However, African…

  7. CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ONLINE SHOPPING

    OpenAIRE

    S. Nethra; Dr. V. T. Dhanaraj

    2016-01-01

    The popularity of online shopping has caught the attention of many peoples. Many studies have been done in developed nations to know about the attitude and behaviour of consumers towards online shopping. The research is focused on consumer behaviour and attitude towards online shopping in Coimbatore district. The study is based on primary data which has been collected by issuing questionnaire to 200 respondents residing in Coimbatore district by adopting convenient sampling method. The stat...

  8. Constructing the popular: challenges of archiving ugandan 'popular ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Constructing the popular: challenges of archiving ugandan 'popular' music. ... on the intention of the one defining, the popular is also time- and culture-specific. ... in Uganda is commercially determined – by the media and the music industry.

  9. Spatial Configuration and Online Attention: A Space Syntax Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peixue Liu

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The spatial behavior of tourists is an important part of the research on congestion management and sustainable planning of tourism destinations. Combined with user-generated content (UGC and site-based survey data, this study conducted an overlaying analysis between street network configurations that resulted from space syntax and tourist preferences. Based on space syntax, tourist movement is influenced by the distribution of scenic spots and the structure of tourist trails in scenic mountain areas. The results reveal that the distribution of scenic spots has a significant impact on tourist flow and visitors’ choices of entrance to the mountain; the volume of online sign-ins is highly correlated with landscape attention, axial control values and the local integration value of the trails; and tourists’ attention focuses on the entrance area and the few tourist-sight markers. This study advances the understanding of the spatial patterns of within-destination tourist behavior; this knowledge will be helpful in alleviating congestion in mountain scenic areas and providing effective guidance for tourists to plan an ideal tour route.

  10. Online Financial Education Programs: Theory, Research, and Recommendations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jinhee Kim

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Technological advances have created unprecedented opportunities for online financial education that can be used to improve financial literacy and money management practices. While online financial education programs have become popular, relevant research and theoretical frameworks have rarely been considered in the development of such programs. This article synthesizes lessons from literature and theories for the development of an effective online financial education program. Drawing from literature on financial literacy education and online education, implications and recommendations for integrating technology into online financial education programs for adults are discussed.

  11. Information quality, homophily, and risk propensity: Consumer responses to online hotel reviews

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sony Kusumasondjaja

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Searching through online review sites becomes an alternative for consumers to obtain product information. The efficiency and effectiveness in finding quality information on the online review sites contributes to the popularity of online review sites among consumers at the moment. There are some previous studies discussing consumer trust on hotels being reviewed on online review sites, but the roles of information quality, homophily, and consumer risk propensity as antecedents of trust and online purchase intention are still questionable. The purpose of this study is to investigate how information quality, homophily, and consumer risk propensity affect consumer trust on hotels being reviewed on online review sites and on intention to make a reservation. A survey involving 430 young travelers from 16 countries was conducted in popular tourist destination. Results confirm that information quality influences consumers’ trust on hotel being reviewed and intention to make reservation. Moreover, consumer online trust is also found to affect intention to make reservation.

  12. Discourse of support: Exploring Online Discussions on Depression

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lamerichs, J.M.W.J.

    2003-01-01

    This study aims to explore the everyday talk of people who take part in an online support group on depression. Although the popularity of online support groups has increased over the years, illustrated by a growing number of people -both patients and family members-, who turn to the Internet to

  13. Online Plagiarism Training Falls Short in Biology Classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holt, Emily A.; Fagerheim, Britt; Durham, Susan

    2014-01-01

    Online plagiarism tutorials are increasingly popular in higher education, as faculty and staff try to curb the plagiarism epidemic. Yet no research has validated the efficacy of such tools in minimizing plagiarism in the sciences. Our study compared three plagiarism-avoidance training regimens (i.e., no training, online tutorial, or homework…

  14. Creating Participatory Online Learning Environments: A Social Learning Approach Revisited

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conley, Quincy; Lutz, Heather S.; Padgitt, Amanda J.

    2017-01-01

    Online learning has never been more popular than it is today. Due to the rapid growth of online instruction at colleges and universities, questions about the effectiveness of online courses have been raised. In this paper, we suggest guidelines for the selection and application of social media tools. In addition to describing the potential…

  15. The social image of food: Associations between popularity and eating behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    König, Laura M; Giese, Helge; Stok, F Marijn; Renner, Britta

    2017-07-01

    One factor that determines what we eat and why we eat is our social environment. In the present research, two online studies examined the relationship between food intake and social images. Specifically, the present research assessed the relationship between the food intake university students ascribed to peers who varied in popularity and own self-reported food intake, and whether this relationship was moderated by identification with the peer group. Participants (N = 97 in Study 1; N = 402 in Study 2) were randomly presented with one of four (Study 1) or two of eight (Study 2) vignettes describing a popular or unpopular student (male or female) from their university without receiving any information about the peer's eating behavior. Subsequently, healthy and unhealthy eating ascribed to the peers and own self-reported eating behavior were assessed. Results indicated that popular peers were perceived to eat more healthily than unpopular peers. Moreover, eating behavior ascribed to popular peers were associated with own healthy and unhealthy eating. Importantly, the relationship between healthy eating behavior ascribed to popular peers and own healthy eating behavior was moderated by identification with the student group - the more participants identified with their peers, the more their own eating was aligned with the healthy eating ascribed to a popular peer. Hence, the popularity of others seems to shape perceptions of the food they eat and may facilitate healthy eating via social influence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. An examination of online learning effectiveness using data mining

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Shukor, N.B.A.; Tasir, Z.; Meijden, H.A.T. van der

    2015-01-01

    Online learning has become increasingly popular due to technology advancement that allows discussion to occur at distance. Most studies report on students' learning achievement as a result of effective online learning while assessment on the learning process is also necessary. It is possible by

  17. Popular Musician Responses to Mental Health Treatment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berg, Lloyd; King, Benjamin; Koenig, Jessica; McRoberts, Roger L

    2018-06-01

    Popular (i.e., nonclassical) musicians have higher rates of mental health disorders and mental health service utilization than the general population. Little is known, however, about how popular musicians perceive mental health interventions in terms of overall satisfaction and therapeutic benefit. An online client satisfaction survey was sent to all musicians and family members who received mental health services through a nonprofit mental health organization in Austin, Texas, between July 2014 and June 2015 (n=628). 260 individuals (41.4%) responded to the survey, of whom 94% (n=244) were musicians. A majority of musician respondents were male (60%) and white (82%). 87% received counseling, 32% received psychiatric medication treatment, and 8% received addiction recovery services. 97% of musicians (205/211) rated their counselor as 'very good' or 'excellent,' 88% (64/79) rated their psychiatric providers as 'very good' or 'excellent,' and 94% (17/19) rated their addiction recovery specialists as 'very good' or 'excellent' (nonsignificant between all categories, p>0.05). 89% of musicians receiving counseling, 84% receiving psychiatric medication treatment, and 95% receiving addiction recovery services agreed or strongly agreed that their symptoms and overall functioning improved as a result of their treatment (nonsignificant between all categories, p>0.05). Popular musicians express strong provider satisfaction and overall benefit when mental health interventions are accessible, affordable, and delivered by professionals familiar with their concerns. More research is needed to understand the unique psychosocial stresses popular musicians face to inform treatment planning for this high-risk, underserved population.

  18. An online spaced-education game for global continuing medical education: a randomized trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kerfoot, B Price; Baker, Harley

    2012-07-01

    To assess the efficacy of a "spaced-education" game as a method of continuing medical education (CME) among physicians across the globe. The efficacy of educational games for the CME has yet to be established. We created a novel online educational game by incorporating game mechanics into "spaced education" (SE), an evidence-based method of online CME. This 34-week randomized trial enrolled practicing urologists across the globe. The SE game consisted of 40 validated multiple-choice questions and explanations on urology clinical guidelines. Enrollees were randomized to 2 cohorts: cohort A physicians were sent 2 questions via an automated e-mail system every 2 days, and cohort B physicians were sent 4 questions every 4 days. Adaptive game mechanics re-sent the questions in 12 or 24 days if answered incorrectly and correctly, respectively. Questions expired if not answered on time (appointment dynamic). Physicians retired questions by answering each correctly twice-in-a-row (progression dynamic). Competition was fostered by posting relative performance among physicians. Main outcome measures were baseline scores (percentage of questions answered correctly upon initial presentation) and completion scores (percentage of questions retired). A total of 1470 physicians from 63 countries enrolled. Median baseline score was 48% (interquartile range [IQR] 17) and, in multivariate analyses, was found to vary significantly by region (Cohen dmax = 0.31, P = 0.001) and age (dmax = 0.41, P games. An online SE game can substantially improve guidelines knowledge and is a well-accepted method of global CME delivery.

  19. “Sex, Scandals, and Celebrities”? Exploring the Determinants of Popularity in Online News.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angèle Christin

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available What kinds of articles are read most often on news websites? In web newsrooms, journalists now have access to software programs that allow them to track the preferences of their readers in real time. Based on this data, web journalists often claim that “sex, scandals, and celebrities” are the best recipe for attracting readers and “clicks.” Conversely, journalists assert that articles on world news, politics, and culture fare poorly online. Journalists also strongly distinguish between groups of readers, depending on whether they “click,” “like,” “tweet,” or write comments. This paper compares qualitative material and quantitative data to explore whether journalists’ representations of their “quantified audience” diverge from the actual behavior of their readers. Drawing on an original data set composed of 13,159 articles published between 2007 and 2012 on a French news site, I find that articles about sex, scandals, and celebrities indeed attract more readers than articles about world news or culture. Yet articles about politics, long articles, and user-generated contributions are also highly popular. In addition, the preferences of readers vary depending on whether one measures this by the number of “clicks,” “likes,” “tweets,” or comments on the articles. Though regression models do not reveal significant differences, a more qualitative approach indicates that the most popular articles on Facebook and Twitter are humorous pieces and user-generated contributions, whereas controversial political topics attract more comments. I propose several explanations in order to make sense of this gap between the journalists’ representations and the behavior of online readers. These involve the editorial line and audience of the French website under consideration, the changing political context and media coverage of politics in France, and the specific temporal structure of internet traffic for longer articles. Quels

  20. Assessing Online Faculty: More than Student Surveys and Design Rubrics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piña, Anthony A.; Bohn, Larry

    2014-01-01

    As online education continues to grow, so do the number of online courses being taught by those who did not develop the courses. However, the most popular rubrics for evaluating the quality of online courses tend to focus upon the course's design, not upon the actions of the instructor teaching the course. In this study, 140 distance education…

  1. Online Groups and Patient Forums

    OpenAIRE

    Dosani, Sabina; Harding, Claire; Wilson, Simon

    2014-01-01

    Online mental health support forums are becoming increasingly popular and there is evidence that they are useful: particularly for providing anonymous support and filling information gaps. However, there are also very real concerns about negative outcomes for users. One online mental health service, Big White Wall, manages these risks and supports its members through the provision of 24 hour professional moderation. Comparison of Big White Wall’s member population with the population of one L...

  2. Shopping Online Sebagai Gaya Hidup

    OpenAIRE

    Lestari, Sri Budi

    2015-01-01

    The use of internet communication technology can make the world as if in one hand makes electronicbusiness with the concept of Online Shopping at its peak in recent years along with the development ofcommunication technologies over theInternet.How to shop online by using the internet through computers andmobile devices is increasingly popular smartphone can even be said to have become a trend today.Variousconvenience of shopping be the main thing to offer, with enough gadgets available in the...

  3. Online Customization of Retailers’ Activities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natorina Alona O.

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the article is to develop recommendations on correct online customization of retailers’ activities in the online space based on results of studying and analyzing trends in digital activity of consumers under real time conditions and taking into account the factors directly influencing buyers’ purchasing from corresponding online retailers. The trends of changes in digital forms of contacting consumers in different countries and regions of the world are studied, and their access to the digital content with details of gadget types and devices is analyzed. The level of digital activity of consumers in the online space is diagnosed in accordance with the consumer inclusion index using the GfK methodology. It is grounded that retailers are advisable to look for new tools of online customization with mandatory consideration of consumer preferences, which depend on the influence of various factors on their behavior. It is found out that a high level of online confidence in a retailer acts as a catalyst for purchasing on the Internet, and factors influencing it are identified. The prerequisites for successful online customization of retailers’ activities are considered, and categories of behavioral patterns of potential buyers to achieve the most effective digital promotion of retailers in the online space are proposed. The aspects of online customization that guarantee the necessary level of competitiveness of retailers for effective functioning in the online space are justified.

  4. A bipartite fitness model for online music streaming services

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pongnumkul, Suchit; Motohashi, Kazuyuki

    2018-01-01

    This paper proposes an evolution model and an analysis of the behavior of music consumers on online music streaming services. While previous studies have observed power-law degree distributions of usage in online music streaming services, the underlying behavior of users has not been well understood. Users and songs can be described using a bipartite network where an edge exists between a user node and a song node when the user has listened that song. The growth mechanism of bipartite networks has been used to understand the evolution of online bipartite networks Zhang et al. (2013). Existing bipartite models are based on a preferential attachment mechanism László Barabási and Albert (1999) in which the probability that a user listens to a song is proportional to its current popularity. This mechanism does not allow for two types of real world phenomena. First, a newly released song with high quality sometimes quickly gains popularity. Second, the popularity of songs normally decreases as time goes by. Therefore, this paper proposes a new model that is more suitable for online music services by adding fitness and aging functions to the song nodes of the bipartite network proposed by Zhang et al. (2013). Theoretical analyses are performed for the degree distribution of songs. Empirical data from an online streaming service, Last.fm, are used to confirm the degree distribution of the object nodes. Simulation results show improvements from a previous model. Finally, to illustrate the application of the proposed model, a simplified royalty cost model for online music services is used to demonstrate how the changes in the proposed parameters can affect the costs for online music streaming providers. Managerial implications are also discussed.

  5. Online-offline activities and game-playing behaviors of avatars in a massive multiplayer online role-playing game

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing; Tan, Qun-Zhao

    2009-11-01

    Massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are very popular in China, which provides a potential platform for scientific research. We study the online-offline activities of avatars in an MMORPG to understand their game-playing behavior. The statistical analysis unveils that the active avatars can be classified into three types. The avatars of the first type are owned by game cheaters who go online and offline in preset time intervals with the online duration distributions dominated by pulses. The second type of avatars is characterized by a Weibull distribution in the online durations, which is confirmed by statistical tests. The distributions of online durations of the remaining individual avatars differ from the above two types and cannot be described by a simple form. These findings have potential applications in the game industry.

  6. Scientists popularizing science: characteristics and impact of TED talk presenters.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cassidy R Sugimoto

    Full Text Available The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design conference and associated website of recorded conference presentations (TED Talks is a highly successful disseminator of science-related videos, claiming over a billion online views. Although hundreds of scientists have presented at TED, little information is available regarding the presenters, their academic credentials, and the impact of TED Talks on the general population. This article uses bibliometric and webometric techniques to gather data on the characteristics of TED presenters and videos and analyze the relationship between these characteristics and the subsequent impact of the videos. The results show that the presenters were predominately male and non-academics. Male-authored videos were more popular and more liked when viewed on YouTube. Videos by academic presenters were more commented on than videos by others and were more liked on YouTube, although there was little difference in how frequently they were viewed. The majority of academic presenters were senior faculty, males, from United States-based institutions, were visible online, and were cited more frequently than average for their field. However, giving a TED presentation appeared to have no impact on the number of citations subsequently received by an academic, suggesting that although TED popularizes research, it may not promote the work of scientists within the academic community.

  7. Scientists popularizing science: characteristics and impact of TED talk presenters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugimoto, Cassidy R; Thelwall, Mike; Larivière, Vincent; Tsou, Andrew; Mongeon, Philippe; Macaluso, Benoit

    2013-01-01

    The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference and associated website of recorded conference presentations (TED Talks) is a highly successful disseminator of science-related videos, claiming over a billion online views. Although hundreds of scientists have presented at TED, little information is available regarding the presenters, their academic credentials, and the impact of TED Talks on the general population. This article uses bibliometric and webometric techniques to gather data on the characteristics of TED presenters and videos and analyze the relationship between these characteristics and the subsequent impact of the videos. The results show that the presenters were predominately male and non-academics. Male-authored videos were more popular and more liked when viewed on YouTube. Videos by academic presenters were more commented on than videos by others and were more liked on YouTube, although there was little difference in how frequently they were viewed. The majority of academic presenters were senior faculty, males, from United States-based institutions, were visible online, and were cited more frequently than average for their field. However, giving a TED presentation appeared to have no impact on the number of citations subsequently received by an academic, suggesting that although TED popularizes research, it may not promote the work of scientists within the academic community.

  8. Scientists Popularizing Science: Characteristics and Impact of TED Talk Presenters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sugimoto, Cassidy R.; Thelwall, Mike; Larivière, Vincent; Tsou, Andrew; Mongeon, Philippe; Macaluso, Benoit

    2013-01-01

    The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference and associated website of recorded conference presentations (TED Talks) is a highly successful disseminator of science-related videos, claiming over a billion online views. Although hundreds of scientists have presented at TED, little information is available regarding the presenters, their academic credentials, and the impact of TED Talks on the general population. This article uses bibliometric and webometric techniques to gather data on the characteristics of TED presenters and videos and analyze the relationship between these characteristics and the subsequent impact of the videos. The results show that the presenters were predominately male and non-academics. Male-authored videos were more popular and more liked when viewed on YouTube. Videos by academic presenters were more commented on than videos by others and were more liked on YouTube, although there was little difference in how frequently they were viewed. The majority of academic presenters were senior faculty, males, from United States-based institutions, were visible online, and were cited more frequently than average for their field. However, giving a TED presentation appeared to have no impact on the number of citations subsequently received by an academic, suggesting that although TED popularizes research, it may not promote the work of scientists within the academic community. PMID:23638069

  9. Object Oriented Learning Objects in Online Education: A Framework and Example.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rincon, Lilian; Parker, Drew

    Online learning is coming of age in both postsecondary education and industry. The courses now offered online range from kinesiology to mathematics to complete M.B.A. programs. The growing popularity of online education has created a need to reduce costs without diminishing the value of the edification. In response to this need, an instructional…

  10. SHOPPING ONLINE SEBAGAI GAYA HIDUP

    OpenAIRE

    Sri Budi Lestari

    2016-01-01

    The use of internet communication technology can make the world as if in one hand makes electronic business with the concept of Online Shopping at its peak in recent years along with the development of communication technologies over theInternet.How to shop online by using the internet through computers and mobile devices is increasingly popular smartphone can even be said to have become a trend today.Various convenience of shopping be the main thing to offer, with enough gadgets ...

  11. The Impact of Online Lecture Recordings on Student Performance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Andrew; Birch, Elisa; Hancock, Phil

    2012-01-01

    The use of online lecture recordings as a supplement to physical lectures is an increasingly popular tool at many universities. This paper combines survey data with student record data for students in a "Microeconomics Principles" class to examine the relative effects of lecture attendance and online lecture recordings. The main finding…

  12. The attitudes, feelings and experiences of online gamers: a qualitative analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Hussain, Z; Griffiths, MD

    2009-01-01

    The playing of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) is now a highly popular leisure activity. The present study set out to explore the attitudes, experiences, and feelings of online gamers. The study entailed 71 interviews with online gamers (52 males, 19 females) from 11 different countries. Six main themes emerged from the analyses of the interview transcripts: (a) online gaming and integration into day-to-day lives; (b) online gaming, excessive play, and problems; (c) ...

  13. Online by design the essentials of creating information literacy courses

    CERN Document Server

    Mery, Yvonne

    2014-01-01

    As online instruction becomes more popular, librarians will want to develop the knowledge and skills needed to create an effective online information literacy course. Online by Design: The Essentials of Creating Information Literacy Courses will guide librarians as they go through the process of designing, developing, and delivering online information literacy courses. Yvonne Mery & Jill Newby offer proven techniques and tips for creating quality online courses that are engaging and effective. This handbook is perfect for instruction librarians who are interesting in developing new courses or

  14. Portrayal of smoking in Nigerian online videos: a medium for tobacco advertising and promotion?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adegoke Oloruntoba Adelufosi

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available The Nigerian home video industry, popularly known as Nollywood is a booming industry, with increasing numbers of easily accessible online videos. The aim of this study was to analyse the contents of popular Nigerian online videos to determine the prevalence of smoking imageries and their public health implications. Using specific search terms, popular English language and indigenous Yoruba language, Nigerian home videos uploaded on YouTube in 2013 were identified and sorted based on their view counts. Data on smoking related scenes such as smoking incidents, context of tobacco use, depiction of cigarette brand, gender of smokers and film rating were collected. Of the 60 online videos whose contents were assessed in this study, 26 (43.3% had scenes with cigarrete smoking imageries. The mean (SD smoking incident was 2.7 (1.6, giving an average of one smoking incident for every 26 to 27 min of film. More than half (53.8% of the films with tobacco use had high smoking imageries. An average of 2 characters per film smoked, mostly in association with acts of criminality or prostitution (57.7% and alcohol use (57.7%. There were scenes of the main protagonists smoking in 73.1% of the films with scenes of female protagonists smoking (78.9% more than the male protagonists (21.1%. Smoking imageries are common in popular Nigerian online movies. Given the wide reach of online videos, their potential to be viewed by people from different cultures and to negatively influence youngsters, it is important that smoking portrayals in online movies are controlled.

  15. Online social support networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mehta, Neil; Atreja, Ashish

    2015-04-01

    Peer support groups have a long history and have been shown to improve health outcomes. With the increasing familiarity with online social networks like Facebook and ubiquitous access to the Internet, online social support networks are becoming popular. While studies have shown the benefit of these networks in providing emotional support or meeting informational needs, robust data on improving outcomes such as a decrease in health services utilization or reduction in adverse outcomes is lacking. These networks also pose unique challenges in the areas of patient privacy, funding models, quality of content, and research agendas. Addressing these concerns while creating patient-centred, patient-powered online support networks will help leverage these platforms to complement traditional healthcare delivery models in the current environment of value-based care.

  16. Being an "Agent Provocateur": Utilising Online Spaces for Teacher Professional Development in Virtual Simulation Games

    Science.gov (United States)

    deNoyelles, Aimee; Raider-Roth, Miriam

    2016-01-01

    This article details the results of an action research study which investigated how teachers used online learning community spaces to develop and support their teaching and learning of the Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT), a web-mediated, character-playing, simulation game that engages participants with social, historical and cultural curricula.…

  17. Evaluating the Quality of Interaction in Asynchronous Discussion Forums in Fully Online Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nandi, Dip; Hamilton, Margaret; Harland, James

    2012-01-01

    Fully online courses are becoming progressively more popular because of their "anytime anywhere" learning flexibility. One of the ways students interact with each other and with the instructors within fully online learning environments is via asynchronous discussion forums. However, student engagement in online discussion forums does not…

  18. Comparing Online and Face-to-Face Teaching and Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beck, Victoria Simpson

    2010-01-01

    Online education has emerged in the 21st century as a popular alternative to traditional education. Proponents argue that online education provides opportunities for learners that they would otherwise do without (Beard & Harper, 2002; Hay, Peltier, & Drago, 2004). Opponents (see, for example, Hay et al., 2004) have argued, however, that the loss…

  19. Grit, Growth Mindset, and Deliberate Practice in Online Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    McClendon, Cristie; Neugebauer, Robin Massey; King, Amanda

    2017-01-01

    Online education continues to grow in popularity and is an attractive option for individuals of all ages, but particularly for adults who must balance work, family, and school responsibilities. Attrition rates in online courses are high for a variety of personal and institutional reasons. Some of the personal reasons attributed to retention in…

  20. Virtual Spaces: Employing a Synchronous Online Classroom to Facilitate Student Engagement in Online Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Lynn McBrien

    2009-06-01

    Full Text Available This research study is a collaborative project between faculty in social foundations, special education, and instructional technology in which we analyze student data from six undergraduate and graduate courses related to the use of a virtual classroom space. Transactional distance theory (Moore & Kearsley, 1996 operates as our theoretical framework as we explore the role of a virtual classroom in distance education and analyze the ways in which a synchronous learning environment affects students’ learning experiences. Elluminate Live! was the software employed in the virtual classroom. In this analysis, particular themes emerged related to dialogue, structure, and learner autonomy. In addition, students rated convenience, technical issues, and pedagogical preferences as important elements in their learning experiences. The article discusses these themes as a contribution to reducing the “distance” that students experience in online learning and to developing quality distance education experiences for students in higher education.

  1. Seen Any Good Movies?: Creating Space to Talk about Popular Culture.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bach, Hedy

    1997-01-01

    Argues that the concerns and reactions of young girls to popular culture often are deemed superficial and irrelevant in social studies. Recalls an incident where a 13-year-old's journal entry regarding her fascination with horror films was poorly graded. Includes transcripts of the girl talking about films. (MJP)

  2. Online professionalism and Facebook--falling through the generation gap.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osman, Ahmed; Wardle, Andrew; Caesar, Richard

    2012-01-01

    Facebook is the most popular social networking site (SNS) worldwide. The growing popularity of SNSs brings 'e-professionalism' to the forefront. To assess Facebook use, publicly accessible material and awareness of privacy guidelines and online professionalism by students, foundation year doctors (FYDs) and senior staff grades (SSGs). It was an ethical risk to access publicly available information online as many users do not appreciate the lack of privacy involved, therefore a cross-sectional survey was undertaken. Participants included 42 students, 20 FYDs and 20 SSGs from the Severn Deanery (UK). All 42 students and 20 FYDs had Facebook compared with 6 (30%) SSGs. Of these, 17 students (41%), 15 FYDs (75%) and 3 SSGs (50%) had public 'info pages'. 37 students (88%) reported colleagues behaving unprofessionally online with 16 FYDs (80%) but no SSGs. 32 students (76%) felt their professionalism was threatened online, alongside 18 FYDs (90%) and 2 SSGs (33%). Only 11 students (26%), 10 trainees (50%) and no SSGs were aware of guidelines. Professionals lack awareness of their professional vulnerability online. They are not careful in restricting access to their posted information and are not mindful that the principles of professionalism apply to SNSs.

  3. Online Health Search Experience: Sentiments from South East Asia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anushia Inthiran

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Performing an online health search is a popular activity conducted on the Internet. Research studies from developed countries provide information on source used, type of search performed and devices used to perform the search. However, the same cannot be said about the online health information searching scene in South East Asia. Online health information searching is gaining popularity in South East Asia. Citizens in these countries are turning to the Internet to obtain health information quickly. Current research studies pertaining to online health information searching in South East Asian is limited, particularly relating to search experiences of South East Asian health searchers. Search experience is pertinent asit could deter or encourage the possibility of conducting future health searches. In this research study, a user study was conducted to describe the online search experience of South East Asian health searchers. A face to face interview with 50 participants was conducted. The interview was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Results indicate participants have positive and negative search experiences. In some cases, post search outcomes influenced the search experience. Results of this research study contribute to the growing domain of knowledge in relation to online health information searching. Results of this study also provide an understanding pertaining to the search experience of South East Asian online health searchers.

  4. QRTEngine: An easy solution for running online reaction time experiments using Qualtrics

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Barnhoorn, Jonathan Sebastiaan; Haasnoot, Erwin; Bocanegra, Bruno R.; van Steenbergen, Henk

    2015-01-01

    Performing online behavioral research is gaining increased popularity among researchers in psychological and cognitive science. However, the currently available methods for conducting online reaction time experiments are often complicated and typically require advanced technical skills. In this

  5. Online communication and adolescent relationships.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subrahmanyam, Kaveri; Greenfield, Patricia

    2008-01-01

    Over the past decade, technology has become increasingly important in the lives of adolescents. As a group, adolescents are heavy users of newer electronic communication forms such as instant messaging, e-mail, and text messaging, as well as communication-oriented Internet sites such as blogs, social networking, and sites for sharing photos and videos. Kaveri Subrahmanyam and Patricia Greenfield examine adolescents' relationships with friends, romantic partners, strangers, and their families in the context of their online communication activities. The authors show that adolescents are using these communication tools primarily to reinforce existing relationships, both with friends and romantic partners. More and more they are integrating these tools into their "offline" worlds, using, for example, social networking sites to get more information about new entrants into their offline world. Subrahmanyam and Greenfield note that adolescents' online interactions with strangers, while not as common now as during the early years of the Internet, may have benefits, such as relieving social anxiety, as well as costs, such as sexual predation. Likewise, the authors demonstrate that online content itself can be both positive and negative. Although teens find valuable support and information on websites, they can also encounter racism and hate messages. Electronic communication may also be reinforcing peer communication at the expense of communication with parents, who may not be knowledgeable enough about their children's online activities on sites such as the enormously popular MySpace. Although the Internet was once hailed as the savior of education, the authors say that schools today are trying to control the harmful and distracting uses of electronic media while children are at school. The challenge for schools is to eliminate the negative uses of the Internet and cell phones in educational settings while preserving their significant contributions to education and social

  6. Resisting the Revelatory Scanner: Critical Engagements with fMRI in Popular Media

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Whiteley, Louise Emma

    2012-01-01

    deterministic perspectives, and diverts attention from non-biological ways of understanding the mind. Here, I review these critical discourses and ask whether they are reflected in popular media, through a discourse analysis of print and online reports of functional neuroimaging research deriving primarily from......, posing new questions about the rhetorical power of the scan. These findings caution against premature conclusions concerning the reductive impact of popularized neuroimages, but I also argue for caution regarding the reach and novelty of the critical engagements I observed. Finally, I argue...... that qualitative analysis of media texts is essential to understanding the developing discourse surrounding functional neuroimaging, and discuss possible implications for science communication and public engagement practice....

  7. Individual popularity, peer group popularity composition and adolescents' alcohol consumption

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gommans, R.; Müller, C.M.; Stevens, G.W.J.M.; Cillessen, A.H.N.; Bogt, T.F.M. ter

    2017-01-01

    Previous studies have convincingly shown associations between popularity and adolescent drinking. This study examined whether the popularity composition of the peer group and the relative difference in popularity between adolescents and their peers are also associated with adolescent drinking.

  8. Individual Popularity, Peer Group Popularity Composition and Adolescents? Alcohol Consumption

    OpenAIRE

    Gommans, Rob; M?ller, Christoph M.; Stevens, Gonneke W. J. M.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Ter Bogt, Tom F. M.

    2016-01-01

    Previous studies have convincingly shown associations between popularity and adolescent drinking. This study examined whether the popularity composition of the peer group and the relative difference in popularity between adolescents and their peers are also associated with adolescent drinking. Participants were 800 adolescents (M age?=?14.73; SDage?=?1.00; 51.6?% girls) from 31 classrooms who completed peer ratings of popularity and self-reports of alcohol consumption. Results showed that dri...

  9. Cidadania Digital e Participação Política: O Caso das Petições Online e do Orçamento Participativo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sónia Sebastião

    2012-05-01

    Full Text Available The profound changes in the paradigm of contemporary society resulting from the acceleration of globalization and the exponential increase of ICTs, lead us to reflect on the emergence of new participatory public spaces, fundamentally online spaces, that provide a new range of possibilities for the consolidation of democratic ideals, founded on popular sovereignty, followed by the active participation and political culture of its citizens. This article analysis two instruments of political participation used in Portugal: Online Petitions and Participatory Budget; through the use of quantitative analysis of Online Petitions and its consequences in Parliament discussion and deliberation and survey (Participatory Budget to collect citizens’ attitudes, opinions and behaviors. Framed by the concepts of digital citizenship and political participation, to a better approach to the degree of appreciation and use by the citizens. Taking to account the lake of interest in politics, and the weak participation of citizens, it is essential to understand if new instruments of institutionalized participation are appreciated by the citizens and contribute to the formation of an active citizenship.

  10. The Readability of Online Resources for Mastopexy Surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas, Christina R; Chuang, Danielle J; Lee, Bernard T

    2016-01-01

    As more patients use Internet resources for health information, there is increasing interest in evaluating the readability of available online materials. The National Institutes of Health and American Medical Association recommend that patient educational content be written at a sixth-grade reading level. This study evaluates the most popular online resources for information about mastopexy relative to average adult literacy in the United States. The 12 most popular sites returned by the largest Internet search engine were identified using the search term "breast lift surgery." Relevant articles from the main sites were downloaded and formatted into text documents. Pictures, captions, links, and references were excluded. The readability of these 100 articles was analyzed overall and subsequently by site using 10 established readability tests. Subgroup analysis was performed for articles discussing the benefits of surgery and those focusing on risks. The overall average readability of online patient information was 13.3 (range, 11.1-15). There was a range of average readability scores overall across the 12 sites from 8.9 to 16.1, suggesting that some may be more appropriate than others for patient demographics with different health literacy levels. Subgroup analysis revealed that articles discussing the risks of mastopexy were significantly harder to read (mean, 14.1) than articles about benefits (11.6). Patient-directed articles from the most popular online resources for mastopexy information are uniformly above the recommended reading level and likely too difficult to be understood by a large number of patients in the United States.

  11. Online Technology and Counseling Microskill Development: A Mixed-Methods Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelson, J. Scott

    2013-01-01

    Emergent popularity and student consumer/educational administrator demand for online technology in counselor education is also increasing the need to research its impact and potential effectiveness/ineffectiveness as a pedagogical tool. Research shows that the trend toward online coursework is likely to increase in the future and also that the new…

  12. Teaching Android Application Development in a Collaborative Online Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duggan, Louise

    2012-01-01

    Online education has gained significant popularity in recent years, and this trend is set to continue. One of the reasons for the explosion of online education is the fact that Colleges and Universities need to seek out new delivery methods and to reach out to people who cannot attend College or University. Funding and diversity of courses is also…

  13. Evaluating and Selecting Online Magazines for Children. ERIC Digest.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lu, Mei-Yu

    This Digest provides an overview of children's online magazines, also known as e-zines. It begins with a brief review of factors that contribute to the popularity of these publications, followed by a list of criteria for selecting high-quality online magazines for children. Samples of high-quality children's e-zines are also included in this…

  14. An Extended Technology Acceptance Model for Mobile Social Gaming Service Popularity Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hui Chen

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The games industry has been growing prosperously with the development of information technology. Recently, with further advances in social networks and mobile services, playing mobile social gaming has gradually changed our daily life in terms of social connection and leisure time spending. What are the determinant factors which affect users intention to play such games? Therefore in this research we present an empirical study on WeChat, China’s most popular mobile social network, and apply a technology acceptance model (TAM to study the reasons beneath the popularity of games in mobile social networks. Furthermore, factors from social and mobile perspective are incorporated into the conventional TAM and their influence and relationships are studied. Experimental study on accumulated online survey data reveals several interesting findings and it is believed that this research offers the researchers in the community further insight in analysing the current popularity and future potential of mobile social games.

  15. A NOVELTY MODEL OF ONLINE ACCOMMODATION PRESENTATION AND DISCOVERY

    OpenAIRE

    Sjekavica, Tomo; Žitnik, Marjan; Miličević, Mario

    2017-01-01

    Extreme expansion of digital technologies and social networks in recent years has had a huge impact on the travel market and online tourism. Along with the digitalization of tourism and travel business, every day more and more accommodation bookings take place online. Most popular online travel web sites are commonly charging provision for the accommodation booking and don't allow direct contact with the accommodation owners. Today tourists demand more for their money, so they are more likely...

  16. The effect of online violent video games on levels of aggression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hollingdale, Jack; Greitemeyer, Tobias

    2014-01-01

    In recent years the video game industry has surpassed both the music and video industries in sales. Currently violent video games are among the most popular video games played by consumers, most specifically First-Person Shooters (FPS). Technological advancements in game play experience including the ability to play online has accounted for this increase in popularity. Previous research, utilising the General Aggression Model (GAM), has identified that violent video games increase levels of aggression. Little is known, however, as to the effect of playing a violent video game online. Participants (N = 101) were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions; neutral video game--offline, neutral video game--online, violent video game--offline and violent video game--online. Following this they completed questionnaires to assess their attitudes towards the game and engaged in a chilli sauce paradigm to measure behavioural aggression. The results identified that participants who played a violent video game exhibited more aggression than those who played a neutral video game. Furthermore, this main effect was not particularly pronounced when the game was played online. These findings suggest that both playing violent video games online and offline compared to playing neutral video games increases aggression.

  17. Popular Glucose Tracking Apps and Use of mHealth by Latinos With Diabetes: Review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, John Patrick; Schroeder, Dirk

    2015-08-25

    Diabetes mellitus in the United States is an increasingly common chronic disease, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and contributing to hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. The prevalence of diabetes is over 50% higher in Latinos than in the general population, and this group also suffers from higher rates of complications and diabetes-related mortality than NHWs. mHealth is a promising new treatment modality for diabetes, though few smartphone apps have been designed specifically for Latinos. The objectives of our study were: (1) to identify the most common features of the most popular diabetes apps and consider how such features may be improved to meet the needs of Latinos; (2) to determine the use of diabetes apps among a sample of online Hispanics in the US. Our study consisted of two parts. First, 20 of the most popular diabetes apps were reviewed in order to ascertain the most prevalent features and functionalities. Second, an online survey was fielded through a popular health website for Latinos (HolaDoctor) inquiring about respondents' use of diabetes apps. Approximately one-third of apps reviewed were available in Spanish. The most common features were blood glucose recording/annotation and activity logs. The majority of apps permitted exportation of data via e-mail but only a third enabled uploading to an online account. Twenty percent of apps reviewed could connect directly with a glucometer, and 30% had reminder functionalities prompting patients to take medications or check blood glucose levels. Over 1600 online surveys were completed during the second half of April 2014. More than 90% of respondents were from the United States, including Puerto Rico. The majority of respondents used a device running on an Android platform while only a quarter used an iPhone. Use of diabetes apps was approximately 3% among diabetic respondents and 3.6% among diabetic respondents who also had a smartphone. Among app users, blood glucose and medication

  18. Different Keystrokes for Different Folks: Addressing Learning Styles in Online Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pinchot, Jamie; Paullet, Karen

    2014-01-01

    Online learning has become increasingly popular in recent years. This interest in online education has brought about new learning opportunities for both educators and learners. Technology has enabled higher education institutions the ability to provide quality education reaching learners that might otherwise be impossible. When developing online…

  19. Exposure to cannabis in popular music and cannabis use among adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Primack, Brian A; Douglas, Erika L; Kraemer, Kevin L

    2010-03-01

    Cannabis use is referenced frequently in American popular music, yet it remains uncertain whether exposure to these references is associated with actual cannabis use. We aimed to determine if exposure to cannabis in popular music is associated independently with current cannabis use in a cohort of urban adolescents. We surveyed all 9th grade students at three large US urban high schools. We estimated participants' exposure to lyrics referent to cannabis with overall music exposure and content analyses of their favorite artists' songs. Outcomes included current (past 30 days) and ever use of cannabis. We used multivariable regression to assess independent associations between exposures and outcomes while controlling for important covariates. Each of the 959 participants was exposed to an estimated 27 cannabis references per day [correction added on 19 January 2010, after first online publication: 40 has been changed to 27] (standard deviation = 73 [correction added on 19 January 2010, after first online publication: 104 has been changed to 73]). Twelve per cent (n = 108) were current cannabis users and 32% (n = 286) had ever used cannabis. Compared with those in the lowest tertile of total cannabis exposure in music, those in the highest tertile of exposure were almost twice as likely to have used cannabis in the past 30 days (odds ratio = 1.83; 95% confidence interval = 1.04, 3.22), even after adjusting for socio-demographic variables, personality characteristics and parenting style. As expected, however, there was no significant relationship between our cannabis exposure variable and a sham outcome variable of alcohol use. This study supports an independent association between exposure to cannabis in popular music and early cannabis use among urban American adolescents.

  20. Continued Use of a Chinese Online Portal: An Empirical Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shih, Hung-Pin

    2008-01-01

    The evolution of the internet has made online portals a popular means of surfing the internet. In internet commerce, understanding the post-adoption behaviour of users of online portals can help enterprises to attract new users and retain existing customers. For predicting continued use intentions, this empirical study focused on applying and…

  1. Giving Back: Exploring Service-Learning in an Online Learning Environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    McWhorter, Rochell R.; Delello, Julie A.; Roberts, Paul B.

    2016-01-01

    Service-Learning (SL) as an instructional method is growing in popularity for giving back to the community while connecting the experience to course content. However, little has been published on using SL for online business students. This study highlights an exploratory mixed-methods, multiple case study of an online business leadership and…

  2. Online gaming and addiction: a psychosocial investigation using mixed methods

    OpenAIRE

    Hussain, Z

    2010-01-01

    Online virtual worlds known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) have gained increased popularity over the last decade. MMORPGs provide a sophisticated environment that enables complete immersion within the virtual world to the extent that it may become an alternative reality to its users. Some researchers have suggested that online gaming addiction is growing in prevalence among adolescents and adult gamers. It has been proposed that research is needed to establish th...

  3. The Role of Popularity Goal in Early Adolescents' Behaviors and Popularity Status

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawes, Molly; Xie, Hongling

    2014-01-01

    The effect of popularity goal on the use of 3 popularity-related behaviors and later popularity status was examined in a diverse sample of 314 6th-grade students (176 girls and 138 boys) in both fall (Time 1) and spring (Time 2) semesters. Popularity goal and the use of popularity-driven behaviors (e.g., "I change the way I dress in order to…

  4. The Use of Questions in a Synchronous Intercultural Online Exchange Project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Rong

    2018-01-01

    In this digital era, online intercultural exchange has gained increased popularity in language and culture education. However, concerns arise over its productiveness and efficacy in engaging participants cognitively. In addition, there is a paucity of research on out-of-classroom synchronous online exchange projects, let alone those involving…

  5. The portrayal of migraine in popular music: observations and implications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Daniel L; Vargas, Bert B

    2012-01-01

    To describe the manner in which migraine and migaineurs are depicted in popular music. Prior studies have elucidated the ways in which the popular perception of neurological disorders is shaped by popular culture, from the inflated expectations of the prognosis of coma patients in television dramas to the association of intractable headaches with demonic possession and death by violence in the cinema. searched popular online music sites for songs with the word "migraine" in their titles. Song lyrics were studied for tone, content, and the light in which they portrayed migraine sufferers. One hundred thirty-four songs met inclusion criteria, representing the work of 126 artists. The majority of the recording artists were male (112 of 126 artists, 89%). One hundred seven of the 134 songs (80%) were recorded since 2000. Of the 79 songs that contained lyrics, 16 (20%) included explicit content; 43 (54%) make reference to hopelessness, despair, or severe pain; and 27 (34%) contained references to killing or death. Only 9 songs (11%) made any reference to successful treatment, resolution, or hope of any sort, the same number that made lyrical references to explosions or bombs. The portrayal of a disease in popular music can reflect the artist's perceptions, anxieties, and prejudices about the disease and its victims. The public, including patients, may accept these portrayals as accurate. Clinicians familiar with the portrayal of headache sufferers in cinema will not be surprised that popular musicians (both migraineurs and non-migraineurs) portray migraines as intractable, violent, and all-consuming. The lack of any balancing view is disheartening, especially in light of the advances in migraine awareness and treatment over the past decade. Perhaps the most surprising finding is that the vast majority of migraine songs are written and performed by men. © 2012 American Headache Society.

  6. On-line quantile regression in the RKHS (Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space) for operational probabilistic forecasting of wind power

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gallego-Castillo, Cristobal; Bessa, Ricardo; Cavalcante, Laura; Lopez-Garcia, Oscar

    2016-01-01

    Wind power probabilistic forecast is being used as input in several decision-making problems, such as stochastic unit commitment, operating reserve setting and electricity market bidding. This work introduces a new on-line quantile regression model based on the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space (RKHS) framework. Its application to the field of wind power forecasting involves a discussion on the choice of the bias term of the quantile models, and the consideration of the operational framework in order to mimic real conditions. Benchmark against linear and splines quantile regression models was performed for a real case study during a 18 months period. Model parameter selection was based on k-fold crossvalidation. Results showed a noticeable improvement in terms of calibration, a key criterion for the wind power industry. Modest improvements in terms of Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS) were also observed for prediction horizons between 6 and 20 h ahead. - Highlights: • New online quantile regression model based on the Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space. • First application to operational probabilistic wind power forecasting. • Modest improvements of CRPS for prediction horizons between 6 and 20 h ahead. • Noticeable improvements in terms of Calibration due to online learning.

  7. Classification of Customer Satisfaction Attributes: An Application of Online Hotel Review Analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Dong , Jian; Li , Hongxiu; Zhang , Xianfeng

    2014-01-01

    Part 3: Digital Business; International audience; With the wide penetration of Internet, online hotel reviews have become popular among travellers. Online hotel reviews also reflect customer satisfaction with hotel services. In this study we use online hotel reviews to classify the attributes of customer satisfaction with hotel services. The empirical data was collected via Daodao.com, the Chinese affiliated brand of online travel opinion website tripadvisor.com. Based on text mining and cont...

  8. Political Participation Online: The Replacement and the Mobilisation Hypotheses Revisited

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Jakob Linaa

    2013-01-01

    This article discusses the state of political participation online more than ten years after the Internet’s great popular breakthrough as an everyday medium. Denmark is used as a case study to critically re-examine the frequently discussed replacement and mobilisation hypotheses on behalf of the ...... participation, efficacy and social capital seem to have less impact on online political participation. In the end, these findings are related to more overall discussions on the democratising potential of the Internet.......This article discusses the state of political participation online more than ten years after the Internet’s great popular breakthrough as an everyday medium. Denmark is used as a case study to critically re-examine the frequently discussed replacement and mobilisation hypotheses on behalf...... of the Internet. The pure replacement hypothesis is rejected. Instead, it is found that the Internet still supplements rather than replaces other media, even among heavy Internet users. The Internet is one among several media used by ‘media omnivores’, and political participation online supplements rather than...

  9. Online space physics data services at SINP MSU

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalegaev, V.; Bobrovnikov, S.; Alexeev, I.

    A WWW-based online space physics data services are developed at Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University (SINP MSU). These services provide fast access to data, images and information on the Earth's environment collected at SINP MSU. Data available on the Internet using anonymous ftp (dbserv.sinp.msu.ru) and WWW (http://alpha.sinp.msu.ru/datasets.html is the data archive, and http://alpha.sinp.msu.ru/dataintr.html is data retrieval forms). All the data have been loaded into the Oracle database. They were carefully organized for the fastest access and search capabilities. WWW interface is based on the Apache Webserver software and PHP scripting language. PHP-based scripts have the direct access to the tables of data in the Oracle database. HTML-based self-explanatory forms provide a simple mechanism of data selection for an appropriate period of time. They enable unified access to all datasets independent on the structure of the data. Using available tools user can browse and download data.

  10. Excessive online computer use and learning disabilities

    OpenAIRE

    Griffiths, MD

    2010-01-01

    Online gaming has become a very popular leisure activity among adolescents. Research suggests that a small minority of adolescents may display problematic gaming behaviour and that some of these individuals may be addicted to online games, including those who have learning disabilities. This article begins by examining a case study of a 15-year old adolescent with a learning disability who appeared to be addicted to various computer and internet applications. Despite the potential negative ef...

  11. One Happy Union: Infusing Community-Based Learning Projects through Online Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jason W.; Kane, Jennifer; Cavanaugh, Terence

    2015-01-01

    Both community-based learning (CBL) and online learning are popular pedagogical practices, with distinct benefits and issues for teaching and learning. The integration of these practices may seem challenging, but they can be compatible. This article seeks to provide effective examples and support for conducting CBL projects in online courses while…

  12. Writing Performance of At-Risk Learners in Online Credit Recovery

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leiter, Michael P.

    2012-01-01

    Online credit recovery is becoming a popular choice for students needing to recover lost graduation credit due to course failure. The problem is that high school students who take online credit recovery classes in order to gain writing credit for graduation are failing the writing section on the state merit exam (MME). At-risk students and…

  13. FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF FOREIGN STUDENTS ONLINE RECRUITMENT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Г А Краснова

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In 2017, there have been significant changes in the state educational policy of Russia, whereby the export of education has become an important part of it. Implemented priority project “Development of export potential of Russian system of education” was started. In connection with the tasks special attention should be paid to the recruitment of foreign students, which is a fairly new activity for most national universities. In this modern information and telecommunication technologies have become an increasingly important tool in the recruitment of foreign students. The most popular tools of online recruitment are email, online calculators of training cost, videos, published on the website of the university, virtual exhibition, and virtual tours of the university campus. The article describes in detail the features and benefits of the use of these and other promising technologies of online recruitment that apply to foreign and Russian universities at the present time. It is emphasized that reliance on such technology means pushing the limits of popularity of Russian universities conducive to attracting new students and teachers.

  14. Defining popular iconic metaphor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Columbus, Peter J; Boerger, Michael A

    2002-04-01

    Popular Iconic Metaphor is added to the cognitive linguistic lexicon of figurative language. Popular Iconic Metaphors employ real or fictional celebrities of popular culture as source domains in figurative discourse. Some borders of Popular Iconic Metaphor are identified, and Elvis Presley is offered as a prototype example of a popular iconic source domain, due to his ubiquity in American popular culture, which affords his figurative usage in ways consistent with decision heuristics in everyday life. Further study of Popular Iconic Metaphors may serve to illuminate how figurative expressions emerge in their localized contexts, structure conduct and experience, and affect mediation of cultural and personal meanings.

  15. What influences buying leisure services coupons on online group buying?

    OpenAIRE

    Langvinienė, Neringa; Zemblytė, Jurgita; Sližienė, Gelminė

    2016-01-01

    Growing use of IT, laptops, tablets, PC in individuals' life shaped an opportunity to create online group buying (OGB) as a new online business model. Several of surveys show that OGB is rather popular for selling recreational activities and leisure services, such as restaurant coupons, cinema, spa, concert, flight tickets, museum visits, etc. Therefore, the paper aims to identify and estimate the influences that affect the customers to purchase the leisure services coupons on online group bu...

  16. Creating a Structured Practice Space with Online Mini-Speeches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gerbensky-Kerber, Anne

    2017-01-01

    Courses: This semester-long assignment series was developed for an online introductory public speaking class, but it has also been used successfully in a hybrid (combination of online/face-to-face meetings) format. Objectives: Students will practice delivering speeches in an online format by applying key concepts from course materials to personal…

  17. The effect of online violent video games on levels of aggression.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jack Hollingdale

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: In recent years the video game industry has surpassed both the music and video industries in sales. Currently violent video games are among the most popular video games played by consumers, most specifically First-Person Shooters (FPS. Technological advancements in game play experience including the ability to play online has accounted for this increase in popularity. Previous research, utilising the General Aggression Model (GAM, has identified that violent video games increase levels of aggression. Little is known, however, as to the effect of playing a violent video game online. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Participants (N = 101 were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions; neutral video game--offline, neutral video game--online, violent video game--offline and violent video game--online. Following this they completed questionnaires to assess their attitudes towards the game and engaged in a chilli sauce paradigm to measure behavioural aggression. The results identified that participants who played a violent video game exhibited more aggression than those who played a neutral video game. Furthermore, this main effect was not particularly pronounced when the game was played online. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These findings suggest that both playing violent video games online and offline compared to playing neutral video games increases aggression.

  18. Interactive online health promotion interventions : a “health check”

    OpenAIRE

    Duffett-Leger, Linda; Lumsden, Jo

    2008-01-01

    As an increasingly popular medium by which to access health promotion information, the Internet offers significant potential to promote (often individualized) health-related behavioral change across broad populations. Interactive online health promotion interventions are a key means, therefore, by which to empower individuals to make important well being and treatment decisions. But how ldquohealthyrdquo are interactive online health promotion interventions? This paper discusses a literature ...

  19. Towards a Conceptualization of Online Community Health

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wagner, David; Richter, Alexander; Trier, Matthias

    2014-01-01

    Along with the increasing popularity of social media and online communities in many business settings, the notion of online community health has become a common means by which community managers judge the condition or state of their communities. It has also been introduced to the literature, yet...... the concept remains underspecified and fragmented. In this paper, we work toward a construct conceptualization of online community health. Through a review of extant literature and dialogue with specialists in the field, we develop a multi-dimensional construct of online community health, consisting of seven...... elements. In writing this paper, we attempt to foster theory development around new organizational forms by advancing a new and important construct. The paper further provides guidance to the managers of social media and online communities by taking a systematic look at the well-being of their communities....

  20. Mobilizing Learning: Using Moodle and Online Tools via Smartphones

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Salim Said Al-Kindi

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The emergence of smart devices such as smartphones (e.g., iPhone and tablets (e.g., iPad may enhance e-learning by increasing communication and collaborative learning outside the classroom. These devices also facilitate the use of online technologies such as Facebook. However, the adaptation of Learning Management System (LMS services to mobile devices took longer than social networks or online tools such as Facebook and Twitter have already been long used via smartphone. The main purposes of this study are to explore students’ skill levels of LMS (Moodle and their knowledge of online tools or technologies and then examine if there is a correlation between smartphone use and using of online tools and Moodle in learning. The study conducted among 173 students in the Department of Information Studies (DIS in Oman, using online survey. The study found that most students demonstrated high levels of accessing course/subject materials and regularly engaging with studies of using LMSs. YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook were clearly recorded as the most popular sites among students while LinkedIn and Academia.edu were two online tools that had never been heard of by over half of the 142 participants. Emailing and searching are recorded the most popular online learning activities among students. The study concluded that students prefer to use smartphone for accessing these tools rather than using it to access LMSs, while a positive correlation was found between the use of these tools and smartphones, but there was no correlation between smartphones and using LMSs.

  1. Online Crowdfunding Campaign for an Independent Video Game

    OpenAIRE

    Kivikangas, Inessa

    2014-01-01

    Over the past several years online reward-model crowdfunding platforms have become a popular tool for raising funds among independent game developers. Big success of several brilliant indie titles brought to the online crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter and Indiegogo hundreds of hopeful independent developers. However, apart from creating an excellent game indie developers have to be able to reach out to their audience and capture attention of potential supporters and gaming media. Time and e...

  2. Online social network sites and social capital: a case of facebook

    OpenAIRE

    Naseri, Samaneh

    2017-01-01

    The present study is a theoretical and literary review of online social network sites and their impact on social capital. In this review, the Facebook is selected as one popular and important online social networking site in the world today. To This end, first two main concepts of social capital, bridging and bonding social capital has been provided. Next, the concept of online social networks and the impact of FB on social networks are discussed.

  3. An Empirical Study of Spam and Prevention Mechanisms in Online Video Chat Services

    OpenAIRE

    Xing, Xinyu; Ahn, Junho; Lee, Wenke; Han, Richard; Mishra, Shivakant

    2012-01-01

    Recently, online video chat services are becoming increasingly popular. While experiencing tremendous growth, online video chat services have also become yet another spamming target. Unlike spam propagated via traditional medium like emails and social networks, we find that spam propagated via online video chat services is able to draw much larger attention from the users. We have conducted several experiments to investigate spam propagation on Chatroulette - the largest online video chat web...

  4. Online and offline video game use in adolescents: measurement invariance and problem severity

    OpenAIRE

    Smohai, M; Urbán, R; Griffiths, MD; Király, O; Mirnics, Z; Vargha, A; Demetrovics, Z

    2017-01-01

    Background:\\ud \\ud Despite the increasing popularity of videogame playing, little is known about the similarities and differences between online and offline videogame players. However, the characteristics of online and offline gaming might predispose different pattern of problematic use.\\ud \\ud Objectives:\\ud \\ud The aims of this study were to (i) test applicability and the measurement invariance of the previously developed Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ) in both online and off...

  5. Readability Assessment of Online Patient Abdominoplasty Resources.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Phillips, Nicole A; Vargas, Christina R; Chuang, Danielle J; Lee, Bernard T

    2015-02-01

    Limited functional health literacy is recognized as an important contributor to health disparities in the United States. As internet access becomes more universal, there is increasing concern about whether patients with poor or marginal literacy can access understandable healthcare information. As such, the National Institutes of Health and American Medical Association recommend that patient information be written at a sixth grade level. This study identifies the most popular online resources for patient information about abdominoplasty and evaluates their readability in the context of average American literacy. The two largest internet search engines were queried for "tummy tuck surgery" to simulate a patient search in lay terms. The ten most popular sites common to both search engines were identified, and all relevant articles from the main sites were downloaded. Sponsored results were excluded. Readability analysis of the articles was performed using ten established tests. Online information about abdominoplasty from the ten most popular publically available websites had an overall average readability of 12th grade. Mean reading grade level scores among tests were: Coleman-Liau 11.9, Flesch-Kincaid 11.4, FORCAST 11.1, Fry 13, Gunning Fog 13.5, New Dale-Chall 11.8, New Fog Count 9.9, Raygor Estimate 12, and SMOG 13.4; Flesch Reading Ease index score was 46. Online patient resources about abdominoplasty are uniformly above the recommended target readability level and are likely too difficult for many patients to understand. A range of readability identified among websites could allow surgeons to guide patients to more appropriate resources for their literacy skills.

  6. Theoretically Based Pedagogical Strategies Leading to Deep Learning in Asynchronous Online Gerontology Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Majeski, Robin; Stover, Merrily

    2007-01-01

    Online learning has enjoyed increasing popularity in gerontology. This paper presents instructional strategies grounded in Fink's (2003) theory of significant learning designed for the completely asynchronous online gerontology classroom. It links these components with the development of mastery learning goals and provides specific guidelines for…

  7. Adapting Peer Review to an Online Course: An Exploratory Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knight, Linda V.; Steinbach, Theresa A.

    2011-01-01

    With demonstrated benefits to higher level learning, peer review in the classroom has been well researched and popular since at least the 1990s. However, little or no prior studies exist into the peer review process for online courses. Further, we found no prior research specifically addressing the operational aspects of online peer review. This…

  8. An exploratory study of the association between online gaming addiction and enjoyment motivations for playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games

    OpenAIRE

    Hussain, Z; Williams, GA; Griffiths, MD

    2015-01-01

    Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are a popular form of entertainment used by millions of gamers worldwide. Potential problems relating to MMORPG play have emerged, particularly in relation to being addicted to playing in such virtual environments. In the present study, factors relating to online gaming addiction and motivations for playing in MMORPGs were examined to establish whether they were associated with addiction. A sample comprised 1,167 gamers who were survey...

  9. [Problematic online gaming. A review of the literature].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagygyörgy, Katalin; Pápay, Orsolya; Urbán, Róbert; Farkas, Judit; Kun, Bernadette; Griffiths, Mark; Demetrovics, Zsolt

    2013-01-01

    In parallel with the increasing popularity of online games, researchers have reported an increasing number of problematic users. For this reason there is a growing amount of literature analyzing the effects of online games. The present review described the evolution of online games as well as their types and specific characteristics of these types. This review examines (i) the question of definition, (ii) symptoms of problematic use, (iii) the measurement instruments (iv) prevalence data, (v) issues of etiology, (vi) the results of comorbidity, and (vii) the main trends and results in the area of prevention and treatment.

  10. A Method for Efficient Searching at Online Shopping

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sanjo, Tomomi; Nagata, Moiro

    In recent years, online shopping has been popularized. However, the users can not find efficiently their items at on-line markets. This paper proposes an engine to find items easily at the online market. This engine has the following facilities. First, it presents information in a fixed format. Second, the user can find items by selected keywords. Third, it presents only necessary information by using his/her history. Finally, it has a customize function for each user. Moreover, the system asks the users to down load a page of recommended items. We show the effectives of our proposal with some experiments.

  11. Implications of Web Mercator and its Use in Online Mapping

    Science.gov (United States)

    Battersby, Sarah E.; Finn, Michael P.; Usery, E. Lynn; Yamamoto, Kristina H.

    2014-01-01

    Online interactive maps have become a popular means of communicating with spatial data. In most online mapping systems, Web Mercator has become the dominant projection. While the Mercator projection has a long history of discussion about its inappropriateness for general-purpose mapping, particularly at the global scale, and seems to have been virtually phased out for general-purpose global-scale print maps, it has seen a resurgence in popularity in Web Mercator form. This article theorizes on how Web Mercator came to be widely used for online maps and what this might mean in terms of data display, technical aspects of map generation and distribution, design, and cognition of spatial patterns. The authors emphasize details of where the projection excels and where it does not, as well as some of its advantages and disadvantages for cartographic communication, and conclude with some research directions that may help to develop better solutions to the problem of projections for general-purpose, multi-scale Web mapping.

  12. Finding the top influential bloggers based on productivity and popularity features

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khan, Hikmat Ullah; Daud, Ali

    2017-07-01

    A blog acts as a platform of virtual communication to share comments or views about products, events and social issues. Like other social web activities, blogging actions spread to a large number of people. Users influence others in many ways, such as buying a product, having a particular political or social opinion or initiating new activity. Finding the top influential bloggers is an active research domain as it helps us in various fields, such as online marketing, e-commerce, product search and e-advertisements. There exist various models to find the influential bloggers, but they consider limited features using non-modular approach. This paper proposes a new model, Popularity and Productivity Model (PPM), based on a modular approach to find the top influential bloggers. It consists of popularity and productivity modules which exploit various features. We discuss the role of each proposed and existing features and evaluate the proposed model against the standard baseline models using datasets from the real-world blogs. The analysis using standard performance evaluation measures verifies that both productivity and popularity modules play a vital role to find influential bloggers in blogging community in an effective manner.

  13. Residual-driven online generalized multiscale finite element methods

    KAUST Repository

    Chung, Eric T.

    2015-09-08

    The construction of local reduced-order models via multiscale basis functions has been an area of active research. In this paper, we propose online multiscale basis functions which are constructed using the offline space and the current residual. Online multiscale basis functions are constructed adaptively in some selected regions based on our error indicators. We derive an error estimator which shows that one needs to have an offline space with certain properties to guarantee that additional online multiscale basis function will decrease the error. This error decrease is independent of physical parameters, such as the contrast and multiple scales in the problem. The offline spaces are constructed using Generalized Multiscale Finite Element Methods (GMsFEM). We show that if one chooses a sufficient number of offline basis functions, one can guarantee that additional online multiscale basis functions will reduce the error independent of contrast. We note that the construction of online basis functions is motivated by the fact that the offline space construction does not take into account distant effects. Using the residual information, we can incorporate the distant information provided the offline approximation satisfies certain properties. In the paper, theoretical and numerical results are presented. Our numerical results show that if the offline space is sufficiently large (in terms of the dimension) such that the coarse space contains all multiscale spectral basis functions that correspond to small eigenvalues, then the error reduction by adding online multiscale basis function is independent of the contrast. We discuss various ways computing online multiscale basis functions which include a use of small dimensional offline spaces.

  14. Factors Contributing to Perceptions of Southeast Asian Learners Regarding Satisfaction and Quality in Online Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nong, Truong Duy

    2013-01-01

    Online learning, or e-learning, has become popular and grown rapidly in the past few decades, especially in higher education. In 2007, 66% of postsecondary degree-granting institutions in the United States reported offering online education. With advances in technology and the Internet, online education has the potential to reach a diverse group…

  15. Space and the American imagination

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mccurdy, Howard E.

    1994-01-01

    The introduction will set out the principal theme of the book: that the rise of the U.S. space program was due to a concerted effort by science writers, engineers, industrialists, and civic and political leaders to create a popular culture of space exploration based on important elements of American social life (such as frontier mythology, fears about the cold war, and the rise of the consumer culture). Much of the disillusionment with the NASA space program which set in during the third decade of space flight can be traced to a widening gap between popular expectations and the reality of space exploration.

  16. The Role of Semantics in Next-Generation Online Virtual World-Based Retail Store

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Geetika; Anantaram, C.; Ghosh, Hiranmay

    Online virtual environments are increasingly becoming popular for entrepreneurship. While interactions are primarily between avatars, some interactions could occur through intelligent chatbots. Such interactions require connecting to backend business applications to obtain information, carry out real-world transactions etc. In this paper, we focus on integrating business application systems with virtual worlds. We discuss the probable features of a next-generation online virtual world-based retail store and the technologies involved in realizing the features of such a store. In particular, we examine the role of semantics in integrating popular virtual worlds with business applications to provide natural language based interactions.

  17. "Pervy Role-Play and Such": Girls' Experiences of Sexual Messaging Online

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nielsen, Silja; Paasonen, Susanna; Spisak, Sanna

    2015-01-01

    Sexting is one of the recurring causes of concern in public discussion of young people and network media. This paper builds on findings from a survey with 1269 Finnish female respondents aged 11-18 conducted using a popular online community for girls on their experiences of and views on online messages concerning sex and sexuality. Sixty-five per…

  18. On the effect of taxation in the online sports betting market

    OpenAIRE

    Vidal-Puga, Juan

    2016-01-01

    We analyse the effect of taxation in the online sport betting market. This market is characterized by its negligible marginal costs. Taxation can be on volume (General Betting Duty) or on gross profit (Gross Profit Tax). We model the two most popular online sport betting bets: fixed-odds and spread, as compared with another traditional sport betting: parimutuel.

  19. Effects of subtitles, complexity, and language proficiency on learning from online education videos

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zee, van der T.; Admiraal, W.F.; Paas, F.; Saab, N.; Giesbers, B.

    2017-01-01

    Open online education has become increasingly popular. In Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) videos are generally the most used method of teaching. While most MOOCs are offered in English, the global availability of these courses has attracted many non-native English speakers. To ensure not only

  20. Communication of the popular

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Božilović Nikola

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The article deals with the problems of the communication of popular culture. It considers the more specialized meaning of popular culture, which primarily encompasses the works of artistic forms which have a popular character - easily understandable and entertaining contents and wide audience. The aesthetic communication of the popular through popular literature, film, pop and rock music is examined. The paper is divided into three parts. The first parts deals with the aesthetics of the communication of popular culture. It contains the analysis of the major formal-aesthetic procedures embedded in the creative expression of the popular. In the part which is dedicated to social aspects of the communication of popular art, the author examines the industrial, market and commercial principles upon which this whole culture is based. It is a time of new technologies and mass consumption, which represent, in the words of Eric Hobsbawm, a 'cultural landscape' that has transformed the manner in which a new audience experiences the artistic. Finally, popular culture stars are observed as communicators. The author adds them as a new, even crucial, link in the already known chain of communication comprising the author, the work and the audience. Stars (film, popular music are active factors of communication as well as its bearers. They are the intermediaries through which the audience establishes relationships with the authors (writers, directors, composers and the works in which those stars appear. Stars as 'new Olympians' (Morin are, indeed, another significant category that distinguishes the communication of popular culture.

  1. Effortless consumption : The 'Anthropologie' of a brand-focused online shopping community

    OpenAIRE

    Downing Peters, Lauren; Kurennaya, Anya

    2014-01-01

    This article examines the dynamics of the brand-focused online community blog Effortless Anthropologie, devoted to the popular retailer Anthropologie, with particular emphasis on how brand values are created, espoused and disputed by its members in a dynamic and interactive online forum. Using relevant literature on the concept of brand community, the net is expanded to capture the activities of a community that exists primarily online. We use examples of posts and commenting activity to demo...

  2. Vocação de criar: anotações sobre a cultura e as culturas populares Vocation to create: notes on culture and popular cultures

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carlos Rodrigues Brandão

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available O artigo examina diferentes dimensões da cultura e das polêmicas que envolvem o termo para dizer da(s cultura(s popular(es como derivação também controvertida. Diferentemente dos estudos sobre o eixo cultura-cultura popular, num exercício de memória, busca-se o processo de criação dos movimentos de cultura popular dos anos 1960 no Brasil para, então, aproximá-lo dos tempos atuais e mostrar como a cultura e a cultura popular foram levadas ao campo da prática política e integraram nelas um novo sentido dado à própria educação. Trata-se da discussão entre cultura e educação como espaços francamente abertos e dialógicos que se abrem à difícil e complexa arte da criação, da partilha e do intercâmbio de e entre culturas populares, do papel do saber e da reprodução do saber como questão substantiva no eixo entre cultura e educação.This article examines different dimensions of culture and the controversies surrounding this term when used to refer to "popular culture(s";. Unlike studies on the axis culture-popular culture, an attempt is made to return to the beginning of the Brazilian popular culture movements in 60's, in order to bring them closer to the present time. In doing so, it will be possible to show how culture and popular culture were taken to the field of political praxis, integrating in them a new meaning given to education itself. The discussion points out that a substantive issue to be considered is if culture and education are conceived as spaces overtly open and dialogical in nature, typical of the difficult and complex art of creating, sharing and interchanging of (and between popular cultures the role of knowledge and of the knowledge reproduction.

  3. Comprendiendo la aparición de los protocolos sociales en MySpace: impacto y ramificaciones Understanding the Emergence of Social Protocols on MySpace: Impact and its Ramifications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiesun Cecilia Suhr

    2010-03-01

    Full Text Available En los últimos años, MySpace ha sido crucial para promover el aumento de los seguidores de músicos independientes y ha representado un papel muy importante a la hora de ayudar a artistas populares a mantener las comunidades de fans. La popularidad de MySpace ha ido acompañada del establecimiento de protocolos sociales que han permitido a los músicos establecer vínculos entre ellos de una manera eficaz y exitosa. Estos protocolos han servido de inspiración para publicar varios libros (como «MySpace Music Profit Monster!: Proven Online Marketing Strategies!» de Nicky Kalliongis con consejos y estrategias para los músicos. Si bien, algunos de estos protocolos pretenden conocer el aspecto tecnológico de MySpace, otros protocolos están directamente relacionados con el aprendizaje de una manera particular de conexión en red a través de MySpace. Además, estas prácticas son consideradas un trabajo serio, ya que requieren mucho tiempo y habilidades de conexión en red para lograr un cierto nivel de éxito, es decir, aumentar el número de amigos en la red personal. Así que, en este artículo, se analizan los protocolos sociales emergentes en MySpace como una forma de trabajo afectivo e inmaterial. La autora sostiene que la implementación de algunos consejos, como los proporcionados por expertos en MySpace, posiblemente pueda tener un efecto regresivo en las prácticas de los músicos en redes sociales, ya que podrían estandarizarizarse y volverse repetitivas. En conjunto, este artículo describe la evolución de My - Space, sobre todo en lo que respecta a la decreciente popularidad del sitio como una tendencia actual.Over the recent years, MySpace has been vital to fostering the growth of independent musicians’ followings and have played critical roles in helping mainstream artists maintain fan communities. The popularity of MySpace has been accompanied by the establishment of social protocols which allow musicians to network with

  4. Popular "Problems": Deviantization and Teachers' Curation of Popular Music

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kallio, Alexis Anja

    2017-01-01

    Despite many music classrooms welcoming popular musics in striving towards an inclusive and democratic education, there has been relatively little research into teachers' decisions regarding which popular musics are included and which are excluded from classroom activities. This is of particular interest taking into account arguments that the…

  5. Demographic Composition of the Online Buyers in Turkey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sinan NARDALI

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available Demographic variables may have an impact on Internet usage patterns. Online buyers’ characteristics keeps changing time along with the shifting dynamics of Turkish consumers’ demographic profile and day by day online shopping becomes a safe and popular option in Turkey. Current study investigates demographic composition of the online buyers that influence consumer attitudes towards online shopping behavior in Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey. This study examines attitudes toward online shopping and provides a better understanding of the potential of online buyers for both researchers and practitioners. The study is based on an empirical research work, and a convenience sample of 400. Frequencies, descriptive statistics, and One-Way ANOVA tests were used in the analysis of data. The study shows that Turkish Internet consumer segment is relatively young, well educated, in mid economic status and professions associated with Internet more than five years.

  6. Recommendations to increase customer conversion rates through website optimization and online marketing Case company: RCS Training Center

    OpenAIRE

    Bogdanova, Daria

    2016-01-01

    The goal of this thesis is to establish effective online marketing strategy for a small B2C wellness studio. The commissioning company RCS Training Center wishes to attract more customers through their website and social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram. This objective is justified by the popularity of the wellness and fitness niche online, which creates big market potential in the homeland and internationally. However, popularity also means high competition. A lack of experience i...

  7. Understanding the Online : Jewellery Retail Market : an integrated model to conduct SEM

    OpenAIRE

    Wu, Yihong

    2013-01-01

    Research into e-commerce is becoming more and more popular; however the jewellery industry is somewhat special. There are very few studies having adapted a strategic marketing perspective on the online jewellery retail market. This study suggested an integrated online marketing strategy which focuses on the search engine marketing (SEM) approach. A detailed procedure of conducting search engine marketing (SEM) is introduced. Through the method of online questionnaires, with the help of soc...

  8. Greeting You Online: Selecting Web-Based Conferencing Tools for Instruction in E-Learning Mode

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Judy

    2014-01-01

    Academic distance learning programs have gained popularity and added to the demand for online library services. Librarians are now conducting instruction for distance learning students beyond their traditional work. Technology advancements have enhanced the delivery mode in distance learning across academic disciplines. Online conference tools…

  9. At-Risk High School Students Recovering Course Credits Online: What We Know and Need to Know

    Science.gov (United States)

    Viano, Samantha L.

    2018-01-01

    The majority of American high school students enrolling in online education are doing so in credit recovery courses. These are online courses specifically for students who previously failed a face-to-face version of the course. Despite the popularity of credit recovery courses, the literature on online learning largely ignores credit recovery…

  10. Balancing Work, Family, and Student Roles: A Phenomenological Study of the Adult Female Graduate Online Learner

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rousseau, Charlene X.

    2012-01-01

    The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain an understanding of the lived experiences of female adult learners pursuing graduate degrees online. As online graduate programs have become increasingly popular and more readily available in the last decade, more women than men are enrolling in online graduate programs in addition to…

  11. Online sequential condition prediction method of natural circulation systems based on EOS-ELM and phase space reconstruction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Hanying; Gao, Puzhen; Tan, Sichao; Tang, Jiguo; Yuan, Hongsheng

    2017-01-01

    Highlights: •An online condition prediction method for natural circulation systems in NPP was proposed based on EOS-ELM. •The proposed online prediction method was validated using experimental data. •The training speed of the proposed method is significantly fast. •The proposed method can achieve good accuracy in wide parameter range. -- Abstract: Natural circulation design is widely used in the passive safety systems of advanced nuclear power reactors. The irregular and chaotic flow oscillations are often observed in boiling natural circulation systems so it is difficult for operators to monitor and predict the condition of these systems. An online condition forecasting method for natural circulation system is proposed in this study as an assisting technique for plant operators. The proposed prediction approach was developed based on Ensemble of Online Sequential Extreme Learning Machine (EOS-ELM) and phase space reconstruction. Online Sequential Extreme Learning Machine (OS-ELM) is an online sequential learning neural network algorithm and EOS-ELM is the ensemble method of it. The proposed condition prediction method can be initiated by a small chunk of monitoring data and it can be updated by newly arrived data at very fast speed during the online prediction. Simulation experiments were conducted on the data of two natural circulation loops to validate the performance of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the proposed predication model can successfully recognize different types of flow oscillations and accurately forecast the trend of monitored plant variables. The influence of the number of hidden nodes and neural network inputs on prediction performance was studied and the proposed model can achieve good accuracy in a wide parameter range. Moreover, the comparison results show that the proposed condition prediction method has much faster online learning speed and better prediction accuracy than conventional neural network model.

  12. Korean Online Game's Platform Competition under Two-Sided Market Characteristic

    OpenAIRE

    SeonJun Kang; Sang-Yong Tom Lee

    2014-01-01

    While the growth of total game market size slowed down and the arcade game industry started to shrink, the online game market keeps increasing, attaining 26.5% annual growth rate for the early 2010's. Korea's online game business is especially popular, so that the size is about US$ 4 billion, which is 64.2% of Korea's total game industry. In 2013, Game market size and online game market size were estimated to be about US$ 9 billion and US$ 7 billion, respectively. From a standpoint of sales, ...

  13. Examining relations between locus of control, loneliness, subjective well-being, and preference for online social interaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ye, Yinghua; Lin, Lin

    2015-02-01

    The unprecedented popularity of online communication has raised interests and concerns among the public as well as in scholarly circles. Online communications have pushed people farther away from one another. This study is a further examination of the effects of online communications on well-being, in particular: Locus of control, Loneliness, Subjective well-being, and Preference for online social interaction. Chinese undergraduate students (N = 260; 84 men, 176 women; M age = 20.1 yr., SD = 1.2) were questioned about demographic information and use of social media as well as four previously validated questionnaires related to well-being. Most participants used QQ, a popular social networking program, as the major channel for online social interactions. Locus of control was positively related to Loneliness and Preference for online social interaction, but negatively related to Subjective well-being; Loneliness (positively) and Subjective well-being (negatively) were related to Preference for online social interaction; and Loneliness and Subjective well-being had a full mediating effect between the relationships of Locus of control and Preference for online social interaction. The findings of the study showed that more lonely, unhappy, and externally controlled students were more likely to be engaged in online social interaction. Improving students' locus of control, loneliness, and happiness may help reduce problematic Internet use.

  14. Online Fan Practices and CALL

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sauro, Shannon

    2017-01-01

    This article provides a narrative overview of research on online fan practices for language and literacy learning, use, and identity work. I begin with an introduction to online fan communities and common fan practices found in these online affinity spaces, the best known of which is fan fiction, fictional writing that reinterprets and remixes the…

  15. CliniSpace: a multiperson 3D online immersive training environment accessible through a browser.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dev, Parvati; Heinrichs, W LeRoy; Youngblood, Patricia

    2011-01-01

    Immersive online medical environments, with dynamic virtual patients, have been shown to be effective for scenario-based learning (1). However, ease of use and ease of access have been barriers to their use. We used feedback from prior evaluation of these projects to design and develop CliniSpace. To improve usability, we retained the richness of prior virtual environments but modified the user interface. To improve access, we used a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach to present a richly immersive 3D environment within a web browser.

  16. Understanding on-line community: the affordances of virtual space

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karen Ruhleder

    2002-01-01

    Full Text Available Increasing numbers of on-line venues for learning are emerging as virtual communities become more accessible and commonplace. This paper looks at one particular virtual community, an on-line degree programme at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which offers an M.S. in Library and Information Science (called LEEP. It draws on a framework presented by Mynatt, et al. (1998, which provides a lens for talking about on-line community as a set of affordances. This framework is applied to illustrate the interactions, artefacts, and expectations that shape this community.

  17. Creation of a Unified Educational Space within a SLA University Classroom Using Cloud Storage and On-Line Applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karabayeva, Kamilya Zhumartovna

    2016-01-01

    In the present article the author gives evidence of effective application of cloud storage and on-line applications in the educational process of the higher education institution, as well as considers the problems and prospects of using cloud technologies in the educational process, when creating a unified educational space in the foreign language…

  18. Innovating with customers online : A comparative study of European customers’ motives to co-create

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Constantinides, Efthymios; Lorenzo Romero, Carlota; Del Chiappa, Giacomo

    2018-01-01

    Online co-creation is popular due to the easy interaction with large numbers of customers on a global scale; increasingly, online customers are willing to spend time and effort on business innovation processes as a way to influence the development of products and services. Finding and attracting the

  19. Building online worlds

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Toft-Nielsen, Claus

    2013-01-01

    The fantasy genre has proven to be extremely durable in creating blockbuster successes across multiple media platforms, such as books, films, tabletop and especially online computer games. Currently 85 % of all Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are situated in fantasy...... universes (Van Geel, 2012). This paper will focus on the far most popular fantasy-MMORPG to date, namely World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) as a lens to examine the different potentials of the fantasy genre spanning across various media platforms. Using the concept of “worldness”, traditionally understood...... as a specific textual quality (Klastrup, 2009; Krzywinska, 2008; Pearce, 2009), I argue that understanding it as an experiential quality of the engagement with and reception of a fantasy media text, opens up for a boarder understanding of the fantasy function as a blockbuster genre: The fantasy media matrix...

  20. Science Popularization: Interdiscursivity among Science, Pedagogy, and Journalism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Désirée Motta-Roth

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Scientific discourse produced by and for specialists reaches, by means of science popularization (SP, the public sphere of the media, envolving displacements in time, space, and discourse. This hybridization between science and journalism generates scientific journalism, which aims at popularizing science and making it comprehensible, thus performing a pedagogical function. We consider this process as discourse recontextualization from the scientific to the journalistic spheres, mediated by a pedagogic discourse. We argue, in this paper, that SP news texts and scientific articles are members of the same genre system that makes scientific discourse relatively visible to the general public. Firstly, we identify our theoretical framework, the concept we adopt for SP, genre system and recontextualization. Secondly, we explore interdiscursivity in one exemplar of the SP news genre, highlighting the existing relations between science, journalism, and pedagogy in this genre.

  1. An online survey of chiropractors' opinions of continuing education

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Smith Dean L

    2005-10-01

    completing a part-time online master's degree (or online combined with face-to-face interaction appears to be popular among respondents, with a M.Sc. in Chiropractic Sciences being the most popular of those mentioned. Online surveys are a viable method of obtaining opinion in a cost and time efficient manner; there are some sources of bias involved in this type of research, and numerous steps need to be taken to obtain a suitable response rate.

  2. Being an online celebrity: Norms and expectations of YouTube’s beauty community

    OpenAIRE

    García-Rapp, Florencia; Roca-Cuberes, Carles

    2017-01-01

    This paper is based on 22 months of online fieldwork examining YouTube’s beauty community, specifically the beauty guru Bubz, her uploaded content, and user comments. We aim to conceptualize central community-specific dynamics and practices, particularly those related to self-presentation and identity management and their affordances for legitimized online popularity. We explain how the guru’s successful online persona is based on a performative blend of relatable, down-to-earth values paired...

  3. Design for success: Identifying a process for transitioning to an intensive online course delivery model in health professions education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McDonald, Paige L; Harwood, Kenneth J; Butler, Joan T; Schlumpf, Karen S; Eschmann, Carson W; Drago, Daniela

    2018-12-01

    Intensive courses (ICs), or accelerated courses, are gaining popularity in medical and health professions education, particularly as programs adopt e-learning models to negotiate challenges of flexibility, space, cost, and time. In 2014, the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership (CRL) at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences began the process of transitioning two online 15-week graduate programs to an IC model. Within a year, a third program also transitioned to this model. A literature review yielded little guidance on the process of transitioning from 15-week, traditional models of delivery to IC models, particularly in online learning environments. Correspondingly, this paper describes the process by which CRL transitioned three online graduate programs to an IC model and details best practices for course design and facilitation resulting from our iterative redesign process. Finally, we present lessons-learned for the benefit of other medical and health professions' programs contemplating similar transitions. CRL: Department of Clinical Research and Leadership; HSCI: Health Sciences; IC: Intensive course; PD: Program director; QM: Quality Matters.

  4. A Probabilistic Analysis of Data Popularity in ATLAS Data Caching

    CERN Document Server

    Titov, M; The ATLAS collaboration; Záruba, G; De, K

    2012-01-01

    Efficient distribution of physics data over ATLAS grid sites is one of the most important tasks for user data processing. ATLAS' initial static data distribution model over-replicated some unpopular data and under-replicated popular data, creating heavy disk space loads while underutilizing some processing resources due to low data availability. Thus, a new data distribution mechanism was implemented, PD2P (PanDA Dynamic Data Placement) within the production and distributed analysis system PanDA that dynamically reacts to user data needs, basing dataset distribution principally on user demand. Data deletion is also demand driven, reducing replica counts for unpopular data. This dynamic model has led to substantial improvements in efficient utilization of storage and processing resources. Based on this experience, in this work we seek to further improve data placement policy by investigating in detail how data popularity is calculated. For this it is necessary to precisely define what data popularity means, wh...

  5. Disk storage management for LHCb based on Data Popularity estimator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hushchyn, Mikhail; Charpentier, Philippe; Ustyuzhanin, Andrey

    2015-12-01

    This paper presents an algorithm providing recommendations for optimizing the LHCb data storage. The LHCb data storage system is a hybrid system. All datasets are kept as archives on magnetic tapes. The most popular datasets are kept on disks. The algorithm takes the dataset usage history and metadata (size, type, configuration etc.) to generate a recommendation report. This article presents how we use machine learning algorithms to predict future data popularity. Using these predictions it is possible to estimate which datasets should be removed from disk. We use regression algorithms and time series analysis to find the optimal number of replicas for datasets that are kept on disk. Based on the data popularity and the number of replicas optimization, the algorithm minimizes a loss function to find the optimal data distribution. The loss function represents all requirements for data distribution in the data storage system. We demonstrate how our algorithm helps to save disk space and to reduce waiting times for jobs using this data.

  6. Disk storage management for LHCb based on Data Popularity estimator

    CERN Document Server

    INSPIRE-00545541; Charpentier, Philippe; Ustyuzhanin, Andrey

    2015-12-23

    This paper presents an algorithm providing recommendations for optimizing the LHCb data storage. The LHCb data storage system is a hybrid system. All datasets are kept as archives on magnetic tapes. The most popular datasets are kept on disks. The algorithm takes the dataset usage history and metadata (size, type, configuration etc.) to generate a recommendation report. This article presents how we use machine learning algorithms to predict future data popularity. Using these predictions it is possible to estimate which datasets should be removed from disk. We use regression algorithms and time series analysis to find the optimal number of replicas for datasets that are kept on disk. Based on the data popularity and the number of replicas optimization, the algorithm minimizes a loss function to find the optimal data distribution. The loss function represents all requirements for data distribution in the data storage system. We demonstrate how our algorithm helps to save disk space and to reduce waiting times ...

  7. Disk storage management for LHCb based on Data Popularity estimator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hushchyn, Mikhail; Charpentier, Philippe; Ustyuzhanin, Andrey

    2015-01-01

    This paper presents an algorithm providing recommendations for optimizing the LHCb data storage. The LHCb data storage system is a hybrid system. All datasets are kept as archives on magnetic tapes. The most popular datasets are kept on disks. The algorithm takes the dataset usage history and metadata (size, type, configuration etc.) to generate a recommendation report. This article presents how we use machine learning algorithms to predict future data popularity. Using these predictions it is possible to estimate which datasets should be removed from disk. We use regression algorithms and time series analysis to find the optimal number of replicas for datasets that are kept on disk. Based on the data popularity and the number of replicas optimization, the algorithm minimizes a loss function to find the optimal data distribution. The loss function represents all requirements for data distribution in the data storage system. We demonstrate how our algorithm helps to save disk space and to reduce waiting times for jobs using this data. (paper)

  8. Talkin' 'bout the ghetto: popular culture and urban imaginaries of immobility

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jaffe, R.

    2012-01-01

    The concept of the ghetto, referring to specifically urban experiences of sociospatial marginalization, has played a prominent role in black popular culture. This article explores the role of the ghetto as a discursive space of immobility and traces its global journey as a mobile imaginary. Focusing

  9. Preparing for Online Teaching: Web-Based Assessment and Communication Skills in K12

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeNisco, Alison

    2013-01-01

    Students are doing less hand-raising and more clicking as online classes become increasingly popular in K12 instruction, both in combination with brick-and-mortar classrooms and in independent full-time virtual schools. With online instruction comes a change in the nature of teaching, communicating with, and assessing students. As schools move to…

  10. Physician rating websites: do radiologists have an online presence?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilbert, Kirven; Hawkins, C Matthew; Hughes, Danny R; Patel, Kishen; Gogia, Navdeep; Sekhar, Aarti; Duszak, Richard

    2015-08-01

    Given that patient satisfaction and provider transparency intersect on online physician-rating websites, we aimed to assess radiologist representation on these increasingly popular sites. From a directory of all Medicare participating physicians, we randomly selected 1,000 self-designated diagnostic radiologists and manually extracted their rating information from five popular online physician-review websites (HealthGrades, Healthcare Reviews, RateMDs, Kudzu, and Yelp). Using automated web "data-scraping" techniques, we separately extracted all radiologist and nonradiologist rating information from a single amenable site (Healthcare Reviews). Rating characteristics were analyzed. Of 1,000 sampled self-designated diagnostic radiologists representing all 50 states, only 197 (19.7%) were profiled on any of the five online physician-review websites. Only 24 (2.4%) were rated on two of the sites, and none was profiled on ≥3 sites. Of all 6,775 physicians listed on a single electronically interrogated site, only 30 (0.4%) were radiologists. With 28,555 (5.2%) of all 547,849 Medicare-participating physicians identified as diagnostic radiologists, radiologists were thus significantly underrepresented online (P < .0001). Although reviewed radiologists and nonradiologists were rated online by similar numbers of patients (1.13 ± 0.43 versus 1.03 ± 0.22, P = .22), radiologists were rated (on a low to high score of 1 to 10) significantly higher than nonradiologists (median 8.5 versus 5, P = .04). Most diagnostic radiologists are not profiled on common online physician-rating websites, and they are significantly underrepresented compared with nonradiologists. Reviewed radiologists, however, scored favorably. Given the potential for patient satisfaction scores and public domain information to affect referrals and future value-based payments, initiatives to enhance radiologists' online presence are advised. Copyright © 2015 American College of Radiology. Published by

  11. Induced attitude change on online gaming among adolescents: an application of the less-leads-to-more effect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiou, Wen-Bin

    2008-04-01

    The negative impact of Internet use on adolescents has received much popular attention and has also become a popular research topic. How to induce adolescent players to change their attitudes toward online gaming is one of the most important issues in online gaming addiction. The present study is based on the less-leads-to-more effect of dissonance theory. Experimental research was conducted to examine the effects of rewards and decision freedom on attitude change toward online gaming among adolescents considered at risk for addiction. The results supported predictions based on external justification in dissonance theory. Specifically, fewer rewards produced greater attitude change toward online gaming in the condition of personal freedom of choice after participants exhibited attitude-discrepant behavior. However, the less-leads-to-more effect was not prominent in the condition without personal freedom of choice. Adopting a reward strategy to induce game players to disengage online gaming is discussed.

  12. Readability of Online Materials for Rhinoplasty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santos, Pauline Joy F; Daar, David A; Paydar, Keyianoosh Z; Wirth, Garrett A

    2018-01-01

    Rhinoplasty is a popular aesthetic and reconstructive surgical procedure. However, little is known about the content and readability of online materials for patient education. The recommended grade level for educational materials is 7th to 8th grade according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This study aims to assess the readability of online patient resources for rhinoplasty. The largest public search engine, Google, was queried using the term "rhinoplasty" on February 26, 2016. Location filters were disabled and sponsored results excluded to avoid any inadvertent search bias. The 10 most popular websites were identified and all relevant, patient-directed information within one click from the original site was downloaded and saved as plain text. Readability was analyzed using five established analyses (Readability-score.com, Added Bytes, Ltd., Sussex, UK). Analysis of ten websites demonstrates an average grade level of at least 12 th grade. No material was at the recommended 7 th to 8 th grade reading level (Flesch-Kincaid, 11.1; Gunning-Fog, 14.1; Coleman-Liau, 14.5; SMOG 10.4; Automated Readability, 10.7; Average Grade Level, 12.2). Overall Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease Index was 43.5, which is rated as "difficult." Online materials available for rhinoplasty exceed NIH-recommended reading levels, which may prevent appropriate decision-making in patients considering these types of surgery. Outcomes of this study identify that Plastic Surgeons should be cognizant of available online patient materials and make efforts to develop and provide more appropriate materials. Readability results can also contribute to marketing strategy and attracting a more widespread interest in the procedure.

  13. Modeling the Propagation of Trojan Malware in Online Social Networks

    OpenAIRE

    Faghani, Mohammad Reza; Nugyen, Uyen Trang

    2017-01-01

    The popularity and widespread usage of online social networks (OSN) have attracted cyber criminals who have used OSNs as a platform to spread malware. Among different types of malware in OSNs, Trojan is the most popular type with hundreds of attacks on OSN users in the past few years. Trojans infecting a user's computer have the ability to steal confidential information, install ransomware and infect other computers in the network. Therefore, it is important to understand propagation dynamics...

  14. Public and popular history

    CERN Document Server

    De Groot, Jerome

    2013-01-01

    This interdisciplinary collection considers public and popular history within a global framework, seeking to understand considerations of local, domestic histories and the ways they interact with broader discourses. Grounded in particular local and national situations, the book addresses the issues associated with popular history in a globalised cultural world, such as: how the study of popular history might work in the future; new ways in which the terms 'popular' and 'public' might inform one another and nuance scholarship; transnational, intercultural models of 'pastness'; cultural translat

  15. Communicating with the Online Student: The Impact of E-Mail Tone on Student Performance and Teacher Evaluations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dickinson, Amber

    2017-01-01

    Students are more commonly completing coursework online and as such many professors teach online courses. Due to the popularity of online courses and the need for professors to teach in a format varying from the traditional classroom setting, it is important to evaluate whether or not certain teaching approaches, such as establishing rapport,…

  16. A study on online learner profile for supporting personalized learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jie Yang

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Digital learning as a popular learning approach has received increasing attention in modern education. The learner profile in online learning plays a critical role in supporting personalized learning. This article uses an information flow-based approach to build the learner profile for supporting personalized learning. The learner profile includes the individual profile to capture the personal features and the community profile to capture the social features in online learning environment.

  17. Temporal Pattern of Online Communication Spike Trains in Spreading a Scientific Rumor: How Often, Who Interacts with Whom?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ceyda eSanli

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available We study complex time series (spike trains of online user communication while spreading messages about the discovery of the Higgs boson in Twitter. We focus on online social interactions among users such as retweet, mention, and reply, and construct different types of active (performing an action and passive (receiving an action spike trains for each user. The spike trains are analyzed by means of local variation, to quantify the temporal behavior of active and passive users, as a function of their activity and popularity. We show that the active spike trains are bursty, independently of their activation frequency. For passive spike trains, in contrast, the local variation of popular users presents uncorrelated (Poisson random dynamics. We further characterize the correlations of the local variation in different interactions. We obtain high values of correlation, and thus consistent temporal behavior, between retweets and mentions, but only for popular users, indicating that creating online attention suggests an alignment in the dynamics of the two interactions.

  18. The Effect of Online Violent Video Games on Levels of Aggression

    OpenAIRE

    Hollingdale, Jack; Greitemeyer, Tobias

    2014-01-01

    BACKGROUND: In recent years the video game industry has surpassed both the music and video industries in sales. Currently violent video games are among the most popular video games played by consumers, most specifically First-Person Shooters (FPS). Technological advancements in game play experience including the ability to play online has accounted for this increase in popularity. Previous research, utilising the General Aggression Model (GAM), has identified that violent video games increase...

  19. Blending Online Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lisa C. Yamagata-Lynch

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available In this article I will share a qualitative self-study about a 15-week blended 100% online graduate level course facilitated through synchronous meetings on Blackboard Collaborate and asynchronous discussions on Blackboard. I taught the course at the University of Tennessee (UT during the spring 2012 semester and the course topic was online learning environments. The primary research question of this study was: How can the designer/instructor optimize learning experiences for students who are studying about online learning environments in a blended online course relying on both synchronous and asynchronous technologies? I relied on student reflections of course activities during the beginning, middle, and the end of the semester as the primary data source to obtain their insights regarding course experiences. Through the experiences involved in designing and teaching the course and engaging in this study I found that there is room in the instructional technology research community to address strategies for facilitating online synchronous learning that complement asynchronous learning. Synchronous online whole class meetings and well-structured small group meetings can help students feel a stronger sense of connection to their peers and instructor and stay engaged with course activities. In order to provide meaningful learning spaces in synchronous learning environments, the instructor/designer needs to balance the tension between embracing the flexibility that the online space affords to users and designing deliberate structures that will help them take advantage of the flexible space.

  20. The attitudes, feelings, and experiences of online gamers: a qualitative analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussain, Zaheer; Griffiths, Mark D

    2009-12-01

    The playing of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) is now a highly popular leisure activity. The present study set out to explore the attitudes, experiences, and feelings of online gamers. The study entailed 71 interviews with online gamers (52 males, 19 females) from 11 different countries. Six main themes emerged from the analyses of the interview transcripts: (a) online gaming and integration into day-to-day lives; (b) online gaming, excessive play, and problems; (c) addiction; (d) psychosocial impact of online gaming; (e) online gaming, dissociation, and time loss; and (f) online gaming and the alleviation of negative feelings and mood states. These findings specifically showed how gamers used MMORPGs to alleviate negative feelings and provided detailed descriptions of personal problems that had arisen due to playing MMORPGs. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to previous qualitative and quantitative research in the area.

  1. New Technologies, Same Ideologies: Learning from Language Revitalization Online

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, Irina

    2017-01-01

    Ease of access, production, and distribution have made online technologies popular in language revitalization. By incorporating multimodal resources, audio, video, and games, they attract indigenous communities undergoing language shift in hopes of its reversal. However, by merely expanding language revitalization to the web, many language…

  2. Comparison Shopping Agents and Czech Online Customers’ Shopping Behaviour

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pilik Michal

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The internet has changed the lifestyles and shopping behaviours of customers. Online purchasing enables people to obtain information about products and services provided more effectively and easily, with the result that home shopping has become ordinary and usual. This paper presents part of a research focusing on online shopping customers’ behaviour in the Czech Republic. The article pertains to comparison shopping agents (CPAs, a tool which provides information to customers and helps find the best offer. The research was conducted on the basis of an online questionnaire available on an internet web page. The main results confirmed a dependency between online purchasing and the use of shopping agents, which are very popular in the Czech Republic. Almost two-thirds of online shoppers use CPAs when they engage in internet shopping. The final part of the paper addresses references and customers’ reviews as an important factor for the selection of online retailer.

  3. Temporal dynamics of online petitions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Böttcher, Lucas; Woolley-Meza, Olivia; Brockmann, Dirk

    2017-01-01

    Online petitions are an important avenue for direct political action, yet the dynamics that determine when a petition will be successful are not well understood. Here we analyze the temporal characteristics of online-petition signing behavior in order to identify systematic differences between popular petitions, which receive a high volume of signatures, and unpopular ones. We find that, in line with other temporal characterizations of human activity, the signing process is typically non-Poissonian and non-homogeneous in time. However, this process exhibits anomalously high memory for human activity, possibly indicating that synchronized external influence or contagion play and important role. More interestingly, we find clear differences in the characteristics of the inter-event time distributions depending on the total number of signatures that petitions receive, independently of the total duration of the petitions. Specifically, popular petitions that attract a large volume of signatures exhibit more variance in the distribution of inter-event times than unpopular petitions with only a few signatures, which could be considered an indication that the former are more bursty. However, petitions with large signature volume are less bursty according to measures that consider the time ordering of inter-event times. Our results, therefore, emphasize the importance of accounting for time ordering to characterize human activity.

  4. Betting patterns for sports and races: a longitudinal analysis of online wagering in Australia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gainsbury, Sally M; Russell, Alex

    2015-03-01

    Online wagering is increasing in popularity as it is easily accessible through websites which market these services widely. However, few studies have examined online betting based on actual behavioural data. This paper describes the results of an analysis of 2,522,299 bets placed with an Australian online wagering operator over a 1-year period. The majority of bets placed were for a win (45.31 %) and were placed on races (86.74 %) or sports (11.29 %). Sports betting was dominated by ball sports, reflecting popular interest in these events. More than three-quarters (77.63 %) of the bets were losses and there was large variation in bet size between bet types and events bet on although average bets were higher than in previously reported studies. The most popular bets placed to win, had a relatively high rate of losses and lowest average returns, which may reflect less sophisticated betting behaviour. More specific handicap and total bets were placed by fewer customers, but were larger bets with the greatest returns. Similarly, bets placed on less popular sporting events had greater average returns potentially reflecting greater customer sophistication and knowledge raising the possibility of a proportion of bettors being more 'skilled'. As the first paper to analyze the types of bets placed on events and outcomes the results support the notion that wagering is an entertainment activity, and the majority of customers are motivated by factors other than simply winning money.

  5. The Space for Social Media in Structured Online Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salmon, Gilly; Ross, Bella; Pechenkina, Ekaterina; Chase, Anne-Marie

    2015-01-01

    In this paper, we explore the benefits of using social media in an online educational setting, with a particular focus on the use of Facebook and Twitter by participants in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) developed to enable educators to learn about the Carpe Diem learning design process. We define social media as digital social tools and…

  6. Of watchdogs and safe havens: control mechanisms and/in online sacred spaces

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander Darius Ornella

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available ‘Die große Schlacht. Der Hass des Satans auf Benedikt XVI. Non prae­valebunt’ is the headline of an article the Austrian-based and Catholic news portal, kath.net, published in early June 2012. It is about how badly and unfairly the media treat the Catholic Church and its official representatives in the wake of the so-called ‘Vatileaks’ scandal and it reasons that Satan is behind the attacks of the media, society, popular culture, on saintly figures such as Pope Benedict XVI. ‘Gegen die Diktatur des Relativismus’ is another article published on the same platform in the context of a conference hosted by the Catholic Heiligenkreuz monastery. On the forum kath.net, powerful language is employed to draw the faithful in, to make them feel themselves to be safe within a community of like-minded people in the midst of turmoil. News portals and message boards such as kath.net create safe spaces within a world whose culture, values, and morals are not only not understood but despised. The analysis is informed by critical discourse analysis and based on Paul Ricœur’s understanding of narratives and how narratives create worlds. As a first step, the concept of space and Ricœur’s understanding of narrative identity are discussed. After an introduction to the news portal kath.net, a close reading of some articles shows how these safe spaces are created and guarded. To conclude, a reflection on the implications of the self-understanding of kath.net and some of its user base on the understanding of hierarchy and the role of theology in the Church, is provided.

  7. INIS retrieval service, towards on-line

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ebinuma, Yukio; Komatsubara, Yasutoshi

    1983-01-01

    Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute executes the retrieval service of INIS atomic energy information by batch system in cooperation with Genshiryoku Kozaikai. This service is very popular to the users in whole Japan, but the demand of on-line service has increased recently. Therefore, it was decided to begin the INIS on-line service from January, 1984, through the on-line information retrieval system of the Japan Information Center of Science and Technology. It is expected that when the operation will be started, the utilization of INIS atomic energy information in Japan will drastically increase. Also Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute has carried out the retrieval service by on-line system for those in the institute besides the batch system, accordingly, at this opportunity, the state of utilization of both systems and their distinction to use effectively, and the operation and the method of utilization of the on-line information retrieval system of JICST are explained. In the on-line system, the users are accessible to the data base themselves, and immediate information retrieval is possible, while in the batch system, the related information can be retrieved without fail, and the troublesome operation of equipment is not necessary. (Kako, I.)

  8. CSR communication through online social media

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Araceli Castelló-Martínez, Ph.D.

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have become essential channels in business strategies. Corporate Social Responsibility communication faces new challenges in these spaces of the Web 2.0, where companies can interact with users, generate a brand community, increase their visibility, and strengthen their position in the market. This research study aims to analyse the way companies use the major online social media to communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility programmes. The methodology involves the examination of the presence in online social platforms and the online corporate reputation of ten companies/brands. The results show that companies use these spaces as channels for business and advertising communication, but not so much for Corporate Social Responsibility communication, despite these social media offer many possibilities for interaction and dialogue.

  9. How to attract customers and develop online shop’s marketing? : Case: Baby Care

    OpenAIRE

    Zhu, Xiaomeng; Wang, Xu

    2015-01-01

    The main purpose of this study was to find out suitable marketing strategy for our online shop which is named Baby Care selling baby products mainly. As ‘E-Commerce’ calls growing rapidly in China, online shops pattern is slowly recognized and accepted by consumers. Baby products’ marketing also becomes more and more popular and competitive. Today our online shop with traditional retailers is not only to partake in network counterparts, but also, it occupies a place to implement. Thus we need...

  10. The Influence of Popular Culture and Entertainment Media on Adult Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Patricia M.

    2007-01-01

    The idea that popular culture and entertainment media influence us in both conscious and unconscious ways is not new. The use of alternative spaces, such as internet sites, for creating entertainment will continue to influence society and challenge educators. The importance of the internet was reflected in Time magazine's choosing YOU (meaning the…

  11. Nebulous networks: Virginia Woolf and popular astronomy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henry, Holly Grace

    This study investigates Virginia Woolf's fascination with advances in astronomy and telescopic technologies of the 1920s and 30s. Grounded in the cultural studies of science, and the work of theorists such as Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, the dissertation reconstructs the complex interconnections between Woolf's fiction and prose writing and an explosive popular interest in astronomy and cosmology. Woolf's aesthetic and political practices were shaped by emerging visualization technologies ranging from astronomical telescopes to the hand-held camera. While her writing provides a focus for this investigation, the dissertation offers close readings of fiction and essays by multiple British authors and science writers in the context of these converging phenomena. As a result of glimpsing tiny worlds through her own telescope, Virginia Woolf formulated a global aesthetic and a global politics. Gazing at the moon and stars reminded her that earth is a planet in space, and that earth's inhabitants must rely on this small, fragile globe for their future survival. The opening chapter establishes the cultural context for the study. In 1923, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble determined that the Andromeda galaxy was located far beyond the limits of the Milky Way, then believed to comprise the entire universe. Hubble's radical reconfiguration of the universe contributed to a pervasive sense, in the modern period, of a decentering and re-scaling of humans in the universe. In the chapters that follow, the dissertation offers readings of Woolf's novels and short fiction in relation to her fascination with astronomy and explores how the wildly popular British cosmologist and science writer, Sir James jeans, had a shaping effect on popular culture and on Woolf's narrative practices and pacifist politics. Despite his oblique connections to what became Bloomsbury, jeans and his popular science texts were to play a considerable role in Woolf's formulation of a global aesthetic.

  12. Aesthetic quality inference for online fashion shopping

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ming; Allebach, Jan

    2014-03-01

    On-line fashion communities in which participants post photos of personal fashion items for viewing and possible purchase by others are becoming increasingly popular. Generally, these photos are taken by individuals who have no training in photography with low-cost mobile phone cameras. It is desired that photos of the products have high aesthetic quality to improve the users' online shopping experience. In this work, we design features for aesthetic quality inference in the context of online fashion shopping. Psychophysical experiments are conducted to construct a database of the photos' aesthetic evaluation, specifically for photos from an online fashion shopping website. We then extract both generic low-level features and high-level image attributes to represent the aesthetic quality. Using a support vector machine framework, we train a predictor of the aesthetic quality rating based on the feature vector. Experimental results validate the efficacy of our approach. Metadata such as the product type are also used to further improve the result.

  13. The Ethics of Online Touristic Counselling: A Matter of Users Satisfaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gabriel Cristian Sabou

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available The large expansion of internet popularity affected, tough in different degrees, almost all sectors of life. Tourism makes no exception, the travel agencies being nowadays confronted with the necessity of keeping the pace with the new technology. Airline companies - and the transport companies in general, oriented by these changes, created online divisions specialized in direct sales towards the final consumer. Thus, many traditional travel agencies were determined to move their activities in the virtual space, partially or totally. Abundant online information communicated by tourism agencies or simple people sharing their experiences about tourism destinations all over the world made changes in consumer behaviour. Many reviews are objective, but in the same time many are written in order to denigrate the competition and others are written by special people hired especially for promoting some resorts or hotels on travel blogs. A great number of companies from various sectors of economy prefer this type of advertising because it is very efficient and involves less financial resources than other forms of promotion. In tourism sector as well, managers often hire specialized personnel, recognized and credible in online environment, for posting positive reviews and comments on different sites or blogs in order to create notoriety and a better image of the touristic services offered. Hence, in order to identify the way tourists perceive the influence of online counselling when deciding for a touristic package or a touristic destination, a quantitative research has been deployed for this purpose, its results being presented in the current paper. Thus, as the analysis shows, despite the large use of Internet when getting informed about a future trip, users are aware that reviews and advices posted online are not very objective.

  14. Can You Hear Me Now? The Impact of Voice in an Online Gaming Community

    Science.gov (United States)

    Williams, Dmitri; Caplan, Scott; Xiong, Li

    2007-01-01

    This paper reports the results of a controlled field experiment in which voice communication was introduced into an existing online community (online gaming guilds within the popular game "World of Warcraft"), comparing a mix of voice and text with text only. Quantitative results suggest increases in liking and trust due to the addition of voice,…

  15. Online dating in Japan: a test of social information processing theory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farrer, James; Gavin, Jeff

    2009-08-01

    This study examines the experiences of past and present members of a popular Japanese online dating site in order to explore the extent to which Western-based theories of computer-mediated communication (CMC) and the development of online relationships are relevant to the Japanese online dating experience. Specifically, it examines whether social information processing theory (SIPT) is applicable to Japanese online dating interactions, and how and to what extent Japanese daters overcome the limitations of CMC through the use of contextual and other cues. Thirty-six current members and 27 former members of Match.com Japan completed an online survey. Using issue-based procedures for grounded theory analysis, we found strong support for SIPT. Japanese online daters adapt their efforts to present and acquire social information using the cues that the online dating platform provides, although many of these cues are specific to Japanese social context.

  16. Real-time on-line space research laboratory environment monitoring with off-line trend and prediction analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jules, Kenol; Lin, Paul P.

    2007-06-01

    With the International Space Station currently operational, a significant amount of acceleration data is being down-linked, processed and analyzed daily on the ground on a continuous basis for the space station reduced gravity environment characterization, the vehicle design requirements verification and science data collection. To help understand the impact of the unique spacecraft environment on the science data, an artificial intelligence monitoring system was developed, which detects in near real time any change in the reduced gravity environment susceptible to affect the on-going experiments. Using a dynamic graphical display, the monitoring system allows science teams, at any time and any location, to see the active vibration disturbances, such as pumps, fans, compressor, crew exercise, re-boost and extra-vehicular activities that might impact the reduced gravity environment the experiments are exposed to. The monitoring system can detect both known and unknown vibratory disturbance activities. It can also perform trend analysis and prediction by analyzing past data over many increments (an increment usually lasts 6 months) collected onboard the station for selected disturbances. This feature can be used to monitor the health of onboard mechanical systems to detect and prevent potential systems failures. The monitoring system has two operating modes: online and offline. Both near real-time on-line vibratory disturbance detection and off-line detection and trend analysis are discussed in this paper.

  17. The extent of use of online pharmacies in Saudi Arabia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Norah Abanmy

    2017-09-01

    Conclusion: The popularity of purchasing medicines over the Internet is still low in Saudi Arabia. However, because the majority of respondents are willing to purchase medicines online, efforts should be made by the Saudi FDA to set regulations and monitor this activity.

  18. Towards a deep understanding of malware propagation in online social networks

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yan, Guanhua [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Eidenbenz, Stephan [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Chen, Guanling [U OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL; Li, Nan [U OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL

    2009-01-01

    Online social networks, which have been expanding at a blistering speed in the recent years, have emerged as a popular communication infrastructure for Internet users. Meanwhile, malware that specifically targets these online social networks are also on the rise. In this work, we aim to investigate the characteristics of malware propagation in online social networks. Our study is based on a dataset collected from a real-world location-based online social network. We analyze the social structure and user activity patterns of this network. We further use extensive trace-driven simulation to study the impact of initial infection, user click probability, social structure, and activity patterns on malware propagation in online social networks. The results from this work has greatly deepened our understanding of the nature of online social network malware and also shed light on how to defend against them effectively.

  19. Zoning Issues and Area of Interest Management in Massively Multiplayer Online Games

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Dewan Tanvir; Shirmohammadi, Shervin

    Game is a way of entertainment, a means for excitement, fun and socialization. Online games have achieved popularity due to increasing broadband adoption among consumers. Relatively cheap bandwidth Internet connections allow large number of players to play together. Since the introduction of Network Virtual Environment (NVE) in 1980s for military simulation, many interesting applications have been evolved over the past few decades. Massively multiplayer online (role-playing) game, MMOG or MMORPG, is a new genre of online games that has emerged with the introduction of Ultima since 1997. It is a kind of online computer game with the participation of hundreds of thousands of players in a virtual world.

  20. Your Face(book) and MySpace: Let's Hook Up

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gay, P. L.; Foster, T.

    2008-06-01

    In the public social network venues of MySpace and Facebook, individuals of all ages and nationalities look for like-minded online denizens with whom they can build relationships. Through social networking sites, it is possible for EPO programs to bring together diverse individuals to laugh, learn, and socialize around pet projects and favorite topics. Astronomy is popular among these people, with over 5000 members of the MySpace community listing ``astronomy'' as an interest. By building interesting MySpace and Facebook profiles for your programs, you can plug into the intellectual and social hunger of these individuals. In this workshop, we will discuss the tricks for creating an interesting profile, how to hide such weirdnesses as age and zodiacal sign, and the proper netiquette for nurturing large friends lists and building large communities. Specific emphasis will be given to using Facebook to build one-on-one relationships with program volunteers and students, and how to use MySpace as a way to distribute program announcements to large populations. We will also address the issues of contacting minors, and coping with stalkers and crazies. Come learn how to reach people who already want to learn and love the cosmos, and are just waiting to hear what you have to share.

  1. USING THE US EXPERIENCE OF ONLINE AND HYBRID EDUCATION IN UKRAINIAN UNIVERSITIES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ірина Задорожна

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article investigates the best practices of the US universities on providing hybrid and online education that can be implemented at Ukrainian universities which experience lack of finances and a decrease in student enrollment. Basic factors of online and hybrid courses popularity are analysed (flexibility; accessibility, especially for students with special needs; saving time; convenience; motivation as students often feel less stressed in a virtual classroom than in a face-to-face environment. The main challenges of online and hybrid learning (faculty training and professional development for online education (in terms of pedagogy, communication and technology, supporting student learning in the online environment, and creating an efficient and interactive online learning community are defined in the article. Hybrid courses are regarded as such that promote some equivalence between digital and live communication.

  2. Residual-driven online generalized multiscale finite element methods

    KAUST Repository

    Chung, Eric T.; Efendiev, Yalchin R.; Leung, Wing Tat

    2015-01-01

    In the paper, theoretical and numerical results are presented. Our numerical results show that if the offline space is sufficiently large (in terms of the dimension) such that the coarse space contains all multiscale spectral basis functions that correspond to small eigenvalues, then the error reduction by adding online multiscale basis function is independent of the contrast. We discuss various ways computing online multiscale basis functions which include a use of small dimensional offline spaces.

  3. Exploring Engaging Gamification Mechanics in Massive Online Open Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Jen-Wei; Wei, Hung-Yu

    2016-01-01

    Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have developed rapidly and become tremendously popular because of their plentiful gamification designs, such as reputation points, rewards, and goal setting. Although previous studies have mentioned a broad range of gamification designs that might influence MOOC learner engagement, most gamified MOOCs fail to…

  4. Online Networks as Societies : User Behaviors and Contribution Incentives

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Jia, L.

    2013-01-01

    Online networks like email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, eBay, and BitTorrent-like Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems have become popular and powerful infrastructures for communication. They involve potentially large numbers of humans with their collective inputs and decisions, and they often rely on the

  5. Technofetishism and Online Education: Globalizing Geography through Virtual Worlds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bose, Pablo S.

    2014-01-01

    Online education is becoming an increasingly popular venture for postsecondary institutions. It is an often controversial undertaking with proponents lauding the possibilities of technological advancements to increase access to education, while critics question the value and form of pedagogy on offer. This paper examines the potential and problems…

  6. Designing ee-Learning Environments: Lessons from an Online Workshop

    Science.gov (United States)

    Godwin, Lindsey; Kaplan, Soren

    2008-01-01

    Based on their work leading three experiential, online workshops with over 180 participants from around the world, Lindsey Godwin and Soren Kaplan share reflections on designing and conducting successful ee-learning courses. The workshops sought to translate a popular face-to-face seminar in appreciative inquiry, an increasingly popular…

  7. Quit playing games with my heart: Understanding online dating scams

    OpenAIRE

    Huang, J. M.; Stringhini, G.; Yong, P.

    2015-01-01

    © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015. Online dating sites are experiencing a rise in popularity, with one in five relationships in the United States starting on one of these sites. Online dating sites provide a valuable platform not only for single people trying to meet a life partner, but also for cybercriminals, who see in people looking for love easy victims for scams. Such scams span from schemes similar to traditional advertisement of illicit services or goods (i.e., spam...

  8. Are we in Sync? Synchronization Requirements for Watching Online Video Together

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    D. Geerts (David); I. Vaishnavi (Ishan); R.N. Mekuria (Rufael); M.O. van Deventer (Oskar); P.S. Cesar Garcia (Pablo Santiago)

    2011-01-01

    htmlabstractSynchronization between locations is an important factor for enabling remote shared experiences. Still, experimental data on what is the acceptable synchronization level is scarce. This paper discusses the synchronization requirements for watching online videos together - a popular set

  9. A Preliminary Evaluation of Instructional Effectiveness of Online Training Implemented at a Government Agency in Thailand

    Science.gov (United States)

    Supanakorn-Davila, Supawan; Bolliger, Doris U.

    2012-01-01

    Online training has become popular in the professional development of government employees in Thailand. One large government agency developed an online program to provide training to its employees across the country using two systems: an Internet and Intranet-based system. With the new program implemented, the evaluation of the instructional…

  10. A Study of Malware Propagation via Online Social Networking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Faghani, Mohammad Reza; Nguyen, Uyen Trang

    The popularity of online social networks (OSNs) have attracted malware creators who would use OSNs as a platform to propagate automated worms from one user's computer to another's. On the other hand, the topic of malware propagation in OSNs has only been investigated recently. In this chapter, we discuss recent advances on the topic of malware propagation by way of online social networking. In particular, we present three malware propagation techniques in OSNs, namely cross site scripting (XSS), Trojan and clickjacking types, and their characteristics via analytical models and simulations.

  11. Building scientific institution’s brand with online instruments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barbara Mróz-Gorgoń

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The brand image is fundamental for the scientific institution. In the high- competitive market the brand may have a significant impact on students decisions but also the decisions made by other stakeholders. The usage of online tools in creating brands and the brand awareness is standard nowdays and is present in many business strategies. The aim of the article is to present the problem on the example of scientific institutions. Based on literature review and empirical study the authors described the usage of most popular online tools in creating the scientific institutions’ brands.

  12. Analysing 'super-participation' in online third spaces

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Graham, Todd; Wright, Scott; Cantijoch, Marta; Gibson, Rachel; Ward, Stephen

    2014-01-01

    This chapter focuses on our attempts to overcome the methodological challenges of 'super-participation' in online discussion forums, focusing on the participatory patterns and discursive activity of what we call 'super-participants'. Our principal contribution in this area (Graham and Wright 2013)

  13. The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews

    OpenAIRE

    Dina Mayzlin; Judith A. Chevalier

    2003-01-01

    The creation of online consumer communities to provide product reviews and advice has been touted as an important, albeit somewhat expensive component of Internet retail strategies. In this paper, we characterize reviewer behavior at two popular Internet sites and examine the effect of consumer reviews on firms' sales. We use publicly available data from the two leading online booksellers, Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com, to construct measures of each firm's sales of individual books. We al...

  14. Graduate Student Library Research Skills: Is Online Instruction Effective?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shaffer, Barbara A.

    2011-01-01

    Graduate students are a significant segment in online instruction programs, yet little is known about how well they learn the necessary library research skills in this increasingly popular mode of distance learning. This pre- and posttest study and citation analysis examined learning and confidence among students in graduate education programs,…

  15. Gaya Bahasa Berita Media Online di Indonesia: Judul Menarik Tidak Harus Tidak Baku

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mariani Dewi

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Online media faces the challenge the urgency of news delivery, fierce competition in capturing audience attention, and changing of audience demography toward younger audience. So, media workers are required to use various means to attract Internet readers. One of the ways is using simpler and more popular language in delivering the news. This study tries to find out if it prompts online news media to undermine formal language because the use of popular words that are still not accepted by Indonesia's language authority and the type of nonformal language used. Research used quantitave approach to analyze the usage frequency of nonstandardized language by two major online media in Indonesia: detik.com and kompas.com, and case study to analyze the nonstandardized titles used. Study concludes that detik.com used considerably higher percentage of nonstandardized words compared to kompas.com. In one day, around 5% of the news titles published by www.detik.com contained one or more nonstandardized words; while less than 0.002% of kompas.com's news title used nonstandarized words. Judging from the popularity of kompas.com, it can be assumed that interesting and attractive titles can still be written without nonstandardized language. Furthermore, the nonstandardized words used were mixed from foreign languages, local dialects as well as slangs usually used by youth. This assumption will be used as hypotheses for further study. 

  16. Use of social media and online tools for participative space education and citizen science in India: Perspectives of future space leaders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khan, Aafaque; Sridhar, Apoorva

    2012-07-01

    The previous decade saw the emergence of internet in the new avatar popularly known as Web 2.0. After its inception, Internet (also known as Web 1.0) remained centralized and propriety controlled; the information was displayed in form of static pages and users could only browse through these pages connected via URLs (Unique Resource Locator), links and search engines. Web 2.0, on the other hand, has features and tools that allow users to engage in dialogue, interact and contribute to the content on the World Wide Web. As a Result, Social Media has become the most widely accepted medium of interactive and participative dialogue around the world. Social Media is not just limited to Social Networking; it extends from podcasts, webcasts, blogs, micro-blogs, wikis, forums to crowd sourcing, cloud storage, cloud computing and Voice over Internet Protocol. World over, there is a rising trend of using Social Media for Space Education and Outreach. Governments, Space Agencies, Universities, Industry and Organizations have realized the power of Social Media to communicate advancement of space science and technology, updates on space missions and their findings to the common man as well as to the researchers, scientists and experts around the world. In this paper, the authors intend to discuss, the perspectives, of young students and professionals in the space industry on various present and future possibilities of using Social Media in space outreach and citizen science, especially in India and other developing countries. The authors share a vision for developing Social Media platforms to communicate space science and technology, along innovative ideas on participative citizen science projects for various space based applications such as earth observation and space science. Opinions of various young students and professionals in the space industry from different parts of the world are collected and reflected through a comprehensive survey. Besides, a detailed study and

  17. Hotel Online Marketing: The Bugibba Hotel, Radisson Blu Resort Malta, St. Julian's, Preluna Hotel & SPA

    OpenAIRE

    Dinh Quynh, Mai

    2013-01-01

    The thesis covers the study of online marketing theory, a very popular trend of marketing nowadays, especially Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Google Adwords Campaign in the analyses of the online marketing practices of three hotels from different areas and standards in Malta, namely The Bugibba Hotel, Preluna Hotel & SPA and Radisson Blu Resort Malta, St. Julian’s. From the analyses, the thesis aims at suggesting Preluna Hotel & SPA optimal online marketing practices and answering t...

  18. De-Virtualizing Social Events: Understanding the Gap between Online and Offline Participation for Event Invitations

    OpenAIRE

    Huang, Ai-Ju; Wang, Hao-Chuan; Yuan, Chien Wen

    2013-01-01

    One growing use of computer-based communication media is for gathering people to initiate or sustain social events. Although the use of computer-mediated communication and social network sites such as Facebook for event promotion is becoming popular, online participation in an event does not always translate to offline attendance. In this paper, we report on an interview study of 31 participants that examines how people handle online event invitations and what influences their online and offl...

  19. Online games as a medium of cultural communication: An ethnographic study of socio-technical transformation

    OpenAIRE

    Chee, Florence

    2012-01-01

    This dissertation explores the place and meaning of online games in everyday life. In South Korea, online games are a prominent part of popular culture and this medium has come under public criticism for various societal ills, such as Internet addiction and a hopeless dependence upon online games. Humanistic accounts of Information-Communication Technology (ICT) usage are still a minority body of research. All too often, studies of engagement with technology reduce questions to their basic va...

  20. Nutrition content of food and beverage products on Web sites popular with children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lingas, Elena O; Dorfman, Lori; Bukofzer, Eliana

    2009-11-01

    We assessed the nutritional quality of branded food and beverage products advertised on 28 Web sites popular with children. Of the 77 advertised products for which nutritional information was available, 49 met Institute of Medicine criteria for foods to avoid, 23 met criteria for foods to neither avoid nor encourage, and 5 met criteria for foods to encourage. There is a need for further research on the nature and extent of food and beverage advertising online to aid policymakers as they assess the impact of this marketing on children.

  1. OJPOT: Online Judge & Practice Oriented Teaching Idea in Programming Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Gui Ping; Chen, Shu Yu; Yang, Xin; Feng, Rui

    2016-01-01

    Practical abilities are important for students from majors including Computer Science and Engineering, and Electrical Engineering. Along with the popularity of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM/ICPC) and other programming contests, online judge (OJ) websites achieve rapid development, thus providing a new kind of programming…

  2. The Pedagogical, Linguistic, and Content Features of Popular English Language Learning Websites in China: A Framework for Analysis and Design

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kettle, Margaret; Yuan, Yifeng; Luke, Allan; Ewing, Robyn; Shen, Huizhong

    2012-01-01

    As increasing numbers of Chinese language learners choose to learn English online, there is a need to investigate popular websites and their language learning designs. This paper reports on the first stage of a study that analyzed the pedagogical, linguistic, and content features of 25 Chinese English Language Learning (ELL) websites ranked…

  3. Security Design Flaws That Affect Usability in Online Banking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gurlen, Stephanie

    2013-01-01

    As the popularity of online banking Websites has increased, the security of these sites has become increasingly critical as attacks against these sites are on the rise. However, the design decisions made during construction of the sites could make usability more difficult, where the user has difficulty making good security decisions. This study…

  4. Online plagiarism training falls short in biology classrooms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holt, Emily A; Fagerheim, Britt; Durham, Susan

    2014-01-01

    Online plagiarism tutorials are increasingly popular in higher education, as faculty and staff try to curb the plagiarism epidemic. Yet no research has validated the efficacy of such tools in minimizing plagiarism in the sciences. Our study compared three plagiarism-avoidance training regimens (i.e., no training, online tutorial, or homework assignment) and their impacts on students' ability to accurately discriminate plagiarism from text that is properly quoted, paraphrased, and attributed. Using pre- and postsurveys of 173 undergraduate students in three general ecology courses, we found that students given the homework assignment had far greater success in identifying plagiarism or the lack thereof compared with students given no training. In general, students trained with the homework assignment more successfully identified plagiarism than did students trained with the online tutorial. We also found that the summative assessment associated with the plagiarism-avoidance training formats (i.e., homework grade and online tutorial assessment score) did not correlate with student improvement on surveys through time.

  5. Nurses' online behaviour: lessons for the nursing profession.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Green, Janet

    2017-06-01

    Social networking is popular online activity; however, like many activities on the internet, there are some privacy risks and concerns associated with its use. Recently, an increasing number of nurses have been censured or asked to appear before regulatory or registering authorities for unprofessional behaviour on social media sites. Problem behaviours identified include: inappropriate content and postings, crossing professional boundaries and breaching patient privacy and confidentiality. This discussion paper aims to give the nursing profession an understanding of how their online behaviour can impact on their professionalism, and how they can avoid problematic situations when using social media (Facebook). This exploratory discussion paper will inform a study researching nurses' online behaviour. Social media is here to stay and nurses need to navigate the complexities of the boundaries between the personal and the professional. Nurses need to learn to balance the growing usefulness of social media, with the legalities and etiquette of the online environment.

  6. Online Plagiarism Training Falls Short in Biology Classrooms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holt, Emily A.; Fagerheim, Britt; Durham, Susan

    2014-01-01

    Online plagiarism tutorials are increasingly popular in higher education, as faculty and staff try to curb the plagiarism epidemic. Yet no research has validated the efficacy of such tools in minimizing plagiarism in the sciences. Our study compared three plagiarism-avoidance training regimens (i.e., no training, online tutorial, or homework assignment) and their impacts on students’ ability to accurately discriminate plagiarism from text that is properly quoted, paraphrased, and attributed. Using pre- and postsurveys of 173 undergraduate students in three general ecology courses, we found that students given the homework assignment had far greater success in identifying plagiarism or the lack thereof compared with students given no training. In general, students trained with the homework assignment more successfully identified plagiarism than did students trained with the online tutorial. We also found that the summative assessment associated with the plagiarism-avoidance training formats (i.e., homework grade and online tutorial assessment score) did not correlate with student improvement on surveys through time. PMID:24591507

  7. General Purpose Data-Driven Online System Health Monitoring with Applications to Space Operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iverson, David L.; Spirkovska, Lilly; Schwabacher, Mark

    2010-01-01

    Modern space transportation and ground support system designs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex. Determining the health state of these systems using traditional parameter limit checking, or model-based or rule-based methods is becoming more difficult as the number of sensors and component interactions grows. Data-driven monitoring techniques have been developed to address these issues by analyzing system operations data to automatically characterize normal system behavior. System health can be monitored by comparing real-time operating data with these nominal characterizations, providing detection of anomalous data signatures indicative of system faults, failures, or precursors of significant failures. The Inductive Monitoring System (IMS) is a general purpose, data-driven system health monitoring software tool that has been successfully applied to several aerospace applications and is under evaluation for anomaly detection in vehicle and ground equipment for next generation launch systems. After an introduction to IMS application development, we discuss these NASA online monitoring applications, including the integration of IMS with complementary model-based and rule-based methods. Although the examples presented in this paper are from space operations applications, IMS is a general-purpose health-monitoring tool that is also applicable to power generation and transmission system monitoring.

  8. Agents of Popular Sovereignty

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wolkenstein, Fabio

    2018-01-01

    Popular sovereignty requires that citizens perceive themselves as being able to act and implement decisions and be causally connected to mechanisms of decision-making. I argue that the two most common understandings of the exercise of popular sovereignty — which centre on direct decision making...... by the people as a whole and the indirect exercise of democratic agency by elected representatives, respectively — are inadequate in this respect, and go on to suggest a complementary account that stresses the central role of internally democratic and participatory political parties in actualising popular...... sovereignty. The argument defended contends that popular sovereignty ceases to be a mere fiction only when the people are active makers of decisions and not just passive recipients of the decisions of others; and they can only be active decision-makers when they engage in internally democratic parties...

  9. Improving KPCA Online Extraction by Orthonormalization in the Feature Space.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Souza Filho, Joao B O; Diniz, Paulo S R

    2018-04-01

    Recently, some online kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) techniques based on the generalized Hebbian algorithm (GHA) were proposed for use in large data sets, defining kernel components using concise dictionaries automatically extracted from data. This brief proposes two new online KPCA extraction algorithms, exploiting orthogonalized versions of the GHA rule. In both the cases, the orthogonalization of kernel components is achieved by the inclusion of some low complexity additional steps to the kernel Hebbian algorithm, thus not substantially affecting the computational cost of the algorithm. Results show improved convergence speed and accuracy of components extracted by the proposed methods, as compared with the state-of-the-art online KPCA extraction algorithms.

  10. Sources of Popular Literature Online: New York Times Information Bank and the Magazine Index.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kelly, Alex M.; Slade, Rod

    1979-01-01

    A comparison of the Magazine Index (MI) and the New York Times Information Bank (IB) showed the two data bases have little in common, mainly due to differences in focus, indexing, vocabulary, use online, and output. For business and government users, IB is the best choice; for more general and academic purposes, MI provides access to more…

  11. Behavioral Correlates of Prioritizing Popularity in Adolescence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van den Broek, Nina; Deutz, Marike H F; Schoneveld, Elke A; Burk, William J; Cillessen, Antonius H N

    2016-12-01

    Little is known about individual differences in adolescents' motivation to achieve and maintain popularity. This study examined the moderating effects of prioritizing popularity on the associations between popularity and adjustment outcomes in late adolescence. Participants were 314 Dutch eleventh-grade students (M age  = 16.83 years; 52 % male) who completed measures of popularity, prioritizing popularity, and prosocial, antisocial, and risk behaviors. It was hypothesized that associations between popularity and adjustment outcomes are stronger for adolescents who prioritize popularity. The results indicate that the combination of being popular and valuing popularity was strongly related to antisocial and risk behaviors, but not to prosocial behaviors. Adolescents' social status motivations thus play an important role in the association of popularity with antisocial and risk behaviors in late adolescence.

  12. Exploring the Effectiveness of Online Education in K-12 Environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heafner, Tina L., Ed.; Hartshorne, Richard, Ed.; Petty, Teresa, Ed.

    2015-01-01

    The integration of technology in classrooms is rapidly emerging as a way to provide more educational opportunities for students. As virtual learning environments become more popular, evaluating the impact of this technology on student success is vital. "Exploring the Effectiveness of Online Education in K-12 Environments" combines…

  13. Spontaneous emergence of social influence in online systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Onnela, Jukka-Pekka; Reed-Tsochas, Felix

    2010-10-26

    Social influence drives both offline and online human behavior. It pervades cultural markets, and manifests itself in the adoption of scientific and technical innovations as well as the spread of social practices. Prior empirical work on the diffusion of innovations in spatial regions or social networks has largely focused on the spread of one particular technology among a subset of all potential adopters. Here we choose an online context that allows us to study social influence processes by tracking the popularity of a complete set of applications installed by the user population of a social networking site, thus capturing the behavior of all individuals who can influence each other in this context. By extending standard fluctuation scaling methods, we analyze the collective behavior induced by 100 million application installations, and show that two distinct regimes of behavior emerge in the system. Once applications cross a particular threshold of popularity, social influence processes induce highly correlated adoption behavior among the users, which propels some of the applications to extraordinary levels of popularity. Below this threshold, the collective effect of social influence appears to vanish almost entirely, in a manner that has not been observed in the offline world. Our results demonstrate that even when external signals are absent, social influence can spontaneously assume an on-off nature in a digital environment. It remains to be seen whether a similar outcome could be observed in the offline world if equivalent experimental conditions could be replicated.

  14. The Influence Of Nursing In The Development Of Popular Education In Health

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maurício Caxias de Souza

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Objective: analyze the scientific publications focusing on Popular Health Education available in online journals indexed in the Virtual Health Library (VHL, in the period from 2007 to 2017. Method: it is an integrative review of current literature, descriptive of quantitative approach. It was used as LILACS database and the SCIELO Virtual Library, with the following Health Sciences Descriptors (DECs: Health Education; Health Promotion; Community Health Nursing. For article selection criteria: be related to health education; authorship of health professionals; and have been published between the years 2007 to 2017. 09 articles were selected. Results: we noticed a greater number of studies published in the year 2010/2012, produced by nurses and multidisciplinary academics in the Portuguese language. Conclusion: nursing must persist in search of social transformation from Popular Education in Health, encouraging and creating favorable ties for your event. The plurality of knowledge should be more valued and education encouraged as a process of social self-formation, through the creation of Public Policies focused on this theme. Descriptors: Health Education. Health Promotion. Community Health Nursing.

  15. Popular Music and Society

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2007-01-01

    the collapse of the Soviet Union: What present trends can be observed?  How has the Soviet context influenced the popular music of today?  How is music performed and consumed?  How has the interrelationship between cultural industry and performers developed?  How are nationalist sensibilities affecting popular......Fifteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, popular music is thriving in the former Soviet territories and covers a broad variety of genres.  Among these are rock bands formed in the Soviet era, surviving legends of Soviet pop, and younger bands and performers of the 1990s and 2000s.......   Local and foreign musics blend as new impulses arrive from without and arise from within the region.  Thanks to the most recent wave of Russian emigrants, these popular musics have also spread to various localities around the world, as exemplified by the phenomenon of "Russendisko" in Berlin...

  16. Message Received: Virtual Ethnography in Online Message Boards

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kevin F. Steinmetz

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available As the Internet begins to encapsulate more people within online communities, it is important that the social researcher have well-rounded ethnographic methodologies for observing these phenomena. This article seeks to contribute to methodology by detailing and providing insights into three specific facets of virtual ethnography that need attention: space and time, identity and authenticity, and ethics. Because the Internet is a globalized and instantaneous medium where space and time collapse, identity becomes more playful, and ethics become more tenuous; understanding these aspects is crucial to the study of online social groups. A second focus of this article is to apply these notions to the study of online message boards—a frequently used medium for online communication that is frequently overlooked by methodologists.

  17. Teaching Japanese Popular Culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Deborah Shamoon

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Japanese popular culture has arrived on American college campuses as never before. Student interest in Japanese manga (comic books, anime (animated films and television shows, and video games drives much of the enrollment in Japanese courses and Japanese majors and minors. In response to student interest, as well as the establishment of popular culture as a topic of serious academic scholarship, the demand for courses on Japanese popular culture has never been higher. Yet the number of scholars specializing in the study of popular culture is still relatively small. This can potentially create problems, as faculty teach outside their expertise, and perhaps face an uncomfortable situation in which the students know more about the topic than the professor. In this article, I will offer some suggestions and advice for faculty creating a popular culture course for the first time, based on my experiences teaching undergraduates at the University of Notre Dame. The course I developed reflects my background in Japanese literature and film, and is but one example of many possible approaches to the topic. The sample syllabus and list of resources at the end of this article provide citations for all text and media sources mentioned.

  18. The Displacement of the Possible: Popular Experience and Gentrification at Historic Center of Mexico City

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vicente Moctezuma Mendoza

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available This paper studies the displacement of popular sectors in the Historic Center of Mexico City as part of the gentrification process in this space. Particularly, it analyzes a form of displacement that the author defines as ‘the displacement in popular horizons of the possible’, and supposes a reinterpretation – from the characteristics of the gentrification processes in Latin America and the anthropologic fieldwork- of the definition of ‘exclusionary displacement’ proposed by Peter Marcuse. Displacement is analyzed through an ethnographic approach to some residential itineraries that account for popular sectors different rooting constructions during the second half of the twentieth century and the review of the permanence or disappearance of such conditions in the contemporary context.

  19. Classifications in popular music

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Venrooij, A.; Schmutz, V.; Wright, J.D.

    2015-01-01

    The categorical system of popular music, such as genre categories, is a highly differentiated and dynamic classification system. In this article we present work that studies different aspects of these categorical systems in popular music. Following the work of Paul DiMaggio, we focus on four

  20. Popular music from Greenland

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Otte, Andreas Roed

    a sense of place in popular music. The second probes different strategies for co-branding popular music and Greenland. The third is concerned with music consumption patterns among Greenlandic youth. And the fourth article engages with an alternative form of nationalism found within the Nuuk underground...

  1. Using Online Video to Support Student Learning and Engagement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sherer, Pamela; Shea, Timothy

    2011-01-01

    Online videos are used increasingly in higher education teaching as part of the explosion of Web 2.0 tools that are now available. YouTube is one popular example of a video-sharing resource that both faculty and students can use effectively, both inside and outside of the classroom, to engage students in their learning, energize classroom…

  2. Popularity and Debut

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Winther, Christian Dahl

    This paper focuses on two firms' optimal entry strategies in an emerging market characterized by word-of-mouth effects. Consumers can be of two types depending on which firm's brand they prefer. Firms are asymmetric in their popularity as given by the probability of meeting a fan of its brand. Word......-of-mouth communication influences popularity in the two periods of competition by increasing the likelihood of the late consumer having an affinity towards the brand adopted at the first stage. In this environment firms strategically choose their timing of product introduction knowing that fast introduction is costly. I...... study the subgame perfect equilibria of the game to observe how they connect to firms' popularities, strength of word-ofmouth network effects, and the level of product differentiation. The model shows under what conditions asymmetries in the duopoly should be expected to increase or decrease over time...

  3. Food marketing on popular children's web sites: a content analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alvy, Lisa M; Calvert, Sandra L

    2008-04-01

    In 2006 the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that food marketing was a contributor to childhood obesity in the United States. One recommendation of the IOM committee was for research on newer marketing venues, such as Internet Web sites. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to answer the IOM's call by examining food marketing on popular children's Web sites. Ten Web sites were selected based on market research conducted by KidSay, which identified favorite sites of children aged 8 to 11 years during February 2005. Using a standardized coding form, these sites were examined page by page for the existence, type, and features of food marketing. Web sites were compared using chi2 analyses. Although food marketing was not pervasive on the majority of the sites, seven of the 10 Web sites contained food marketing. The products marketed were primarily candy, cereal, quick serve restaurants, and snacks. Candystand.com, a food product site, contained a significantly greater amount of food marketing than the other popular children's Web sites. Because the foods marketed to children are not consistent with a healthful diet, nutrition professionals should consider joining advocacy groups to pressure industry to reduce online food marketing directed at youth.

  4. Yahoo! Answers as a Space for Informal Language Learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giuliana Dettori

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Online social spaces, where users can exchange information, opinions and resources, have achieved wide popularity and are gaining attention in many research fields, including education. Their actual potential support to learning, however, still requires investigation, especially because portals can widely differ as concerns purpose and internal structure. This paper aims to contribute in this respect, by concentrating on question answering, a kind of social space not yet widely discussed in education. We analyzed a small corpus of posts from the Languages section of Yahoo! Answers Italy, checking if the questions reveal some inclination to learning or just the desire to obtain a service and if the answers provided by the community members can be considered as reliable sources of knowledge. Our analysis highlights the presence of a variety of question/answer types, from mere information exchange or help for task completion, up to language-related questions prompting valuable short lessons. The quality of answers may widely vary as concerns pertinence, correctness and richness of supporting elements. We found a high number of purely task-oriented questions and answers, but also a higher number of learning-oriented questions and correct, informative answers. This suggests that this kind of social space actually has valuable potential for informal learning.

  5. The space for social media in structured online learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gilly Salmon

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we explore the benefits of using social media in an online educational setting, with a particular focus on the use of Facebook and Twitter by participants in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC developed to enable educators to learn about the Carpe Diem learning design process. We define social media as digital social tools and environments located outside of the provision of a formal university-provided Learning Management System. We use data collected via interviews and surveys with the MOOC participants as well as social media postings made by the participants throughout the MOOC to offer insights into how participants’ usage and perception of social media in their online learning experiences differed and why. We identified that, although some participants benefitted from social media by crediting it, for example, with networking and knowledge-sharing opportunities, others objected or refused to engage with social media, perceiving it as a waste of their time. We make recommendations for the usage of social media for educational purposes within MOOCs and formal digital learning environments.

  6. The development of the Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Demetrovics, Zsolt; Urbán, Róbert; Nagygyörgy, Katalin; Farkas, Judit; Griffiths, Mark D; Pápay, Orsolya; Kökönyei, Gyöngyi; Felvinczi, Katalin; Oláh, Attila

    2012-01-01

    Online gaming has become increasingly popular. However, this has led to concerns that these games might induce serious problems and/or lead to dependence for a minority of players. The aim of this study was to uncover and operationalize the components of problematic online gaming. A total of 3415 gamers (90% males; mean age 21 years), were recruited through online gaming websites. A combined method of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied. Latent profile analysis was applied to identify persons at-risk. EFA revealed a six-factor structure in the background of problematic online gaming that was also confirmed by a CFA. For the assessment of the identified six dimensions--preoccupation, overuse, immersion, social isolation, interpersonal conflicts, and withdrawal--the 18-item Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ) proved to be exceedingly suitable. Based on the latent profile analysis, 3.4% of the gamer population was considered to be at high risk, while another 15.2% was moderately problematic. The POGQ seems to be an adequate measurement tool for the differentiated assessment of gaming related problems on six subscales.

  7. Organizing Astronomy Popularization and Teacher Training Workshops in Nigeria: A paradigm shift in Sourcing funds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chukwudi Okpala, Kingsley; Iheanyi Okere, Bonaventure

    2015-08-01

    Funding for astronomy popularization and workshops has become a huge challenge in recent times especially for developing countries like Nigeria. However, a modification of the primary and secondary school curriculum to include space science topics in the school system has led to a ripe desire by the relevant agencies/corporate bodies to make commitments towards the astronomy popularization activities as part of their social responsibility. Considering the size of Nigeria, there is need for a shift in paradigm for sourcing resources to tackle the dart of funds for organizing educational activities in a sustainable manner. Recently a teacher training and science popularization workshop was organized as a first in a series of subsequent workshops geared towards having a sustainable means of popularizing astronomy for development in Nigeria. Principally, the key lies in the partnership with schools and other corporate bodies in addition to the usual governmental actions. Experiences from this workshop will be enumerated with the hope of inspiring the same success in similar societies.

  8. psiTurk: An open-source framework for conducting replicable behavioral experiments online.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gureckis, Todd M; Martin, Jay; McDonnell, John; Rich, Alexander S; Markant, Doug; Coenen, Anna; Halpern, David; Hamrick, Jessica B; Chan, Patricia

    2016-09-01

    Online data collection has begun to revolutionize the behavioral sciences. However, conducting carefully controlled behavioral experiments online introduces a number of new of technical and scientific challenges. The project described in this paper, psiTurk, is an open-source platform which helps researchers develop experiment designs which can be conducted over the Internet. The tool primarily interfaces with Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a popular crowd-sourcing labor market. This paper describes the basic architecture of the system and introduces new users to the overall goals. psiTurk aims to reduce the technical hurdles for researchers developing online experiments while improving the transparency and collaborative nature of the behavioral sciences.

  9. [Brazilian nursing and the democratization of health: notes on the National Policy of Popular Education in Health].

    Science.gov (United States)

    David, Helena Maria Scherlowski Leal; Bonetti, Osvaldo Peralta; da Silva, Maria Rocineide Ferreira

    2012-01-01

    This essay discusses the role of Brazilian nursing as a socially committed practice, in the political and pedagogic plan. The concepts of popular participation, representative and participatory democracy, and education in health are recovered, enlightened by the recent history of the constitution of social network of practices and reflections called Popular Education and Health. The construction process and the ethical-political principles of a National Policy of Popular Education in Health are presented, discussing the participation of nursing in the changes of educational practices, in spaces of political representation and formulation of public policies, with a perspective of achieving a fair and equal social order.

  10. THE EFFECT OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR STUDENTS UNIVERSITY STATE OF JAKARTA ON PRODUCT ONLINE PURCHASE’S DECISION ON ONLINE SHOP BUKALAPAK.COM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wasono Adi

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The development of the Internet technology becomes the precursor of the progress of business over the Internet that is significantly growing up in the recent year. In the present, people like to shop through online shops, because in addition to its practicality, the price of goods offered is relatively affordable, and, or relatively equal to conventional stores. One of the online stores which are popular among Indonesian society, and also popular for the university student in Indonesia is Buka Lapak.com. This research aims to examine the influence of consumer behavior on their buying decisions (studies on consumer of Buka Lapak.com among the student of Universitas Negeri Jakarta . The method used in this research is quantitative method with simple linear regression analysis. The results show that student’s consumer behavior in today’s technology significantly influences the student’s buying decisions on Buka Lapak.com. This is shown by the correlation coefficient test result, in which the level of relationship between the student’s consumers behavior toward buying decisions on Buka Lapak.com is included in the category of strong and direct.

  11. Online social activity reflects economic status

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Jin-Hu; Wang, Jun; Shao, Junming; Zhou, Tao

    2016-09-01

    To characterize economic development and diagnose the economic health condition, several popular indices such as gross domestic product (GDP), industrial structure and income growth are widely applied. However, computing these indices based on traditional economic census is usually costly and resources consuming, and more importantly, following a long time delay. In this paper, we analyzed nearly 200 million users' activities for four consecutive years in the largest social network (Sina Microblog) in China, aiming at exploring latent relationships between the online social activities and local economic status. Results indicate that online social activity has a strong correlation with local economic development and industrial structure, and more interestingly, allows revealing the macro-economic structure instantaneously with nearly no cost. Beyond, this work also provides a new venue to identify risky signal in local economic structure.

  12. Acceleration and Information: Managing South Korean Online Gaming Culture

    OpenAIRE

    Rea, Stephen Campbell

    2015-01-01

    This ethnography explores the practical experiences and institutional entanglements of online games, gaming, and gamers in contemporary South Korean culture and society. Korean online gaming culture is encountered at numerous sites and scales of experience, from the virtual worlds of online games, to the offline spaces where gaming happens, to societal practices and discourses around the management of online gaming and gamers backed by competing institutional interests. Online gaming is conte...

  13. Popular education in the mirror of the Popular University in France in the early XXth century

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lucien MERCIER

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available The Popular Universities at the end of the XIXth century are a major reference in the history of popular education. The movement of the Popular Universities attracted militant workers and intellectual —writers, scientists, teachers and artists—, to educational dynamics which owe a lot to the Dreyfus Affair. This encounter of the morning coat with the workman's overalls didn't last long. The Popular Universities died because they were unable to imagine this mutual education which was everybody's dream. This failure marked people's minds for a long time, and the period between the two wars, full of experiences of working-class and proletarian education, constantly refers to the Popular Universities of the 1900^ to find a model to follow or to reject.

  14. Universality and correlations in individuals wandering through an online extremist space

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Z.; Zheng, M.; Vorobyeva, Y.; Song, C.; Johnson, N. F.

    2018-03-01

    The "out of the blue" nature of recent terror attacks and the diversity of apparent motives highlight the importance of understanding the online trajectories that individuals follow prior to developing high levels of extremist support. Here we show that the physics of stochastic walks, with and without temporal correlation, provides a unifying description of these online trajectories. Our unique data set comprising all users of a global social media site reveals universal characteristics in individuals' online lifetimes. Our accompanying theory generates analytical and numerical solutions that describe the characteristics shown by individuals that go on to develop high levels of extremist support and those that do not. Going forward, it is conceivable that a deeper understanding of these temporal and many-body correlations may eventually contribute to the important task of better countering the spread of radical propaganda online.

  15. Are Atypical Things More Popular?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berger, Jonah; Packard, Grant

    2018-04-01

    Why do some cultural items become popular? Although some researchers have argued that success is random, we suggest that how similar items are to each other plays an important role. Using natural language processing of thousands of songs, we examined the relationship between lyrical differentiation (i.e., atypicality) and song popularity. Results indicated that the more different a song's lyrics are from its genre, the more popular it becomes. This relationship is weaker in genres where lyrics matter less (e.g., dance) or where differentiation matters less (e.g., pop) and occurs for lyrical topics but not style. The results shed light on cultural dynamics, why things become popular, and the psychological foundations of culture more broadly.

  16. Problematic Online Pornography Use: A Media Attendance Perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sirianni, Joseph M; Vishwanath, Arun

    2016-01-01

    Since the rise of the popularity of the Internet, the accessibility of pornography has been a growing concern. One particular concern is the potential risk for addictive behaviors to occur as a result of the ease of viewing online pornographic material. The research presented herein explored online pornography addiction using a media attendance perspective, which allows media critics to examine the needs that people seek to fulfill from engaging with various media. Past studies that have used a media attendance perspective to explore media addiction, rephrased here as problematic media use, have done so using social cognitive theory and the concept of deficient self-regulation. Deficient self-regulation may be experienced by all media consumers and can range from normally impulsive media choices to pathological media choices which may result in detrimental life consequences. Borrowing from this, the current study reevaluated online pornography addiction using deficient self-regulation within a sociocognitive framework of media attendance. Results of our model show deficient self-regulation influences habitual online pornography consumption. Moreover, online pornography use motivated by social needs is perpetuated by deficient self-regulation and may lead to negative life consequences in some individuals. These findings contribute a new perspective and framework for understanding problematic online pornography use.

  17. Educational Online Technologies in Blended Tertiary Environments: A Review of Literature

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tuapawa, Kimberley N.

    2013-01-01

    This is a review of the literature surrounding five popular media-rich educational online technologies (EOTs) currently being used by educationalists to support blended learning within tertiary environments. This review considers the following EOTs: 1) connective media, 2) interactive gaming, 3) virtual worlds, 4) web conferencing and 5) learning…

  18. Interactive Space(s) -- the CTSG: bridging the real and virtual

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Eliëns, A.P.W.; Mao, W.; Vermeersch, L

    2010-01-01

    In this paper, ideas will be presented how to realize games or playful activities in interactive space(s), having a real (spatial) component as well as a representation in virtual 2D or 3D space, by means of web pages and/or online games. Apart from general design criteria, the paper discusses a

  19. Popularity Contagion among Adolescents

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marks, Peter E. L.; Cillessen, Antonius H. N.; Crick, Nicki R.

    2012-01-01

    This study aimed to support the theory of popularity contagion, which posits that popularity spreads among friends spontaneously and regardless of behavioral changes. Peer nominations of status and behavior were collected annually between 6th and 12th grades from a total of 1062 adolescents. Longitudinal hypotheses were mostly supported using path…

  20. A Framework for Finding and Summarizing Product Defects, and Ranking Helpful Threads from Online Customer Forums through Machine Learning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiao, Jian

    2013-01-01

    The Internet has revolutionized the way users share and acquire knowledge. As important and popular Web-based applications, online discussion forums provide interactive platforms for users to exchange information and report problems. With the rapid growth of social networks and an ever increasing number of Internet users, online forums have…

  1. Online Identities and Social Networking

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maheswaran, Muthucumaru; Ali, Bader; Ozguven, Hatice; Lord, Julien

    Online identities play a critical role in the social web that is taking shape on the Internet. Despite many technical proposals for creating and managing online identities, none has received widespread acceptance. Design and implementation of online identities that are socially acceptable on the Internet remains an open problem. This chapter discusses the interplay between online identities and social networking. Online social networks (OSNs) are growing at a rapid pace and has millions of members in them. While the recent trend is to create explicit OSNs such as Facebook and MySpace, we also have implicit OSNs such as interaction graphs created by email and instant messaging services. Explicit OSNs allow users to create profiles and use them to project their identities on the web. There are many interesting identity related issues in the context of social networking including how OSNs help and hinder the definition of online identities.

  2. Implementation of New Communication Tools to an Online Chemistry Course

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Karno

    2018-01-01

    Online courses provide flexibility and convenience for students and have become very popular in recent years. With the advance of technology and change of habits for the uses of traditional communication tools among students, there is a need for educators to explore effective ways to communicate with students that fit their social-media life…

  3. Concourse: the design of an online collaborated writing center

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Vries, Sjoerd A.

    2003-01-01

    The project presented here is Concourse. The project is aiming at the development of an online writing community as a study support environment for student in Higher Education. Concourse is the name of an online collaborated writing center and is intended as a virtual space for online interaction, a

  4. Modified parity space averaging approaches for online cross-calibration of redundant sensors in nuclear reactors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moath Kassim

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available To maintain safety and reliability of reactors, redundant sensors are usually used to measure critical variables and estimate their averaged time-dependency. Nonhealthy sensors can badly influence the estimation result of the process variable. Since online condition monitoring was introduced, the online cross-calibration method has been widely used to detect any anomaly of sensor readings among the redundant group. The cross-calibration method has four main averaging techniques: simple averaging, band averaging, weighted averaging, and parity space averaging (PSA. PSA is used to weigh redundant signals based on their error bounds and their band consistency. Using the consistency weighting factor (C, PSA assigns more weight to consistent signals that have shared bands, based on how many bands they share, and gives inconsistent signals of very low weight. In this article, three approaches are introduced for improving the PSA technique: the first is to add another consistency factor, so called trend consistency (TC, to include a consideration of the preserving of any characteristic edge that reflects the behavior of equipment/component measured by the process parameter; the second approach proposes replacing the error bound/accuracy based weighting factor (Wa with a weighting factor based on the Euclidean distance (Wd, and the third approach proposes applying Wd,TC,andC, all together. Cold neutron source data sets of four redundant hydrogen pressure transmitters from a research reactor were used to perform the validation and verification. Results showed that the second and third modified approaches lead to reasonable improvement of the PSA technique. All approaches implemented in this study were similar in that they have the capability to (1 identify and isolate a drifted sensor that should undergo calibration, (2 identify a faulty sensor/s due to long and continuous missing data range, and (3 identify a healthy sensor. Keywords: Nuclear Reactors

  5. Toward Predicting Popularity of Social Marketing Messages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Bei; Chen, Miao; Kwok, Linchi

    Popularity of social marketing messages indicates the effectiveness of the corresponding marketing strategies. This research aims to discover the characteristics of social marketing messages that contribute to different level of popularity. Using messages posted by a sample of restaurants on Facebook as a case study, we measured the message popularity by the number of "likes" voted by fans, and examined the relationship between the message popularity and two properties of the messages: (1) content, and (2) media type. Combining a number of text mining and statistics methods, we have discovered some interesting patterns correlated to "more popular" and "less popular" social marketing messages. This work lays foundation for building computational models to predict the popularity of social marketing messages in the future.

  6. Use of Synchronous Online Tools in Private English Language Teaching in Russia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozar, Olga

    2012-01-01

    Like many other industries, private tutoring is now being transformed by the growth of information and communication technologies (ICT). An increasing number of educational entrepreneurs in different countries are incorporating Internet tools in their professional practice. While the popularity of online tutoring in countries with widespread…

  7. Fixing higher education through technology: Canadian media coverage of massive open online courses

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    D. Dumitrica (Delia)

    2017-01-01

    textabstractThe popularization of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been shrouded in promises of disruption and radical change in education. In Canada, official partnerships struck by higher education institutions with platform providers such as Coursera, Udacity and edX were publicized by

  8. Popular Music Memories : Places and Practices of Popular Music Heritage, Memory and Cultural Identity

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    A.J.C. van der Hoeven (Arno)

    2014-01-01

    markdownabstract__Abstract __ Ever since the late 1950s, people have grown up with popular music as an important element of their daily lives. This dissertation explores the connections between popular music memories, cultural identity and cultural heritage, looking at the different ways in

  9. Aggressive effects of prioritizing popularity in early adolescence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cillessen, Antonius H N; Mayeux, Lara; Ha, Thao; de Bruyn, Eddy H; LaFontana, Kathryn M

    2014-01-01

    This study examined the moderating effects of prioritizing popularity on the association between early adolescents' popularity and their aggressive, leadership, and prosocial behaviors with peers. Participants were 288 14-year-olds from The Netherlands who completed a sociometric instrument and an assessment of how much they prioritized popularity over other personal goals. Results indicated that prioritizing popularity was distinct from actual popularity in the peer group. Further, prioritizing popularity moderated the association of popularity with aggressive and leadership behaviors, with adolescents who were both popular and who prioritized popularity being particularly aggressive and scoring high on leadership behaviors. This trend was especially true for boys. The same moderating effect was not found for prosocial behaviors. Motivational and social-cognitive factors in the dynamics of peer popularity are highlighted. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  10. Information retrieval and terminology extraction in online resources for patients with diabetes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seljan, Sanja; Baretić, Maja; Kucis, Vlasta

    2014-06-01

    Terminology use, as a mean for information retrieval or document indexing, plays an important role in health literacy. Specific types of users, i.e. patients with diabetes need access to various online resources (on foreign and/or native language) searching for information on self-education of basic diabetic knowledge, on self-care activities regarding importance of dietetic food, medications, physical exercises and on self-management of insulin pumps. Automatic extraction of corpus-based terminology from online texts, manuals or professional papers, can help in building terminology lists or list of "browsing phrases" useful in information retrieval or in document indexing. Specific terminology lists represent an intermediate step between free text search and controlled vocabulary, between user's demands and existing online resources in native and foreign language. The research aiming to detect the role of terminology in online resources, is conducted on English and Croatian manuals and Croatian online texts, and divided into three interrelated parts: i) comparison of professional and popular terminology use ii) evaluation of automatic statistically-based terminology extraction on English and Croatian texts iii) comparison and evaluation of extracted terminology performed on English manual using statistical and hybrid approaches. Extracted terminology candidates are evaluated by comparison with three types of reference lists: list created by professional medical person, list of highly professional vocabulary contained in MeSH and list created by non-medical persons, made as intersection of 15 lists. Results report on use of popular and professional terminology in online diabetes resources, on evaluation of automatically extracted terminology candidates in English and Croatian texts and on comparison of statistical and hybrid extraction methods in English text. Evaluation of automatic and semi-automatic terminology extraction methods is performed by recall

  11. Tablets in English Class: Students' Activities Surrounding Online Dictionary Work

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bunting, Leona

    2015-01-01

    Tablets have become increasingly popular among young people in Sweden and this rapid increase also resonates in school, especially in classrooms for younger children. The aim of the present study is to analyze and describe how the students deal with the open instructions for a task of using online dictionaries on tablets. Specific focus is on how…

  12. Popularity of the internet with university students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Monika Szpringer

    2014-06-01

    -Gadu messenger service very frequently. The conducted study confirmed that over 64% of the polled students used online shops very frequently and more than 73% of the respondents looked for a life partner on a dating website. Seventy-eight percent of the respondents looked for employment in the Internet, the biggest percentage of whom were students of medical majors (85.42% and pedagogical majors (78.62%. Conclusions : The Internet has become a meta-reality, as important as the real world. The basic space in which the Internet User Generation functions is in the form of social network portals. People more and more willingly create their accounts on more than one social network portal. This is a craving for meeting other people, restoration of contacts from the past and getting to know new cultures (often subcultures.

  13. Shopping online and/or in-store? A structural equation model of the relationships between e-shopping and in-store shopping

    OpenAIRE

    Farag, Sendy; Schwanen, Tim; Dijst, Martin

    2005-01-01

    Searching product information or buying goods online is becoming increasingly popular and could affect shopping trips. However, the relationship between e-shopping and in-store shopping is currently unclear. The aim of this study is to investigate empirically how the frequencies of online searching, online buying, and non-daily shopping trips relate to each other, after controlling for sociodemographic, land use, behavioral, and attitudinal characteristics. Data were collected from 826 respon...

  14. The Double Meaning of Online Social Space: Three-Way Interactions Among Social Anxiety, Online Social Behavior, and Offline Social Behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koo, Hoon Jung; Woo, Sungbum; Yang, Eunjoo; Kwon, Jung Hye

    2015-09-01

    The present study aimed to investigate how online and offline social behavior interact with each other ultimately to affect the well-being of socially anxious adolescents. Based on previous studies, it was assumed that there might be three-way interactive effects among online social behavior, offline social behavior, and social anxiety regarding the relationship with well-being. To measure social anxiety, online and offline social behavior, and mental well-being, self-report questionnaires such as the Korean-Social Avoidance and Distress Scale, Korean version of the Relational Maintenance Behavior Questionnaire, and Korean version of Mental Health Continuum Short Form were administered to 656 Korean adolescents. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the three-way interaction of online social behavior, offline social behavior, and social anxiety was indeed significant. First, online social behavior was associated with lower well-being of adolescents with higher social anxiety under conditions of low engagement in offline social behavior. In contrast, a higher level of online social behavior predicted greater well-being for individuals with high social anxiety under conditions of more engagement in offline social behavior. Second, online social behavior was not significantly related to well-being in youths with low social anxiety under conditions of both high and low engagement in offline social behavior. Implications and limitations of this study were discussed.

  15. Mass Media and the Popular Arts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rissover, Fredric; Birch, David C.

    This anthology consists of journalistic essays on each of these popular arts: advertising, journalism, cartoons, radio and television, photography and motion pictures, popular literature, popular music, and public education. Examples of most of the art forms are also included. The book is aimed at junior college students. Its purpose is to…

  16. A produção de reconhecimento num contexto popular: devoção e narrativa contemporâneas / The production of recognition in a popular context: contemporary devotion and narrative

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Régis de Toledo Souza

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Dentro da dinâmica de lutas de reconhecimento da cultura popular do vale do Paraíba paulista, identificamos sujeitos responsáveis pelo registro e pela transmissão oral das narrativas de grupos devocionais do catolicismo popular. Atualmente, para sistematizar o registro de suas narrativas, verificamos que alguns sujeitos populares apropriam-se das técnicas e tecnologias antes exclusivas dos profissionais (jornalistas e pesquisadores que geralmente não participam do cotidiano dos sujeitos populares. Constatamos que, ao realizarem esse movimento, esses sujeitos populares passaram a ocupar um espaço de coexistência de vários discursos que disputam os sentidos dessas práticas religiosas, criando uma circularidade dos significados que colocam um desafio para os próprios pesquisadores, pois os discursos e práticas dos pesquisadores tornam agora mais complexas as interpretações das devoções populares e de seus sujeitos. Nas novas narrativas dos especialistas “nativos" existe o uso de categorias assimiladas da lógica de domínios exógenos mais amplos que se fazem presentes em seus cotidianos. / Within the dynamic of struggles for recognition of popular culture in Paraiba Valley, state of São Paulo/Brazil, we identified individuals responsible for the register and oral transmission of narratives of devotional groups of popular Catholicism. Nowadays, to systematize the register of their narratives, we verified that some individuals of these groups appropriate techniques and technologies which were once exclusive to professionals (journalists and researchers that generally do not participate in the individual‟s everyday life. It was observed that, by making this movement, these popular Catholics started to occupy a space of coexistence of several discourses which fight for the meanings of these religious practices, creating a circularity of meanings that challenge the researchers, since their discourses and practices now make the

  17. 網路讀者書評文類分析研究:以科學普及類書評為例 Analyzing Online Book Reviews for Scientific Popularization Genre: A Genre Analysis Study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chia-Yu Lin

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available 由於資訊科技及網路的發展,充斥於網路上各種形式的讀者書評成為讀者選書的另一參考來源。書評之於科學普及類圖書又尤為重要,因為書評身為科學傳播的入口途徑。本研究分析網路讀者書評之結構與格式、網路文類特徵與寫作內容特性。研究對象為aNobii網路閱讀社群網站之讀者書評共897篇,逐篇分析且歸納書評之內容,以期提供圖書館、出版社、閱讀推廣等單位瞭解網路讀者書評,拓展其應用範圍。Due to the rapid development of information technology and Internet, online book reviews have become an alternative information source for book selection. Reviews of books of scientific popularization genre are especially important because they serve as a portal for scientific communication. This study investigated the structure and format of online book reviews, as well as the content and characteristics of those review entries. Data collection was conducted on aNobii, an online book club. This study aims to provide libraries, publishers, book promoters, and other organizations knowledge of online book reviews, and also to expand their scope of applications for libraries, publishers, and reading outreach activities.

  18. The effects of online social networks on tacit knowledge transmission

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Hong-Miao; Zhang, Sheng-Tai; Jin, Zhen

    2016-01-01

    Due to the popular use of online social networks in today's world, how to propagate employees' tacit knowledge via online social networks has attracted managers' attention, which is critical to enhance the competitiveness of firms. In this paper, we propose a tacit knowledge transmission model on networks with even mixing based on the propagation property of tacit knowledge and the application of online social networks. We consider two routes of transmission, which are contact through online social networks and face-to-face physical contact, and derive the threshold that governs whether or not a kind of tacit knowledge can be shared in an organization with few initial employees who have acquired it. The impact of the degree distribution of the users' contact network on the transmission is investigated analytically. Some numerical simulations are presented to support the theoretical results. We perform the sensitivity analysis of the threshold in terms of the propagation parameters and confirm that online social networks contribute significantly to enhancing the transmission of tacit knowledge among employees.

  19. Gender, representation and online participation : a quantitative study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vasilescu, B.N.; Capiluppi, A.; Serebrenik, A.

    2014-01-01

    Online communities are flourishing as social meeting web spaces for users and peer community members. Different online communities require different levels of competence for participants to join, and scattered evidence suggests that females and minorities as participants can be under-represented.

  20. Disadvantages of online support groups for people with arthritis, fibromyalgia and breast cancer disproved

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kraan, C.F.; Taal, Erik; Drossaert, Constance H.C.; Lebrun, C.E.I.; Smit, W.M.; Seydel, E.R.; van de Laar, Mart A F J

    2006-01-01

    INTRODUCTION: People in stressful circumstances, such as serious health conditions, often turn to support groups. With the increase in the availability and popularity of internet, the possibility has arisen to join support groups online. Various authors have raised attention for potential

  1. Online Career Guidance: Does Knowledge Equate to Power for High School Students?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Galliott, Natal'ya

    2017-01-01

    The provision of online career information and guidance is becoming more popular among career counselling practitioners and policy makers targeting the postschool transitions of youth. Internet-based career exploration and guidance systems provide convenience and economy to both individuals confronted with career decision making as well as those…

  2. Fixing Higher Education through Technology: Canadian Media Coverage of Massive Open Online Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dumitrica, Delia

    2017-01-01

    The popularization of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been shrouded in promises of disruption and radical change in education. In Canada, official partnerships struck by higher education institutions with platform providers such as "Coursera", "Udacity" and "edX" were publicized by dailies and professional…

  3. Navigating digital publics for playful production: A cross-case analysis of two interest-driven online communities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ksenia A. Korobkova

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available This article argues that the set of skills and strategies associated with managing digital publics online represent an emergent literacy practice of importance to literacy researchers and educators. Drawing on two case studies of online communities popular with contemporary youth to learn, play, and socialize, we articulate how youth participants strategically negotiate multiple audiences online with varying levels of publicity in order to achieve learning outcomes. In one case, players of a popular production-centered video game share their content in ways that garner the specific kind of audience and feedback they need for their projects. In another, members of an online fan fiction community analyze and negotiate expectations of their audience in order to craft media that garners attention and sustains readership. Both examples identify how skills centered on navigating and managing publics – that is, multiple audiences that are permeable across a wider public online – constitute a recognizable and important “new literacy” in digitally mediated learning environments. We situate our empirical studies in sociocultural theories of learning and historicize the work in contemporary digital cultures and the general move from the writer-reader relationship to writer-audience relationships to more complex relationships within digital publics. The article ends with considerations for literacy researchers, policymakers, and practitioners interested in technology-mediated practices of today’s youth.

  4. "Prime" Advertising Space: Measuring Implict Memory Online

    OpenAIRE

    Barratt, Madeleine

    2012-01-01

    In marketing literature, click-through-rates are generally employed to measure the success of banner advertisements online. This measure has led to the banner blindness hypothesis, which posits that internet users ignore banner advertisements. However, this measurement does not take into account the consumer action which may result from memory for advertised brands. This study illustrates that although there may not be explicit memory for these advertisements, consumers can be primed for adve...

  5. Arte Popular y Feminismo

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eli Bartra

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available En este artículo se lleva a cabo, en primer lugar, una propuesta metodológica de cómo abordar el estudio del arte popular desde un punto de vista feminista. A continuación se realiza un acercamiento a un ejemplo específico de arte popular mexicano que se halla en estrecha relación con el arte elitista y se puede considerar que se trata de un proceso de sincretismo cultural un tanto sui generis: las friditas de Josefina Aguilar como recreaciones de la obra plástica de Frida Kahlo. Con base en este “close up” se intenta mostrar un posible método para conocer el arte popular contemplando las divisiones sociales por género, etnia y clase.

  6. Researching Online Mathematics Education: Opening a Space for Virtual Learner Identities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosa, Mauricio; Lerman, Stephen

    2011-01-01

    This paper is drawn from a doctoral thesis (Rosa, 2008) that examines the relations established between the construction of online identities and the teaching and learning of the definite integral concept in an online learning course. The role-playing game (RPG) is played out through chat and calls for the creation of characters (online…

  7. Algorithms for the on-line travelling salesman

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ausiello, G.; Feuerstein, E.; Leonardi, S.; Stougie, L.; Talamo, M.

    1999-01-01

    In this paper the problem of efficiently serving a sequence of requests presented in an on-line fashion located at points of a metric space is considered. We call this problem the On-Line Travelling Salesman Problem (OLTSP). It has a variety of relevant applications in logistics and robotics. We

  8. Online Peer-to-Peer Support for Young People With Mental Health Problems: A Systematic Review

    OpenAIRE

    Ali, Kathina; Farrer, Louise; Gulliver, Amelia; Griffiths, Kathleen M

    2015-01-01

    Background Adolescence and early adulthood are critical periods for the development of mental disorders. Online peer-to-peer communication is popular among young people and may improve mental health by providing social support. Previous systematic reviews have targeted Internet support groups for adults with mental health problems, including depression. However, there have been no systematic reviews examining the effectiveness of online peer-to-peer support in improving the mental health of a...

  9. CNRS researchers' popularization activities: a progress report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yves Croissant

    2007-09-01

    Full Text Available We have analyzed the popularization activities undertaken by ten thousand CNRS researchers by means of their annual reports for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. This is the first time that such an extensive statistical study on science popularization practices is carried out. Our main findings are : - the majority of researchers is not involved in popularization (51% has not done any popularization over the three-year period, two thirds have been involved in no more than one popularization action. - popularization practices are extremely diverse, both at the individual level (we have identified three subpopulations that feature distinctive attitudes towards popularization, and at the level of scientific disciplines (researchers in Humanities are twice as active as the average, as well as in laboratories or geographical regions. - the number of actions reported in 2005 greatly increased compared to 2004 (+ 26%, while they slightly diminished in 2006.

  10. Tag-Driven Online Novel Recommendation with Collaborative Item Modeling

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fenghuan Li

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Online novel recommendation recommends attractive novels according to the preferences and characteristics of users or novels and is increasingly touted as an indispensable service of many online stores and websites. The interests of the majority of users remain stable over a certain period. However, there are broad categories in the initial recommendation list achieved by collaborative filtering (CF. That is to say, it is very possible that there are many inappropriately recommended novels. Meanwhile, most algorithms assume that users can provide an explicit preference. However, this assumption does not always hold, especially in online novel reading. To solve these issues, a tag-driven algorithm with collaborative item modeling (TDCIM is proposed for online novel recommendation. Online novel reading is different from traditional book marketing and lacks preference rating. In addition, collaborative filtering frequently suffers from the Matthew effect, leading to ignored personalized recommendations and serious long tail problems. Therefore, item-based CF is improved by latent preference rating with a punishment mechanism based on novel popularity. Consequently, a tag-driven algorithm is constructed by means of collaborative item modeling and tag extension. Experimental results show that online novel recommendation is improved greatly by a tag-driven algorithm with collaborative item modeling.

  11. Optimizing separations in online comprehensive two‐dimensional liquid chromatography

    OpenAIRE

    Pirok, Bob W.J.; Gargano, Andrea F.G.; Schoenmakers, Peter J.

    2017-01-01

    Abstract Online comprehensive two‐dimensional liquid chromatography has become an attractive option for the analysis of complex nonvolatile samples found in various fields (e.g. environmental studies, food, life, and polymer sciences). Two‐dimensional liquid chromatography complements the highly popular hyphenated systems that combine liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. Two‐dimensional liquid chromatography is also applied to the analysis of samples that are not compatible with mass...

  12. The development of the Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zsolt Demetrovics

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Online gaming has become increasingly popular. However, this has led to concerns that these games might induce serious problems and/or lead to dependence for a minority of players. AIM: The aim of this study was to uncover and operationalize the components of problematic online gaming. METHODS: A total of 3415 gamers (90% males; mean age 21 years, were recruited through online gaming websites. A combined method of exploratory factor analysis (EFA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA was applied. Latent profile analysis was applied to identify persons at-risk. RESULTS: EFA revealed a six-factor structure in the background of problematic online gaming that was also confirmed by a CFA. For the assessment of the identified six dimensions--preoccupation, overuse, immersion, social isolation, interpersonal conflicts, and withdrawal--the 18-item Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ proved to be exceedingly suitable. Based on the latent profile analysis, 3.4% of the gamer population was considered to be at high risk, while another 15.2% was moderately problematic. CONCLUSIONS: The POGQ seems to be an adequate measurement tool for the differentiated assessment of gaming related problems on six subscales.

  13. Pure and Public, Popular and personal

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Eriksson, Birgit

    2013-01-01

    In the article I reexamine the traditional aesthetical and political critiques of popular culture and reevaluate the social and communicative potential of bestselling cultural artifacts such as highly popular television series. First, I sketch the alleged aesthetic and social problems of popular...... and the exclusions of the public sphere. I argue that the ideals of a pure aesthetic and a public sphere neglect issues that are crucial to the type of commonality at stake in popular cultural artifacts: personal issues, social conflicts, and what is pleasurable to the senses or has to do with emotions. Third, I...

  14. Causes and Effects of Online Video Game Playing Among Junior-Senior High School Students in Malang East Java

    OpenAIRE

    Eskasasnanda, I Dewa Putu

    2017-01-01

    Science and technology development causes a lot of changes in any fields including the form of popular games among the Junior and Senior High School students in Indonesia. The traditional games that are famous formerly have been replaced by the modern games like online video game. This article discusses the cause and effect of the online video game playing on the Junior and Senior High Schools students in Malang. This study reveal that students play video games online due to peers pressure; a...

  15. The development of indonesian online game addiction questionnaire.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jap, Tjibeng; Tiatri, Sri; Jaya, Edo Sebastian; Suteja, Mekar Sari

    2013-01-01

    Online game is an increasingly popular source of entertainment for all ages, with relatively prevalent negative consequences. Addiction is a problem that has received much attention. This research aims to develop a measure of online game addiction for Indonesian children and adolescents. The Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire draws from earlier theories and research on the internet and game addiction. Its construction is further enriched by including findings from qualitative interviews and field observation to ensure appropriate expression of the items. The measure consists of 7 items with a 5-point Likert Scale. It is validated by testing 1,477 Indonesian junior and senior high school students from several schools in Manado, Medan, Pontianak, and Yogyakarta. The validation evidence is shown by item-total correlation and criterion validity. The Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire has good item-total correlation (ranging from 0.29 to 0.55) and acceptable reliability (α = 0.73). It is also moderately correlated with the participant's longest time record to play online games (r = 0.39; ponline games (ρ = 0.43; ponline games (ρ = 0.41; ponline games (ρ = 0.30; ponline game addiction, and the score of 22 and above may indicate online game addiction. Overall, the result shows that Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire has sufficient psychometric property for research use, as well as limited clinical application.

  16. The development of indonesian online game addiction questionnaire.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tjibeng Jap

    Full Text Available Online game is an increasingly popular source of entertainment for all ages, with relatively prevalent negative consequences. Addiction is a problem that has received much attention. This research aims to develop a measure of online game addiction for Indonesian children and adolescents. The Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire draws from earlier theories and research on the internet and game addiction. Its construction is further enriched by including findings from qualitative interviews and field observation to ensure appropriate expression of the items. The measure consists of 7 items with a 5-point Likert Scale. It is validated by testing 1,477 Indonesian junior and senior high school students from several schools in Manado, Medan, Pontianak, and Yogyakarta. The validation evidence is shown by item-total correlation and criterion validity. The Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire has good item-total correlation (ranging from 0.29 to 0.55 and acceptable reliability (α = 0.73. It is also moderately correlated with the participant's longest time record to play online games (r = 0.39; p<0.01, average days per week in playing online games (ρ = 0.43; p<0.01, average hours per days in playing online games (ρ = 0.41; p<0.01, and monthly expenditure for online games (ρ = 0.30; p<0.01. Furthermore, we created a clinical cut-off estimate by combining criteria and population norm. The clinical cut-off estimate showed that the score of 14 to 21 may indicate mild online game addiction, and the score of 22 and above may indicate online game addiction. Overall, the result shows that Indonesian Online Game Addiction Questionnaire has sufficient psychometric property for research use, as well as limited clinical application.

  17. El teatro en el trabajo popular. La eficacia, un desafío para el trabajo popular

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Hirsz

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Todas las personas e instituciones dedicadas al trabajo popular se plantean la necesidad de la eficacia en su labor. ¿Cómo, de qué manera ser más útiles a los sectores populares? ¿Qué instrumentos les pueden servir para la acción transformadora que deben realizar? Estas preguntas han generado una multiplicidad de métodos, de formas, de técnicas. El Centro al Servicio de la Acción Popular (CESAP en 17 años de trabajo incesante ha creado una metodología inductiva y participativa que, a través de diferentes áreas, intenta generar el desarrollo de las potencialidades y capacidades del pueblo. El Servicio de Comunicación y Cultura Popular constituye otra herramienta ofrecida por CESAP a los grupos y organizaciones populares, pues capacita a los grupos para que ellos estén en condiciones de producir sus propios medios de comunicación comunitarios, con fines de información, concientización y movilización de las comunidades. Junto a esa finalidad organízatíva, estos Talleres estimulan la autoexpresión y la creatividad popular y el desarrollo de una cultura propia y transformadora.

  18. Online Civic Cultures?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Uldam, Julie; Askanius, Tina

    2013-01-01

    This article explores the potential of video activism on YouTube to form a communicative space for deliberation and dissent. It asks how commenting on activist videos can help sustain civic cultures that allow for both antagonism and inclusive political debate. Drawing on a case study of online...

  19. Coping with somatic illnesses in online support groups: do the feared disadvantages actually occur?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kraan, C.F.; Drossaert, Constance H.C.; Taal, Erik; Lebrun, C.E.I.; Drossaers-Bakker, K.W.; Drossaers-Bakker, K.W.; Smit, W.M.; Seydel, E.R.; van de Laar, Mart A F J

    2008-01-01

    People in stressful circumstances, such as serious health conditions, often turn to support groups. With the increase in the availability and popularity of the Internet, the possibility has arisen to join support groups online. Various authors have raised potential disadvantages of these groups,

  20. Coping with somatic illnesses in online support groups : Do the feared disadvantages actually occur?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Uden-Kraan, C. F.; Drossaert, Constance H C; Taal, E; Lebrun, C.E.I.; Drossaers-Bakker, K. W.; Smit, W. M.; Seydel, E. R.; van de Laar, Mart A F J

    People in stressful circumstances, such as serious health conditions, often turn to support groups. With the increase in the availability and popularity of the Internet, the possibility has arisen to join support groups online. Various authors have raised potential disadvantages of these groups,

  1. Social Costs for Wannabes: Moderating Effects of Popularity and Gender on the Links between Popularity Goals and Negative Peer Experiences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Breslend, Nicole Lafko; Shoulberg, Erin K; McQuade, Julia D; Murray-Close, Dianna

    2018-02-05

    Youth in early adolescence are highly concerned with being popular in the peer group, but the desire to be popular can have maladaptive consequences for individuals. In fact, qualitative work suggests that youth with high popularity goals who are nonetheless unpopular have negative experiences with their peers. However, little quantitative work has examined this possibility. The purpose of the current study was to examine if popularity goals were linked with physical (e.g., being hit) and relational (e.g., being excluded) victimization and peer rejection, particularly for individuals who strived for popularity but were viewed by their peers as unpopular. Late elementary and early middle school participants (N = 205; 54% female) completed self-reports of popularity goals and peer nominations of popularity and peer rejection. Teachers reported on students' experiences of relational and physical victimization. Peer nominated popularity and gender were moderators of the association between popularity goals and negative peer experiences. Consistent with hypotheses, girls who were unpopular but wanted to be popular were more likely to experience peer rejection and relational victimization. Unexpectedly, boys who were unpopular but did not desire to be popular were more likely to be rejected and relationally victimized. The findings suggest that intervention and prevention programs may benefit from addressing the social status goals of low status youth in a gender-specific manner.

  2. An Organizational Development Framework for Assessing Readiness and Capacity for Expanding Online Education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piña, Anthony A.

    2017-01-01

    In this article, a popular model for organizational development is utilized as a framework for assessing the organizational readiness and capacity of educational institutions whose leaders wish to establish or expand their online/distance education programs. Examples of institutionalization factors to consider and alternative models for assessing…

  3. Online Gaming Traffic Generator for Reproducing Gamer Behavior

    OpenAIRE

    Shin , Kwangsik; Kim , Jinhyuk; Sohn , Kangmin; Park , Changjoon; Choi , Sangbang

    2010-01-01

    International audience; In this paper, we proposed an online gaming traffic generator reflecting user behavior patterns. We analyzed the packet size and inter departure time distributions of a popular FPS game (Left4Dead) and MMORPG (World of Warcraft) for regenerating gaming traffic. The proposed traffic generator generates an inter departure time and gaming packetbased on analytical model of the gamer behaviors, then transmits the packet according to the inter departure time. Packet generat...

  4. Popularity Breeds Contempt: The Evolution of Reputational Dislike Relations and Friendships in High School.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujimoto, Kayo; Snijders, Tom A B; Valente, Thomas W

    2017-01-01

    In this study, we examined the dynamics of the perception of "dislike" ties (reputational dislike) among adolescents within the contexts of friendship, perceived popularity, substance use, and Facebook use. Survey data were collected from a longitudinal sample of 238 adolescents from the 11th and 12th grades in one California high school. We estimated stochastic actor-based network dynamic models, using reports of reputational dislike, friendships, and perceived popularity, to identify factors associated with the maintenance and generation reputational dislike ties. The results showed that high-status adolescents and more frequent Facebook users tended to become perceived as or stay disliked by their peers over time. There was a tendency for friendships to promote the creation and maintenance of reputational disliking but not vice versa. Adolescents tended to perceive others as disliked when their friends also perceived them as disliked. There was no evidence that either cigarette smoking or drinking alcohol affected reputational dislike dynamics. This study highlights the important role that the hierarchical peer system, online peer context, and friendships play in driving information diffusion of negative peer relations among adolescents.

  5. Pharmacists on Facebook: online social networking and the profession.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mattingly, T Joseph; Cain, Jeff; Fink, Joseph L

    2010-01-01

    To provide a brief history of Facebook and online social networking and discuss how it has contributed and can contribute in the future to a paradigm change in social communications. When student pharmacists complete school and enter practice, they encounter enhanced expectations to act appropriately and professionally. Facebook expands the dilemma of separating private and public life--a challenge for individuals in all professions. From the standpoint of a professional association, Facebook provides a tremendous opportunity to reach out to members in an unprecedented way. Pharmacy organizations are beginning to use these new tools to increase communication and dissemination of information. The popularity of Facebook has brought the issue of online social networking to the forefront of professional and organizational discussions. The issues of privacy, identity protection, and e-professionalism are likely to reappear as pharmacists and student pharmacists continue to communicate via online networks. The potential exists for organizations to harness this organizational and communication power for their own interests. Further study is needed regarding the interaction between online social networking applications and the profession of pharmacy.

  6. Online social networking and the experience of cyber-bullying.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Dea, Bridianne; Campbell, Andrew

    2012-01-01

    Online social networking sites (SNS) are popular social tools used amongst adolescents and account for much of their daily internet activity. Recently, these sites have presented opportunities for youth to experience cyber-bullying. Often resulting in psychological distress, cyber-bullying is a common experience for many young people. Continual use of SNS signifies the importance of examining its links to cyber-bullying. This study examined the relationship between online social networking and the experience of cyber-bullying. A total of 400 participants (Mage=14.31 years) completed an online survey which examined the perceived definitions and frequency of cyber-bullying. Users of SNS reported significantly higher frequencies of stranger contact compared to non-users. Spearman's rho correlations determined no significant relationship between daily time on SNS and the frequency of stranger contact. This suggests that ownership of a SNS profile may be a stronger predictor of some cyber-bullying experiences compared to time spent on these sites. Findings encourage continued research on the nature of internet activities used by young adolescents and the possible exposure to online victimization.

  7. How do we interact online? An approach to researching multidimensionality of online communication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Petrović Dalibor

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available If different dimensions of online interaction are neglected and/or unknowingly combined in a research study there is a risk of misleading results due to compensatory effect. With respect to the multidimensionality of online interaction, two substantially different types of online communication are defined - procreative and transmissional. The procreative online communication is understood as a person's tendency to use the internet as a space for social interaction, which essentially differs from using the internet transmissionally, as a peer-to-peer communication channel between people who are familiar with one another. The aim of this paper is to explore more deeply the procreative dimensions of online communication. Based on our conceptual framework, we defined three procreativity dimensions and developed an Online Procreativity Scale (OPS to measure them. The OPS has been validated through EFA and CFA and the three-dimensional structure has been confirmed. Using the OLS regression analyses we found that gender and psychological characteristics and social network sites (SNS use have diverse influence depending on the procreativity dimension under observation. Gender, city size, share of unfamiliar SNS friends and loneliness predicted willingness to interact with strangers, while the time spent on SNS predicted only the tendency to participate in public online interaction.

  8. Online feature selection with streaming features.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Xindong; Yu, Kui; Ding, Wei; Wang, Hao; Zhu, Xingquan

    2013-05-01

    We propose a new online feature selection framework for applications with streaming features where the knowledge of the full feature space is unknown in advance. We define streaming features as features that flow in one by one over time whereas the number of training examples remains fixed. This is in contrast with traditional online learning methods that only deal with sequentially added observations, with little attention being paid to streaming features. The critical challenges for Online Streaming Feature Selection (OSFS) include 1) the continuous growth of feature volumes over time, 2) a large feature space, possibly of unknown or infinite size, and 3) the unavailability of the entire feature set before learning starts. In the paper, we present a novel Online Streaming Feature Selection method to select strongly relevant and nonredundant features on the fly. An efficient Fast-OSFS algorithm is proposed to improve feature selection performance. The proposed algorithms are evaluated extensively on high-dimensional datasets and also with a real-world case study on impact crater detection. Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithms achieve better compactness and higher prediction accuracy than existing streaming feature selection algorithms.

  9. An information spreading model based on online social networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Tao; He, Juanjuan; Wang, Xiaoxia

    2018-01-01

    Online social platforms are very popular in recent years. In addition to spreading information, users could review or collect information on online social platforms. According to the information spreading rules of online social network, a new information spreading model, namely IRCSS model, is proposed in this paper. It includes sharing mechanism, reviewing mechanism, collecting mechanism and stifling mechanism. Mean-field equations are derived to describe the dynamics of the IRCSS model. Moreover, the steady states of reviewers, collectors and stiflers and the effects of parameters on the peak values of reviewers, collectors and sharers are analyzed. Finally, numerical simulations are performed on different networks. Results show that collecting mechanism and reviewing mechanism, as well as the connectivity of the network, make information travel wider and faster, and compared to WS network and ER network, the speed of reviewing, sharing and collecting information is fastest on BA network.

  10. Edward Said on Popular Music

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Capitain, W.H.P.

    2017-01-01

    Although Edward Said, generally known as one of the founders of postcolonial studies, has written extensively on music, he almost completely ignores popular music. However, the few moments in which he does reflect on popular music are highly revealing. In this article I provide a comprehensive

  11. The impact of online reviews on exhibitor behaviour: evidence from movie industry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, H.; Guo, K.

    2017-11-01

    This paper explores the effects of online reviews in the empirical context of movie industry. Quality uncertainty and hedonic consumption render movies a particularly interesting category to study quality signals and social influence. Online consumer chatters about a movie are readily available in popular movie-related websites. These data, coupled with movie-specific sales and advertising information accessible online or from commercial sources, provide unique opportunity to explore the implication of word-of-mouth (WOM) for consumer behaviour and business strategy. We thus examine how online reviews impact on business strategies, in this case, exhibitor behaviour, through an empirical analysis of movie industry. First, online reviews are grouped into user reviews and critic reviews. We then use them respectively in two simultaneous equation systems, which regard online reviews, box office revenue and the number of screens as endogenous variables. Next, a three-stage least-square procedure is employed to estimate these two systems using a sample of 141 movies in the U.S. market. The results indicate that the online user reviews' rating is positively associated with the number of screens, confirming that the online review is influential on exhibitor behaviour. The number of online reviews indirectly influences the number of screens through the box office revenue.

  12. Self-Regulated Learning: The Role of Motivation, Emotion, and Use of Learning Strategies in Students' Learning Experiences in a Self-Paced Online Mathematics Course

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, Moon-Heum; Heron, Michele L.

    2015-01-01

    Enrollment in online remedial mathematics courses has increased in popularity in institutions of higher learning; however, students unskilled in self-regulated learning (SRL) find online remedial mathematics courses particularly challenging. We investigated the role of SRL, specifically motivation, emotion, and learning strategies, in students'…

  13. Online personal ads: community and sex, virtually.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gudelunas, David

    2005-01-01

    This study samples 200 personal advertisements from the online gay and lesbian global Web portal PlanetOut. This data, along with survey responses completed by advertisers included in the sample, are used to frame a discussion on the use of online gay and lesbian spaces and communities. Despite interacting in a global space, data showed that advertisers remained aware of their local identities. Differences between advertisers were most notable between gender and whether they logged on in a small or large town. Advertisers were interested in interacting locally, eager to move from online to offline communication, often-times not overly concerned with maintaining anonymity, and not interested in toying with multiple identities. Users of PlanetOut personals largely did not consider themselves part of a virtual gay and lesbian community even when they recognized the existence of a local geographically-based gay and lesbian community. However, the dynamic nature of online personal advertisements did allow for a new type of interactive advertisement that does differ from previous print forums.

  14. The extent of use of online pharmacies in Saudi Arabia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abanmy, Norah

    2017-09-01

    Online pharmacies sell medicine over the Internet and deliver them by mail. The main objective of this study is to explore the extent of use of online pharmacies in Saudi Arabia which will be useful for the scientific community and regulators. An Arabic survey questionnaire was developed for this study. The questionnaire was distributed via email and social media. Four sections were created to cover the objectives: experience with online shopping in general, demographics, awareness of the existence and customer experiences of buying medicine online, and reasons for buying/not buying medicine online. A total of 633 responses were collected. Around 69% (437) of them were female and the majority (256, 40.4%) was in the age range 26-40. Only 23.1% (146) were aware of the existence of online pharmacies where 2.7% (17) of them had bought a medicine over the Internet and 15 (88.2%) respondents out of the 17 was satisfied with the process. Lack of awareness of the availability of such services was the main reason for not buying medicines online. Many respondents (263, 42.7%) were willing to try an online pharmacy, although majorities (243, 45.9%) were unable to differentiate between legal and illegal online pharmacies. The largest categories of products respondents were willing to buy them online were nonprescription medicines and cosmetics. The popularity of purchasing medicines over the Internet is still low in Saudi Arabia. However, because the majority of respondents are willing to purchase medicines online, efforts should be made by the Saudi FDA to set regulations and monitor this activity.

  15. Social media and online self-presentation: Effects on how we see ourselves and our bodies

    OpenAIRE

    de Vries, D.A.

    2014-01-01

    Social media are becoming more and more popular. Many adolescents and adults present themselves online through a social network site or dating profile. Such widespread engagement in self-presentation on social media may have implications for how we see ourselves and our bodies. These self-views, in turn, can have important consequences for our mental health and well-being. This dissertation investigates negative as well as positive effects of social media use and online self-presentation on s...

  16. Neural mechanisms of the influence of popularity on adolescent ratings of music.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berns, Gregory S; Capra, C Monica; Moore, Sara; Noussair, Charles

    2010-02-01

    It is well-known that social influences affect consumption decisions. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to elucidate the neural mechanisms associated with social influence with regard to a common consumer good: music. Our study population was adolescents, age 12-17. Music is a common purchase in this age group, and it is widely believed that adolescent behavior is influenced by perceptions of popularity in their reference group. Using 15-s clips of songs from MySpace.com, we obtained behavioral measures of preferences and neurobiological responses to the songs. The data were gathered with, and without, the overall popularity of the song revealed. Song popularity had a significant effect on the participants' likability ratings of the songs. fMRI results showed a strong correlation between the participants' rating and activity in the caudate nucleus, a region previously implicated in reward-driven actions. The tendency to change one's evaluation of a song was positively correlated with activation in the anterior insula and anterior cingulate, two regions that are associated with physiological arousal and negative affective states. Sensitivity to popularity was linked to lower activation levels in the middle temporal gyrus, suggesting a lower depth of musical semantic processing. Our results suggest that a principal mechanism whereby popularity ratings affect consumer choice is through the anxiety generated by the mismatch between one's own preferences and others'. This mismatch anxiety motivates people to switch their choices in the direction of the consensus. Our data suggest that this is a major force behind the conformity observed in music tastes in some teenagers. Copyright (c) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. Expanding beyond Our Library Walls: Building an Active Online Community through Facebook

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ganster, Ligaya; Schumacher, Bridget

    2009-01-01

    This article demonstrates how Facebook, a popular social networking Web site, provides libraries with the opportunity to develop an outreach presence and information portal within an online community. While much of the recent literature examines Facebook and defines its potential use within libraries, this article focuses on the use of Facebook's…

  18. Comparison of Face-to-Face and Online Mathematics Learning of Sixth Graders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edwards, Clayton M.; Rule, Audrey C.; Boody, Robert M.

    2013-01-01

    Online education is increasing in popularity at the college and high school levels with several studies showing the comparability of e-learning and more traditional methods. Middle school students' ability to function well with this mode of instruction has not been established in the literature, although the circumstances of Generation Z growing…

  19. Exploring Association between Morphology of Tree Planting and User Activities in Urban Public Space; An opportunity of Urban Public Space Revitalisation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Qi; Liu, Yan

    2018-03-01

    This paper discusses the association between the morphology of tree planting in urban riverside brown field and user activities. With the growth of popularity, the revitalisation of urban public space is also promising. This research used drone photography and mapping to systematically surveys sample sites. An original observation study of user activities proceed in four sample public spaces in Sheffield. The study results found there are huge popularity and duration difference of user activities between various tree planting morphologies and typologies. The public space with lawn and rounded by mature trees attracted most users with the most activity types; the neat and silent public space is the favourite choice of lunch and reading, meanwhile it got the longest activity duration; but the space with sparse morphology and small trees are more likely be forgotten and abandoned. This finding offered a great opportunity for urban public space revitalisation in post-industrial cities.

  20. Behavioral Correlates of Prioritizing Popularity in Adolescence

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Den Broek, Nina; Deutz, Marike H F; Schoneveld, Elke A.; Burk, William J.; Cillessen, Antonius H N

    2016-01-01

    Little is known about individual differences in adolescents’ motivation to achieve and maintain popularity. This study examined the moderating effects of prioritizing popularity on the associations between popularity and adjustment outcomes in late adolescence. Participants were 314 Dutch

  1. Popularity and Novelty Dynamics in Evolving Networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abbas, Khushnood; Shang, Mingsheng; Abbasi, Alireza; Luo, Xin; Xu, Jian Jun; Zhang, Yu-Xia

    2018-04-20

    Network science plays a big role in the representation of real-world phenomena such as user-item bipartite networks presented in e-commerce or social media platforms. It provides researchers with tools and techniques to solve complex real-world problems. Identifying and predicting future popularity and importance of items in e-commerce or social media platform is a challenging task. Some items gain popularity repeatedly over time while some become popular and novel only once. This work aims to identify the key-factors: popularity and novelty. To do so, we consider two types of novelty predictions: items appearing in the popular ranking list for the first time; and items which were not in the popular list in the past time window, but might have been popular before the recent past time window. In order to identify the popular items, a careful consideration of macro-level analysis is needed. In this work we propose a model, which exploits item level information over a span of time to rank the importance of the item. We considered ageing or decay effect along with the recent link-gain of the items. We test our proposed model on four various real-world datasets using four information retrieval based metrics.

  2. Online professionalism and the mirror of social media.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greysen, S Ryan; Kind, Terry; Chretien, Katherine C

    2010-11-01

    The rise of social media--content created by Internet users and hosted by popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Wikipedia, and blogs--has brought several new hazards for medical professionalism. First, many physicians may find applying principles for medical professionalism to the online environment challenging in certain contexts. Second, physicians may not consider the potential impact of their online content on their patients and the public. Third, a momentary lapse in judgment by an individual physician to create unprofessional content online can reflect poorly on the entire profession. To overcome these challenges, we encourage individual physicians to realize that as they "tread" through the World Wide Web, they leave behind a "footprint" that may have unintended negative consequences for them and for the profession at large. We also recommend that institutions take a proactive approach to engage users of social media in setting consensus-based standards for "online professionalism." Finally, given that professionalism encompasses more than the avoidance of negative behaviors, we conclude with examples of more positive applications for this technology. Much like a mirror, social media can reflect the best and worst aspects of the content placed before it for all to see.

  3. 中国农村网购消费现状与引导策略--以淘宝网农村网购为例%Consumption status of rural Chinese online shopping and guiding strategy:A case of rural online shopping on Taobao

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    张艳萍

    2016-01-01

    With the gradual improvement of rural online shopping environment,rural online shop-ping has become a new increasing point of E-commerce industry.Due to the staggering in shopping ideas,internet access mode and logistic system,rural online shopping consumption has not popular-ized.Based on the study on rural online shopping on Taobao net,strategies for improving the rural online shopping are discussed.To promote the rural online shopping,it is essential to better the lo-gistic network,foster rural consumers’online shopping habit and establish rural online shopping service stations to propel the rapid popularization of rural online shopping consumption.%随着农村网上购物环境不断改善,农村网购成为电商行业新的增长点。农村在购物观念、互联网接入方式、物流体系存在明显滞后,农村网购消费方式尚未全面普及。通过淘宝网的农村网购消费行为的研究视角,探讨促进农村网购的发展策略。促进农村网购应完善物流网络,培养农村消费者的网购习惯,建立农村网购服务站,才能促进农村网购消费行为的快速普及。

  4. Rethinking Popular Culture and Media

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marshall, Elizabeth, Ed.; Sensoy, Ozlem, Ed.

    2011-01-01

    "Rethinking Popular Culture and Media" is a provocative collection of articles that begins with the idea that the "popular" in classrooms and in the everyday lives of teachers and students is fundamentally political. This anthology includes outstanding articles by elementary and secondary public school teachers, scholars, and activists who…

  5. The Issue Network as a Deliberative Space

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ørmen, Jacob

    2012-01-01

    to identify relevant political issues online, but it does not manage to bring together the various antagonistic actors in one deliberative space online. In a triangulation of the results from the two separate analyses, the study further finds evidence, which suggests that the relationship between hyperlinks......Through an analysis of the Danish asylum issue network on the Internet, this article discusses the possibilities of the online sphere as a deliberative space, where politics is happening. By assessing the hyperlink structure of the issue network and a subsequent content analysis of the claims...

  6. A Grounded Theory of Professional Learning in an Authentic Online Professional Development Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teräs, Hanna; Kartoglu, Umit

    2017-01-01

    Online professional development (OPD) programs have become increasingly popular. However, participating in professional development does not always lead to profound professional learning. Previous research endeavours have often focussed on measuring user acceptance or on comparing the effectiveness of OPD with a face-to-face delivery, but there is…

  7. Women and Popular Church

    OpenAIRE

    Maria Brendalí Costa; EST

    2013-01-01

    From the early 1960s, the Popular Church organized and influenced the actions, ideas and objectives of the Brazilian civil society. From the Feminist Theology, the article reflects on the different ways which this praxis influenced, through principles, worldviews and methodologies, the actions performed by women in the 1980s who engaged in the Urban Popular Church in suburbs of cities which belonged to the diocese of Caxias do Sul. The study is bibliographic, documental and is analyzed throug...

  8. Popularity versus similarity in growing networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papadopoulos, Fragkiskos; Kitsak, Maksim; Serrano, M Ángeles; Boguñá, Marián; Krioukov, Dmitri

    2012-09-27

    The principle that 'popularity is attractive' underlies preferential attachment, which is a common explanation for the emergence of scaling in growing networks. If new connections are made preferentially to more popular nodes, then the resulting distribution of the number of connections possessed by nodes follows power laws, as observed in many real networks. Preferential attachment has been directly validated for some real networks (including the Internet), and can be a consequence of different underlying processes based on node fitness, ranking, optimization, random walks or duplication. Here we show that popularity is just one dimension of attractiveness; another dimension is similarity. We develop a framework in which new connections optimize certain trade-offs between popularity and similarity, instead of simply preferring popular nodes. The framework has a geometric interpretation in which popularity preference emerges from local optimization. As opposed to preferential attachment, our optimization framework accurately describes the large-scale evolution of technological (the Internet), social (trust relationships between people) and biological (Escherichia coli metabolic) networks, predicting the probability of new links with high precision. The framework that we have developed can thus be used for predicting new links in evolving networks, and provides a different perspective on preferential attachment as an emergent phenomenon.

  9. Factors Influencing Consumers Intention for Online Grocery Shopping - A Proposed Framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pauzi, SFF; Thoo, AC; Tan, LC; Muharam, FM; Talib, NA

    2017-06-01

    Nowadays, Internet is one of the most popular platforms for people to do online shopping including grocery items. Many studies have been conducted to investigate the determinants of customer intentions for online grocery shopping. Till now, there is no consensus on what are the factors that actually influencing people to shop grocery items through Internet. This paper aims to explore the factors such as social influences, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivations, perceived risk and perceived trust that influence the consumer intention to purchase grocery online. Questionnaires will be the main instrument of the study and they will be distributed to target respondents using Internet survey. Respondents of the study will be selected using convenience sampling. After data collection, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) will be employed for data analysis. Overall, the result of the study is important to retailers to identify the important factors in increasing their customers’ intention to purchase grocery online.

  10. Online health information search: what struggles and empowers the users? Results of an online survey.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pletneva, Natalia; Vargas, Alejandro; Kalogianni, Konstantina; Boyer, Célia

    2012-01-01

    The most popular mean of searching for online health content is a general search engine for all domains of interest. Being general implies on one hand that the search engine is not tailored to the needs which are particular to the medical and on another hand that health domain and health-specific queries may not always return adequate and adapted results. The aim of our study was to identify difficulties and preferences in online health information search encountered by members of the general public. The survey in four languages was online from the 9th of March until the 27th of April, 2011. 385 answers were collected, representing mostly the opinions of highly educated users, mostly from France and Spain. The most important characteristics of a search engine are relevance and trustworthiness of results. The results currently retrieved do not fulfil these requirements. The ideal representation of the information will be a categorization of the results into different groups. Medical dictionaries/thesauruses, suggested relevant topics, image searches and spelling corrections are regarded as helpful tools. There is a need to work towards better customized solutions which provide users with the trustworthy information of high quality specific to his/her case in a user-friendly environment which would eventually lead to making appropriate health decisions.

  11. Effect of online social networking on employee productivity

    OpenAIRE

    A. Ferreira; T. du Plessis

    2009-01-01

    The popularity of social networking sites is relatively recent and the effect of online social networking (OSN) on employee productivity has not received much scholarly attention. The reason most likely lies in the social nature of social networking sites and OSN, which is assumed to have a negative effect on employee productivity and not bear organisational benefit. This reseach investigated recent Internet developments as seen in the social Web and specifically investigated the effect of OS...

  12. [Advanced online search techniques and dedicated search engines for physicians].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nahum, Yoav

    2008-02-01

    In recent years search engines have become an essential tool in the work of physicians. This article will review advanced search techniques from the world of information specialists, as well as some advanced search engine operators that may help physicians improve their online search capabilities, and maximize the yield of their searches. This article also reviews popular dedicated scientific and biomedical literature search engines.

  13. Meaningful real-life relationships in massively multiplayer online roleplaying games

    OpenAIRE

    Mansikkamäki, E. (Eetu)

    2014-01-01

    Abstract Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games are extremely popular with millions and millions of players spending large portions of their free time in these virtual environments. Still the social value and the meaningfulness of the relationships formed within them are questioned by most non-gamers and even some gamers. In the past even academia was mainly concentrating on the negative aspects of gaming but lately...

  14. Adoption of online health management tools among healthy older adults: An exploratory study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zettel-Watson, Laura; Tsukerman, Dmitry

    2016-06-01

    As the population ages and chronic diseases abound, overburdened healthcare systems will increasingly require individuals to manage their own health. Online health management tools, quickly increasing in popularity, have the potential to diminish or even replace in-person contact with health professionals, but overall efficacy and usage trends are unknown. The current study explored perceptions and usage patterns among users of online health management tools, and identified barriers and barrier-breakers among non-users. An online survey was completed by 169 computer users (aged 50+). Analyses revealed that a sizable minority (37%) of participants use online health management tools and most users (89%) are satisfied with these tools, but a limited range of tools are being used and usage occurs in relatively limited domains. Improved awareness and education for online health management tools could enhance people's abilities to remain at home as they age, reducing the financial burden on formal assistance programs. © The Author(s) 2014.

  15. Online PR in the EU. A Study about Online Communication in Public Relations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iulian Veghes

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The “Online PR in EU” research aimed to review online communication in PR activity across the EU. The results have shown that in today’s PR, at least in the reviewed space, the main communication channel is Internet, as, in average, 59% of the specific activity happens online. We see that PR has adapted their techniques to the new requirements of the networked society. Two other important conclusions which can be drawn from this study: the first regards the availability of a cultural unity of the European area, as the results of the research have been surprisingly consistent across the analyzed countries. The second conclusion concerns the existence of “One of Many” communication model (the interactive-informal communication which, in the context of the interconnected society, places the organizations on equal footing with the connected individuals (both mentioned types of social actors having the same communication power in the online social systems.

  16. Online Feature Transformation Learning for Cross-Domain Object Category Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xuesong; Zhuang, Yan; Wang, Wei; Pedrycz, Witold

    2017-06-09

    In this paper, we introduce a new research problem termed online feature transformation learning in the context of multiclass object category recognition. The learning of a feature transformation is viewed as learning a global similarity metric function in an online manner. We first consider the problem of online learning a feature transformation matrix expressed in the original feature space and propose an online passive aggressive feature transformation algorithm. Then these original features are mapped to kernel space and an online single kernel feature transformation (OSKFT) algorithm is developed to learn a nonlinear feature transformation. Based on the OSKFT and the existing Hedge algorithm, a novel online multiple kernel feature transformation algorithm is also proposed, which can further improve the performance of online feature transformation learning in large-scale application. The classifier is trained with k nearest neighbor algorithm together with the learned similarity metric function. Finally, we experimentally examined the effect of setting different parameter values in the proposed algorithms and evaluate the model performance on several multiclass object recognition data sets. The experimental results demonstrate the validity and good performance of our methods on cross-domain and multiclass object recognition application.

  17. LO POPULAR NO-RATING SOBERANÍA DE LA COMUNICACIÓN POPULAR EN AMÉRICA LATINA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Víctor Adrián Díaz Esteves

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available A partir de un enfoque popular en construcción, este ensayo se propone reflexionar en torno a la noción original de comunicación humana. Asimismo, se aproxima al debate sobre las culturas populares en América Latina, construidas desde los sujetos, caracterizados por dos elementos aparentemente enfrentados, que se entremezclan. Por un lado, los sujetos son consumidores de la oferta rentable y global de los medios masivos; cuya hegemonía responde al rating y al capital. Por otro lado, son productores culturales de sentido e imágenes simbólicas propias, resistentes y en ocasiones, contradictorias. La comunicación popular favorece la producción local y regional; la participación ciudadana, la integración y el cambio social; la igualdad y la democracia. Esta mirada popular de la comunicación, es parte de las mutaciones que la modernidad ha introducido en los países latinoamericanos, y a la vez, define a las culturas populares, no como esa masa homogénea, pasiva y dominada por los mass media, sino conscientes del entrecruzamiento de expresiones sociales, orígenes, gustos, modas y costumbres diversas, en busca de la construcción de comunidades culturales de sentido y respeto en materia de derechos.

  18. Barriers and Facilitators for the Implementation of an Online Clinical Health Community in Addition to Usual Fertility Care: A Cross-Sectional Study

    OpenAIRE

    Aarts, Johanna WM; Faber, Marjan J; den Boogert, Anne G; Cohlen, Ben J; van der Linden, Paul JQ; Kremer, Jan AM; Nelen, Willianne LDM

    2013-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Online health communities are becoming more popular in health care. Patients and professionals can communicate with one another online, patients can find peer support, and professionals can use it as an additional information channel to their patients. However, the implementation of online health communities into daily practice is challenging. These challenges relate to the fact that patients need to be activated to (1) become a member (ie, subscription) and (2) participate active...

  19. An Online Causal Inference Framework for Modeling and Designing Systems Involving User Preferences: A State-Space Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ibrahim Delibalta

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available We provide a causal inference framework to model the effects of machine learning algorithms on user preferences. We then use this mathematical model to prove that the overall system can be tuned to alter those preferences in a desired manner. A user can be an online shopper or a social media user, exposed to digital interventions produced by machine learning algorithms. A user preference can be anything from inclination towards a product to a political party affiliation. Our framework uses a state-space model to represent user preferences as latent system parameters which can only be observed indirectly via online user actions such as a purchase activity or social media status updates, shares, blogs, or tweets. Based on these observations, machine learning algorithms produce digital interventions such as targeted advertisements or tweets. We model the effects of these interventions through a causal feedback loop, which alters the corresponding preferences of the user. We then introduce algorithms in order to estimate and later tune the user preferences to a particular desired form. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our algorithms through experiments in different scenarios.

  20. The association between online gaming, social phobia, and depression: an internet survey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wei Han-Ting

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Online gaming technology has developed rapidly within the past decade, and its related problems have received increasing attention. However, there are few studies on the psychiatric symptoms associated with excessive use of online games. The aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of online gamers, and the association between online gaming hours, social phobia, and depression using an internet survey. Methods An online questionnaire was designed and posted on a popular online game websites, inviting the online gamers to participate the survey. The content of the questionnaire included demographic data, profiles of internet usage and online gaming, and self-rating scales of Depression and Somatic Symptoms Scale (DSSS, Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN, and Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS. Results A total of 722 online gamers with a mean age of 21.8 ± 4.9 years completed the online survey within one month. 601 (83.2% participants were male, and 121 (16.8% were female. The mean weekly online gaming time was 28.2 ± 19.7 hours, which positively associated with history of online gaming (r = 0.245, p  Conclusion The online gamers with longer weekly gaming hours tended to have a longer history of online gaming, and more severe depressive, social phobic, and internet addiction symptoms. Female online gamers had fewer weekly online gaming hours and a shorter previous online gaming history, but tended to have more severe somatic, pain, and social phobic symptoms. The predictors for depression were higher social phobic symptom, higher internet addiction symptoms, longer online gaming hours, and female gender.

  1. The Role of Auditory Features Within Slot-Themed Social Casino Games and Online Slot Machine Games.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bramley, Stephanie; Gainsbury, Sally M

    2015-12-01

    Over the last few years playing social casino games has become a popular entertainment activity. Social casino games are offered via social media platforms and mobile apps and resemble gambling activities. However, social casino games are not classified as gambling as they can be played for free, outcomes may not be determined by chance, and players receive no monetary payouts. Social casino games appear to be somewhat similar to online gambling activities in terms of their visual and auditory features, but to date little research has investigated the cross over between these games. This study examines the auditory features of slot-themed social casino games and online slot machine games using a case study design. An example of each game type was played on three separate occasions during which, the auditory features (i.e., music, speech, sound effects, and the absence of sound) within the games were logged. The online slot-themed game was played in demo mode. This is the first study to provide a qualitative account of the role of auditory features within a slot-themed social casino game and an online slot machine game. Our results found many similarities between how sound is utilised within the two games. Therefore the sounds within these games may serve functions including: setting the scene for gaming, creating an image, demarcating space, interacting with visual features, prompting players to act, communicating achievements to players, providing reinforcement, heightening player emotions and the gaming experience. As a result this may reduce the ability of players to make a clear distinction between these two activities, which may facilitate migration between games.

  2. Mining Trust Relationships from Online Social Networks

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Yu Zhang; Tong Yu

    2012-01-01

    With the growing popularity of online social network,trust plays a more and more important role in connecting people to each other.We rely on our personal trust to accept recommendations,to make purchase decisions and to select transaction partners in the online community.Therefore,how to obtain trust relationships through mining online social networks becomes an important research topic.There are several shortcomings of existing trust mining methods.First,trust is category-dependent.However,most of the methods overlook the category attribute of trust relationships,which leads to low accuracy in trust calculation.Second,since the data in online social networks cannot be understood and processed by machines directly,traditional mining methods require much human effort and are not easily applied to other applications.To solve the above problems,we propose a semantic-based trust reasoning mechanism to mine trust relationships from online social networks automatically.We emphasize the category attribute of pairwise relationships and utilize Semantic Web technologies to build a domain ontology for data communication and knowledge sharing.We exploit role-based and behavior-based reasoning functions to infer implicit trust relationships and category-specific trust relationships.We make use of path expressions to extend reasoning rules so that the mining process can be done directly without much human effort.We perform experiments on real-life data extracted from Epinions.The experimental results verify the effectiveness and wide application use of our proposed method.

  3. Feminismo, estudios culturales y cultura popular

    OpenAIRE

    Hollows, Joanne

    2005-01-01

    This paper explores the movement of feminism into academic life in general and the study of popular culture in particular. Assumptioms about the effects of popular culture on women had been a commonsense of second-wave feminism; however, by the mid-1970’s, questions about how gendered identities were culturally produced and reproduced became the topic of much more in-depth feminist research and discussion. This essay examines two main ways in which feminist research into popular culture enter...

  4. Popular Culture in the Junior College Library

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lonergan, David; Ayers, Meredith

    2015-01-01

    Popular culture is extremely influential in both academe and society at large. However, formal disciplinary study of popular culture lags far behind that influence. Anthropology, film studies, history, musicology, and sociology are only some of the disciplines that frequently include popular culture as a research focus. This article advises on how…

  5. Cortical thickness abnormalities in late adolescence with online gaming addiction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yuan, Kai; Cheng, Ping; Dong, Tao; Bi, Yanzhi; Xing, Lihong; Yu, Dahua; Zhao, Limei; Dong, Minghao; von Deneen, Karen M; Liu, Yijun; Qin, Wei; Tian, Jie

    2013-01-01

    Online gaming addiction, as the most popular subtype of Internet addiction, had gained more and more attention from the whole world. However, the structural differences in cortical thickness of the brain between adolescents with online gaming addiction and healthy controls are not well unknown; neither was its association with the impaired cognitive control ability. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scans from late adolescence with online gaming addiction (n = 18) and age-, education- and gender-matched controls (n = 18) were acquired. The cortical thickness measurement method was employed to investigate alterations of cortical thickness in individuals with online gaming addiction. The color-word Stroop task was employed to investigate the functional implications of the cortical thickness abnormalities. Imaging data revealed increased cortical thickness in the left precentral cortex, precuneus, middle frontal cortex, inferior temporal and middle temporal cortices in late adolescence with online gaming addiction; meanwhile, the cortical thicknesses of the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), insula, lingual gyrus, the right postcentral gyrus, entorhinal cortex and inferior parietal cortex were decreased. Correlation analysis demonstrated that the cortical thicknesses of the left precentral cortex, precuneus and lingual gyrus correlated with duration of online gaming addiction and the cortical thickness of the OFC correlated with the impaired task performance during the color-word Stroop task in adolescents with online gaming addiction. The findings in the current study suggested that the cortical thickness abnormalities of these regions may be implicated in the underlying pathophysiology of online gaming addiction.

  6. The value of fame: preadolescent perceptions of popular media and their relationship to future aspirations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uhls, Yalda T; Greenfield, Patricia M

    2012-03-01

    In line with Greenfield's (2009) theory of social change and human development, current popular preadolescent TV shows suggest that fame, an individualistic goal, is an important and achievable aspiration (Uhls & Greenfield, 2011). Such messages may be particularly salient for preadolescents, ages 10-12. This study used focus groups and mixed analytic methods (qualitative and quantitative) to examine how popular media, passive and interactive, are interpreted by preadolescents and how their interpretations relate to their media practices and future goals. Quantitative analysis revealed that fame was the number one value, selected as the most important value for participants' future goals significantly more frequently than expected by chance. Qualitative analysis of focus group discourse suggested that (a) youth absorb messages in their media environment regarding fame as a future goal and (b) their interpretations of these messages highlight the importance and value of public recognition. Enacting the value of fame, the majority of preadolescent participants use online video sharing sites (e.g., YouTube) to seek an audience beyond their immediate community. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

  7. Specalyzer—an interactive online tool to analyze spectral reflectance measurements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexander Koc

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Low-cost phenotyping using proximal sensors is increasingly becoming popular in plant breeding. As these techniques generate a large amount of data, analysis pipelines that do not require expertise in computer programming can benefit a broader user base. In this work, a new online tool Specalyzer is presented that allows interactive analysis of the spectral reflectance data generated by proximal spectroradiometers. Specalyzer can be operated from any web browser allowing data uploading, analysis, interactive plots and exporting by point and click using a simple graphical user interface. Specalyzer is evaluated with case study data from a winter wheat fertilizer trial with two fertilizer treatments. Specalyzer can be accessed online at http://www.specalyzer.org.

  8. ?I Use Weed for My ADHD?: A Qualitative Analysis of Online Forum Discussions on Cannabis Use and ADHD

    OpenAIRE

    Mitchell, John T.; Sweitzer, Maggie M.; Tunno, Angela M.; Kollins, Scott H.; McClernon, F. Joseph

    2016-01-01

    Background Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a risk factor for problematic cannabis use. However, clinical and anecdotal evidence suggest an increasingly popular perception that cannabis is therapeutic for ADHD, including via online resources. Given that the Internet is increasingly utilized as a source of healthcare information and may influence perceptions, we conducted a qualitative analysis of online forum discussions, also referred to as threads, on the effects of cannab...

  9. Bias in online recruitment and retention of racial and ethnic minority men who have sex with men.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sullivan, Patrick S; Khosropour, Christine M; Luisi, Nicole; Amsden, Matthew; Coggia, Tom; Wingood, Gina M; DiClemente, Ralph J

    2011-05-13

    The Internet has become an increasingly popular venue for men who have sex with men (MSM) to meet potential sex partners. Given this rapid increase in online sex-seeking among MSM, Internet-based interventions represent an important HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) prevention strategy. Unfortunately, black and Hispanic MSM, who are disproportionately impacted by the HIV epidemic in the United States, have been underrepresented in online research studies. Our objective was to examine and quantify factors associated with underrecruitment and underretention of MSM of color in an online HIV behavioral risk research study of MSM recruited from an online social networking site. Internet-using MSM were recruited through banner advertisements on MySpace.com targeted at men who reported in their MySpace profile their age as at least 18 and their sexual orientation as gay, bisexual, or unsure. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to estimate the odds stratified by race and ethnicity of the MySpace user clicking through the banner advertisement. To characterize survey retention, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and multivariable Cox proportional hazards models identified factors associated with survey dropout. Over 30,000 MySpace users clicked on the study banner advertisements (click-through rate of 0.37%, or 30,599 clicks from 8,257,271 impressions). Black (0.36% or 6474 clicks from 1,785,088 impressions) and Hispanic (0.35% or 8873 clicks from 2,510,434 impressions) MySpace users had a lower click-through rate compared with white (0.48% or 6995 clicks from 1,464,262 impressions) MySpace users. However, black men had increased odds of click-through for advertisements displaying a black model versus a white model (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 1.83, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.72 - 1.95), and Hispanic participants had increased odds of click-through when shown an advertisement displaying an Asian model versus a white model (adjusted OR = 1.70, 95% CI 1.62 - 1

  10. Doing synchronous online focus groups with young people: methodological reflections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, Fiona E; Morris, Marianne; Rumsey, Nichola

    2007-04-01

    Although online focus groups are emerging as a worthwhile methodological approach for qualitative researchers, reporting has been constrained in several ways. The majority of studies report asynchronous groups, whereas others employ synchronous exchanges, the efficacy of which with young people has seldom been explored. Considering the popularity of the Internet as a communication tool for young people, this missed opportunity is surprising. Based on a series of synchronous online focus groups with young people, the authors explore why this approach might be an effective way of engaging young people with appearance-related concerns in research. In this article, they discuss the process of hosting and moderating synchronous online focus groups, highlighting some of the ethical, pragmatic, and personal challenges that might face researchers using this method. Through a reflexive approach, they intend to inform and encourage qualitative researchers to consider alternative ways of engaging young people in research.

  11. Opinion Mining in Online Reviews About Distance Education Programs

    OpenAIRE

    Jaskolski, Janik; Siegberg, Fabian; Tibroni, Thomas; Cimiano, Philipp; Klinger, Roman

    2016-01-01

    The popularity of distance education programs is increasing at a fast pace. En par with this development, online communication in fora, social media and reviewing platforms between students is increasing as well. Exploiting this information to support fellow students or institutions requires to extract the relevant opinions in order to automatically generate reports providing an overview of pros and cons of different distance education programs. We report on an experiment involving distance e...

  12. Student Interactions with Online Videos in a Large Hybrid Mechanics of Materials Course

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahn, Benjamin; Bir, Devayan D.

    2018-01-01

    The hybrid course format has gained popularity in the engineering education community over the past few years. Although studies have examined student outcomes and attitudes toward hybrid courses, a limited number of studies have examined how students interact with online videos in hybrid courses. This study examined the video-viewing behaviors of…

  13. Evaluating Rater Responses to an Online Training Program for L2 Writing Assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elder, Catherine; Barkhuizen, Gary; Knoch, Ute; von Randow, Janet

    2007-01-01

    The use of online rater self-training is growing in popularity and has obvious practical benefits, facilitating access to training materials and rating samples and allowing raters to reorient themselves to the rating scale and self monitor their behaviour at their own convenience. However there has thus far been little research into rater…

  14. Alternative Metrics ("Altmetrics") for Assessing Article Impact in Popular General Radiology Journals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosenkrantz, Andrew B; Ayoola, Abimbola; Singh, Kush; Duszak, Richard

    2017-07-01

    Emerging alternative metrics leverage social media and other online platforms to provide immediate measures of biomedical articles' reach among diverse public audiences. We aimed to compare traditional citation and alternative impact metrics for articles in popular general radiology journals. All 892 original investigations published in 2013 issues of Academic Radiology, American Journal of Roentgenology, Journal of the American College of Radiology, and Radiology were included. Each article's content was classified as imaging vs nonimaging. Traditional journal citations to articles were obtained from Web of Science. Each article's Altmetric Attention Score (Altmetric), representing weighted mentions across a variety of online platforms, was obtained from Altmetric.com. Statistical assessment included the McNemar test, the Mann-Whitney test, and the Pearson correlation. Mean and median traditional citation counts were 10.7 ± 15.4 and 5 vs 3.3 ± 13.3 and 0 for Altmetric. Among all articles, 96.4% had ≥1 traditional citation vs 41.8% for Altmetric (P nonimaging content (11.5 ± 16.2 vs 6.9 ± 9.8, P nonimaging content (5.1 ± 11.1 vs 2.8 ± 13.7, P = 0.006). Although overall online attention to radiology journal content was low, alternative metrics exhibited unique trends, particularly for nonclinical articles, and may provide a complementary measure of radiology research impact compared to traditional citation counts. Copyright © 2017 The Association of University Radiologists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. QRTEngine: An easy solution for running online reaction time experiments using Qualtrics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnhoorn, Jonathan S; Haasnoot, Erwin; Bocanegra, Bruno R; van Steenbergen, Henk

    2015-12-01

    Performing online behavioral research is gaining increased popularity among researchers in psychological and cognitive science. However, the currently available methods for conducting online reaction time experiments are often complicated and typically require advanced technical skills. In this article, we introduce the Qualtrics Reaction Time Engine (QRTEngine), an open-source JavaScript engine that can be embedded in the online survey development environment Qualtrics. The QRTEngine can be used to easily develop browser-based online reaction time experiments with accurate timing within current browser capabilities, and it requires only minimal programming skills. After introducing the QRTEngine, we briefly discuss how to create and distribute a Stroop task. Next, we describe a study in which we investigated the timing accuracy of the engine under different processor loads using external chronometry. Finally, we show that the QRTEngine can be used to reproduce classic behavioral effects in three reaction time paradigms: a Stroop task, an attentional blink task, and a masked-priming task. These findings demonstrate that QRTEngine can be used as a tool for conducting online behavioral research even when this requires accurate stimulus presentation times.

  16. Online professionalism: A synthetic review.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chretien, Katherine C; Tuck, Matthew G

    2015-04-01

    The rise of social media has increased connectivity and blurred personal and professional boundaries, bringing new challenges for medical professionalism. Whether traditional professionalism principles apply to the online social media space remains unknown. The purpose of this synthetic literature review was to characterize the original peer-reviewed research studies published between 1 January 2000-1 November 2014 on online professionalism, to assess methodologies and approaches used, and to provide insights to guide future studies in this area. The investigators searched three databases and performed manual searches of bibliographies to identify the 32 studies included. Most studies originated in the USA. Cross-sectional surveys and analyses of publicly available online content were the most common methodologies employed. Studies covered the general areas of use and privacy, assessment of unprofessional online behaviours, consensus-gathering of what constitutes unprofessional or inappropriate online behaviours, and education and policies. Studies were of variable quality; only around half of survey studies had response rates of 50% or greater. Medical trainees were the most common population studied. Future directions for research include public perspectives of online professionalism, impact on patient trust, and how to use social media productively as medical professionals.

  17. Classifications in Popular Music: Discourses and Meaning Structures in American, Dutch and German Popular Music Reviews

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    A.T. van Venrooij (Alex)

    2009-01-01

    textabstractPopular music is one of the cultural fields – together with film, photography, and jazz – which in the second half of the twentieth century have apparently gained much in status and recognition (Janssen, 1999; Janssen, Kuipers & Verboord, 2009). Popular music has become ‘aesthetically

  18. An online spaced-education game among clinicians improves their patients' time to blood pressure control: a randomized controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kerfoot, B Price; Turchin, Alexander; Breydo, Eugene; Gagnon, David; Conlin, Paul R

    2014-05-01

    Many patients with high blood pressure (BP) do not have antihypertensive medications appropriately intensified at clinician visits. We investigated whether an online spaced-education (SE) game among primary care clinicians can decrease time to BP target among their hypertensive patients. A 2-arm randomized trial was conducted over 52 weeks among primary care clinicians at 8 hospitals. Educational content consisted of 32 validated multiple-choice questions with explanations on hypertension management. Providers were randomized into 2 groups: SE clinicians were enrolled in the game, whereas control clinicians received identical educational content in an online posting. SE game clinicians were e-mailed 1 question every 3 days. Adaptive game mechanics resent questions in 12 or 24 days if answered incorrectly or correctly, respectively. Clinicians retired questions by answering each correctly twice consecutively. Posting of relative performance among peers fostered competition. Primary outcome measure was time to BP target (game was completed by 87% of clinicians (48/55), whereas 84% of control clinicians (47/56) read the online posting. In multivariable analysis of 17 866 hypertensive periods among 14 336 patients, the hazard ratio for time to BP target in the SE game cohort was 1.043 (95% confidence interval, 1.007-1.081; P=0.018). The number of hypertensive episodes needed to treat to normalize one additional patient's BP was 67.8. The number of clinicians needed to teach to achieve this was 0.43. An online SE game among clinicians generated a modest but significant reduction in the time to BP target among their hypertensive patients. http://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT00904007. © 2014 American Heart Association, Inc.

  19. Composition and structure of a large online social network in The Netherlands.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rense Corten

    Full Text Available Limitations in data collection have long been an obstacle in research on friendship networks. Most earlier studies use either a sample of ego-networks, or complete network data on a relatively small group (e.g., a single organization. The rise of online social networking services such as Friendster and Facebook, however, provides researchers with opportunities to study friendship networks on a much larger scale. This study uses complete network data from Hyves, a popular online social networking service in The Netherlands, comprising over eight million members and over 400 million online friendship relations. In the first study of its kind for The Netherlands, I examine the structure of this network in terms of the degree distribution, characteristic path length, clustering, and degree assortativity. Results indicate that this network shares features of other large complex networks, but also deviates in other respects. In addition, a comparison with other online social networks shows that these networks show remarkable similarities.

  20. Composition and structure of a large online social network in The Netherlands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corten, Rense

    2012-01-01

    Limitations in data collection have long been an obstacle in research on friendship networks. Most earlier studies use either a sample of ego-networks, or complete network data on a relatively small group (e.g., a single organization). The rise of online social networking services such as Friendster and Facebook, however, provides researchers with opportunities to study friendship networks on a much larger scale. This study uses complete network data from Hyves, a popular online social networking service in The Netherlands, comprising over eight million members and over 400 million online friendship relations. In the first study of its kind for The Netherlands, I examine the structure of this network in terms of the degree distribution, characteristic path length, clustering, and degree assortativity. Results indicate that this network shares features of other large complex networks, but also deviates in other respects. In addition, a comparison with other online social networks shows that these networks show remarkable similarities.

  1. Extraordinary Matter: Visualizing Space Plasmas and Particles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barbier, S. B.; Bartolone, L.; Christian, E.; Thieman, J.; Eastman, T.; Lewis, E.

    2011-09-01

    Atoms and sub-atomic particles play a crucial role in the dynamics of our universe, but these particles and the space plasmas comprised of them are often overlooked in popular scientific and educational resources. Although the concepts are pertinent to a wide range of topics, even the most basic particle and plasma physics principles are generally unfamiliar to non-scientists. Educators and public communicators need assistance in explaining these concepts that cannot be easily demonstrated in the everyday world. Active visuals are a highly effective aid to understanding, but resources of this type are currently few in number and difficult to find, and most do not provide suitable context for audience comprehension. To address this need, our team is developing an online multimedia reference library of animations, visualizations, interactivities, and videos resources - Extraordinary Matter: Visualizing Space Plasmas and Particles. The site targets grades 9-14 and the equivalent in informal education and public outreach. Each ready-to-use product will be accompanied by a supporting explanation at a reading level matching the educational level of the concept. It will also have information on relevant science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational standards, activities, lesson plans, related products, links, and suggested uses. These products are intended to stand alone, making them adaptable to the widest range of uses, including scientist presentations, museum displays, educational websites and CDs, teacher professional development, and classroom use. This project is funded by a NASA Education and Public Outreach in Earth and Space Science (EPOESS) grant.

  2. Psychometric properties of the problematic online gaming questionnaire short-form and prevalence of problematic online gaming in a national sample of adolescents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pápay, Orsolya; Urbán, Róbert; Griffiths, Mark D; Nagygyörgy, Katalin; Farkas, Judit; Kökönyei, Gyöngyi; Felvinczi, Katalin; Oláh, Attila; Elekes, Zsuzsanna; Demetrovics, Zsolt

    2013-05-01

    The rise and growing popularity of online games has led to the appearance of excessive gaming that in some cases can lead to physical and psychological problems. Several measures have been developed to explore the nature and the scale of the phenomenon. However, few measures have been validated psychometrically. The aim of the present study was to test the psychometric properties of the 12-item Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire Short-Form (POGQ-SF) and to assess the prevalence of problematic online gaming. Data collection was carried out to assess the prevalence of problematic online gaming in a national representative adolescent sample by using an offline (pen and pencil) method. A total of 5,045 secondary school students were assessed (51% male, mean age 16.4 years, SD=0.9 years) of which 2,804 were gamers (65.4% male, mean age 16.4 years, SD=0.9 years). Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to test the measurement model of problematic online gaming, and latent profile analysis was used to identify the proportion of gamers whose online game use can be considered problematic. Results showed that the original six-factor model yielded appropriate fit to the data, and thus the POGQ-SF has appropriate psychometric properties. Latent profile analysis revealed that 4.6% of the adolescents belong to a high risk group and an additional 13.3% to a low risk group. Due to its satisfactory psychometric characteristics, the 12-item POGQ-SF appears to be an adequate tool for the assessment of problematic online gaming.

  3. Consumer Perceived Risk, Attitude and Online Shopping Behaviour; Empirical Evidence from Malaysia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ariff, Mohd Shoki Md; Sylvester, Michele; Zakuan, Norhayati; Ismail, Khalid; Mat Ali, Kamarudin

    2014-06-01

    The development of e-commerce has increased the popularity of online shopping worldwide. In Malaysia, it was reported that online shopping market size was RM1.8 billion in 2013 and it is estimated to reach RM5 billion by 2015. However, online shopping was rated 11th out of 15 purposes of using internet in 2012. Consumers' perceived risks of online shopping becomes a hot topic to research as it will directly influence users' attitude towards online purchasing, and their attitude will have significant impact to the online purchasing behaviour. The conceptualization of consumers' perceived risk, attitude and online shopping behaviour of this study provides empirical evidence in the study of consumer online behaviour. Four types of risks - product risk, financial, convenience and non-delivery risks - were examined in term of their effect on consumers' online attitude. A web-based survey was employed, and a total of 300 online shoppers of a Malaysia largest online marketplace participated in this study. The findings indicated that product risk, financial and non-delivery risks are hazardous and negatively affect the attitude of online shoppers. Convenience risk was found to have positive effect on consumers' attitude, denoting that online buyers of this site trusted the online seller and they encountered less troublesome with the site. It also implies that consumers did not really concern on non-convenience aspect of online shopping, such as handling of returned products and examine the quality of products featured in the online seller website. The online buyers' attitude was significantly and positively affects their online purchasing behaviour. The findings provide useful model for measuring and managing consumers' perceived risk in internet-based transaction to increase their involvement in online shopping and to reduce their cognitive dissonance in the e-commerce setting.

  4. Potential influence of Web 2.0 usage and security practices of online users on information management

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R.J. Rudman

    2009-02-01

    Full Text Available The proliferation of Web 2.0 applications was the impetus for this survey-based research into practices that online users currently employ when using Web 2.0 sites. As part of the study, the popularity of Web 2.0 technologies and sites among online users at a university was investigated to determine the extent of the potential threat to corporate security, arising from Web 2.0 use and access. The results of this study indicate that the use of Web 2.0 sites is very popular among students, as a proxy for the potential future business users, and that users are not necessarily aware of the risks associated with these sites. The respondents indicated that they regularly visit Web 2.0 sites, and that they post personal information on these sites. This is of concern in protecting arguably the most valuable asset of a business.

  5. Do Online Privacy Concerns Predict Selfie Behavior among Adolescents, Young Adults and Adults?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dhir, Amandeep; Torsheim, Torbjørn; Pallesen, Ståle; Andreassen, Cecilie S.

    2017-01-01

    Selfies, or self-portraits, are often taken and shared on social media for online self-presentation reasons, which are considered essential for the psychosocial development and well-being of people in today’s culture. Despite the growing popularity and widespread sharing of selfies in the online space, little is known about how privacy concerns moderate selfie behavior. In addition to this, it is also not known whether privacy concerns across age and gender groups influence selfie behavior. To address this timely issue, a survey assessing common selfie behaviors, that is, frequency of taking (individual and group selfies), editing (cropping and filtering), and posting selfies online, and social media privacy concerns (over personal data being accessed and misused by third parties) was conducted. The web-survey was administered to 3,763 Norwegian social media users, ranging from 13 to 50 years, with a preponderance of women (n = 2,509, 66.7%). The present study investigated the impact of privacy concerns on selfie behaviors across gender and age groups (adolescent, young adult, and adult) by use of the structural equation modeling approach. The results suggest that young adults have greater privacy concerns compared to adolescents and adults. Females have greater privacy concerns than males. Greater privacy concerns among female social media users were linked to lower engagement in selfie behavior, but privacy concerns did not influence selfie behavior in the case of male adolescents and young adults. Overall, privacy concerns were more consistently and inversely related to selfie behavior (taking and posting) among females than males. The study results have theoretical as well as practical implications for both researchers and policy makers. PMID:28588530

  6. Do Online Privacy Concerns Predict Selfie Behavior among Adolescents, Young Adults and Adults?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dhir, Amandeep; Torsheim, Torbjørn; Pallesen, Ståle; Andreassen, Cecilie S

    2017-01-01

    Selfies, or self-portraits, are often taken and shared on social media for online self-presentation reasons, which are considered essential for the psychosocial development and well-being of people in today's culture. Despite the growing popularity and widespread sharing of selfies in the online space, little is known about how privacy concerns moderate selfie behavior. In addition to this, it is also not known whether privacy concerns across age and gender groups influence selfie behavior. To address this timely issue, a survey assessing common selfie behaviors, that is, frequency of taking (individual and group selfies), editing (cropping and filtering), and posting selfies online, and social media privacy concerns (over personal data being accessed and misused by third parties) was conducted. The web-survey was administered to 3,763 Norwegian social media users, ranging from 13 to 50 years, with a preponderance of women ( n = 2,509, 66.7%). The present study investigated the impact of privacy concerns on selfie behaviors across gender and age groups (adolescent, young adult, and adult) by use of the structural equation modeling approach. The results suggest that young adults have greater privacy concerns compared to adolescents and adults. Females have greater privacy concerns than males. Greater privacy concerns among female social media users were linked to lower engagement in selfie behavior, but privacy concerns did not influence selfie behavior in the case of male adolescents and young adults. Overall, privacy concerns were more consistently and inversely related to selfie behavior (taking and posting) among females than males. The study results have theoretical as well as practical implications for both researchers and policy makers.

  7. Do Online Privacy Concerns Predict Selfie Behavior among Adolescents, Young Adults and Adults?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amandeep Dhir

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Selfies, or self-portraits, are often taken and shared on social media for online self-presentation reasons, which are considered essential for the psychosocial development and well-being of people in today’s culture. Despite the growing popularity and widespread sharing of selfies in the online space, little is known about how privacy concerns moderate selfie behavior. In addition to this, it is also not known whether privacy concerns across age and gender groups influence selfie behavior. To address this timely issue, a survey assessing common selfie behaviors, that is, frequency of taking (individual and group selfies, editing (cropping and filtering, and posting selfies online, and social media privacy concerns (over personal data being accessed and misused by third parties was conducted. The web-survey was administered to 3,763 Norwegian social media users, ranging from 13 to 50 years, with a preponderance of women (n = 2,509, 66.7%. The present study investigated the impact of privacy concerns on selfie behaviors across gender and age groups (adolescent, young adult, and adult by use of the structural equation modeling approach. The results suggest that young adults have greater privacy concerns compared to adolescents and adults. Females have greater privacy concerns than males. Greater privacy concerns among female social media users were linked to lower engagement in selfie behavior, but privacy concerns did not influence selfie behavior in the case of male adolescents and young adults. Overall, privacy concerns were more consistently and inversely related to selfie behavior (taking and posting among females than males. The study results have theoretical as well as practical implications for both researchers and policy makers.

  8. Cultura popular e nacionalismo musical: uma discussão das ideias folcloristas sobre a música popular no Brasil * Popular culture and musical nationalism: a discussion of folklorists ideas about popular music in Brazil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    ISMAEL DE OLIVEIRA GEROLAMO

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available Resumo: Neste trabalho discutimos como a noção de cultura popular torna-se elemento central para os debates em torno do nacionalismo nas esferas cultural e artística. Exploraremos, mais especificamente, as ideias de Mário de Andrade sobre o nacionalismo musical, tendo em vista a importância dessas ideias e suas possíveis ressonâncias nas discussões acerca da música popular no Brasil durante o século XX. A busca por uma “essência do povo” que constituiria a base de uma nação é ponto de referência para esse debate. Essas ideias, surgidas na Europa, ainda no século XIX, ligadas ao movimento romântico e a atuação dos folcloristas, ganham força no Brasil principalmente a partir do século XX e irão permear inúmeros debates em momentos distintos da história republicana do país.Palavras-chave: Nacionalismo Musical – Mário de Andrade – Música Popular. Abstract: In this paper, we discuss how the idea of popular culture becomes central to debates about nationalism in culture and art. We will explore more specifically the ideas of Mário de Andrade on musical nationalism, regarding the importance of these ideas and their possible resonances in discussions of popular music in Brazil during the twentieth century. The search for a "people's essence" that form the basis of a nation is in the core of this debate. These ideas emerged in Europe in the nineteenth century and are connected to the Romantic movement and actions of folklorists and will bulk in Brazil mostly from the twentieth century, when they will be part of numerous debates in distinguished moments in the country’s history.Keywords: Musical Nationalism – Mário de Andrade – Popular Music.

  9. Social media and online self-presentation: Effects on how we see ourselves and our bodies

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Vries, D.A.

    2014-01-01

    Social media are becoming more and more popular. Many adolescents and adults present themselves online through a social network site or dating profile. Such widespread engagement in self-presentation on social media may have implications for how we see ourselves and our bodies. These self-views, in

  10. Facebook and romantic relationships: intimacy and couple satisfaction associated with online social network use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hand, Matthew M; Thomas, Donna; Buboltz, Walter C; Deemer, Eric D; Buyanjargal, Munkhsanaa

    2013-01-01

    Online social networks, such as Facebook, have gained immense popularity and potentially affect the way people build and maintain interpersonal relationships. The present study sought to examine time spent on online social networks, as it relates to intimacy and relationship satisfaction experienced in romantic relationships. Results did not find relationships between an individual's usage of online social networks and his/her perception of relationship satisfaction and intimacy. However, the study found a negative relationship between intimacy and the perception of a romantic partner's use of online social networks. This finding may allude to an attributional bias in which individuals are more likely to perceive a partner's usage as negative compared to their own usage. Additionally, it was found that intimacy mediates the relationship between online social network usage and overall relationship satisfaction, which suggests that the level of intimacy experienced in a relationship may serve as a buffer that protects the overall level of satisfaction.

  11. The Popularity of Karinding among Bandung Society

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hinhin Agung Daryana

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The study focuses on the impact of the karinding popularity on Bandung society. In trying to understand its focus, the study uses interdisciplinary approaches including soci- ology and anthropology. It employs qualitative research method including data collection from oral and wri!en sources. Since being played by a band called Karinding A!ack, karin- ding became popular in Bandung. Further, the popularity of karinding gave some impacts on Bandung people, both its practitioners and its audience. Some programs and activities considered as the result of the popularity of karinding include multiple activities such as tourism activities, networking development, educational activities, revitalization of tradi- tional arts other than karinding, music development, literacy development, and the develop- ment of the creative economy.   Keywords: impact, popularity, karinding, Bandung, interdisciplinary approach

  12. Popular Nutrition-Related Mobile Apps: A Feature Assessment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Franco, Rodrigo Zenun; Fallaize, Rosalind; Lovegrove, Julie A; Hwang, Faustina

    2016-08-01

    A key challenge in human nutrition is the assessment of usual food intake. This is of particular interest given recent proposals of eHealth personalized interventions. The adoption of mobile phones has created an opportunity for assessing and improving nutrient intake as they can be used for digitalizing dietary assessments and providing feedback. In the last few years, hundreds of nutrition-related mobile apps have been launched and installed by millions of users. This study aims to analyze the main features of the most popular nutrition apps and to compare their strategies and technologies for dietary assessment and user feedback. Apps were selected from the two largest online stores of the most popular mobile operating systems-the Google Play Store for Android and the iTunes App Store for iOS-based on popularity as measured by the number of installs and reviews. The keywords used in the search were as follows: calorie(s), diet, diet tracker, dietician, dietitian, eating, fit, fitness, food, food diary, food tracker, health, lose weight, nutrition, nutritionist, weight, weight loss, weight management, weight watcher, and ww calculator. The inclusion criteria were as follows: English language, minimum number of installs (1 million for Google Play Store) or reviews (7500 for iTunes App Store), relation to nutrition (ie, diet monitoring or recommendation), and independence from any device (eg, wearable) or subscription. A total of 13 apps were classified as popular for inclusion in the analysis. Nine apps offered prospective recording of food intake using a food diary feature. Food selection was available via text search or barcode scanner technologies. Portion size selection was only textual (ie, without images or icons). All nine of these apps were also capable of collecting physical activity (PA) information using self-report, the global positioning system (GPS), or wearable integrations. Their outputs focused predominantly on energy balance between dietary

  13. Potential hazard of hearing damage to students in undergraduate popular music courses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barlow, Christopher

    2010-12-01

    In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in university courses related to popular and commercial music, with a commensurate increase in the number of students studying these courses. Students of popular music subjects are frequently involved in the use of electronically amplified sound for rehearsal and recording, in addition to the "normal" noise exposure commonly associated with young people. The combination of these two elements suggests a higher than average noise exposure hazard for these students. To date, the majority of noise studies on students have focused on exposure from personal music players and on classical, orchestral, and marching band musicians. One hundred students across a range of university popular music courses were surveyed using a 30-point questionnaire regarding their musical habits both within and external to their university courses. This was followed by noise dosimetry of studios/recording spaces and music venues popular with students. Questionnaire responses showed 76% of subjects reported having experienced symptoms associated with hearing loss, while only 18% reported using hearing protection devices. Rehearsals averaged 11.5 hrs/wk, with a mean duration 2 hrs 13 mins and mean level of 98 dB LAEQ. Ninety-four percent of subjects reported attending concerts or nightclubs at least once per week, and measured exposure in two of these venues ranged from 98 to 112 dB LAEQ with a mean of 98.9 dB LAEQ over a 4.5-hr period. Results suggested an extremely high hazard of excessive noise exposure among this group from both their social and study-based music activities.

  14. Usage of Online European Union Information Resources 2008

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Angela Joyce

    2008-11-01

    Full Text Available In recent years there has been an explosion of online European Union information resources available to researchers. However, little research into how researchers are accessing and using these resources has been carried out.. The aim of the research which informs this report was to take the first step to begin to rectify this issue. An online survey was conducted, using University of Bristol’s BOS software to which 145 people replied. The survey found that researchers considered themselves proficient at using online services. Surprisingly only 46.4% used them every day though. The Europa website was the most used but also paradoxically the most criticised for problems with search, navigation and transparency. Journals were the next most popular type of resource. Other top services included search engines, news sites and email lists. Web 2.0 has yet to be taken up widely by our sample of researchers, with few individuals having or using blogs or social networking software. The report also highlights that while some researchers are happy with EU online services, many are concerned about poor navigation and the design of websites, bias of information and the increasing abundance of passwords necessary to access multiple information resources.

  15. [Popular education in health and nutrition: literature review].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mueses De Molina, C

    1993-01-01

    This literature review of popular education in health and nutrition is intended to provide the necessary theoretical framework for proposals and programs for human resource development in food and nutrition. The work contains a summary of the objectives, purposes, and methodology of popular education in general, a discussion of applications of popular education techniques to health and nutrition education, and a description of some projects based on popular education. Popular education was developed in Latin America by Paulo Freire and others as a response to political domination. Its basic objective was to make the oppressed masses aware of their condition and able to struggle for the transformation of society. Popular education views community participation, development of consciousness, and integration with social and economic activity as fundamental attributes. Participation should be developed through community organizations and should continue for the duration of the educational intervention. The right of all persons to participate in a plane of equality should be recognized. Community or popular education should be conceived as a process of permanent education that will continue throughout the lifetime of individuals and groups. Popular education is directed toward population sectors excluded from participation in employment, family, community, mass communications, education, and leisure activities. Such population sectors are concentrated in the urban periphery and in rural areas. Abandonment of traditional educational techniques and assumption of an active role by community members are elements in development of the methodology of popular education. Steps in the methodology include investigation of possible themes, selection of themes to serve as points of departure, definition of the problem, and action programs. Popular education in nutrition and health begins by asking what problems need to be remedied. The entire process of training and education in

  16. Acute Effects of Online Mind-Body Skills Training on Resilience, Mindfulness, and Empathy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kemper, Kathi J; Khirallah, Michael

    2015-10-01

    Some studies have begun to show benefits of brief in-person mind-body skills training. We evaluated the effects of 1-hour online elective mind-body skills training for health professionals on mindfulness, resilience, and empathy. Between May and November, 2014, we described enrollees for the most popular 1-hour modules in a new online mind-body skills training program; compared enrollees' baseline stress and burnout to normative samples; and assessed acute changes in mindfulness, resilience, and empathy. The 513 enrollees included dietitians, nurses, physicians, social workers, clinical trainees, and health researchers; about 1/4 were trainees. The most popular modules were the following: Introduction to Stress, Resilience, and the Relaxation Response (n = 261); Autogenic Training (n = 250); Guided Imagery and Hypnosis for Pain, Insomnia, and Changing Habits (n = 112); Introduction to Mindfulness (n = 112); and Mindfulness in Daily Life (n = 102). Initially, most enrollees met threshold criteria for burnout and reported moderate to high stress levels. Completing 1-hour modules was associated with significant acute improvements in stress (P training reaches diverse, stressed health professionals and is associated with acute improvements in stress, mindfulness, empathy, and resilience. Additional research is warranted to compare the long-term cost-effectiveness of different doses of online and in-person mind-body skills training for health professionals. © The Author(s) 2015.

  17. Young, online and connected : The impact of everyday Internet use of Dutch adolescents on social cohesion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    M.H. Schols (Marjon)

    2015-01-01

    markdownabstractAbstract Adolescents spend a significant part of their day online on different activities. Many of them use the Internet to connect with social networks and for entertainment. The negative consequences of adolescents’ internet use seem to dominate both popular and, to a lesser

  18. Blending Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 2008-2015. Promising Practices in Blended and Online Learning Series

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powell, Allison; Watson, John; Staley, Patrick; Patrick, Susan; Horn, Michael; Fetzer, Leslie; Hibbard, Laura; Oglesby, Jonathan; Verma, Sue

    2015-01-01

    In 2008, the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) produced a series of papers documenting promising practices identified throughout the field of K-12 online learning. Since then, we have witnessed a tremendous acceleration of transformative policy and practice driving personalized learning in the K-12 education space. State,…

  19. Quantifying the role of online news in linking conservation research to Facebook and Twitter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papworth, S K; Nghiem, T P L; Chimalakonda, D; Posa, M R C; Wijedasa, L S; Bickford, D; Carrasco, L R

    2015-06-01

    Conservation science needs to engage the general public to ensure successful conservation interventions. Although online technologies such as Twitter and Facebook offer new opportunities to accelerate communication between conservation scientists and the online public, factors influencing the spread of conservation news in online media are not well understood. We explored transmission of conservation research through online news articles with generalized linear mixed-effects models and an information theoretic approach. In particular, we assessed differences in the frequency conservation research is featured on online news sites and the impact of online conservation news content and delivery on Facebook likes and shares and Twitter tweets. Five percent of articles in conservation journals are reported in online news, and the probability of reporting depended on the journal. There was weak evidence that articles on climate change and mammals were more likely to be featured. Online news articles about charismatic mammals with illustrations were more likely to be shared or liked on Facebook and Twitter, but the effect of news sites was much larger. These results suggest journals have the greatest impact on which conservation research is featured and that news site has the greatest impact on how popular an online article will be on Facebook and Twitter. © 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.

  20. Culture Jamming Versus Popular Culture

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leonardia Acynthia Putri

    2013-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract: This literature study researched Adbusters, the anti-commercial organization, and described the organization’s activities and media usage, mainly in the period of 2007-2010, which critized the populer culture. Adbusters is an organization which performs “Culture Jamming”; a rebellious act reacting towards commercialism domination in many aspects including popular culture. Compared to other similar organizations, Adbusters has been executing more various activisms using several media which other organizations do not use. This study used the Adbusters’ official website and blogs as main data sources. The data of Adbusters’ activities and media usage were categorized and analyzed, thus the tendency of its development can be described. This study also analyzed Adbusters’ activity using Media Hegemony Theory and Political Economy Media Theory. The media has been dominated by a certain group that owns politic and economic power, so the information flow has been dominated by them. Media and its contents have been commercialized, thus capitalism and commercialism have been considered as a common system that should run the world. Adbusters has been trying to stop the domination and change the society’s way of thinking into a more critical way of thinking.   Abstrak: Studi literatur ini meneliti tentang Adbusters, sebuah organisasi anti komersial, dengan mendeskripsikan aktivitas serta penggunaan media organisasi tersebut dari tahun 2007-2010 dalam mengkritisi budaya populer. Adbusters adalah organisasi yang melakukan Culture Jamming, aksi perlawanan terhadap dominasi komersialisme di segala aspek termasuk popular culture. Dibandingkan dengan organisasi lain yang serupa, aktivitas Adbusters lebih bervariasi dan menggunakan media-media yang tidak biasa digunakan organisasi lain. Penelitian ini menggunakan situs online resmi Adbusters sebagai sumber data utama. Data mengenai aktivitas dan

  1. The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hogan, Bernie

    2010-01-01

    Presentation of self (via Goffman) is becoming increasingly popular as a means for explaining differences in meaning and activity of online participation. This article argues that self-presentation can be split into performances, which take place in synchronous "situations," and artifacts, which take place in asynchronous "exhibitions." Goffman's…

  2. Popularity Modeling for Mobile Apps: A Sequential Approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Hengshu; Liu, Chuanren; Ge, Yong; Xiong, Hui; Chen, Enhong

    2015-07-01

    The popularity information in App stores, such as chart rankings, user ratings, and user reviews, provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand user experiences with mobile Apps, learn the process of adoption of mobile Apps, and thus enables better mobile App services. While the importance of popularity information is well recognized in the literature, the use of the popularity information for mobile App services is still fragmented and under-explored. To this end, in this paper, we propose a sequential approach based on hidden Markov model (HMM) for modeling the popularity information of mobile Apps toward mobile App services. Specifically, we first propose a popularity based HMM (PHMM) to model the sequences of the heterogeneous popularity observations of mobile Apps. Then, we introduce a bipartite based method to precluster the popularity observations. This can help to learn the parameters and initial values of the PHMM efficiently. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the PHMM is a general model and can be applicable for various mobile App services, such as trend based App recommendation, rating and review spam detection, and ranking fraud detection. Finally, we validate our approach on two real-world data sets collected from the Apple Appstore. Experimental results clearly validate both the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed popularity modeling approach.

  3. Student-Initiated Use of Facebook for Learning Online Journalism

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Yang

    2017-01-01

    This article presents a case study of student-initiated use of Facebook Groups in doing a team project for an online journalism course. Drawing upon the concept of affinity space and a theoretical taxonomy of asynchronous online discussion, the present study triangulates classroom observation, semi-structured student interviews, and microanalysis…

  4. Helping others in online games: prosocial behavior in cyberspace.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Chih-Chien; Wang, Chia-Hsin

    2008-06-01

    This study examined the reasons players help others in the virtual space of online games. Results of an online empirical survey indicated that both altruism and reciprocity influence prosocial behavior simultaneously. Additionally, the study found that male players are more likely than female players to seek friendship of opposite sex.

  5. Popularization of the role of nuclear power construction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Ying

    2010-01-01

    Scientific popularization shall be promoted in advance before nuclear power development. Since it was founded, Jiangsu Nuclear Power Corporation (JNPC) has always focused on the popularization of nuclear power knowledge to enable the public understand and access to nuclear power. Adhering to the center 'Popularizing nuclear power knowledge, correct steering of the public, serving the construction of TNPS and promoting the corporation development', the way of 'going out and coming in' for publicizing nuclear power knowledge has been gradually formed in line with the principle of 'close to the society, close to the people and close to the life'. The scientific popularization resources have been deeply dug out, and the education mode innovated. The healthy and continuous development of scientific popularization and education work are recognized and appraised highly by all circles of the society. Nowadays, a good atmosphere of 'everyone contends to popularize nuclear power knowledge' has formed in JNPC, and internal and external popularization and education work have yielded good results, which have created favorable social environment for the safe, proper and fast development of Tianwan Nuclear Power Station. (author)

  6. Social Capital, Self-Esteem, and Use of Online Social Network Sites: A Longitudinal Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Steinfield, Charles; Ellison, Nicole B.; Lampe, Cliff

    2008-01-01

    A longitudinal analysis of panel data from users of a popular online social network site, Facebook, investigated the relationship between intensity of Facebook use, measures of psychological well-being, and bridging social capital. Two surveys conducted a year apart at a large U.S. university, complemented with in-depth interviews with 18 Facebook…

  7. A systematic examination of the use of Online social networking sites for sexual health promotion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hellard Margaret E

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In recent years social networking sites (SNSs have grown rapidly in popularity. The popularity of these sites, along with their interactive functions, offer a novel environment in which to deliver health promotion messages. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which SNSs are currently being used for sexual health promotion and describe the breadth of these activities. Methods We conducted a systematic search of published scientific literature, electronic sources (general and scientific search engines, blogs and SNSs (Facebook, MySpace to identify existing sexual health promotion activities using SNSs. Health promotion activities were eligible for inclusion if they related to sexual health or behaviour, utilised one or more SNSs, and involved some element of health promotion. Information regarding the source and type of health promotion activity, target population and site activity were extracted. Results 178 sexual health promotion activities met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review; only one activity was identified through a traditional systematic search of the published scientific literature. Activities most commonly used one SNS, were conducted by not-for-profit organisations, targeted young people and involved information delivery. Facebook was the most commonly used SNS (used by 71% of all health promotion activities identified, followed by MySpace and Twitter. Seventy nine percent of activities on MySpace were considered inactive as there had been no online posts within the past month, compared to 22% of activities using Facebook and 14% of activities using Twitter. The number of end-users and posts in the last seven days varied greatly between health promotion activities. Conclusions SNSs are being used for sexual health promotion, although the extent to which they are utilised varies greatly, and the vast majority of activities are unreported in the scientific literature. Future studies

  8. A systematic examination of the use of Online social networking sites for sexual health promotion

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background In recent years social networking sites (SNSs) have grown rapidly in popularity. The popularity of these sites, along with their interactive functions, offer a novel environment in which to deliver health promotion messages. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which SNSs are currently being used for sexual health promotion and describe the breadth of these activities. Methods We conducted a systematic search of published scientific literature, electronic sources (general and scientific search engines, blogs) and SNSs (Facebook, MySpace) to identify existing sexual health promotion activities using SNSs. Health promotion activities were eligible for inclusion if they related to sexual health or behaviour, utilised one or more SNSs, and involved some element of health promotion. Information regarding the source and type of health promotion activity, target population and site activity were extracted. Results 178 sexual health promotion activities met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review; only one activity was identified through a traditional systematic search of the published scientific literature. Activities most commonly used one SNS, were conducted by not-for-profit organisations, targeted young people and involved information delivery. Facebook was the most commonly used SNS (used by 71% of all health promotion activities identified), followed by MySpace and Twitter. Seventy nine percent of activities on MySpace were considered inactive as there had been no online posts within the past month, compared to 22% of activities using Facebook and 14% of activities using Twitter. The number of end-users and posts in the last seven days varied greatly between health promotion activities. Conclusions SNSs are being used for sexual health promotion, although the extent to which they are utilised varies greatly, and the vast majority of activities are unreported in the scientific literature. Future studies should examine the key

  9. A systematic examination of the use of online social networking sites for sexual health promotion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gold, Judy; Pedrana, Alisa E; Sacks-Davis, Rachel; Hellard, Margaret E; Chang, Shanton; Howard, Steve; Keogh, Louise; Hocking, Jane S; Stoove, Mark A

    2011-07-21

    In recent years social networking sites (SNSs) have grown rapidly in popularity. The popularity of these sites, along with their interactive functions, offer a novel environment in which to deliver health promotion messages. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which SNSs are currently being used for sexual health promotion and describe the breadth of these activities. We conducted a systematic search of published scientific literature, electronic sources (general and scientific search engines, blogs) and SNSs (Facebook, MySpace) to identify existing sexual health promotion activities using SNSs. Health promotion activities were eligible for inclusion if they related to sexual health or behaviour, utilised one or more SNSs, and involved some element of health promotion. Information regarding the source and type of health promotion activity, target population and site activity were extracted. 178 sexual health promotion activities met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review; only one activity was identified through a traditional systematic search of the published scientific literature. Activities most commonly used one SNS, were conducted by not-for-profit organisations, targeted young people and involved information delivery. Facebook was the most commonly used SNS (used by 71% of all health promotion activities identified), followed by MySpace and Twitter. Seventy nine percent of activities on MySpace were considered inactive as there had been no online posts within the past month, compared to 22% of activities using Facebook and 14% of activities using Twitter. The number of end-users and posts in the last seven days varied greatly between health promotion activities. SNSs are being used for sexual health promotion, although the extent to which they are utilised varies greatly, and the vast majority of activities are unreported in the scientific literature. Future studies should examine the key factors for success among those

  10. Gender messages in contemporary popular Malay songs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Collin Jerome

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available Gender has been an important area of research in the field of popular music studies. Numerous scholars have found that contemporary popular music functions as a locus of diverse constructions and expressions of gender. While most studies focus on content analyses of popular music, there is still a need for more research on audience’s perception of popular music’s messages. This study examined adult Malay listeners’ perceptions of gender messages in contemporary Malay songs. A total of 16 contemporary Malay songs were analysed using Fairclough’s (1992 method of text analysis. The content of the songs that conveyed messages about gender were the basis for analysis. The results showed that the messages revolve mainly around socially constructed gender roles and expectations in romantic relationships. Gender stereotypes are also used in the songs to reinforce men’s and women’s roles in romantic relationships. The results also showed that, while listeners acknowledge the songs’ messages about gender, their own perceptions of gender and what it means to be a gendered being in today’s world are neither represented nor discussed fully in the songs analysed. It is hoped the findings from this, particularly the mismatch between projected and perceived notions of gender, contribute to the field of popular Malay music studies in particular, and popular music studies in general where gender messages in popular songs and their influence on listeners’ perceptions of their own gender is concerned.

  11. Motivating contributions to online forums: can locus of control moderate the effects of interface cues?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Hyang-Sook; Sundar, S Shyam

    2016-01-01

    In an effort to encourage users to participate rather than lurk, online health forums provide authority badges (e.g., guru) to frequent contributors and popularity indicators (e.g., number of views) to their postings. Studies have shown the latter to be more effective, implying that bulletin-board users are motivated by external validation of their contributions. However, no consideration has yet been given to individual differences in the influence of such popularity indicators. Personality psychology suggests that individuals with external, rather than internal, locus of control are more likely to be other-directed and therefore more likely to be motivated by interface cues showing the bandwagon effect of their online posts. We investigate this hypothesis by analyzing data from a 2 (high vs. low authority cue) × 2 (strong vs. weak bandwagon cue) experiment with an online health community. Results show that strong bandwagon cues promote sense of community among users with internal, rather than external, locus of control. When bandwagon cues are weak, bestowal of high authority serves to heighten their sense of agency. Contrary to prediction, weak bandwagon cues appear to promote sense of community and sense of agency among those with external locus of control. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

  12. Cortical thickness abnormalities in late adolescence with online gaming addiction.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Yuan

    Full Text Available Online gaming addiction, as the most popular subtype of Internet addiction, had gained more and more attention from the whole world. However, the structural differences in cortical thickness of the brain between adolescents with online gaming addiction and healthy controls are not well unknown; neither was its association with the impaired cognitive control ability. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scans from late adolescence with online gaming addiction (n = 18 and age-, education- and gender-matched controls (n = 18 were acquired. The cortical thickness measurement method was employed to investigate alterations of cortical thickness in individuals with online gaming addiction. The color-word Stroop task was employed to investigate the functional implications of the cortical thickness abnormalities. Imaging data revealed increased cortical thickness in the left precentral cortex, precuneus, middle frontal cortex, inferior temporal and middle temporal cortices in late adolescence with online gaming addiction; meanwhile, the cortical thicknesses of the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC, insula, lingual gyrus, the right postcentral gyrus, entorhinal cortex and inferior parietal cortex were decreased. Correlation analysis demonstrated that the cortical thicknesses of the left precentral cortex, precuneus and lingual gyrus correlated with duration of online gaming addiction and the cortical thickness of the OFC correlated with the impaired task performance during the color-word Stroop task in adolescents with online gaming addiction. The findings in the current study suggested that the cortical thickness abnormalities of these regions may be implicated in the underlying pathophysiology of online gaming addiction.

  13. Content Delivery in Fog-Aided Small-Cell Systems with Offline and Online Caching: An Information—Theoretic Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seyyed Mohammadreza Azimi

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available The storage of frequently requested multimedia content at small-cell base stations (BSs can reduce the load of macro-BSs without relying on high-speed backhaul links. In this work, the optimal operation of a system consisting of a cache-aided small-cell BS and a macro-BS is investigated for both offline and online caching settings. In particular, a binary fading one-sided interference channel is considered in which the small-cell BS, whose transmission is interfered by the macro-BS, has a limited-capacity cache. The delivery time per bit (DTB is adopted as a measure of the coding latency, that is, the duration of the transmission block, required for reliable delivery. For offline caching, assuming a static set of popular contents, the minimum achievable DTB is characterized through information-theoretic achievability and converse arguments as a function of the cache capacity and of the capacity of the backhaul link connecting cloud and small-cell BS. For online caching, under a time-varying set of popular contents, the long-term (average DTB is evaluated for both proactive and reactive caching policies. Furthermore, a converse argument is developed to characterize the minimum achievable long-term DTB for online caching in terms of the minimum achievable DTB for offline caching. The performance of both online and offline caching is finally compared using numerical results.

  14. VOCAL SEGMENT CLASSIFICATION IN POPULAR MUSIC

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Feng, Ling; Nielsen, Andreas Brinch; Hansen, Lars Kai

    2008-01-01

    This paper explores the vocal and non-vocal music classification problem within popular songs. A newly built labeled database covering 147 popular songs is announced. It is designed for classifying signals from 1sec time windows. Features are selected for this particular task, in order to capture...

  15. Islam and the Alleged Incompatibility with Popular Culture

    OpenAIRE

    Pierre Hecker

    2017-01-01

    This paper critically reflects upon the alleged incompatibility of Islam and popular culture, the antipathy toward the study of popular culture in the field of Islamic studies, and the question of what it is that puts "the popular" into culture.

  16. Incorporating profile information in community detection for online social networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fan, W.; Yeung, K. H.

    2014-07-01

    Community structure is an important feature in the study of complex networks. It is because nodes of the same community may have similar properties. In this paper we extend two popular community detection methods to partition online social networks. In our extended methods, the profile information of users is used for partitioning. We apply the extended methods in several sample networks of Facebook. Compared with the original methods, the community structures we obtain have higher modularity. Our results indicate that users' profile information is consistent with the community structure of their friendship network to some extent. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss how profile information can be used to improve community detection in online social networks.

  17. Online and offline video game use in adolescents: measurement invariance and problem severity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smohai, Máté; Urbán, Róbert; Griffiths, Mark D; Király, Orsolya; Mirnics, Zsuzsanna; Vargha, András; Demetrovics, Zsolt

    2017-01-01

    Despite the increasing popularity of video game playing, little is known about the similarities and differences between online and offline video game players. The aims of this study were (i) to test the applicability and the measurement invariance of the previously developed Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ) in both online and offline gamers and to (ii) examine the differences in these groups. Video game use habits and POGQ were assessed in a sample of 1,964 (71% male) adolescent videogame players. Those gamers who played at least sometimes in an online context were considered "online gamers," while those who played videogames exclusively offline were considered "offline gamers." Confirmatory factor analysis supported the measurement invariance across online and offline videogame players. According to the multiple indicators multiple causes (MIMIC) model, online gamers were more likely to score higher on overuse, interpersonal conflict, and social isolation subscales of the POGQ. The results of the present study suggest that online and offline gaming can be assessed using the same psychometric instrument. These findings open the possibility for future research studies concerning problematic video gaming to include participants who exclusively play online or offline games, or both. However, the study also identified important structural features about how online and offline gaming might contribute differently to problematic use. These results provide important information that could be utilized in parental education and the prevention program about the possible detrimental consequences of online vs. offline video gaming.

  18. Popularity versus similarity in growing networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krioukov, Dmitri; Papadopoulos, Fragkiskos; Kitsak, Maksim; Serrano, Mariangeles; Boguna, Marian

    2012-02-01

    Preferential attachment is a powerful mechanism explaining the emergence of scaling in growing networks. If new connections are established preferentially to more popular nodes in a network, then the network is scale-free. Here we show that not only popularity but also similarity is a strong force shaping the network structure and dynamics. We develop a framework where new connections, instead of preferring popular nodes, optimize certain trade-offs between popularity and similarity. The framework admits a geometric interpretation, in which preferential attachment emerges from local optimization processes. As opposed to preferential attachment, the optimization framework accurately describes large-scale evolution of technological (Internet), social (web of trust), and biological (E.coli metabolic) networks, predicting the probability of new links in them with a remarkable precision. The developed framework can thus be used for predicting new links in evolving networks, and provides a different perspective on preferential attachment as an emergent phenomenon.

  19. NASA Astrophysics E/PO: A Quarter Century of Discovery and Inspiration with the Hubble Space Telescope

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jirdeh, Hussein; Straughn, Amber; Smith, Denise Anne; Eisenhamer, Bonnie

    2015-08-01

    April 24, 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. In its quarter-century in orbit, the Hubble Space Telescope has transformed the way we understand the Universe, helped us find our place among the stars, and paved the way to incredible advancements in science and technology.In this presentation, we explain how NASA and ESA, including the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and partners, is using the 25th anniversary of Hubble’s launch as a unique opportunity to communicate to students, educators, and the public the significance of the past quarter-century of discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope. We describe the various programs, resources, and experiences we are utilizing to enhancethe public understanding of Hubble’s many contributions to the scientific world. These include educator professional development opportunities, exhibits, events, traditional and social media, and resources for educators (formal k-12, informal, and higher education). We also highlight how we are capitalizing on Hubble’s cultural popularity to make the scientific connection to NASA’s next Great Observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope.This presentation highlights many of the opportunities by which students, educators, and the public are joining in the anniversary activities, both in-person and online. Find out more at hubble25th.org and follow #Hubble25 on social media.

  20. Industries, artists, friends and fans: Marketing young adult fictions online

    OpenAIRE

    Rutherford, Leonie Margaret

    2009-01-01

    The Internet has facilitated the coming together of formerly more separated youth taste cultures, such that literary, screen and graphic fandoms now more readily overlap. Media industries have invested in online strategies which create an ongoing relationship between producers and consumers of entertainment media texts. Using the Internet marketing campaign for Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga as a case study, the paper examines the role of the publishing industry in marketing popular teen li...

  1. Neural mechanisms tracking popularity in real-world social networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zerubavel, Noam; Bearman, Peter S; Weber, Jochen; Ochsner, Kevin N

    2015-12-08

    Differences in popularity are a key aspect of status in virtually all human groups and shape social interactions within them. Little is known, however, about how we track and neurally represent others' popularity. We addressed this question in two real-world social networks using sociometric methods to quantify popularity. Each group member (perceiver) viewed faces of every other group member (target) while whole-brain functional MRI data were collected. Independent functional localizer tasks were used to identify brain systems supporting affective valuation (ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, amygdala) and social cognition (dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, precuneus, temporoparietal junction), respectively. During the face-viewing task, activity in both types of neural systems tracked targets' sociometric popularity, even when controlling for potential confounds. The target popularity-social cognition system relationship was mediated by valuation system activity, suggesting that observing popular individuals elicits value signals that facilitate understanding their mental states. The target popularity-valuation system relationship was strongest for popular perceivers, suggesting enhanced sensitivity to differences among other group members' popularity. Popular group members also demonstrated greater interpersonal sensitivity by more accurately predicting how their own personalities were perceived by other individuals in the social network. These data offer insights into the mechanisms by which status guides social behavior.

  2. Spanish Federation of Popular Universities (FEUP)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Serrano, Isabel Garcia-Longoria

    2006-01-01

    This article features the Spanish Popular Universities, which are defined as "a project of cultural development that acts in the municipality, whose objective is to promote social participation, education, training, and culture in order to improve life quality" (Federation of Popular Education Universities, 2000). A century of history of…

  3. Popular Music and the Instrumental Ensemble.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boespflug, George

    1999-01-01

    Discusses popular music, the role of the musical performer as a creator, and the styles of jazz and popular music. Describes the pop ensemble at the college level, focusing on improvisation, rehearsals, recording, and performance. Argues that pop ensembles be used in junior and senior high school. (CMK)

  4. Living-History Villages as Popular Entertainers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geist, Christopher D.

    1994-01-01

    Discusses the furor created when Walt Disney Studios announced plans to develop a "historic amusement park" near the Manassas (Virginia) National Battlefield Park. Maintains that the public debate over the popular understanding of history reflects an ongoing tension between academic historians and the purveyors of popular history. (CFR)

  5. Feminismo, estudios culturales y cultura popular

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joanne Hollows

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the movement of feminism into academic life in general and the study of popular culture in particular. Assumptioms about the effects of popular culture on women had been a commonsense of second-wave feminism; however, by the mid-1970’s, questions about how gendered identities were culturally produced and reproduced became the topic of much more in-depth feminist research and discussion. This essay examines two main ways in which feminist research into popular culture entered academic life: first, it examines the “images of women” debate, and second, it examines the Cultural Studies tradition and the feminist cultural analysis.

  6. Bullying, Social Power and Heteronormativity: Girls' Constructions of Popularity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duncan, Neil; Owens, Larry

    2011-01-01

    Literature on girls' popularity posits a strong association between popularity, social power and bullying behaviours, some of which conflate the concepts "bully" and "popular". This study explores that association through links to concepts of popularity among girls in two demographically different high schools. Data are presented that were derived…

  7. A Guide to Using Popular Culture to Teach Composition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smelstor, Marjorie, Ed.

    The purpose of this guide is to offer possible answers to questions concerning popular culture that teachers might have and to offer suggestions on utilizing popular culture materials that are available. Lesson plans are presented using materials from advertising, newspapers, comics, film, television, popular music, radio, popular literature,…

  8. Online fingerprint verification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Upendra, K; Singh, S; Kumar, V; Verma, H K

    2007-01-01

    As organizations search for more secure authentication methods for user access, e-commerce, and other security applications, biometrics is gaining increasing attention. With an increasing emphasis on the emerging automatic personal identification applications, fingerprint based identification is becoming more popular. The most widely used fingerprint representation is the minutiae based representation. The main drawback with this representation is that it does not utilize a significant component of the rich discriminatory information available in the fingerprints. Local ridge structures cannot be completely characterized by minutiae. Also, it is difficult quickly to match two fingerprint images containing different number of unregistered minutiae points. In this study filter bank based representation, which eliminates these weakness, is implemented and the overall performance of the developed system is tested. The results have shown that this system can be used effectively for secure online verification applications.

  9. Photo Albums as the Instrumentality of building a popular Myth

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dragan Ćalović

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available The article analyzes the popular myth production. The popular myth is seen as the result of a popular production that uses the material of metalanguage as a secondary semiological system. Unlike the mytification of the myth (Barthes, or the popular use of myth (in the manner of John Fiske, popular myth develops by popular use of the potentials of metalanguage. Popular myth uses the mechanisms of meaning production, that metalanguage develops, to transform its forms into empty signifiers. In that way, the popular myth neutralize the effects of metalanguage, inaugurating an era in which weakens the potentials of ideological textual production.

  10. Gender, representation and online participation : a quantitative study of stack overflow

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vasilescu, B.N.; Capiluppi, A.; Serebrenik, A.

    2013-01-01

    Online communities are flourishing as social meeting web-spaces for users and peer community members. Different online communities require different levels of competence for participants to join, and scattered evidence suggests that women can be overly under-represented. Moreover, anecdotal evidence

  11. THE IMPACT OF ONLINE ENVIRONMENT ON TOURISM

    OpenAIRE

    SOFRONOV, Bogdan

    2018-01-01

    The online tourism is part of e-commerce and unites some of the fastest growing technologies, such as communications and information technology, the hospitality industry, and strategic management / marketing / planning.Online tourism activities involve tour operators, travel agencies and other entities with tourism-related interests in the virtual space through a dedicated portal. The phenomenon itself has implications for the tourist services consumer.The  internet  has  revolutionized  the ...

  12. Popularity Trajectories and Substance Use in early Adolescence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moody, James; Brynildsen, Wendy D; Osgood, D Wayne; Feinberg, Mark E; Gest, Scott

    2011-05-01

    This paper introduces new longitudinal network data from the "Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience" or "PROSPER" peers project. In 28 communities, grade-level sociometric friendship nominations were collected from two cohorts of middle school students as they moved from 6(th), to 9(th) grade. As an illustration and description of these longitudinal network data, this paper describes the school popularity structure, changes in popularity position, and suggests linkages between popularity trajectory and substance use. In the cross-section, we find that the network is consistent with a hierarchical social organization, but exhibits considerable relational change in both particular friends and position at the individual level. We find that both the base level of popularity and the variability of popularity trajectories effect substance use.

  13. Focused on the prize: Characteristics of experts in massive multiplayer online games

    OpenAIRE

    Wang, Jing; Huffaker, David A.; Treem, Jeffrey W.; Fullerton, Lindsay; Ahmad, Muhammad A.; Williams, Dmitri; Poole, Marshall Scott; Contractor, Noshir

    2011-01-01

    This study is the first large–scale multi–method attempt to empirically examine the characteristics leading to development of expertise in EverQuest II, a popular massively multi–player online role–playing game (MMOs). Benefiting from the unprecedented opportunity of obtaining game log data matched with survey data, the project investigated the relationship between player motivations and in–game behavior, personality characteristics, and demographic attributes wi...

  14. An analytic tableaux model for Deductive Mastermind empirically tested with a massively used online learning system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gierasimczuk, N.; van der Maas, H.L.J.; Raijmakers, M.E.J.

    2013-01-01

    The paper is concerned with the psychological relevance of a logical model for deductive reasoning. We propose a new way to analyze logical reasoning in a deductive version of the Mastermind game implemented within a popular Dutch online educational learning system (Math Garden). Our main goal is to

  15. The "Language Barrier" in Private Online Tutoring: From an Innocuous Concept to a Neoliberal Marketing Tool

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozar, Olga

    2014-01-01

    The "language barrier" is a common buzzword in Russian-English teaching discourse that has not yet been critically investigated. This study contemplates a recently emerging phenomenon of private online language tutoring in Russia through investigation of this popular phrase. The paper draws on Critical Discourse Analysis to explore…

  16. Online Patient Resources for Liposuction: A Comparative Analysis of Readability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas, Christina R; Ricci, Joseph A; Chuang, Danielle J; Lee, Bernard T

    2016-03-01

    As patients strive to become informed about health care, inadequate functional health literacy is a significant barrier. Nearly half of American adults have poor or marginal health literacy skills and the National Institutes of Health and American Medical Association have recommended that patient information should be written at a sixth grade level. The aim of this study is to identify the most commonly used online patient information about liposuction and to evaluate its readability relative to average American literacy. An internet search of "liposuction" was performed and the 10 most popular websites identified. User and location data were disabled and sponsored results excluded. All relevant, patient-directed articles were downloaded and formatted into plain text. Articles were then analyzed using 10 established readability tests. A comparison group was constructed to identify the most popular online consumer information about tattooing. Mean readability scores and specific article characteristics were compared. A total of 80 articles were collected from websites about liposuction. Readability analysis revealed an overall 13.6 grade reading level (range, 10-16 grade); all articles exceeded the target sixth grade level. Consumer websites about tattooing were significantly easier to read, with a mean 7.8 grade level. These sites contained significantly fewer characters per word and words per sentence, as well as a smaller proportion of complex, long, and unfamiliar words. Online patient resources about liposuction are potentially too difficult for a large number of Americans to understand. Liposuction websites are significantly harder to read than consumer websites about tattooing. Aesthetic surgeons are advised to discuss with patients resources they use and guide patients to appropriate information for their skill level.

  17. The Active Use of Online Presence, Movies and Gameplay to Improve Classroom Engagement

    OpenAIRE

    Costain , Sean; Patterson , Dale

    2014-01-01

    Part 1: Digital Games and Interactive Entertainment; International audience; The online world is filled with rich interactive games, spaces, motion pictures and personas. Despite a rapid growth in online education, the tertiary classroom looks quite different to the entertaining online world it exists within. The design of mobile online resources, both official and unofficial, plays a key role in student engagement and learning. From the teachers perspective designing an online presence and i...

  18. Popular music scenes and aging bodies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bennett, Andy

    2018-06-01

    During the last two decades there has been increasing interest in the phenomenon of the aging popular music audience (Bennett & Hodkinson, 2012). Although the specter of the aging fan is by no means new, the notion of, for example, the aging rocker or the aging punk has attracted significant sociological attention, not least of all because of what this says about the shifting socio-cultural significance of rock and punk and similar genres - which at the time of their emergence were inextricably tied to youth and vociferously marketed as "youth musics". As such, initial interpretations of aging music fans tended to paint a somewhat negative picture, suggesting a sense in which such fans were cultural misfits (Ross, 1994). In more recent times, however, work informed by cultural aging perspectives has begun to consider how so-called "youth cultural" identities may in fact provide the basis of more stable and evolving identities over the life course (Bennett, 2013). Starting from this position, the purpose of this article is to critically examine how aging members of popular music scenes might be recast as a salient example of the more pluralistic fashion in which aging is anticipated, managed and articulated in contemporary social settings. The article then branches out to consider two ways that aging members of music scenes continue their scene involvement. The first focuses on evolving a series of discourses that legitimately position them as aging bodies in cultural spaces that also continue to be inhabited by significant numbers of people in their teens, twenties and thirties. The second sees aging fans taking advantage of new opportunities for consuming live music including winery concerts and dinner and show events. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. The online place of popular music: Exploring the impact of geography and social media on pop artists’ mainstream media attention

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    M.N.M. Verboord (Marc); S.V. Noord (Sharon van)

    2016-01-01

    textabstractMany authors have pointed to the internet’s potential to increase connectivity across the world, which would imply an equalizing effect, yet few researchers have examined this. At the same time, the increasing usage of social media by popular culture celebrities for self-promotion has

  20. ANALYSIS ON POPULARITY STATUS OF GUITAR

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huseyin Yilmaz

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available The main objective of this study is to analysis the popularity status of guitar instrument in terms of university students’ views. In this study, it is used the general survey model; ıt is developed the a questionnaires consisting of 14 items by the researcher in order to determine the university students views. The target population of this study is 11.440 university students enrolled for 2013 – 2014 academic years in Kafkas University. The sample of this study is consisting of 314 university students in various departments in Kafkas University. It is evaluated the frequency (f and percentage (% values to analysis the popularity status of guitar instrument in terms of university students’ views. It is tried to find out using chi-square test for gender, department and grades whether there is the significant differences among the students’ views on the popularity status of guitar instrument. As a result of research data, it is seem that the students evaluate the guitar as a popular instrument. However; it is seem that the students eager to participate in the guitar activities.

  1. What types of astronomy images are most popular?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, Alice; Bonnell, Jerry T.; Connelly, Paul; Haring, Ralf; Lowe, Stuart R.; Nemiroff, Robert J.

    2015-01-01

    Stunning imagery helps make astronomy one of the most popular sciences -- but what types of astronomy images are most popular? To help answer this question, public response to images posted to various public venues of the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) are investigated. APOD portals queried included the main NASA website and the social media mirrors on Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. Popularity measures include polls, downloads, page views, likes, shares, and retweets; these measures are used to assess how image popularity varies in relation to various image attributes including topic and topicality.

  2. THE ROMANIAN CONSUMER PROFILES IN PROCESSING ONLINE BOOKINGS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lacurezeanu Ramona

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Tourism is considered [WTTC] one of the top three industries as importance in the global economy of the 21st century. With the development of information technology and electronic commerce, the electronic (online booking seems to be a popular way to facilitate access to certain goods and tourism services via the Internet. The literature clearly indicates that online booking vacations, transportation and other services related to tourism package developed and diversified nearly at the same degree with advances made in Information Technology and Communication (ITC. However, “there are wide variations in online usage levels between different countries … Australian’s online usage is 44 % and Spain’s online usage is 14% from all transactions” [online-booking from WCT]. Regarding the consumer profile using 'online booking ', the literature does not provide a generally accepted set of evaluation attributes. In the world is talking today about "Generation Y", in other words about those who have reached maturity in the early millennium. Basically it's about consumers born between 1980 and 1995, hence with ages between 18 and 33 years. In this context, in our exploratory research we conducted a statistical study on students, tomorrow's economic specialists with knowledge in ITC from minimal to advanced levels. The hypothesis of the study are: a. Humans with advanced computer skills using the Internet for booking holidays; b. Humans with low ITC skills choose the classical method of booking holidays by contacting a tour company. The results of our survey showed that the choice of online tools for booking holidays becomes an increasingly used method in Romania but consumers still lack confidence in the online environment. This phenomenon often motivates the consumers to contact a tour company regardless of their ITC skills or travel experience. We also proved that there is no strong connection between people with good ITC

  3. The Security of Organizations and Individuals in Online Social Networks

    OpenAIRE

    Elyashar, Aviad

    2016-01-01

    The serious privacy and security problems related to online social networks (OSNs) are what fueled two complementary studies as part of this thesis. In the first study, we developed a general algorithm for the mining of data of targeted organizations by using Facebook (currently the most popular OSN) and socialbots. By friending employees in a targeted organization, our active socialbots were able to find new employees and informal organizational links that we could not find by crawling with ...

  4. Appeal of playing online First Person Shooter Games.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jansz, Jeroen; Tanis, Martin

    2007-02-01

    First Person Shooter Games (FPSG) such as Counter Strike are often the subject of public concern. Surprisingly, there is no published research available about playing these games. We conducted an exploratory Internet survey (n 5 751) in order to gather information about who the players of online first person shooters are, and why they spend time on playing this particular kind of video game. The results of our survey on the one hand confirmed the stereotype of the gamer as it is often presented in popular media: the players of online FPS were indeed almost exclusively young men (mean age about 18 years) who spend a lot of their leisure time on gaming (about 2.6 h per day). We also found that the most committed gamers, that is, the ones who were members of a (semi)professional clan, scored highest on motives with respect to competition, and challenge in comparison with members of amateur clans and online gamers who had not joined a clan. On the other hand, our results cast doubt on the accuracy of the stereotype. This study showed clearly that online FPSG are not played in isolation. More than 80% of our respondents were member of a clan. Also, the regression analysis showed that the social interaction motive was the strongest predictor of the time actually spend on gaming.

  5. Usability Analysis of Online Bank Login Interface Based on Eye Tracking Experiment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaofang YUAN

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available With the rapid development of information technology and rapid popularization of online banking, it is used by the more and more consumers. Studying on the usability of online banking interface, improving the user-friendliness of web interface, and enhancing attraction of bank website, which have gradually become the basic network marketing strategy of the banks. Therefore, this study took three banks as an example to record subjects’’ eye tracking data of time to first fixation, fixation duration and blink count and so on by using Tobii T60XL Eye Tracking equipment, while they login online banking web interface, and analyzed that the factors of webpage layout, colors, the amount of information presentation which impacts on the usability of online banking login interface. The results shows that the login entry, account login information and other key control buttons should be placed in the upper left corner to quickly lock the target, and the interface should have a moderate amount of information presentation, the appropriate proportion, reasonable font size settings, harmonious, simple, and warmth design style.

  6. Active fantasy sports: rationale and feasibility of leveraging online fantasy sports to promote physical activity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moller, Arlen C; Majewski, Sara; Standish, Melanie; Agarwal, Pooja; Podowski, Aleksandra; Carson, Rebecca; Eyesus, Biruk; Shah, Aakash; Schneider, Kristin L

    2014-11-25

    The popularity of active video games (AVGs) has skyrocketed over the last decade. However, research suggests that the most popular AVGs, which rely on synchronous integration between players' activity and game features, fail to promote physical activity outside of the game or for extended periods of engagement. This limitation has led researchers to consider AVGs that involve asynchronous integration of players' ongoing physical activity with game features. Rather than build an AVG de novo, we selected an established sedentary video game uniquely well suited for the incorporation of asynchronous activity: online fantasy sports. The primary aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of a new asynchronous AVG-active fantasy sports-designed to promote physical activity. We conducted two pilot studies of an active fantasy sports game designed to promote physical activity. Participants wore a low cost triaxial accelerometer and participated in an online fantasy baseball (Study 1, n=9, 13-weeks) or fantasy basketball (Study 2, n=10, 17-weeks) league. Privileges within the game were made contingent on meeting weekly physical activity goals (eg, averaging 10,000 steps/day). Across the two studies, the feasibility of integrating physical activity contingent features and privileges into online fantasy sports games was supported. Participants found the active fantasy sports game enjoyable, as or more enjoyable than traditional (sedentary) online fantasy sports (Study 1: t8=4.43, Pgame was cited as a key motivating factor for increasing physical activity. Preliminary evidence supports potential for the active fantasy sports system as a sustainable and scalable intervention for promoting adult physical activity.

  7. Examine The Effect of Word-of-Mouth and Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Consumers' Perceived Risk in Taiwan: A Case Study on Online Shopping

    OpenAIRE

    Lin, Hung-Miao

    2011-01-01

    Online shopping has become one of the most popular activities on the Internet in recent years. Due to the emergence of electronic commerce and the wide spread of the Internet, there is a new shopping channel for consumers to purchase products or services they need, that is, online shopping. In the past, researchers found that consumers had different online purchase behavior in terms of their demographics. However, the results of this thesis show that as time goes by, consumers become more ...

  8. Exploring the Behavioral Patterns of Learners in an Educational Massively Multiple Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hou, Huei-Tse

    2012-01-01

    Massively multiple online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are very popular among students. Educational MMORPGs, however, are very rare, as are studies on gamers' behavioral patterns during such games. The current study is an empirical observation and analysis of the behavioral patterns of 100 gamers participating in an educational MMORPG called…

  9. Teaching mathematics online in the European Area of Higher Education: an instructor's point of view

    Science.gov (United States)

    Juan, Angel A.; Steegmann, Cristina; Huertas, Antonia; Martinez, M. Jesus; Simosa, J.

    2011-03-01

    This article first discusses how information technologies are changing the way knowledge is delivered at universities worldwide. Then, the article reviews some of the most popular learning management systems available today and some of the most useful online resources in the areas of Mathematics and Statistics. After that, some long-term experiences regarding the teaching of online courses in those areas at the Open University of Catalonia are discussed. Finally, the article presents the results of a large-scale survey performed in Spain that aims to reflect instructors' opinions and feelings about potential benefits and challenges of teaching mathematics online, as well as the role of emergent technologies in the context of the European Area of Higher Education. Therefore, this article contributes to the existing literature as an additional reference point, one based on our long-term experience in a large-scale online environment, for discussions involving mathematical e-learning.

  10. Learning within Incoherent Structures: The Space of Online Discussion Forums.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Matthew J. W.

    2002-01-01

    Presents results from a study of undergraduate students' learning outcomes and patterns of interaction within an online discussion forum. Topics include social dynamics of computer-mediated communication versus face-to-face communication; cognitive engagement; critical and reflective thinking; and student interaction. (Author/LRW)

  11. Examining a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game as a Digital Game-Based Learning Platform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Min Lun; Richards, Kari; Saw, Guan Kung

    2014-01-01

    A concurrent triangulation mixed-method research design was used to investigate 19 casual gamers' or non-gamers' use of a popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), Everquest 2, as an alternative pedagogical tool to support communicative use of the English language. This study poses that MMORPGs could serve as a virtually rich…

  12. The Online Market of Wheels and Tires in Russia

    OpenAIRE

    Masienok, Mikhail

    2016-01-01

    This thesis examines market situation of wheels and tires in Russia from 2014 until 2016. As the main type of cars were chosen passenger cars because they are used most. As a case study was chosen the biggest online store “Mosautoshina” and the most popular feedback site “Yandex.Market”. These sites possess real customers’ feedbacks, their opinion about each item and rating. To make right statistics for 2013 and 2014, I have used the work made by Discovery Research Group, which kind...

  13. Tracking the rise in popularity of electronic nicotine delivery systems (electronic cigarettes) using search query surveillance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ayers, John W; Ribisl, Kurt M; Brownstein, John S

    2011-04-01

    Public interest in electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) is undocumented. By monitoring search queries, ENDS popularity and correlates of their popularity were assessed in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), and the U.S. English-language Google searches conducted from January 2008 through September 2010 were compared to snus, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), and Chantix® or Champix®. Searches for each week were scaled to the highest weekly search proportion (100), with lower values indicating the relative search proportion compared to the highest-proportion week (e.g., 50=50% of the highest observed proportion). Analyses were performed in 2010. From July 2008 through February 2010, ENDS searches increased in all nations studied except Australia, there an increase occurred more recently. By September 2010, ENDS searches were several-hundred-fold greater than searches for smoking alternatives in the UK and U.S., and were rivaling alternatives in Australia and Canada. Across nations, ENDS searches were highest in the U.S., followed by similar search intensity in Canada and the UK, with Australia having the fewest ENDS searches. Stronger tobacco control, created by clean indoor air laws, cigarette taxes, and anti-smoking populations, were associated with consistently higher levels of ENDS searches. The online popularity of ENDS has surpassed that of snus and NRTs, which have been on the market for far longer, and is quickly outpacing Chantix or Champix. In part, the association between ENDS's popularity and stronger tobacco control suggests ENDS are used to bypass, or quit in response to, smoking restrictions. Search query surveillance is a valuable, real-time, free, and public method to evaluate the diffusion of new health products. This method may be generalized to other behavioral, biological, informational, or psychological outcomes manifested on search engines. Copyright © 2011 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc

  14. Implementing data placement strategies for the CMS experiment based on a popularity mode

    CERN Multimedia

    CERN. Geneva; Barreiro Megino, Fernando Harald

    2012-01-01

    During the first two years of data taking, the CMS experiment has collected over 20 PetaBytes of data and processed and analyzed it on the distributed, multi-tiered computing infrastructure on the WorldWide LHC Computing Grid. Given the increasing data volume that has to be stored and efficiently analyzed, it is a challenge for several LHC experiments to optimize and automate the data placement strategies in order to fully profit of the available network and storage resources and to facilitate daily computing operations. Building on previous experience acquired by ATLAS, we have developed the CMS Popularity Service that tracks file accesses and user activity on the grid and will serve as the foundation for the evolution of their data placement. A fully automated, popularity-based site-cleaning agent has been deployed in order to scan Tier2 sites that are reaching their space quota and suggest obsolete, unused data that can be safely deleted without disrupting analysis activity. Future work will be to demons...

  15. Implementing data placement strategies for the CMS experiment based on a popularity model

    CERN Document Server

    Giordano, Domenico

    2012-01-01

    During the first two years of data taking, the CMS experiment has collected over 20 PetaBytes of data and processed and analyzed it on the distributed, multi-tiered computing infrastructure on the WorldWide LHC Computing Grid. Given the increasing data volume that has to be stored and efficiently analyzed, it is a challenge for several LHC experiments to optimize and automate the data placement strategies in order to fully profit of the available network and storage resources and to facilitate daily computing operations. Building on previous experience acquired by ATLAS, we have developed the CMS Popularity Service that tracks file accesses and user activity on the grid and will serve as the foundation for the evolution of their data placement. A fully automated, popularity-based site-cleaning agent has been deployed in order to scan Tier-2 sites that are reaching their space quota and suggest obsolete, unused data that can be safely deleted without disrupting analysis activity. Future work will be to demonst...

  16. ABSTRACT——Current Situation and Future Direction of Marxism Popularity Research

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    2012-01-01

    In recent years, academic circles has made important progress in the following studies on the basic connotation of Marxist popularity, the relations between popularity of Marxism and sinicization, the relations between popularity of Marxism and epochal character, the realizing method of popularity of Marxism. Next, study on popularization of Marxism has to make efforts in the following two aspects: the relationship between the popularity of Marxism and socialist theory system with Chinese characteris- tics, and integration of the popularity of Marxism and the ideological and political education. Meanwhile the efforts should be made to deepen the study of Marxism popularity through the process of sinicization of Marxism, to study Marxism popularity from the viewpoint of the three dimensional perspective of the development of Marxism, also to strengthen the research of basic princi- ples of Marxism popularity and deepen the studies of basic forms of Marxism popularity, thus to build a study system of Marxism popularity.

  17. Conflict behaviors and their relationship to popularity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tezer, E

    2001-01-01

    This study examined conflict behaviors (self, other) among 127 Turkish college students. Differences in five conflict behaviors (forcing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating) were then explored in relation to popularity and unpopularity. Results indicated that the students engaged in more avoiding and compromising behaviors, while perceiving more forcing behavior in others. Further, the unpopular group was found to engage in more compromising behavior, and perceived more forcing behavior in others, as compared with the popular group. Constructive and destructive conflict strategies, and their implications for popularity, are discussed.

  18. On-line measurement of moisture content of powdered food using microwave free-space transmission technique

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Ki Bok; Park, Seong Un; Kim, Ji Yeon; Kim, Jong Heon; Lee, ChanJoo

    2006-01-01

    The moisture content of food is not only the most important quality factor but also one of the essential parameters affecting their physical and chemical properties related to storage, capability of processing and quality control. The moisture measurement technique using microwave is very attractive because that method has merits of rapid and accurate measurement in the wider range of moisture content, simple implementation and inexpensive compared with other methods. In this study, microwave free-space transmission technique was applied to measure the moisture content of powdered food. The on-line measurement system consisting of microwave system with 2.5 GHz, 7.0 GHz and 10.5 GHz, conveying device to move the food samples, inlet and outlet of the food samples, guide plate to control the thickness of the food samples, temperature sensing nit, taco-meter and central processing unit having analog to digital convert and microprocessor was constructed and its performance was evaluated.

  19. Studying Popular Culture in Japan

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Moeran, Brian

    , ceramics, fashion magazines and folk art as both products and as processes of design, manufacture, distribution, appreciation and use, which must all be taken into account. Precisely because popular cultural forms are both cultural products and commodities, they reveal the complementary nature of the two...... categories of culture and the economy. The paper outlines and analyses the different ways in which social, cultural, symbolic and economic capital are converted by those participating in advertising, ceramic, fashion magazine and folk art worlds, and suggests that popular culture may best be seen as a name...

  20. Popular en la UAM-X

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Isabel Arbesú García

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available El propósito de este trabajo es analizar la forma en que se vinculan en un módulo en el Sistema Modular Xochimilco las tres actividades sustantivas que realiza la universidad: docencia, investigación y servicio. Se toma como caso de estudio al Taller de Vivienda popular ya que este permite que los estudiantes de arquitectura cursen su último año de estudios de la licenciatura y se especialicen en el diseño de problemas relacionados con la vivienda popular.