Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Media in Emerging Economies: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Social media are increasingly popular, worldwide, and when social media technologies extend from the Western markets in which they were developed into the Eastern markets where they are now used, marketing strategies that support technology uses in new cultural contexts must be developed. To inform this process achieve this, social media researchers must learn new ways of thinking about technology in its cultural context. In a comparative study of the Southeast Asian social media markets of Vietnam and Singapore, we induce a grounded theory perspective of social media cultures, comparing across instances of both an emerging market and an advanced market in the hemispheric region. We find the Vietnamese culture of social media use orients around economic productivity, Social Commerce, leveraging social connections to generate consumer-to-consumer commerce largely outside of government notice and taxation. The Singaporean culture of social media revolves around the important and highly implicit notion of Influence Commerce. Singaporeans are experts in their application of social media presence to monetize the process of exerting social influence on networks of information and opinion. The Singaporean media use culture takes place with full knowledge and support of the relevant government Bureaus since most internally produced social media influence is political in nature and friendly to the ruling powers.
Influence of Welding Parameters on the Weld Pool Dimensions and Shape in a TIG Configuration

The weld pool shape created by the plasma arc interaction on a workpiece depends on many geometrical and physical parameters and on the operating conditions. Theoretical models are developed in such a way as to predict and to characterize the material. However, these models first need to be validated. Experimental results are hence proposed with parametric studies. Nevertheless, the interaction time is often short and the weld pool shape evolution not presented. In this work, the experimental setup and the diagnostic methods characterizing the workpiece are presented. The weld pool shape was evaluated versus time according to several parameters such as the current intensity value, the distance between the two electrodes, the cathode tip angle or the plasma gas nature. The results show that the depth-to-width ratio alone is not enough to compare the impact of the parameters. The analysis points out the great influence of the current intensity on the increase of the width and depth compared to the influence of the value of the cathode tip angle. The rise of the arc length leads to an increase of the power through a higher arc voltage; nevertheless, for distances of three and five millimeters and a characteristic time of the welding process of one second, this parameter has a weak influence on the energy transferred. The use of helium leads to a bigger volume of the weld pool due to an increase of width and depth.
Mediating Role of Creative Mindsets in the Relation between Filial Piety and Psychological Adjustment

ABSTRACT We examined the mediating role of creative mind-sets in the relationship between filial piety beliefs and children’s psychological adjustment in the context of Chinese culture. In the current study, we adopt structural equation modeling to address this gap. A total of 657 Taiwanese young adults (M age = 16.86 years) were recruited in a survey for the study. The analysis yielded the following results. First, reciprocal filial piety (RFP) belief was linked to a malleable creative mind-set, whereas authoritarian filial piety (AFP) belief was positively associated with a fixed creative mind-set. Second, endorsement of a malleable creative mind-set had nonsignificant associations with any dimension of psychological adjustment, while a fixed creative mind-set contributed negatively to life satisfaction and positively to psychological distress. Third, a fixed creative mind-set, but not a malleable mind-set, mediated the relationship between filial piety beliefs and psychological distress involving social dysfunction and anxiety/depression.
Zooming into paternalistic leadership: evidence from high power distance culture

PurposeNurses' turnover intention has become a major issue in developing countries with high power distance cultures. Therefore, the authors attempt to investigate how turnover intention among nurses' can be reduced through paternalistic leadership (PL). The authors further investigate the mediating role of job satisfaction between the associations of benevolent, moral and authoritarian dimensions of PL with turnover intention. Finally, the authors examined perceived organizational support (POS) as a conditional variable between job satisfaction and turnover intention.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected data from 374 nurses working in public and private hospitals of high power distance culture using a questionnaire-based survey on convenience basis.FindingsStructural equation modeling confirms that benevolent and moral dimensions of PL positively affect nurses' job satisfaction which helps them reduce their turnover intention. While the authoritarian dimension of PL negatively affects job satisfaction to further enhance their turnover intention. In addition, the authors noted POS as a conditional variable to trigger the negative effect of job satisfaction on turnover intention.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors used a cross-sectional design to collect responses and ensured the absence of common method variance through Harman's Single factor test.Originality/valueThis study identified the mechanism (job satisfaction and POS) through which benevolent, moral and authoritative dimensions of PL predict turnover intention among nurses working in high power distance culture.
Competitive trading in forward and spot markets under yield uncertainty

Many agricultural commodities are traded in both forward and spot markets. This paper studies the interplay of random yield and forward market in a hybrid market with spot and forward transactions. We examine two main questions: (a) How does yield uncertainty (yield risk and yield correlation) affect the equilibrium outcome in this hybrid market? (b) How does the existence of a forward market influence the firms' strategic behaviors and spot price volatility, and how does yield uncertainty mediate the role of the forward market? In our baseline model that considers two firms and no withholding behavior by the firms, it is found that as yield risk increases, firms may sell less in the forward market, and counterintuitively, higher yield risk may benefit firms and make the spot price less volatile. The existence of a forward market leads to greater spot price volatility; that is, a forward market destabilizes spot prices. We identify a mitigating effect of yield variability, but an enhancing effect of yield correlation, on the role of the forward market. Finally, we extend our baseline model to the case with more than two firms and the setting where the firms may withhold some products and demonstrate that some of the key results in the baseline model carry over to these extensions. Nevertheless, the firms' withholding behavior represents a new driving force that changes some results. For example, the decreasing trend of spot price volatility in yield risk disappears in the withholding model.
Introduction

Although the exact cause of AMD is unknown, research suggests that there are a number of risk factors: Age. It is estimated that four to ten million Americans between age 45 and 75 years suffer from AMD. Race (higher in Caucasians), sex (higher and females), smoking, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, family history, high serum cholesterol, body mass index (kg weight / height2 m2), plasma fibrinogen level, and nutritional and antioxidant status have also been demonstrated to be associated with AMD (1,2).
Notes on sediment transport modeling in ROMS

Coastal embayments along the Southern Californian coast such as the Santa Monica Bay (SMB) and the Monterey Bay (MB) are exposed to a variety of inputs due to human activities such as sewage and industrial point sources and urban and agricultural nonpoint inputs. These inputs can affect the marine ecosystems of the bays and may lead to accumulation of contaminants in the deposited sediments. The objectives of the sediment transport modeling effort is to develop a numerical model to compute water and sediment quality and carbon cycling problems for coastal areas such as SMB and MB. The aim is to calculate transport, dispersion, resuspension and deposition of (contaminated) sediments from either point or nonpoint sources (rivers, sewage outfalls, dump sites) mainly under eventlike conditions (high winds, storms, specific spills). These events, generally typified by both high freshwater runoffs and highly energetic, significant wind waves and swell, appear to be most relevant since they provide the conditions under which most of the sediment and contaminants are input (by storm water and river water runoff) and they are the conditions under which the resuspension and transport rates of deposited sediments are largest. The focus of this model study is on the large spatial scale (basin scale ≥ L ≥ 1 km, say) and a time scale of hours to days (the duration of the event). Sediment patterns on Southern Californian shelves are typically: medium-coarse grains very near the shore and river mouths (< 20 m depth), transport presumed to be dominated by littoral drift; medium-fine sand covered by fine silt deposited after winter storms on the inner shelf (20 < h < 50m). Observations by Drake et al. (1985) suggest that on the San Pedro shelf, for example, the tidal motion alone is generally not strong enough to resuspend sediments into the water column. The stirring action of waves keeps the silt in suspension in a nepheloid layer of up to 10 m thick. Under fair weather conditions, the tidal and subtidal motion is thought to redistribute this material over the inner shelf very gradually. Measurements of sand ripples on the San Pedro Shelf by Drake et al. (1985) suggest that the bottom deeper than about 30 to 40 meters is inactive under those fair-weather conditions. The authors suggest that during storm or large swell conditions, however, the silt is suspended into entire column, enhancing (offshelf) transport significantly. Then also the coarser fractions may get suspended. Hence, the texture and response of the bed is conditioned by the high energy events. Wiberg et al. (2002) have measured resuspension and transport of sediments over the Palos Verdes Shelf and extrapolated this using a model to cover a period of almost 20 years. They concluded that around 60 meter depth
Demographic Mediation of the Relationship Between Engagement and Performance in a Blended Dynamics Engineering Course

CONTEXT This paper examines an engineering dynamics course at Purdue University that was specifically designed to create an active, blended, and collaborative environment. In addition to in-person classes and support, students have access to blended content such as solution videos, mechanics visualizations, a course discussion forum, and interactive simulations. PURPOSE Many studies have shown that students’ engagement in an online discussion forum enhances their learning performance (Davies & Graff, 2005; Hrastinski, 2008). However, our previous research showed that students’ engagement in the online forum of our dynamics course differed significantly across students’ demographics. We showed that women, white, or Asian American students were more likely to be involved in online discussions than men, international, or Hispanic students (Duan et al., 2018). In this paper, we take the previous analysis further by examining whether the observed differences in online student engagement mediate or moderate student performance. we investigate by creating two models. A first model with race/international status as the mediating variable and gender identity as a control variable, and a second model with gender identity as the mediating variable and race/international status as a control. Second, we will investigate the moderation effect of demographic factors by creating a regression model including interaction terms to show the relationship of each demographic’s discussion forum engagement to overall performance. The goal of investigating these interaction terms to determine if a moderating relationship exists where demographic factors impact which turn impact course performance. students of various racial and ethnic identities do engage differently in the discussion forum. However, this analysis was unable to detect any significant difference in student engagement based on demographics. Our paper contributes to understanding the mechanisms through which students’ engagement can translate into academic performance by focusing on their demographic background. The moderating role of students’ demographic background calls for a more targeted design of instructional tools in blended and collaborative environments to better support students from various demographic backgrounds.
SARA: Secure Android Remote Authorization

Modern smartphones are equipped with Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), offering security features resilient even against attackers able to fully compromise the normal operating system (e.g., Linux in Android devices). The academic community, as well as the smartphone manufacturers, have proposed to use TEEs to strengthen the security of authorization protocols. However, the usage of these protocols has been hampered by both practicality issues and lack of completeness in terms of security. To address these issues, in this paper, we design, implement, and evaluate SARA (Secure Android Remote Authorization), an Android library that uses the existing TEE-powered Android APIs to implement secure, end-to-end remote authorization for Android apps. SARA is practical in its design, as it makes use of Android APIs and TEE features that are already present in modern Android devices to implement a novel secure authorization protocol. In fact, SARA does not require any modifications to the Android operating system nor to the code running in TrustZone (the TEE powering existing Android devices). For this reason, it can be readily used in existing apps running on existing smartphones. Moreover, SARA is designed to ensure that even developers that have no experience in implementing security protocols can make use of it within their apps. At the same time, SARA is secure , since it allows implementing authorization protocols that are resilient even against attackers able to achieve root privileges on a compromised Android device. We first evaluate SARA by conducting a user study to ascertain its usability. Then, we prove SARA ’s security features by formally verifying its security protocol using ProVerif.
Fertility tracking tool for visually impaired and non-visually impaired women: A qualitative study

Background A natural family planning device, Fertility Tracking Tool (FTT), was developed to serve as a visual and tactile guide in monitoring the fertile and infertile days of the menstrual cycle. However, there is lack of preferences about the tool among visually impaired and non-visually impaired women. Therefore, understanding their viewpoints will provide additional input for the final design of the product. Objective This study aimed to explore the opinions of potential users of FTT in terms of acceptability, price sensitivity, buying intention, product placement, branding, and packaging. Methods The study employed a qualitative research design with data gathered from focus group discussions. Eleven FGD sessions were conducted participated by one group of visually impaired and ten groups of non-visually impaired women from Iligan City, Philippines, selected through purposive sampling technique. Semi-structured FGD guide was utilized, and the sessions were audio-recorded. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Results The themes that emerged in the study were “adaptable” with three sub-themes (easy to use, safe to use, and aesthetic), “cost-effective”, “marketable”, “accessibility convenience”, “remarkable brand”, and “complementary packaging”. The study shows that the FTT is acceptable to both visually impaired and non-visually impaired women because it is user-friendly, has no side effects, and has a unique design. The accounts implying less price sensitivity, buying intention, accessibility preferences, notable branding, and auxiliary packaging are indications of the business potential of FTT. Conclusion This study made a novel contribution to the nursing practice as the FTT is a newly invented device for natural family planning. The strong support from the government is necessary for FTT commercialization or even free distribution to the qualified users, not only in the research locale but extending the nationwide. The extensive FTT use may increase the natural contraceptive utilization in the Philippines, resulting in improved women’s health and population control. The FTT utilization can also be adapted across the globe to result in a better impact.
Self-perceptions of ageing and perceived health status: the mediating role of cognitive functioning and physical activity

There is evidence that perceived health status is relevant for older adults ’ wellbeing, and at the same time perceived health status can be influenced by self-perceptions of ageing. There is a lack of studies on the relationship between these variables. The aim of this study was to explore attitudes towards ageing and self-perceptions of ageing among Spanish middle-aged and older people, and to identify possible mediators in the relationship between self-perceptions of ageing on perceived health status. The sample comprised 1,124 individuals from 50 to 98 years old (mean = 64.84, standard deviation = 10.12) from the Ageing in Spain Longitudinal Study database, Pilot Survey (ELES-PS). Almost 70 per cent of the participants stated that old age begins at a specific chronological age and half of them considered that society treats older people with indifference. Self-perceptions of ageing, physical activity, cognitive functioning and age were significant predictors, and together these variables explained 15.9 per cent in the variance of perceived health status. The multiple mediation analysis revealed that self-perceptions of ageing predicted cognitive functioning ( B = 0.848, p < 0.01) and physical activity ( B = 2.9046, p < 0.001), and mediated the association between self-perceptions of ageing and perceived health status ( B = 0.1144, standard error = 0.0147, p < 0.01). Results from this study highlight the importance of perceptions and attitudes towards ageing for older adults ’ health and wellbeing, thus this study contributes to a better understanding of how these variables are related. In this sense, results from this study can be useful for designing interventions for fostering wellbeing. Addressing negative self-perceptions of ageing and negative attitudes towards ageing can be particularly useful because they are associated with more pessimistic expectancies about the ageing process.
The VVV survey: Long-period variable stars I. Photometric catalog of ten VVV/OGLE tiles

Context. Long-period variable stars (LPVs) are pulsating red giants, primarily in the asymptotic giant branch phase, and they include both Miras and semi-regular variables (SRVs). Their period-age and period-luminosity relations enable us to trace di ﬀ erent stellar populations, as they are intrinsically very bright and cover a wide range in distances and ages. Aims. The purpose of this study is to establish a census of LPV stars in a region close to the Galactic center, using the six-year database of the Vista Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV) ESO Public Survey, as well as to describe the methodology that was employed to search for and characterize LPVs using VVV data. Near-IR surveys such as VVV provide a unique opportunity to probe the high-extinction innermost regions of the Milky Way. The detection and analysis of the intrinsically bright Miras in this region could provide us with an excellent probe of the properties of the Milky Way far behind its bulge. Methods. We used point-spread function photometry for all available K s -band images in ten VVV tiles, covering 16 . 4 deg 2 in total, overlapping ﬁelds observed in the course of the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE)-III survey. We designed a method to select LPV candidates, and we used the known variables from OGLE-III and other known variables from the literature to test our approach. The reduced χ 2 statistic, along with the ﬂux-independent index K (ﬁ) , were used in our analysis. The Lomb-Scargle period search method, Fourier analysis, template ﬁtting, and visual inspection were then performed to reﬁne our sample and characterize the properties of the stars included in our catalog. Results. A ﬁnal sample of 130 Mira candidates, of which 129 are new discoveries, was thus obtained, with periods in the range between about 80 and 1400days. Moreover, a sample of 1013 LPV candidates is also presented, whose periods are however not su ﬃ ciently constrained by the available data. A fraction of the latter may eventually turn out to be SRVs. Ages are measured for these stars based on a reassessment of the period-age relations available in the literature. The Miras in our catalog include 18 stars satisfying the requirements to serve as reliable distance indicators and which are not saturated in the VVV K s -band images. Their distances are accordingly derived and discussed. A number of objects that are seemingly placed far behind the Milky Way’s bulge was detected.
EIGHT ADJACENT REGRESSION BASED IMAGE INTERPOLATION FOR HR IMAGES

: with bitmap graphics, as the size of an image is enlarged, the pixels that form the image become increasingly visible, making the image appear "soft" if pixels are averaged, or jagged if not. Image interpolation methods however, often suffer from high computational costs and unnatural texture interpolation. Image interpolation, which is based on an autoregressive model, has achieved significant improvements compared with the traditional algorithm with respect to image reconstruction, including a better peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and improved subjective visual quality of the reconstructed image. However, the time-consuming computation involved has become a bottleneck in those autoregressive algorithms. The main purpose of this work is to provide recursive algorithms for the computation of the Newton interpolation polynomial of a given two-variable function.