9,672 research outputs found
The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions
The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are
non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive
experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can
benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed,
including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture.
Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an
ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on
the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse
and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic,
multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is
required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To
address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline
ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications
and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user
interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps
of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact
of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial
Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on
its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies
to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions,
and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for
each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the
best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users,
scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse
ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution
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Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems
A Design Science Research Approach to Smart and Collaborative Urban Supply Networks
Urban supply networks are facing increasing demands and challenges and thus constitute a relevant field for research and practical development. Supply chain management holds enormous potential and relevance for society and everyday life as the flow of goods and information are important economic functions. Being a heterogeneous field, the literature base of supply chain management research is difficult to manage and navigate. Disruptive digital technologies and the implementation of cross-network information analysis and sharing drive the need for new organisational and technological approaches. Practical issues are manifold and include mega trends such as digital transformation, urbanisation, and environmental awareness.
A promising approach to solving these problems is the realisation of smart and collaborative supply networks. The growth of artificial intelligence applications in recent years has led to a wide range of applications in a variety of domains. However, the potential of artificial intelligence utilisation in supply chain management has not yet been fully exploited. Similarly, value creation increasingly takes place in networked value creation cycles that have become continuously more collaborative, complex, and dynamic as interactions in business processes involving information technologies have become more intense.
Following a design science research approach this cumulative thesis comprises the development and discussion of four artefacts for the analysis and advancement of smart and collaborative urban supply networks. This thesis aims to highlight the potential of artificial intelligence-based supply networks, to advance data-driven inter-organisational collaboration, and to improve last mile supply network sustainability. Based on thorough machine learning and systematic literature reviews, reference and system dynamics modelling, simulation, and qualitative empirical research, the artefacts provide a valuable contribution to research and practice
Examples of works to practice staccato technique in clarinet instrument
Klarnetin staccato tekniğini güçlendirme aşamaları eser çalışmalarıyla uygulanmıştır. Staccato
geçişlerini hızlandıracak ritim ve nüans çalışmalarına yer verilmiştir. Çalışmanın en önemli amacı
sadece staccato çalışması değil parmak-dilin eş zamanlı uyumunun hassasiyeti üzerinde de
durulmasıdır. Staccato çalışmalarını daha verimli hale getirmek için eser çalışmasının içinde etüt
çalışmasına da yer verilmiştir. Çalışmaların üzerinde titizlikle durulması staccato çalışmasının ilham
verici etkisi ile müzikal kimliğe yeni bir boyut kazandırmıştır. Sekiz özgün eser çalışmasının her
aşaması anlatılmıştır. Her aşamanın bir sonraki performans ve tekniği güçlendirmesi esas alınmıştır.
Bu çalışmada staccato tekniğinin hangi alanlarda kullanıldığı, nasıl sonuçlar elde edildiği bilgisine
yer verilmiştir. Notaların parmak ve dil uyumu ile nasıl şekilleneceği ve nasıl bir çalışma disiplini
içinde gerçekleşeceği planlanmıştır. Kamış-nota-diyafram-parmak-dil-nüans ve disiplin
kavramlarının staccato tekniğinde ayrılmaz bir bütün olduğu saptanmıştır. Araştırmada literatür
taraması yapılarak staccato ile ilgili çalışmalar taranmıştır. Tarama sonucunda klarnet tekniğin de
kullanılan staccato eser çalışmasının az olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Metot taramasında da etüt
çalışmasının daha çok olduğu saptanmıştır. Böylelikle klarnetin staccato tekniğini hızlandırma ve
güçlendirme çalışmaları sunulmuştur. Staccato etüt çalışmaları yapılırken, araya eser çalışmasının
girmesi beyni rahatlattığı ve istekliliği daha arttırdığı gözlemlenmiştir. Staccato çalışmasını yaparken
doğru bir kamış seçimi üzerinde de durulmuştur. Staccato tekniğini doğru çalışmak için doğru bir
kamışın dil hızını arttırdığı saptanmıştır. Doğru bir kamış seçimi kamıştan rahat ses çıkmasına
bağlıdır. Kamış, dil atma gücünü vermiyorsa daha doğru bir kamış seçiminin yapılması gerekliliği
vurgulanmıştır. Staccato çalışmalarında baştan sona bir eseri yorumlamak zor olabilir. Bu açıdan
çalışma, verilen müzikal nüanslara uymanın, dil atış performansını rahatlattığını ortaya koymuştur.
Gelecek nesillere edinilen bilgi ve birikimlerin aktarılması ve geliştirici olması teşvik edilmiştir.
Çıkacak eserlerin nasıl çözüleceği, staccato tekniğinin nasıl üstesinden gelinebileceği anlatılmıştır.
Staccato tekniğinin daha kısa sürede çözüme kavuşturulması amaç edinilmiştir. Parmakların
yerlerini öğrettiğimiz kadar belleğimize de çalışmaların kaydedilmesi önemlidir. Gösterilen azmin ve
sabrın sonucu olarak ortaya çıkan yapıt başarıyı daha da yukarı seviyelere çıkaracaktır
'Exarcheia doesn't exist': Authenticity, Resistance and Archival Politics in Athens
My thesis investigates the ways people, materialities and urban spaces interact to form affective ecologies and produce historicity. It focuses on the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, Athens’ contested political topography par excellence, known for its production of radical politics of discontent and resistance to state oppression and eoliberal capitalism. Embracing Exarcheia’s controversial status within Greek vernacular, media and state discourses, this thesis aims to unpick the neighbourhoods’ socio-spatial assemblage imbued with affect and formed through the numerous (mis)understandings and (mis)interpretations rooted in its turbulent political history. Drawing on theory on urban spaces, affect, hauntology and archival politics, I argue for Exarcheia as an unwavering archival space composed of affective chronotopes – (in)tangible loci that defy space and temporality. I posit that the interwoven narratives and materialities emerging in my fieldwork are persistently – and perhaps obsessively – reiterating themselves and remaining imprinted on the neighbourhood’s landscape as an incessant reminder of violent histories that the state often seeks to erase and forget. Through this analysis, I contribute to understandings of place as a primary ethnographic ‘object’ and the ways in which place forms complex interactions and relationships with social actors, shapes their subjectivities, retains and bestows their memories and senses of historicity
Walking with the Earth: Intercultural Perspectives on Ethics of Ecological Caring
It is commonly believed that considering nature different from us, human beings (qua rational, cultural, religious and social actors), is detrimental to our engagement for the preservation of nature. An obvious example is animal rights, a deep concern for all living beings, including non-human living creatures, which is understandable only if we approach nature, without fearing it, as something which should remain outside of our true home. “Walking with the earth” aims at questioning any similar preconceptions in the wide sense, including allegoric-poetic contributions. We invited 14 authors from 4 continents to express all sorts of ways of saying why caring is so important, why togetherness, being-with each others, as a spiritual but also embodied ethics is important in a divided world
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Evaluation of a Remote Implementation of the Well-Being Promotion Program with Middle School Students during COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic and pivot to emergency remote teaching changed the way in which many students access school-based mental health interventions. Furthermore, the effects of the pandemic heightened distress and decreased life satisfaction amongst many youth, increasing the need for schools to provide targeted mental health supports (Lazarus et al, 2021; Magson et al., 2021). Empirically supported Tier 2 mental health interventions exist (i.e., the Well-Being Promotion Program; Suldo, 2016), but little is known about how these interventions can be adapted and feasibly implemented in remote school contexts. This retrospective case study evaluated the implementation of a remote version of the Well-Being Promotion Program, a targeted positive psychology intervention, with eighth grade students during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aimed to (1) to describe the co-design process through which a research-practice partnership modified the WBPP for remote delivery and (2) to explore the implementation strategies that influenced the feasibility of implementing the resulting digital version of the WBPP. The study used qualitative data (e.g., meeting notes, interviews and written feedback from providers, students, and caregivers) and quantitative data (e.g., pre-/post-measures, intervention integrity, attendance) to evaluate the co-design process and the feasibility of the adapted WBPP. Through co-design, the intervention was modified to be facilitated via videoconference, to use digital versions of WBPP materials, to use email to share with caregivers the handouts and a recorded version of the information session, to add additional sessions for data collection, and to adapt language to align with school vernacular. Using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Braun et al., 2019), themes were constructed from the data to provide insight into the implementation strategies used by the research-practice partnership to influence feasibility. Findings suggest that (a) maintaining the structure of the WBPP, (b) using technology for remote implementation, (c) collaborating through the research-practice partnership, and (d) recognizing the effectiveness of intervention efforts influenced the feasibility of the remote implementation. Lessons learned from this case study suggest that research-practice partnerships can be critical for influencing the feasibility of intervention implementation in local school contexts, especially during novel situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic
Management Matters : Organizational Storytelling within the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden
The Anthroposophical Society, founded by the Austrian polymath Rudolf Steiner, came to Sweden in 1913, but for the generation of present-day Swedish Anthroposophists whose voices are heard in this study, the great flowering of the movement occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. The movement had by then expanded into a large milieu with many largely independent enterprises and institutions, from the formal organization itself, to various schools, farms, shops, medical facilities, etc., all based on interpretations of Steiner’s legacy. Since then, many members of the movement feel, there has been a decline.
A movement of this size and complexity can be seen as a large organization with a corporate-like structure. Taking its point of departure in ideas from the vast field of organization studies, and specifically in the study of storytelling as part of the creation of a corporate culture where many voices and many perspectives co-exist, this study investigates how Anthroposophists in Sweden, both rank and-file members and some who served in leadership positions, tell the story of the putative Golden Age, decline, and projected future of Anthroposophy in Sweden. Twenty-eight interviews were collected, recurrent themes identified, and the plots of the various individual stories analyzed by means of a version of the actantial model developed by the semioticist Algirdas Greimas.
The basic storyline, of which the interviewees’ individual stories constitute variations, is that the Golden Age, when charismatic leaders could draw crowds of enthusiastic young people and a vibrant Anthroposophical milieu was built up, came to an end with the demise of those leaders. The present, i.e., the time at which the interviews were conducted, is narratively framed as a period of sharp decline. The vistas for the future come across in most stories as quite bleak. An actantial analysis reveals that the past, an epoch that is on one hand held up as a shining example is on the other hand also described as a time characterized by innumerable problems and conflicts. Disagreement is rampant regarding the reasons for the current decline, and a vast number of problems are identified in the individual narratives. The future is for some interviewees impossible to speculate about, whereas others have specific suggestions for change. These suggestions, when held up against each other, show that there is no unified vision of what the necessary changes might be or who must bring them about.
The interviewees agree that Anthroposophy plays a vital role as a spiritual path. When asked how they would describe Anthroposophy and what it more specifically can offer, answers diverge, but substantive descriptions of core concepts or practices are rarely alluded to. Rather, their explanations of what Anthroposophy is are in almost all cases metaphorical or negative, i.e., they represent Anthroposophy as elusive or undefinable. Interviewees can suggest that the lack of a clear Anthroposophical “brand” is a major reason for its current perceived crisis. An analysis of the ways in which Rudolf Steiner is portrayed in the interview material shows that there are a variety of descriptions of him rather than a unified representation of a charismatic leader that members can rally around. This, the study suggests, is because four different forms of charisma can be distinguished on theoretical grounds, and the particular form that permeates the narratives collected for this study does not readily support the dissemination of a centralized, dominant narrative.Antroposofiska Sällskapet, grundat av österrikaren Rudolf Steiner, kom till Sverige redan i 1913, men för den generation av nutida svenska antroposofer vars röster hörs i denna studie inträffade rörelsens stora blomstringstid först under nittonhundratalets andra hälft. Vid det laget hade rörelsen expanderat och blivit till en omfattande miljö med många stort sett oberoende institutioner och verksamheter, från själva det Antroposofiska Sällskapet i strikt mening till olika skolor, lantbruk, butiker, kliniker, osv., som alla byggde på tolkningar av arvet efter Steiner. Många medlemmar i rörelsen menar att det sedan dess har skett en nedgång.
En rörelse med den storlek och komplexitet som det rör sig om i det aktuella fallet kan betraktas som en organisation med en företagsliknande struktur. Denna studie tar därför sin utgångspunkt i ett organisationsteoretiskt perspektiv, i synnerhet i den gren av organisationsteorin som studerar berättande som ett led i hur en organisationskultur med många samexisterande röster skapas. I det aktuella fallet handlar det om berättelser som antroposofer i Sverige, både vanliga medlemmar och personer i ledarställning, framför om den blomstringstid de menar rörelsen en gång hade, den nedgång de säger sig uppleva och den framtid de föreställer sig att antroposofin i Sverige kommer att möta. Tjugoåtta intervjuer genomfördes och de berättelser som förmedlas i dessa intervjuer analyserades med hjälp av en variant av den aktantmodell som utvecklats av semiotikern Algirdas Greimas.
Den grundläggande handling man återfinner i intervjupersonernas olika berättelser är att blomstringstiden var en guldålder då karismatiska ledare kunde samla stora grupper av entusiastiska ungdomar och en levande antroposofisk miljö byggdes upp, men att denna guldålder upphörde när ledarna gick ur tiden. Nuet, alltså den tid då intervjuerna genomfördes, beskrivs i berättelserna som en tid av förfall. Framtidsutsikterna som målas upp i de flesta berättelser är dystra. Aktantanalysen visar att berättelserna om det förflutna både beskriver denna tid i mycket positiva termer och nämner otaliga problem och konflikter. Nuets påstådda förfall återkommer i de flesta berättelser, men åsikterna går vitt isär när det gäller vad nutidens problem är och vad som orsakat dem. Framtiden beskrivs av vissa intervjupersoner som omöjlig att spekulera närmare om, medan andra har specifika förslag till förändringar. Sammantaget visar analysen att det saknas en enhetlig föreställning om vad som behöver göras för att lösa rörelsens problem och vem som ska ta ansvar för dessa förändringar.
Intervjupersonerna är eniga om att antroposofin spelar en viktig roll. Frågan hur de skulle beskriva antroposofin och vad den har att erbjuda besvaras på olika sätt, men sällan i termer av konkreta beskrivningar av för antroposofin centrala föreställningar eller praktiker. Tendensen är snarare att svara i metaforiska eller negativa termer, alltså genom att berätta att de menar att antroposofin inte går att definiera. Samtidigt kan intervjupersonerna förklara att bristen på en tydlig antroposofisk identitet är ett huvudskäl till vad de ser som rörelsens nuvarande kris. En analys av de sätt på vilka Rudolf Steiner beskrivs i intervjumaterialet visar att det också finns en rad divergerande uppfattningar av honom snarare än en sammanhållen beskrivning av en karismatisk ledare som medlemmarna kan samlas kring. Studien konkluderar att karisma på teoretiska grunder kan delas in i fyra olika typer, och att den specifika form av karisma som intervjuerna återspeglar inte harmonierar särskilt väl med spridandet av en centralt utformad dominerande berättelse
The forgotten age group: The need for targeted physical activity and healthy lifestyle promotion for older adolescents
Introduction
Globally, limited research has examined healthy lifestyle promotion for older adolescents (16–18 years), yet habitual healthy lifestyles can be developed at this time. Most initiatives have been aimed at adults or younger children and research has highlighted England to be up to ten tears behind other countries in prioritising health education (Berkman et al., 2010). This research aims to examine older adolescents’ knowledge and understanding of healthy lifestyle [nutrition and physical activity (PA)] recommendations and compare these to their self-reported PA, active transportation, active leisure and food intake. It will also ask their experiences of how healthy lifestyles are promoted to them.
Method
Ninety-three participants (39M; 54F) (M age=16.9, SD=.40 years), from 3 low socio-economic English high schools completed an online questionnaire on their self-reported: (1) daily physical activity (PA); (2) active transportation (AT); (3) active leisure time (AL); (4) food intake; (5) experiences of healthy lifestyles promotion; and (6) perceived healthiness. Questions were merged from both the validated Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) (WHO, 2004) and the Short Form Food Frequency Questionnaire (SFFFQ) (Cleghorn & Cade, 2017). To examine perceived healthiness, participants rated their overall health on a 5-point scale over the past 12 months. Daily PA, active transport, active leisure and how participants felt healthy lifestyles were promoted to them, were asked via open-ended questions. The SFFFQ was used to generate a food group score [via the Diet and Nutrition Tool for Evaluation (Cleghorn & Cade, 2017)], which were then added together to create an overall diet quality score (DQS).
Data analysis was undertaken within SPSS 24.0 (IBM Corp, Armok, NY, USA). A multi-variance of statistical analysis (MANOVA) assessed group differences across multiple dependent variables of the food group scores and overall DQS. GPAQ questions were analysed individually according to demographics: sex, and perceived healthiness. Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was then undertaken for each question to assess the group differences per element of PA. Thematic analysis was used to analyse all open-ended questions. Statistical significance was set at <.05.
Results
Only 60% reached PA recommended guidelines. Yet, 92% (n=86) used active travel for a least 10 mins continuously; of these, 86% (n=80) undertook this at least 5 days per week. Over half (51%, n=47) undertook MVPA as active leisure. However, 66% (n=61) spent ≥5 hours sedentary and only 17% (n=16) met recommended nutritional guidelines for health. Males who rated themselves as having poor health had eaten the recommended intakes of fat (1.00±.00), compared to females who rated themselves as having poor health but ate more than the recommended intakes of fat (2.60±.89). Nearly all participants (90%, n=80) did not report school as a place that promoted healthy lifestyles.
Discussion
As a public health measure and an educational policy matter, it is recommended schools implement more targeted PA and healthy eating initiatives for older adolescents. Further research is also needed to examine male older adolescents’ health literacy to get a deeper insight into their understanding and application of information relating to their health.
References
Berkman, N. D., Davis, T. C., & McCormack, L. (2010). Health literacy: what is it? Journal of Health Communication, 15(S2), 9-19.
Cleghorn, C., & Cade, J. (2017). Short Form Food Frequency Questionnaire. Available online: https://www.nutritools.org/tools/
World Health Organization (2004). Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ). World Health Organization. Geneva, Switzerland
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