Do National Cultures Impact Mortgage and Financial Well-Being Levels? Evidence from Europe

This study explores the influence of national culture on mortgage and financial well-being levels in the European context. The paper employs regression analysis using mainly Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the EU-SILC dataset from Eurostat to provide a better understanding of the determinants of the decision to hold secured debts and a better explanation of the states of financial well-being. To the best of our knowledge, no study has addressed the influence of culture on mortgage and financial well-being levels in the European setting using samples from different countries and controlling for household characteristics. We conclude that power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation are negatively associated with the likelihood of holding a mortgage. The results also show that masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence are negatively associated with the amount of mortgage. Moreover, individualism and long-term orientation (power distance and uncertainty avoidance) are positively (negatively) associated with being in a state of financial well-being. Collectively, our research shows that national cultures play a crucial role in household finance.JEL Codes - D10; G40; G5

La Triplice terapia con estriolo intravaginale, lattobacilli acidophili e riabilitazione del pavimento pelvico nelle pazienti in postmenopausa con disturbi urogenitali

Objective: To assess the effects of the combination of pelvic floor rehabilitation, intravaginal estriol and lactobacillus acidophli administration on stress urinary incontinence (SUI), urogenital atrophy and recurrent urinary tract infections in postmenopausal women. Methods: 136 postmenopausal women with urogenital aging symptoms were enrolled in this prospective randomized study. Patients: randomly divided into two groups and each group consisted of 68 women. Interventions: Subjects in the triple therapy (group I) received 1 intravaginal ovule containing 30 mcg estriol and lactobacilli acidophili (50 mg lyophilisate containing at least 100 milion live bacteria) such as once daily for 2 weeks and then 2 ovules once weekly for a total of 6 months as maintenance therapy plus pelvic floor rehabilitation. Subjects in the group II received one intravaginal estriol ovule (1 mg) plus pelvic floor rehabilitation in a similar regimen. Mean outcome measures: We evaluated urogenital symptomatology, urine coltures, colposcopic findings, urethral cytologic findings, urethral pressure profiles and urethrocystometry before, as well as after 6 months of treatment. Results: After therapy, the symptoms and signs of urogenital atrophy significantly improved in both groups. 45/59 (76.27%) of the group I, and 26/63 (41.27%) of the group II referred a subjective improvement of their incontinence. In the patients treated by triple therapy with lactobacilli, estriol plus pelvic floor rehabilitation, we observed significant improvements of colposcopic findings, and there were statistically significant increases in mean maximum urethral pressure (MUP), in mean urethral closure pressure (MUCP), as well as in the abdominal pressure transmission ratio to the proximal urethra (PTR). Conclusions: Our results showed that triple therapy with lactobacilli acidophili, estriol plus pelvic floor rehabilitation was effective and should be considered as first-line treatment for symptoms of urogenital aging in postmenopausal women.</br

آلية مقترحة لتحقيق التمكين الرقمي في وزارة التربية والتعليم من وجهة نظر القيادات الإدارية في ظل أزمة كورونا ومستجدَاتها

       هدفت هذه الدراسة إلى التعرف على مستوى التمكين الرقمي في وزارة التربية والتعليم في الأردن من وجهة نظر القيادات الإدارية فيها في ظل أزمة كورونا ومستجداتها، ووضع آلية مقترحة لتحقيق ذلك. تكونت عينة الدراسة من (49) فرداً من القيادات الإدارية في وزارة التربية والتعليم ومديريات التربية في العاصمة عمان، وقد تم اتباع المنهج الوصفي المسحي لمناسبته لاغراض الدراسة، وللإجابة عن أسئلة الدراسة تم إعداد استبانة مكونة من (20) فقرة موزعة على ثلاثة مجالات هي: البنية التحتية الرقمية، والوعي بأهمية التمكين الرقمي، والأنشطة الرقمية وأساليب التقويم، وجرى التحقق من صدقه وثباته واستخدام الأساليب الإحصائية المناسبة، وأظهرت نتائج الدراسة ما يلي: أن مستوى التمكين الرقمي في وزارة التربية والتعليم الأردنية كان مرتفعاً من وجهة نظر القيادات الإدارية فيها

Building a SOA-Based Model for Purchase Order Management in E-Commerce Systems

Purchase Order Management (POM) is one of the most popular E-Commerce applications conducted between B2C and B2B systems. In many cases nowadays POM components use integration approaches that lack interoperability and manageability features. The purpose of this paper is to build a SOA based model for POM in E-Commerce system that achieves the goals of interoperability and manageability. In this paper a technical model of POM E-Commerce system is presented and analyzed. A new POM model based on SOA solution is proposed that overcomes the shortcoming of currently used model. The main contribution of this paper is to align a SOA-based model to the B2C and B2B E-Commerce domain

Relationship descriptors for interactive motion adaptation

In this thesis we present an interactive motion adaptation scheme for close interactions between skeletal characters and mesh structures, such as navigating restricted environments and manipulating tools. We propose a new spatial-relationship based representation to encode character-object interactions describing the kinematics of the body parts by the weighted sum of vectors relative to descriptor points selectively sampled over the scene. In contrast to previous discrete representations that either only handle static spatial relationships, or require offline, costly optimization processes, our continuous framework smoothly adapts the motion of a character to deformations in the objects and character morphologies in real-time whilst preserving the original context and style of the scene. We demonstrate the strength of working in our relationship-descriptor space in tackling the issue of motion editing under large environment deformations by integrating procedural animation techniques such as repositioning contacts in an interaction whilst preserving the context and style of the original animation. Furthermore we propose a method that can be used to adapt animations from template objects to novel ones by solving for mappings between the two in our relationship-descriptor space effectively transferring an entire motion from one object to a new one of different geometry whilst ensuring continuity across all frames of the animation, as opposed to mapping static poses only as is traditionally achieved. The experimental results show that our method can be used for a wide range of applications, including motion retargeting for dynamically changing scenes, multi-character interactions, and interactive character control and deformation transfer for scenes that involve close interactions. We further demonstrate a key use case in retargeting locomotion to uneven terrains and curving paths convincingly for bipeds and quadrupeds. Our framework is useful for artists who need to design animated scenes interactively, and modern computer games that allow users to design their own virtual characters, objects and environments, such that they can recycle existing motion data for a large variety of different configurations without the need to manually reconfigure motion from scratch or store expensive combinations of animation in memory. Most importantly it’s achieved in real-time

آلية مقترحة لتحقيق التمكين الرقمي في وزارة التربية والتعليم من وجهة نظر القيادات الإدارية في ظل أزمة كورونا ومستجدَاتها

       هدفت هذه الدراسة إلى التعرف على مستوى التمكين الرقمي في وزارة التربية والتعليم في الأردن من وجهة نظر القيادات الإدارية فيها في ظل أزمة كورونا ومستجداتها، ووضع آلية مقترحة لتحقيق ذلك. تكونت عينة الدراسة من (49) فرداً من القيادات الإدارية في وزارة التربية والتعليم ومديريات التربية في العاصمة عمان، وقد تم اتباع المنهج الوصفي المسحي لمناسبته لاغراض الدراسة، وللإجابة عن أسئلة الدراسة تم إعداد استبانة مكونة من (20) فقرة موزعة على ثلاثة مجالات هي: البنية التحتية الرقمية، والوعي بأهمية التمكين الرقمي، والأنشطة الرقمية وأساليب التقويم، وجرى التحقق من صدقه وثباته واستخدام الأساليب الإحصائية المناسبة، وأظهرت نتائج الدراسة ما يلي: أن مستوى التمكين الرقمي في وزارة التربية والتعليم الأردنية كان مرتفعاً من وجهة نظر القيادات الإدارية فيها

Building and Evaluating a SOA-Based Model for Purchase Order Management in E-Commerce System

E-Commerce systems are characterized by complex Web applications that use different operating systems and different technologies. One of the most popular E-Commerce applications is conducted between businesses (B2B) and between a business and a consumer (B2C) is Purchase Order Management. It consists of components such as Sales, Shipping and Billing. In many cases nowadays Purchase Order Management components use integration approaches that lack interoperability and manageability resulting in customer dissatisfaction, time consumption and excessive costs. In this research, we build a model to overcome shortcomings of current Purchase Order Management system. The model is based on the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), and Web services. They offer many advantages and help achieve the goals of interoperability and manageability. The proposed model is evaluated by using a scenario based software architecture method and proves that it achieves the quality attributes set as goals for the model which are interoperability and manageability. A case study of the model is implemented as a prove-of-concept. A specific usage scenario for the model is discussed and further proves that the model accomplishes its functionality and quality attributes

How Do Drivers Behave at Roundabouts in a Mixed Traffic? A Case Study Using Machine Learning

Driving behavior is considered a unique driving habit of each driver and has a significant impact on road safety. Classifying driving behavior and introducing policies based on the results can reduce the severity of crashes on the road. Roundabouts are particularly interesting because of the interconnected interaction between different road users at the area of roundabouts, which different driving behavior is hypothesized. This study investigates driving behavior at roundabouts in a mixed traffic environment using a data-driven unsupervised machine learning to classify driving behavior at three roundabouts in Germany. We used a dataset of vehicle kinematics to a group of different vehicles and vulnerable road users (VRUs) at roundabouts and classified them into three categories (i.e., conservative, normal, and aggressive). Results showed that most of the drivers proceeding through a roundabout can be mostly classified into two driving styles: conservative and normal because traffic speeds in roundabouts are relatively lower than in other signalized and unsignalized intersections. Results also showed that about 77% of drivers who interacted with pedestrians or cyclists were classified as conservative drivers compared to about 42% of conservative drivers that did not interact or about 51% from all drivers. It seems that drivers tend to behave abnormally as they interact with VRUs at roundabouts, which increases the risk of crashes when an intersection is multimodal. Results of this study could be helpful in improving the safety of roads by allowing policymakers to determine the effective and suitable safety countermeasures. Results will also be beneficial for the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) as the technology is being deployed in a mixed traffic environment