4,940 research outputs found
The 1936 Vimy Pilgrimage
This article explores the significance of the 1936 Vimy Pilgrimage. More than 6,200 Canadian veterans and their families voyaged to France for the unveiling of Walter Allward’s Vimy Memorial on 26 July 1936 by King Edward VIII. The symbolism of the pilgrimage, along with the messages presented during the unveiling ceremony, played a key role in establishing the importance of the Vimy Ridge memorial to Canadians
Change communication : the impact on satisfaction with alternative workplace strategies
Communication is fundamental to the Facilities Management (FM) role within organisations; especially when the FM department is implementing changes to the workplace. An evaluation of an instance is presented.
A self- administered online questionnaire was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The research focused on responses to satisfaction with the communication methods rather than reviewing the merits of alternative workplace strategies.
Findings included the impact of communication on staff satisfaction levels, the need to provide timely and relevant information and communication via a range of mediums and the need to ensure there was opportunity to participate in meaningful feedback. The key findings are substantiated with existing internal communication and change literature.
Originality / value
The research highlights the practical importance of the need to improve communication within the FM industry and especially in change circumstances.</p
Boosting as a Product of Experts
In this paper, we derive a novel probabilistic model of boosting as a Product
of Experts. We re-derive the boosting algorithm as a greedy incremental model
selection procedure which ensures that addition of new experts to the ensemble
does not decrease the likelihood of the data. These learning rules lead to a
generic boosting algorithm - POE- Boost which turns out to be similar to the
AdaBoost algorithm under certain assumptions on the expert probabilities. The
paper then extends the POEBoost algorithm to POEBoost.CS which handles
hypothesis that produce probabilistic predictions. This new algorithm is shown
to have better generalization performance compared to other state of the art
algorithms
Bayesian models for the determination of resonant frequencies in a DI diesel engine
A time series method for the determination of combustion chamber resonant frequencies is outlined. This technique employs the use of Markov-chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to infer parameters in a chosen model of the data. The development of the model is included and the resonant frequency is characterised as a function of time. Potential applications for cycle-by-cycle analysis are discussed and the bulk temperature of the gas and the trapped mass in the combustion chamber are evaluated as a function of time from resonant frequency information
Difficult heritage and children’s summer camps of Fascist Italy
The Fascist regime helped itself to a diverse collection of children’s institutions, including summer camps, or colonie, which it put its stamp of ownership on, expanded, and adapted into a tool for indoctrination of youth under the guise of benevolent welfare. This research focuses on the legacy of the colonie built during the years of the Fascist regime whose current situations include demolition, abandonment, ruination, continuing use, and unfinished and successful renovations. The research explores how these spaces have fared over the years since they were established, and speculates as to what the future may hold for them as the problematic and ambiguous heritage of a totalitarian regime. The study is conducted through investigations into their past, present circumstances and speculative futures. Research methods include studies of primary and secondary texts, walking, photographic practice, and appropriation and reuse of archival and other imagery. The research is framed within concepts of heterotopia and difficult heritage, which it uses to expose ambiguities in representations of the colonie system, alongside an intrinsic ‘fuzziness’ in the Fascist regime’s ideology. The practical outcome of the research and practice comprises a set of photographic images and representations in the form of a photobook, in which ambiguities and contradictions are revealed through juxtapositions and sequences of images and the spaces between them. A nuanced approach allowed for understandings of the regime’s attitude towards the health and indoctrination of youth to emerge. The research concludes that consequences of Fascism’s appropriation of the colonie system are complex and multifaceted. Scholars acknowledge that further research is needed, and this study makes a contribution towards situating the architecture and memory of former Fascist colonia as heritage worth preserving, irrespective of inherent difficulties
Prediction of SINR using BER and EVM for Massive MIMO Applications
Future communication systems employing massive multiple input multiple output
will not have the ability to use channel state information at the mobile user
terminals. Instead, it will be necessary for such devices to evaluate the
downlink signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) with interference both
from the base station serving other users within the same cell and other base
stations from adjacent cells. The SINR will act as an indicator of how well the
precoders have been applied at the base station. The results presented in this
paper from a 32 x 3 massive MIMO channel sounder measurement campaign at 2.4
GHz show how the received bit error rate and error vector magnitudes can be
used to obtain a prediction of both the average and dynamically changing SINR.Comment: 12th European Conference on Antennas and Propagatio
Examining green production and its role within the competitive strategy of manufacturers
Purpose: This paper reviews current literature and contributes a set of findings that capture the current state-of-the-art of the topic of green production.
Design/methodology/approach: A literature review to capture, classify and summarize the main body of knowledge on green production and, translate this into a form that is readily accessible to researchers and practitioners in the more mainstream operations management community.
Findings: The existing knowledge base is somewhat fragmented. This is a relatively unexplored topic within mainstream operations management research and one which could provide rich opportunities for further exploration.
Originality/value: This paper sets out to review current literature, from a more conventional production operations perspective, and contributes a set of findings that capture the current state-of-the-art of this topic
Influences on the Uptake of and Engagement With Health and Well-Being Smartphone Apps: Systematic Review
Background: The public health impact of health and well-being digital interventions is dependent upon sufficient real-world uptake and engagement. Uptake is currently largely dependent on popularity indicators (eg, ranking and user ratings on app stores), which may not correspond with effectiveness, and rapid disengagement is common. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify factors that influence uptake and engagement with health and well-being apps to inform new approaches that promote the effective use of such tools. Objective: This review aimed to understand what is known about influences on the uptake of and engagement with health and well-being smartphone apps among adults. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies. Studies conducted on adults were included if they focused on health and well-being smartphone apps reporting on uptake and engagement behavior. Studies identified through a systematic search in Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, or MEDLARS Online (MEDLINE), EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), PsychINFO, Scopus, Cochrane library databases, DataBase systems and Logic Programming (DBLP), and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital library were screened, with a proportion screened independently by 2 authors. Data synthesis and interpretation were undertaken using a deductive iterative process. External validity checking was undertaken by an independent researcher. A narrative synthesis of the findings was structured around the components of the capability, opportunity, motivation, behavior change model and the theoretical domains framework (TDF). Results: Of the 7640 identified studies, 41 were included in the review. Factors related to uptake (U), engagement (E), or both (B) were identified. Under capability, the main factors identified were app literacy skills (B), app awareness (U), available user guidance (B), health information (E), statistical information on progress (E), well-designed reminders (E), features to reduce cognitive load (E), and self-monitoring features (E). Availability at low cost (U), positive tone, and personalization (E) were identified as physical opportunity factors, whereas recommendations for health and well-being apps (U), embedded health professional support (E), and social networking (E) possibilities were social opportunity factors. Finally, the motivation factors included positive feedback (E), available rewards (E), goal setting (E), and the perceived utility of the app (E). Conclusions: Across a wide range of populations and behaviors, 26 factors relating to capability, opportunity, and motivation appear to influence the uptake of and engagement with health and well-being smartphone apps. Our recommendations may help app developers, health app portal developers, and policy makers in the optimization of health and well-being apps
Comparing Growth Trajectories of Risk Behaviors From Late Adolescence Through Young Adulthood: An Accelerated Design.
Risk behaviors such as substance use or deviance are often limited to the early stages of the life course. Whereas the onset of risk behavior is well studied, less is currently known about the decline and timing of cessation of risk behaviors of different domains during young adulthood. Prevalence and longitudinal developmental patterning of alcohol use, drinking to the point of drunkenness, smoking, cannabis use, deviance, and HIV-related sexual risk behavior were compared in a Swiss community sample (N = 2,843). Using a longitudinal cohort-sequential approach to link multiple assessments with 3 waves of data for each individual, the studied period spanned the ages of 16 to 29 years. Although smoking had a higher prevalence, both smoking and drinking up to the point of drunkenness followed an inverted U-shaped curve. Alcohol consumption was also best described by a quadratic model, though largely stable at a high level through the late 20s. Sexual risk behavior increased slowly from age 16 to age 22 and then remained largely stable. In contrast, cannabis use and deviance linearly declined from age 16 to age 29. Young men were at higher risk for all behaviors than were young women, but apart from deviance, patterning over time was similar for both sexes. Results about the timing of increase and decline as well as differences between risk behaviors may inform tailored prevention programs during the transition from late adolescence to adulthood
- …