Conceptualization of place attachment, self-congruity, and their impacts on word-of-mouth behaviors

The attachment theory and self-congruity theory have been widely used to explain and predict consumer behaviour. Similarly, the two theories have been also used in tourism studies with the aim to explain tourist destination choice. Placing a focus on destination visitors, the literature does not inform on the self-congruity effect among local residents, who also play a very important role in shaping destination image through their voluntary behaviors. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, the study aims at extending self-image congruence research into the resident literature within the field of tourism, by examining the links between place attachment and self-congruity. The second objective is to propose and demonstrate that (actual, ideal, social, and ideal social self-congruity: a match between resident actual/ideal self-image and place image) is further positively related to residents’ word-of-mouth (WOM) intention

Artificial Intelligence for Suicide Assessment using Audiovisual Cues: A Review

Death by suicide is the seventh leading death cause worldwide. The recent advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically AI applications in image and voice processing, has created a promising opportunity to revolutionize suicide risk assessment. Subsequently, we have witnessed fast-growing literature of research that applies AI to extract audiovisual non-verbal cues for mental illness assessment. However, the majority of the recent works focus on depression, despite the evident difference between depression symptoms and suicidal behavior and non-verbal cues. This paper reviews recent works that study suicide ideation and suicide behavior detection through audiovisual feature analysis, mainly suicidal voice/speech acoustic features analysis and suicidal visual cues. Automatic suicide assessment is a promising research direction that is still in the early stages. Accordingly, there is a lack of large datasets that can be used to train machine learning and deep learning models proven to be effective in other, similar tasks.Comment: Manuscript submitted to Arificial Intelligence Reviews (2022

The Cognitive-Affective Relationship of Tourists to a Heritage Site: The Case of Petra

The study evaluates a theoretical model that postulates the cognitive-affective relationships that tourists develop with a heritage site have an impact on intended behavior. Using the case of the UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) of Petra, the relationships between tourist motivation, positive and negative emotions, place attachment, overall satisfaction and intention to recommend the site are assessed. A survey of international tourists at the visitor centre in Petra resulted in 297 usable questionnaires. The two-step procedure for structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. All of the hypothesized paths are statistically significant, except the one from positive emotion to satisfaction and the one from place attachment to intention to recommend. The results support the theoretical model emphasizing the paths from cognition (motivation) to affect (positive and negative emotions) and intended behavior via place attachment and satisfaction. The findings have several theoretical and managerial implications. For example, managers and employees at Petra should improve on-site experiences to generate both positive emotions and place attachment that will encourage tourists to recommend Petra for future visits

The impact of self-congruity and evaluation of the place on WOM: Perspectives of tourism destination residents

Residents’ voluntary word-of-mouth (WOM), especially positive WOM, is scarcely investigated. Since different human–place relationship factors influence residents’ WOM, further understanding of how residents evaluate the place affects their voluntary behaviors is essential. Using PLS-based structural equation modeling, this study investigates the linkages between residents’ self-congruity, place satisfaction, engagement, expectations, and WOM. Results based on 313 residents of Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Pula (Croatia) suggest that (1) place satisfaction and place expectations only directly affect one-to-one positive WOM; (2) actual and ideal self-congruities affect place satisfaction, engagement, and expectations; (3) place engagement has a substantial direct impact on both one-to-many and many-to-many WOM; and that (4) actual and ideal social self-congruities have a direct influence on many-to-many WOM. In general, this study adds to the literature by detailing how different WOMs are motivated by various factors via different psychological mechanisms

Optimisation of the Hydrodynamic Performance of a wave energy converter in an Integrated Cylindrical WEC-Type Breakwater System

Wave energy converters (WECs) are built to extract wave energy. However, this kind of device is still expensive for commercial utilization. To cut down the cost of WECs by sharing the construction cost with breakwaters, an integrated cylindrical WEC-type breakwater system that includes a cylindrical WEC array in front of a very long breakwater is proposed to extract wave energy and attenuate incident waves. This paper aims to optimize the performance of the integrated cylindrical WEC-type breakwater system. A computational fluid dynamics tool, openfoam®, and a potential flow theory-based solver, HAMS®, are utilized. openfoam® provides viscosity corrections to a modified version of HAMS® in order to accurately and efficiently predict the integrated system’s performance. Parametric studies are conducted to optimize the integrated system, and a novel setup with an extra arc structure is found to significantly improve the performance of the integrated system

Detecting Mental Distresses Using Social Behavior Analysis in the Context of COVID-19: A Survey

Online social media provides a channel for monitoring people\u27s social behaviors from which to infer and detect their mental distresses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online social networks were increasingly used to express opinions, views, and moods due to the restrictions on physical activities and in-person meetings, leading to a significant amount of diverse user-generated social media content. This offers a unique opportunity to examine how COVID-19 changed global behaviors regarding its ramifications on mental well-being. In this article, we surveyed the literature on social media analysis for the detection of mental distress, with a special emphasis on the studies published since the COVID-19 outbreak. We analyze relevant research and its characteristics and propose new approaches to organizing the large amount of studies arising from this emerging research area, thus drawing new views, insights, and knowledge for interested communities. Specifically, we first classify the studies in terms of feature extraction types, language usage patterns, aesthetic preferences, and online behaviors. We then explored various methods (including machine learning and deep learning techniques) for detecting mental health problems. Building upon the in-depth review, we present our findings and discuss future research directions and niche areas in detecting mental health problems using social media data. We also elaborate on the challenges of this fast-growing research area, such as technical issues in deploying such systems at scale as well as privacy and ethical concerns

The Airlines’ Recent Experience Under the Railway Labor Act

Silky-feather has been selected and fixed in some breeds due to its unique appearance. This phenotype is caused by a single recessive gene (hookless, h). Here we map the silky-feather locus to chromosome 3 by linkage analysis and subsequently fine-map it to an 18.9 kb interval using the identical by descent (IBD) method. Further analysis reveals that a C to G transversion located upstream of the prenyl (decaprenyl) diphosphate synthase, subunit 2 (PDSS2) gene is causing silky-feather. All silky-feather birds are homozygous for the G allele. The silky-feather mutation significantly decreases the expression of PDSS2 during feather development in vivo. Consistent with the regulatory effect, the C to G transversion is shown to remarkably reduce PDSS2 promoter activity in vitro. We report a new example of feather structure variation associated with a spontaneous mutation and provide new insight into the PDSS2 function

Oral microbiota of periodontal health and disease and their changes after nonsurgical periodontal therapy

This study examined the microbial diversity and community assembly of oral microbiota in periodontal health and disease and after nonsurgical periodontal treatment. The V4 region of 16S rRNA gene from DNA of 238 saliva and subgingival samples of 21 healthy and 48 diseased subjects was amplified and sequenced. Among 1979 OTUs identified, 28 were overabundant in diseased plaque. Six of these taxa were also overabundant in diseased saliva. Twelve OTUs were overabundant in healthy plaque. There was a trend for disease-associated taxa to decrease and health-associated taxa to increase after treatment with notable variations among individual sites. Network analysis revealed modularity of the microbial communities and identified several health- and disease-specific modules. Ecological drift was a major factor that governed community turnovers in both plaque and saliva. Dispersal limitation and homogeneous selection affected the community assembly in plaque, with the additional contribution of homogenizing dispersal for plaque within individuals. Homogeneous selection and dispersal limitation played important roles, respectively, in healthy saliva and diseased pre-treatment saliva between individuals. Our results revealed distinctions in both taxa and assembly processes of oral microbiota between periodontal health and disease. Furthermore, the community assembly analysis has identified potentially effective approaches for managing periodontitis

Increased Mortality Associated with Well-Water Arsenic Exposure in Inner Mongolia, China

We conducted a retrospective mortality study in an Inner Mongolian village exposed to well water contaminated by arsenic since the 1980s. Deaths occurring between January 1, 1997 and December 1, 2004 were classified according to underlying cause and water samples from household wells were tested for total arsenic. Heart disease mortality was associated with arsenic exposure, and the association strengthened with time exposed to the water source. Cancer mortality and all-cause mortality were associated with well-water arsenic exposure among those exposed 10–20 years. This is the first study to document increased arsenic-associated mortality in the Bayingnormen region of Inner Mongolia