Smart technology for healthcare: Exploring the antecedents of adoption intention of healthcare wearable technology

© The Author(s), 2019. Technological advancement and personalized health information has led to an increase in people using and responding to wearable technology in the last decade. These changes are often perceived to be beneficial, providing greater information and insights about health for users, organizations and healthcare and government. However, to date, understanding the antecedents of its adoption is limited. Seeking to address this gap, this cross-sectional study examined what factors influence users’ adoption intention of healthcare wearable technology. We used self-administrated online survey to explore adoption intentions of healthcare wearable devices in 171 adults residing in Hong Kong. We analyzed the data by Partial least squares – structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that perceived convenience and perceived irreplaceability are key predictors of perceived useful ness, which in turn strengthens users’ adoption intention. Additionally, the results also reveal that health belief is one of the key predictors of adoption intention. This paper contributes to the extant literature by providing understanding of how to strengthen users’ intention to adopt healthcare wearable technology. This includes the strengthening of perceived convenience and perceived irreplaceability to enhance the perceived usefulness, incorporating the extensive communication in the area of healthcare messages, which is useful in strengthening consumers’ adoption intention in healthcare wearable technology

Ranking Models in Conjoint Analysis

In this paper we consider the estimation of probabilisticranking models in the context of conjoint experiments. By usingapproximate rather than exact ranking probabilities, we do notneed to compute high-dimensional integrals. We extend theapproximation technique proposed by \\citet{Henery1981} in theThurstone-Mosteller-Daniels model for any Thurstone orderstatistics model and we show that our approach allows for aunified approach. Moreover, our approach also allows for theanalysis of any partial ranking. Partial rankings are essentialin practical conjoint analysis to collect data efficiently torelieve respondents' task burden.conjoint experiments;partial rankings;thurstone order statistics model

Confidence intervals for maximal reliability of probability judgments

Subjective probabilities play an important role in marketingresearch, for example where individuals rate the likelihood thatthey will purchase a new to develop product. The tau-equivalentmodel can describe the joint behaviour of multiple test itemsmeasuring the same subjective probability. It improves thereliability of the subjective probability estimate by using aweighted sum as the outcome of the test rather than an unweightedsum. One can choose the weights to obtain maximal reliability.In this paper we stress the use of confidence intervals to assessmaximal reliability, as this allows for a more critical assessmentof the items as measurement instruments. Furthermore, two newconfidence intervals for the maximal reliability are derived andcompared to intervals derived earlier in \\citet{YuanBentler2002,RaykovPenev2006}. The comparison involves coverage curves, amethodology that is new in the field of reliability. The existingYuan-Bentler and Raykov-Penev intervals are shown to overestimatethe maximal reliability, whereas one of our proposed intervals, thestable interval, performs very well. This stable interval hardlyshows any bias, and has a coverage for the true value which isapproximately equal to the confidence level.confidence intervals;subjective probability;coverage curves;maximal reliability;measurement scales;tau-equivalent model

LocLess: Do You Really Care Where Your Cloud Files Are?

Physical location of data in cloud storage is a problem that gains a lot of attention not only from the actual cloud providers but also from the end users' who lately raise many concerns regarding the privacy of their data. It is a common practice that cloud service providers create replicate users' data across multiple physical locations. However, moving data in different countries means that basically the access rights are transferred based on the local laws of the corresponding country. In other words, when a cloud service provider stores users' data in a different country then the transferred data is subject to the data protection laws of the country where the servers are located. In this paper, we propose LocLess, a protocol which is based on a symmetric searchable encryption scheme for protecting users' data from unauthorized access even if the data is transferred to different locations. The idea behind LocLess is that "Once data is placed on the cloud in an unencrypted form or encrypted with a key that is known to the cloud service provider, data privacy becomes an illusion". Hence, the proposed solution is solely based on encrypting data with a key that is only known to the data owner

Interfacial phenomena in hard-rod fluids

This thesis addresses questions of interfacial ordering in hard-rod fluids at coexistence of the isotropic and nematic phases and in their contact with simple model substrates. It is organized as follows. Chapter II provides some background information about the relation between the statistical mechanical and thermodynamical level of descriptions of bulk hard-rod fluids, as well as introduces the asymptotically exact Onsager model, and some basic facts of interfacial thermodynamics. Chapter III represents studies of the simplest free IN interface in a fluid of monodisperse Onsager hard rods. For the analysis of this system we develop an efficient perturbative method to determine the (biaxial) one-particle distribution function in inhomogeneous systems. Studies of the free planar isotropic-nematic interfaces are continued in Chapter IV, where they are considered in binary mixtures of hard rods. For sufficiently different particle shapes the bulk phase diagrams of these mixtures exhibit a triple point, where an isotropic (I) phase coexists with two nematic phases (N1 and N2) of different composition. For all explored mixtures we find that upon approach of the triple point the IN2 interface shows complete wetting by an intervening N1 film. We compute the surface tension of isotropic-nematic interfaces, and find a remarkable increase with fractionation. These studies are complemented by an analysis of bulk phase behavior and interfacial properties of nonadditive binary mixtures of thin and thick hard rods in Chapter V. The formulation of this model was motivated by recent experiments in the group of Fraden, who explored the phase behavior of a mixture of viruses with different effective diameters. In our model, species of the same types are considered as interacting with the hard-core repulsive potential, whereas the excluded volume for dissimilar rods is taken to be larger (smaller) then for the pure hard rods. Such a nonadditivity enhances (reduces) fractionation at the isotropic-nematic (IN) coexistence and may induce (suppress) a demixing of the high-density nematic phase into two nematic phases of different composition (N1 and N2). Studies of their interfaces show an increase of the surface tension with fractionation at the IN interface, and complete wetting of the IN2 interface by the N1 phase upon approach of the triple point coexistence. In all explored cases bulk and interfacial properties of the nonadditive mixtures exhibit a surprising similarity with the properties of additive mixtures of larger diameter ratio. In Chapter VI we consider properties of a monodisperse hard-rod fluid in contact with the single wall (W). Studies of surface properties of a fluid of Onsager hard rods represent significant numerical difficulties, therefore we consider a simpler model fluid of hard rods with a restricted number of allowed orientations. Within this model, known as the Zwanzig model, we explore the thermodynamic properties of a fluid of monodisperse hard rods in contact with a model substrate represented by a hard wall with a short-ranged attractive or repulsive ``tail''. The attraction enhances the orientational ordering near the wall in both isotropic and nematic phases, and shifts the transition from uniaxial (U) to biaxial (B) symmetry in the isotropic surface layer to lower chemical potentials, whereas the wetting properties of the substrate remain similar to those of the pure hard wall. The soft repulsion reduces the density in the surface layer, which leads to the shift (or even suppression) of the UB transition, and strong modification of wetting properties. At the WI interface one always finds the wetting transition at sufficiently large repulsion, whereas a drying transition at the WN interface is observed only for sufficiently long-ranged potentials. In Chapter VII we explore some limitations of models of hard-rod fluids with a finite number of allowed orientations. Within Onsager's second virial theory we construct their bulk phase diagrams. For a one-component fluid, we show that the discretization of the orientations leads to the existence of an artificial (almost) perfectly aligned nematic phase, which coexists with the (physical) nematic phase if the number of orientations is sufficiently large, or with the isotropic phase if the number of orientations is small. Its appearance correlates with the accuracy of the sampling of the nematic orientation distribution within its typical opening angle. For a binary mixture this artificial phase also exists, and a much larger number of orientations is required to shift it to such high densities that it does not interfere with the physical part of the phase diagram

A Study on Automated Micro Irrigation Using Soil Moisture Sensors

Micro irrigation is the modern method of irrigation. By this method water is irrigated through drippers, sprinklers, foggers and by other emitters on surface and sub surface of the land. Micro irrigation can be given by tubes and drippers which deliver water directly to the base of each plant or crop. Drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation, bubbler irrigation and sub-surface irrigation are the different types of irrigation. Soil moisture is the key variable in controlling the exchange of water and heat energy between the land surface and atmosphere. Soil moisture sensor measures the volumetric water content in the soil. Automation in micro irrigation is a system by which all the operations related to supply of irrigation water or fertilizer to the crop are carried out automatically with minimum manual interventions using soil moisture sensors

Effects of avian flu on the consumption of chicken and egg among University of Ilorin staff, Ilorin, Nigeria

The dissemination and maintenance of AIV in wild birds is important for understanding the factors that contribute to transmission of AIV from wild birds to poultry. This study examined the impact of Avian flu on the consumption of chicken and egg among university of Ilorin staff, in Ilorin, Kwara state, Nigeria. A survey was conducted by interviewing 110 University of Ilorin staff. Information was collected on the same economic characteristics of the respondents, income and consumption of chicken and eggs. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results revealed that Avian flu outbreaks and spread in Nigeria have caused serious threat to the poultry industry, the food security and livelihoods of urban communities. It was also noted that there was a decline in consumers’ confidence in poultry product (e.g chicken and egg) as indicated by the respondents. Perception of people about avian flu pandemic indicates 90% of respondents perceived it as deadly, incurable and easily transmissible disease and that was why 77.27% of the sampled households were found to have stopped or drastically reduced the consumption of poultry products for the fear of being infected by the disease. The research conclude that since most of people perceived avian influenza as deadly disease, government enact measures to prevent the virus from spreading and to reduce the risk of infection and ban on transporting poultry in the area where bird flu has occurred.Keywords: avian virus, wild birds, domestic poultry, egg, chicke

Dirac cohomology for degenerate affine Hecke-Clifford algebras

In this paper, we study the Dirac cohomology theory on a class of algebraic structures. The main examples of this algebraic structure are the degenerate affine Hecke-Clifford algebra of type An-1 by Nazarov and of classical types by Khongsap-Wang. The algebraic structure contains a remarkable subalgebra, which usually refers to Sergeev algebra for type An-1. We define an analogue of the Dirac operator for those algebraic structures. A main result is to relate the central characters of modules of those algebras with the central characters of modules of the Sergeev algebra via the Dirac cohomology. The action of the Dirac operator on certain modules is also computed. Results in this paper could be viewed as a projective version of the Dirac cohomology of the degenerate affine Hecke algebra

Norovirus infection in immunocompromised hosts

AbstractAcute gastroenteritis caused by noroviruses often has a duration of 2–0 days and is characteristically self-limiting. In contrast, chronic infection caused by noroviruses in immunocompromised individuals can last from weeks to years, making clinical management difficult. The mechanisms by which noroviruses establish persistent infection, and the role of immunocompromised hosts as a reservoir for noroviruses in the general human population, are not known. However, study of this patient cohort may lead to new insights into norovirus biology and approaches to treatment