When the going gets tough the beautiful get going: aesthetic appeal facilitates task performance.

The current studies examined the effect of aesthetic appeal on performance. According to one hypothesis, appeal would lead to overall decrements or enhancements in performance [e.g. Sonderegger & Sauer, (Applied Ergonomics, 41, 403-410, 2010)]. Alternatively, appeal might influence performance only in problem situations, such as when the task is difficult [e.g. Norman, (2004)]. The predictions of these hypotheses were examined in the context of an icon search-and-localisation task. Icons were used because they are well-defined stimuli and pervasive to modern everyday life. When search was made difficult using visually complex stimuli (Experiment 1), or abstract and unfamiliar stimuli (Experiment 2), icons that were appealing were found more quickly than their unappealing counterparts. These findings show that in a low-level visual processing task, with demand characteristics related to appeal eliminated, appeal can influence performance, especially under duress

Selfie appropriation by young British South Asian adults: reifying, endorsing and reinforcing dual cultural identity in social media

Abstract: Purpose: This study examines how young British South Asian adults’ dual cultural identity is exhibited and reaffirmed through the appropriation of selfies. Design/methodology: The research adopts a qualitative perspective and utilises a combination of in-depth interviews and netnographic data. Findings: The appropriation of the selfie phenomenon by young British South Asian adults reifies, endorses and reinforces their dual cultural identity. As such, their dual cultural identity is influenced by four factors: consonance between host and ancestral cultures, situational constraints, contextual requirements and convenience. Research limitations/implications: In terms of the selfie phenomenon, the study makes two major contributions: first, it analyses young British South Asian adults’ cultural dualism. Second, it explicates how their acculturation and their dual cultural identity are expressed through the appropriation of the selfie phenomenon. Practical implications: Since young British South Asians represent a significant, and distinct, market, organisations serving this market can marshal insights from this research. As such, managers who apprise themselves of the selfie phenomenon of this group are better placed to meet their consumer needs. Account, therefore, should be taken of their twofold cultural identity and dual British/Asian identification. In particular, consideration should be given to their distinct and demonstrable traits apropos religiosity and social, communal, and familial bonding. The characteristics were clearly evident via their interactions within social media. Consequently, senior marketing managers can utilise the aforementioned in positioning their organisations, their brands and their products and services. Originality/value: The study details a new quadripartite framework for analysing young British South Asian adults’ acculturation that leads to the formation of their dual cultural identity and presents a dynamic model that explicates how cultural identity is expressed through the use and appropriation of technology

New Exact Solutions of the Davey–Stewartson Equation with Power-Law Nonlinearity

This work obtains the soliton solutions of the generalized Davey–Stewartson equation with the complex coefficients. First, the extended Weierstrass transformation method is used to carry out the solutions of this equation, and some new solutions, known as Weierstrass elliptic function solutions, are obtained by this method. Then, the trial equation method is used to obtain the soliton solutions of this equation. © 2014, Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society and Universiti Sains Malaysia

New Exact Solutions of the Davey-Stewartson Equation with Power-Law Nonlinearity

WOS: 000355625100021This work obtains the soliton solutions of the generalized Davey-Stewartson equation with the complex coefficients. First, the extended Weierstrass transformation method is used to carry out the solutions of this equation, and some new solutions, known as Weierstrass elliptic function solutions, are obtained by this method. Then, the trial equation method is used to obtain the soliton solutions of this equation.Yozgat University FoundationBozok UniversityWe would like to thank the referees for their valuable suggestions. Also, the research has been supported by Yozgat University Foundation

Semi-Supervised Learning based Aesthetic Classifier for Short Animations Embedded in Web Pages

Abstract. We propose a semi-supervised learning based computational model for aesthetic classification of short animation videos, which are nowadays part of many web pages. The proposed model is expected to be useful in developing an overall aesthetic model of web pages, leading to better evaluation of web page usability. We identified two feature sets describing aesthetics of an animated video. Based on the feature sets, we developed a Naïve-Bayes classifier by applying Co-training, a semi-supervised machine learning technique. The model classifies the videos as good, average or bad in terms of their aesthetic quality. We designed 18 videos and got those rated by 17 participants for use as the initial training set. Another set of 24 videos were designed and labeled using Co-training. We conducted an empirical study with 16 videos and 23 participants to ascertain the efficacy of the proposed model. The study results show 75 % model accuracy