Factors Influencing the Adoption of Internet Banking

A research framework based on the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen 1985) and the diffusion of innovations theory (Rogers 1983) was used to identify the attitudinal, social and perceived behavioral control factors that would influence the adoption of Internet banking. An online questionnaire was designed on the World Wide Web (WWW). Respondents participated through extensive personalized e-mail invitations as well as postings to newsgroups and hyperlinks from selected Web sites. The results revealed that attitudinal and perceived behavioral control factors, rather than social influence, play a significant role in influencing the intention to adopt Internet banking. In particular, perceptions of relative advantage, compatibility, trialability, and risk toward using the Internet were found to influence intentions to adopt Internet banking services. In addition, confidence in using such services as well as perception of government support for electronic commerce were also found to influence intentions. The implications of the study are discussed and suggestions for future research presented

Characterization of Pneumatic Artificial Muscle System in an Opposing Pair Configuration

Pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) is a pneumatic actuator that commonly used in the biomimetic robotic devices in rehabilitation applications due to its advantageous in high powerto-weight ratio and high degree of safety in use characteristics. Several techniques exist in the literature for the PAM system modeling, and these include theoretical modeling, phenomenological modeling and empirical modeling. This paper focuses on explaining the experimental setup of an opposing pair configuration of PAM system, and gives an analysis of the pneumatic muscle system dynamic in the theoretical modeling. The simulated dynamic model is compared with the actual PAM system for the validation in the open-loop step and sinusoidal positioning responses and pressures. It is concluded that the simulation result is verified and agreed with the actual system

Development of Solar Educational Training Kit

The ability of utilize free resources of energy to generate electricity is one of the major tasks for environmentally research engineers. Numerous researches have been conducted to convert sunlight to direct current through Photovoltaic (PV) system. Nowadays PV research has become a popular study and has gained attention of many engineers and researchers due to free application, improving efficiency and high reliable energy source availability and is predicted to grow in years to come. With understanding of the aforementioned importance, PV systems aim to satisfy the growing demand for sustainable energy. This paper proposes a model of a real time grid assisted from low power direct current to high power alternating current as a solar educational training kit for an early education process to understand about the sustainability of energy conversion process. Integrating the switching concept, grid connection will only be switched on if the stored energy in the battery is insufficient to energize or supply the training kit. Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC) is integrated into the educational training kit to enable it to display and indicates the battery voltage level as it also take part in switching between the battery and grid. In the nutshell, a simple and user friendly measurement training kit is intentionally designed for user’s handwork purposes

Efficacy and safety of Cannabidiol and Tetrahydrocannabivarin on glycemic and lipid parameters in patients with Type 2 diabetes: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group pilot study

OBJECTIVE Cannabidiol (CBD) and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) are nonpsychoactive phytocannabinoids affecting lipid and glucose metabolism in animal models. This study set out to examine the effects of these compounds in patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 62 subjects with noninsulin-treated type 2 diabetes were randomized to five treatment arms: CBD (100 mg twice daily), THCV (5 mg twice daily), 1:1 ratio of CBD and THCV (5 mg/5 mg, twice daily), 20:1 ratio of CBD and THCV (100 mg/5 mg, twice daily), or matched placebo for 13 weeks. The primary end point was a change in HDL-cholesterol concentrations from baseline. Secondary/tertiary end points included changes in glycemic control, lipid profile, insulin sensitivity, body weight, liver triglyceride content, adipose tissue distribution, appetite, markers of inflammation, markers of vascular function, gut hormones, circulating endocannabinoids, and adipokine concentrations. Safety and tolerability end points were also evaluated. RESULTS Compared with placebo, THCV significantly decreased fasting plasma glucose (estimated treatment difference [ETD] = −1.2 mmol/L; P < 0.05) and improved pancreatic β-cell function (HOMA2 β-cell function [ETD = −44.51 points; P < 0.01]), adiponectin (ETD = −5.9 × 106 pg/mL; P < 0.01), and apolipoprotein A (ETD = −6.02 μmol/L; P < 0.05), although plasma HDL was unaffected. Compared with baseline (but not placebo), CBD decreased resistin (−898 pg/ml; P < 0.05) and increased glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (21.9 pg/ml; P < 0.05). None of the combination treatments had a significant impact on end points. CBD and THCV were well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS THCV could represent a new therapeutic agent in glycemic control in subjects with type 2 diabetes

Seeing a talking face matters: The relationship between cortical tracking of continuous auditory ‐visual speech and gaze behaviour in infants, children and adults

Available online 15 April 2022An auditory-visual speech benefit, the benefit that visual speech cues bring to auditory speech perception, is experienced from early on in infancy and continues to be experienced to an increasing degree with age. While there is both behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for children and adults, only behavioural evidence exists for infants –as no neurophysiological study has provided a comprehensive examination of the auditory- visual speech benefit in infants. It is also surprising that most studies on auditory-visual speech benefit do not concurrently report looking behaviour especially since the auditory-visual speech benefit rests on the assumption that listeners attend to a speaker’s talking face and that there are meaningful individual differences in looking behaviour. To address these gaps, we simultaneously recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) and eye-tracking data of 5-month-olds, 4-year-olds and adults as they were presented with a speaker in auditory-only (AO), visual- only (VO), and auditory-visual (AV) modes. Cortical tracking analyses that involved forward encoding models of the speech envelope revealed that there was an auditory-visual speech benefit [i.e., AV > ( A + V )], evident in 5-month-olds and adults but not 4-year-olds. Examination of cortical tracking accuracy in relation to looking behaviour, showed that infants’ relative attention to the speaker’s mouth (vs. eyes) was positively correlated with cortical tracking accuracy of VO speech, whereas adults’ attention to the display overall was negatively correlated with cortical tracking accuracy of VO speech. This study provides the first neurophysiological evidence of auditory-visual speech benefit in infants and our results suggest ways in which current models of speech processing can be fine-tuned.This research was funded by a doctoral scholarship to the first author funded by the MARCS Institute at Western Sydney University and the HEARing Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), and by HEARingCRC funding to the last author. The second author’s work is supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018–2021 program, and PIBA PI-2019–0054, and by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the Ramon y Cajal Research Fellowship, PID2019– 105528GA-I00

Lifestyle Modifies the Diabetes-Related Metabolic Risk, Conditional on Individual Genetic Differences

Metabolic syndrome is a group of heritable metabolic traits that are highly associated with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Classical interventions to T2DM include individual selfmanagement of environmental risk factors, such as improving diet quality, increasing physical activity, and reducing smoking and alcohol consumption, which decreases the risk of developing metabolic syndrome. However, it is poorly understood how the phenotypes of diabetes-related metabolic traits change with respect to lifestyle modifications at the individual level. In the analysis, we used 12 diabetes-related metabolic traits and eight lifestyle covariates from the UK Biobank comprising 288,837 white British participants genotyped for 1,133,273 genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms. We found 16 GxE interactions. Modulation of genetic effects by physical activity was seen for four traits (glucose, HbA1c, C-reactive protein, systolic blood pressure) and by alcohol and smoking for three (BMI, glucose, waist–hip ratio and BMI and diastolic and systolic blood pressure, respectively). We also found a number of significant phenotypic modulations by the lifestyle covariates, which were not attributed to the genetic effects in the model. Overall, modulation in the metabolic risk in response to the level of lifestyle covariates was clearly observed, and its direction and magnitude were varied depending on individual differences. We also showed that the metabolic risk inferred by our model was notably higher in T2DM prospective cases than controls. Our findings highlight the importance of individual genetic differences in the prevention and management of diabetes and suggest that the one-size-fits-all approach may not benefit all.Jisu Shin, Xuan Zhou, Joanne T. M. Tan, Elina Hyppönen, Beben Benyamin, and S. Hong Le