Adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled Phones: The Case of Singapore

The Internet, and more recently mobile phones, has seen tremendous growth over the past few years. This paper examines the adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled mobile phones in Singapore. Specifically, we examine the profile of Internet users, Internet activities and issues relating to WAP-enabled mobile phones. The results provide researchers and practitioners with some insights on the adoption of the Internet and WAP-enabled mobile phones. For researchers, such insights would be useful in understanding the adoption phenomenon, while for practitioners, such insights would provide some basis for adopting certain policies to promote adoption

Conciliatory and Non-Conciliatory Responses to Cyber Incivility

This paper examined a) non-conciliatory responses – revenge and avoidance, and b) conciliatory response – reconciliation to cyber incivility. Based on a survey of 192 employees, results showed that (dis)satisfaction with supervisor mediated the relationship between supervisor’s cyber incivility and victim’s responses. Individual responses to cyber incivility were moderated by a) victim’s personality through (dis)satisfaction with supervisor. The victim’s dark personality traits (Machiavellianism) and cyber incivility jointly produced conditional indirect effects on the victim’s responses. Machiavellianism produced a positive indirect effect on revenge and a negative indirect effect on reconciliation. Overall, findings suggested that the victim’s personality had a conditional indirect effect on the victim’s response to cyber incivility through (dis)satisfaction with supervisor

Impact of Daily Commuting on Cyberloafing and Procrastination

This paper examines how commute impedances (crowding and time urgency) are associated with recovery experiences (psychological detachment and relaxation), which in turn are associated with cyberloafing and procrastination. Based on a survey of 106 full-time employees who used public transport (buses and mass rapid transit) to work, we found that relaxation significantly mediated the relationship between crowding and cyberloafing, but did not mediate the relationship between time urgency and cyberloafing. Psychological detachment significantly mediated the relationship between time urgency and procrastination, but did not mediate the relationship between crowding and procrastination. Our results suggest that employees should be cognizant of how their psychological states upon arrival at the workplace can affect their work in the morning. Consequently, employees can incorporate morning workplace rituals that facilitate their psychological transition to work. As well, organizations can implement measures that allow employees reattach back to work in the morning

The IT Way of Idling on the Job: A Preliminary Study of Cyberloafing

The Internet is a useful business tool that is increasingly being made available to employees to enhance their work productivity. Recent reports in the popular literature, however, suggest that the Internet may well be a doubleedged sword that companies should use with caution, since the ease and convenience with which the Internet may be accessed at the workplace lends the potential for it to be abused by employees. This study thus examined the extent to which Internet abuse – termed ‘cyberloafing’ – occurs at the workplace in Singapore. We define cyberloafing as the act of employees using their companies’ Internet access during office hours to surf nonwork related Web sites and to check personal email. Data were collected, using an electronic questionnaire posted on the Internet, from 188 working adults with access to the Internet at their workplace. Results of our study suggest that employees do cyberloaf while at work by surfing non-work related Web sites and checking personal email. Findings further suggest that respondents feel justified in using their companies’ Internet access for personal purposes when they have been treated unfairly, or when they feel that they have expended extra effort to fulfil their job duties. Majority of respondents in our study either worked in organizations where there were no policies regulating workplace Internet usage or were unaware of the existence of such policies. Implications of our findings for organizations are discussed

Endothelial function and insulin sensitivity during acute non-esterified fatty acid elevation: effects of fat composition and gender

Background and Aims: We have reported that adverse effects on flow-mediated dilation of an acute elevation of non-esterified fatty acids rich in saturated fat (SFA) are reversed following addition of long-chain (LC) n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), and hypothesised that these effects may be mediated through alterations in insulin signalling pathways. In a subgroup, we explored the effects of raised NEFA enriched with SFA, with or without LC n-3 PUFA, on whole body insulin sensitivity (SI) and responsiveness of the endothelium to insulin infusion. Methods and Results: Thirty adults (mean age 27.8 y, BMI 23.2 kg/m2) consumed oral fat loads on separate occasions with continuous heparin infusion to elevate NEFA between 60-390 min. For the final 150 min, a hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamp was performed, whilst FMD and circulating markers of endothelial function were measured at baseline, pre-clamp (240 min) and post-clamp (390 min). NEFA elevation during the SFA-rich drinks was associated with impaired FMD (P=0.027) whilst SFA+LC n-3 PUFA improved FMD at 240 min (P=0.003). In males, insulin infusion attenuated the increase in FMD with SFA+LC n-3 PUFA (P=0.049), with SI 10% greater with SFA+LC n-3 PUFA than SFA (P=0.041). Conclusion: This study provides evidence that NEFA composition during acute elevation influences both FMD and SI, with some indication of a difference by gender. However our findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that the effects of fatty acids on endothelial function and SI operate through a common pathway. Trial registered at clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01351324

Instabilities in the Flux Line Lattice of Anisotropic Superconductors

The stability of the flux line lattice has been investigated within anisotropic London theory. This is the first full-scale investigation of instabilities in the `chain' state. It has been found that the lattice is stable at large fields, but that instabilities occur as the field is reduced. The field at which these instabilities first arise, $b^*(\epsilon,\theta)$, depends on the anisotropy $\epsilon$ and the angle $\theta$ at which the lattice is tilted away from the $c$-axis. These instabilities initially occur at wavevector $k^*(\epsilon,\theta)$, and the component of $k^*$ along the average direction of the flux lines, $k_z$, is always finite. As the instability occurs at finite $k_z$ the dependence of the cutoff on $k_z$ is important, and we have used a cutoff suggested by Sudb\ospace and Brandt. The instabilities only occur for values of the anisotropy $\epsilon$ appropriate to a material like BSCCO, and not for anisotropies more appropriate to YBCO. The lower critical field $H_{c_1}(\phi)$ is calculated as a function of the angle $\phi$ at which the applied field is tilted away from the crystal axis. The presence of kinks in $H_{c_1}(\phi)$ is seen to be related to instabilities in the equilibrium flux line structure.Comment: Extensively revised paper, with modified analysis of elastic instabilities. Calculation of the lower critical field is included, and the presence of kinks in $H_{c_1}$ is seen to be related to the elastic instabilities. 29 pages including 16 figures, LaTeX with epsf styl

Radiative β decay of the free neutron

The theory of quantum electrodynamics predicts that the β decay of the neutron into a proton, electron, and antineutrino is accompanied by a continuous spectrum of emitted photons described as inner bremsstrahlung. While this phenomenon has been observed in nuclear β decay and electron-capture decay for many years, it has only been recently observed in free-neutron decay. We present a detailed discussion of an experiment in which the radiative decay mode of the free neutron was observed. In this experiment, the branching ratio for this rare decay was determined by recording photons that were correlated with both the electron and proton emitted in neutron decay. We determined the branching ratio for photons with energy between 15 and 340 keV to be (3.09±0.32)×10-3 (68% level of confidence), where the uncertainty is dominated by systematic effects. This value for the branching ratio is consistent with theoretical predictions. The characteristic energy spectrum of the radiated photons, which differs from the uncorrelated background spectrum, is also consistent with the theoretical spectrum

Lattice calculation of 1−+1^{-+} hybrid mesons with improved Kogut-Susskind fermions

We report on a lattice determination of the mass of the exotic $1^{-+}$ hybrid meson using an improved Kogut-Susskind action. Results from both quenched and dynamical quark simulations are presented. We also compare with earlier results using Wilson quarks at heavier quark masses. The results on lattices with three flavors of dynamical quarks show effects of sea quarks on the hybrid propagators which probably result from coupling to two meson states. We extrapolate the quenched results to the physical light quark mass to allow comparison with experimental candidates for the $1^{-+}$ hybrid meson. The lattice result remains somewhat heavier than the experimental result, although it may be consistent with the $\pi_1(1600)$.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures. Replaced to match published versio

Inverse magnetic catalysis in field theory and gauge-gravity duality

We investigate the surface of the chiral phase transition in the three-dimensional parameter space of temperature, baryon chemical potential and magnetic field in two different approaches, the field-theoretical Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model and the holographic Sakai-Sugimoto model. The latter is a top-down approach to a gravity dual of QCD with an asymptotically large number of colors and becomes, in a certain limit, dual to an NJL-like model. Our main observation is that, at nonzero chemical potential, a magnetic field can restore chiral symmetry, in apparent contrast to the phenomenon of magnetic catalysis. This "inverse magnetic catalysis" occurs in the Sakai-Sugimoto model and, for sufficiently large coupling, in the NJL model and is related to the physics of the lowest Landau level. While in most parts our discussion is a pedagogical review of previously published results, we include new analytical results for the NJL approach and a thorough comparison of inverse magnetic catalysis in the two approaches.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures, to appear in Lect. Notes Phys. "Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields" (Springer), edited by D. Kharzeev, K. Landsteiner, A. Schmitt, H.-U. Ye