Public policy analysis in Iran: the partial least square test

This research tests Iranian public policy analysis model. This model is a descriptive and qualitative model that created through grounded theory approach and then used Partial Least Square for confirmation test and explore predictability of it. The results confirm that public policy analysis model of Iran have three dimension of formulation analysis, implementation analysis and evaluation analysis which these components have influence together sequently

A review on tourist mall patronage determinant in Malaysia

Nowadays, the economic benefits received from the fast growing tourism industry around the globe began to attract serious attention of many countries for the development of tourism sector. Shopping, as one of tourists’ favored activities, has become a significant economic contributor to the tourism and retail industries. Therefore, it is inevitable to study the tourist’s shopping behavior due to the unique context of tourism setting, which is often different on a day-to-day basis. Although, retail patronage have been extensively examined from a large number of determinants such as product relevant, market relevant and personal factors, there is scarcity in the body of knowledge examining shopping mall patronage which specifically addresses tourists shopping behavior in a developing country such as Malaysia. Hence, through developing a conceptual model, this study aims to expand our understanding of the nature of shopping mall patronage of tourist shopping behavior. More specifically this study aims to established the framework which provides new insights in explaining the relation of tourist shopping behavior and mall patronage by adapting the theory of planned behavior (TPB) through a quantitative method of research

Status and prediction of ozone as an air pollutant in Ahvaz City, Iran

In the present study, air quality analyses for ozone (O3) were conducted in Ahvaz, a city in the south of Iran. The measurements were taken from 2009 through 2010 in two different locations to prepare average data in the city. Relations between the air pollutant and some meteorological parameters were calculated statistically using the daily average data. The wind data (velocity, direction), relative humidity, temperature, sunshine hours, evaporation and rainfall were considered as independent variables. The relationships between concentration of pollutant and meteorological parameters were expressed by multiple linear and nonlinear regression equations for both annual and seasonal conditions using SPSS software. RMSE test showed that among different prediction model, stepwise model is the best option. The average concentrations were calculated for every 24 hours, each month and each season. Results showed that the highest concentration of ozone occurs generally in the afternoon, while the least concentration is found at the beginning of the morning. Monthly concentrations of ozone showed the highest value in August, while the least value was found in October. The seasonal concentrations showed the highest amounts in summer

Owl and Lizard: Patterns of Head Pose and Eye Pose in Driver Gaze Classification

Accurate, robust, inexpensive gaze tracking in the car can help keep a driver safe by facilitating the more effective study of how to improve (1) vehicle interfaces and (2) the design of future Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. In this paper, we estimate head pose and eye pose from monocular video using methods developed extensively in prior work and ask two new interesting questions. First, how much better can we classify driver gaze using head and eye pose versus just using head pose? Second, are there individual-specific gaze strategies that strongly correlate with how much gaze classification improves with the addition of eye pose information? We answer these questions by evaluating data drawn from an on-road study of 40 drivers. The main insight of the paper is conveyed through the analogy of an "owl" and "lizard" which describes the degree to which the eyes and the head move when shifting gaze. When the head moves a lot ("owl"), not much classification improvement is attained by estimating eye pose on top of head pose. On the other hand, when the head stays still and only the eyes move ("lizard"), classification accuracy increases significantly from adding in eye pose. We characterize how that accuracy varies between people, gaze strategies, and gaze regions.Comment: Accepted for Publication in IET Computer Vision. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1507.0476

Harvesting epithelial cell sheet based on thermo- sensitive hydrogel

Thermo-sensitive hydrogels were prepared by graft copolymerization of chitosan and N-Isopropylacrylamide via gamma radiation. Characterization of hydrogels such as 13C-NMR, DSC analysis and swelling test and cell assessments for harvesting living cell sheet were investigated. 13C-NMR and DSC analysis showed chitosan and NIPAAm monomer were grafted via gamma radiation successfully. Swelling ratio and curves results administrated hydrophilicity / hydrophobicity of hydrogel that this property is due to presence of PNIPAAm in different temperatures. The hydrogel was tested for harvesting epithelial cells after carrying out cell culture at 37 °C and incubating the confluent cells at 4°C for spontaneous detachment of cell sheet from hydrogel surface without enzyme treatment. Cell viability assay results and microscopic observations demonstrated that cells could attach to the hydrogel surface and maintain high viability and proliferation ability. Cell detachment efficiency from the hydrogel was high. These unique properties of the hydrogel would make it a promising support for epithelial cell grafting especially cornea regeneration

Gender and gaze gesture recognition for human-computer interaction

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. The identification of visual cues in facial images has been widely explored in the broad area of computer vision. However theoretical analyses are often not transformed into widespread assistive Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) systems, due to factors such as inconsistent robustness, low efficiency, large computational expense or strong dependence on complex hardware. We present a novel gender recognition algorithm, a modular eye centre localisation approach and a gaze gesture recognition method, aiming to escalate the intelligence, adaptability and interactivity of HCI systems by combining demographic data (gender) and behavioural data (gaze) to enable development of a range of real-world assistive-technology applications. The gender recognition algorithm utilises Fisher Vectors as facial features which are encoded from low-level local features in facial images. We experimented with four types of low-level features: greyscale values, Local Binary Patterns (LBP), LBP histograms and Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT). The corresponding Fisher Vectors were classified using a linear Support Vector Machine. The algorithm has been tested on the FERET database, the LFW database and the FRGCv2 database, yielding 97.7%, 92.5% and 96.7% accuracy respectively. The eye centre localisation algorithm has a modular approach, following a coarse-to-fine, global-to-regional scheme and utilising isophote and gradient features. A Selective Oriented Gradient filter has been specifically designed to detect and remove strong gradients from eyebrows, eye corners and self-shadows (which sabotage most eye centre localisation methods). The trajectories of the eye centres are then defined as gaze gestures for active HCI. The eye centre localisation algorithm has been compared with 10 other state-of-the-art algorithms with similar functionality and has outperformed them in terms of accuracy while maintaining excellent real-time performance. The above methods have been employed for development of a data recovery system that can be employed for implementation of advanced assistive technology tools. The high accuracy, reliability and real-time performance achieved for attention monitoring, gaze gesture control and recovery of demographic data, can enable the advanced human-robot interaction that is needed for developing systems that can provide assistance with everyday actions, thereby improving the quality of life for the elderly and/or disabled

Determinants of international tourists’ mall patronage in the Klang Valley, Malaysia

The objective of economic policy is economic growth and policymakers have a particular interest in those industries that improve economic growth. The tourism industry is one of those industries which have a long-term impact on economic growth. In Malaysia, tourism offers a primary influence on economic development, profiting from different categories, explicitly shopping. Moreover, shopping has considered as an essential part of each tourist trip. Therefore, investigating the avid research which examines the tourist shopping behaviour during the travel time is avoidable. The premise of this research is that international tourist shopping differs from the usual daily shopping; the demands of international tourists are distinctive during the travel time. As such empirical studies to recognise the diverse types of international tourists’ behaviours are significant for the theory and practice. Even though much has been done to examine the different aspects of shopping tourism, none has related planned and impulsive behaviour of international tourist to mall patronage. Especially in Malaysia, the study of global tourist mall patronage behaviour is in an early stage. Applying planned behaviour theory and supported by Stimulus-Organism-Response model, this research endeavours to investigate the antecedents’ precursors and results of international tourist shopping planned and impulsive behaviour in well-recognised shopping malls in Klang Valley, Malaysia. This study employed a self-administered questionnaire to conveniently gather data from 200 international tourists in four tourist-destination shopping centres located in Klang Valley, Malaysia. A structural equation modelling software was used to identify the direct and mediating effects hypotheses. Bootstrapping techniques were applied to examine the mediating effect.Outcomes were not able to advocate relations between the two planned behaviour precursors (utilitarian attitude and subjective norm) and mall patronage behaviour. Only perceived behavioural control of planned behaviour was affirmed to have a meaningful positive connection with mall patronage behaviour. Besides, environmental factors antecedent of impulsive behaviour had also a significant positive relationship with mall patronage behaviour. Patronage intention was also revealed to completely mediate how perceived behavioural control and patronage behaviour were related. On the other hand, the full mediation of patronage intention in the association between perceived behavioural control and patronage behaviour identified that perceived behavioural control to tourism can only explain tourist patronage behaviour with the role of tourist patronage intention. Findings confirmed that tourist mall patronage behaviour is associated with both types of planned and impulsive reactions. This study provides several theoretical contributions and additional perceptions into the antecedents’ precursors and outcomes of mall patronage behaviour in Malaysia, a destination considered as highly promising for shopping tourism. As a final point, the findings support the study’s research proposition and offer some exciting implications for academics and practitioners. The current study advances our knowledge in the area of shopping tourism by testing the prediction of the planned behaviour, impulsive behaviour and experiential consumption on international tourists’ patronage intent to visit and shop in the mall

The Effect of Systematic Implementation of Formative Assessment on Male and Female EFL Learners’ Academic Achievement

Substantial claims have been made that Formative Assessment (FA), if practiced effectively, improves learning. This study aimed at exploring the effect of FA on EFL learners’ academic achievement. The population included high school teachers and their students in Khorramabad, Lorestan, Iran. The sample included 40 teachers and their students (n=651) who were randomly selected and assigned to two groups of experimental and control. Teachers in the experimental group participated in a workshop on FA before the treatment. However, teachers in the control group followed the usual syllabus based on Iran’s educational system. The students’ academic achievement was measured in both groups by an achievement test before the treatment. Trained observers attended the classes in the experimental group and completed Formative Assessment Observation Report, which reports teachers’ practice of FA. After the treatment, posttests on students’ achievement in both groups were conducted. To analyze the data, ANCOVA was used. The results indicated that effective implementation of FA enhances students’ academic achievement. However, gender was not a determining factor. Moreover, among FA components, clarifying learning targets was the most and monitoring was the least frequent strategy used by teachers

A A Multi-Objective Mathematical Model for Vehicle Routing Problem Considering the Time Window and Economic and Environmental Objectives Using the Metaheuristic Algorithm Based on Pareto Archive

Purpose:  The purpose of this study is the well-known Heterogeneous Fleet Vehicle Routing Problem (HVRP) is one of the developed problems of vehicle routing, which involves optimizing a set of routes for a fleet of vehicles with different costs and capacities. Methods: HVRP is usually modeled as a single objective that aims to minimize overall transportation costs (total fixed costs and costs commensurate with total distance). Results: These vehicles are located in the central depot and serve customers’ demands. Implications: In this case, the number of vehicles available (of any type) may be limited