Czech wine consumers: maturing with age?

The purpose of this study is to identify the most important motivations for drinking wine and the factors influencing wine purchase in the Czech Republic and to ascertain if there are significant differences between genders and age groups. An online survey was conducted, using e-mail and social networks, of wine consumers in one of the 14 regions of the Czech Republic. This resulted in a sample of n=237. Spearman’s correlation test was conducted to find correlations between wine consumption and age and the chi-square test for differences between genders. Four motivations were found to be significantly correlated with age – to be sociable, to be respected, because wine is considered healthy and because it belongs with a nice meal, as well as seven factors affecting wine purchase – label, provenance, brand/producer, vintage, design of the bottle, recommendations of salesperson and a preference for the lowest priced wines. As the majority of respondents came from one of the 14 Czech regions, generalizations for the whole Czech Republic cannot be made. It is recommended that future work should include more complex segmentation. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the Czech wine market, where very little research has been conducted so far, as well as by exploring the influence of age on the motivation for wine consumption

Surface Curvature Effects on Reflectance from Translucent Materials

Most of the physically based techniques for rendering translucent objects use the diffusion theory of light scattering in turbid media. The widely used dipole diffusion model (Jensen et al. 2001) applies the diffusion-theory formula derived for a planar interface to objects of arbitrary shapes. This paper presents first results of our investigation of how surface curvature affects the diffuse reflectance from translucent materials.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures. The first version of this paper was published in the Communication Papers Proceedings of 18th International Conference on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision 2010 - WSCG201

A simple construction method for sequentially tidying up 2D online freehand sketches

This paper presents a novel constructive approach to sequentially tidying up 2D online freehand sketches for further 3D interpretation in a conceptual design system. Upon receiving a sketch stroke, the system first identifies it as a 2D primitive and then automatically infers its 2D geometric constraints related to previous 2D geometry (if any). Based on recognized 2D constraints, the identified geometry will be modified accordingly to meet its constraints. The modification is realized in one or two sequent geometric constructions in consistence with its degrees of freedom. This method can produce 2D configurations without iterative procedures to solve constraint equations. It is simple and easy to use for a real-time application. Several examples are tested and discussed

A New Computer-aided Technique for Planning the Aesthetic Outcome of Plastic Surgery

Plastic surgery plays a major role in today health care. Planning plastic face surgery requires dealing with the elusive concept of attractiveness for evaluating feasible beautification of a particular face. The existing computer tools essentially allow to manually warp 2D images or 3D face scans, in order to produce images simulating possible surgery outcomes. How to manipulate faces, as well as the evaluation of the results, are left to the surgeon's judgement. We propose a new quantitative approach able to automatically suggest effective patient-specific improvements of facial attractiveness. The general idea is to compare the face of the patient with a large database of attractive faces, excluding the facial feature to be improved. Then, the feature of the faces more similar is applied, with a suitable morphing, to the face of the patient. In this paper we present a first application of the general idea in the field of nose surgery. Aesthetically effective rhinoplasty is suggested on the base of the entire face profile, a very important 2D feature for rating face attractivenes

Preparing for generation Z:how can technology enhanced learning be firmly embedded in our students' learning experience? A case study from Abertay University

Abertay is a relatively small, modern university (undergraduate population of around 4000) with a wide portfolio and a diverse student population. Around 35% of our students are direct entry from local partner colleges to years 2 and 3 of our programmes and a significant number are first generation higher education within their families. As such, partnership working with colleges and support to aid student transitions are key aspects of Abertay’s provision. Since 2013/14, the university has developed and implemented a new Teaching and Learning Enhancement strategy that has catalysed wholescale transformation across the institution. This paper provides an overview of technology enhanced learning at the university with the drivers for change being to the quality of our students' learning experience, improve student retention and progression and enhance learners’ engagement

Consumer Perceptions of Tesco Own Brands: the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom

Relatively little is known about the consumer perceptions of own brands in the newly emerging markets of central and eastern Europe. This paper attempts to fill a gap in knowledge by investigating various aspects of consumer perceptions of Tesco own brands in the Czech Republic. The key data for this research was collected by structured questionnaires from Tesco supermarket customers in the Czech Republic and the UK. Non probability quota sampling was used and the sample was stratified according to gender, age and income. The results of the research indicate that the general view of Tesco own brands is slightly less positive among Czech than British customers. However, significant differences emerge when these are examined in terms of income. Increases in income lead to a decrease in the favourability with which own brands are viewed in the Czech Republic - the opposite to the position in the UK The age of consumers was also found to be significant, although there is not a linear trend. No strong correlation was found to exist between gender and any of the characteristics under investigation. The sample was limited in size (n = 100 in each country). In depth interviewing would be necessary to assess consumer attitudes further. The results of this research may help Tesco in relation to its general expansion in central and eastern Europe and its brand building in particular. The originality of the paper relates to its study of consumer behaviour in one of the emerging markets of central and eastern Europe

Interpretation of overtracing freehand sketching for geometric shapes

This paper presents a novel method for interpreting overtracing freehand sketch. The overtracing strokes are interpreted as sketch content and are used to generate 2D geometric primitives. The approach consists of four stages: stroke classification, strokes grouping and fitting, 2D tidy-up with endpoint clustering and parallelism correction, and in-context interpretation. Strokes are first classified into lines and curves by a linearity test. It is followed by an innovative strokes grouping process that handles lines and curves separately. The grouped strokes are fitted with 2D geometry and further tidied-up with endpoint clustering and parallelism correction. Finally, the in-context interpretation is applied to detect incorrect stroke interpretation based on geometry constraints and to suggest a most plausible correction based on the overall sketch context. The interpretation ensures sketched strokes to be interpreted into meaningful output. The interface overcomes the limitation where only a single line drawing can be sketched out as in most existing sketching programs, meanwhile is more intuitive to the user

Towards real-time body pose estimation for presenters in meeting environments

This paper describes a computer vision-based approach to body pose estimation.\ud The algorithm can be executed in real-time and processes low resolution,\ud monocular image sequences. A silhouette is extracted and matched against a\ud projection of a 16 DOF human body model. In addition, skin color is used to\ud locate hands and head. No detailed human body model is needed. We evaluate the\ud approach both quantitatively using synthetic image sequences and qualitatively\ud on video test data of short presentations. The algorithm is developed with the\ud aim of using it in the context of a meeting room where the poses of a presenter\ud have to be estimated. The results can be applied in the domain of virtual\ud environments

Band structure of CuMnAs probed by optical and photoemission spectroscopy

The tetragonal phase of CuMnAs progressively appears as one of the key materials for antiferromagnetic spintronics due to efficient current-induced spin-torques whose existence can be directly inferred from crystal symmetry. Theoretical understanding of spintronic phenomena in this material, however, relies on the detailed knowledge of electronic structure (band structure and corresponding wave functions) which has so far been tested only to a limited extent. We show that AC permittivity (obtained from ellipsometry) and UV photoelectron spectra agree with density functional calculations. Together with the x-ray diffraction and precession electron diffraction tomography, our analysis confirms recent theoretical claim [Phys. Rev. B 96, 094406 (2017)] that copper atoms occupy lattice positions in the basal plane of the tetragonal unit cell

La voce dell\u2019altro nella consulenza educativa

La relazione \ue8 una dimensione prioritaria dell\u2019esistenza umana, che viene cercata di per s\ue9 e non in funzione di altro. Lo sviluppo dell\u2019identit\ue0 avviene nell\u2019ambito della relazione; questa si sedimenta in strutture affettive profonde che, come ha evidenziato la psicoanalisi, hanno natura diadica e contengono un\u2019immagine del s\ue9 collegata \u2013 tramite uno stato affettivo \u2013 ad un\u2019immagine dell\u2019altro. Essere se stessi significa essere stati riconosciuti e capiti da un Altro che \ue8 stato in grado di mettersi in contatto profondo con noi. Poich\ue9 nella consulenza educativa la persona attraversa un momento di crisi dei propri assetti esistenziali, la \u201cvoce\u201d del consulente \u2013 qualora questo sia in grado di ascoltare in modo autenticamente empatico \u2013 non \ue8 solo il momento di un\u2019esperienza dialogica \u201cesterna\u201d, ma anche di una \u201cinterna\u201d; la persona pu\uf2, cio\ue8, inglobare la voce dell\u2019altro utilizzandola nel dialogo interno con se stessa. Il consulente diventa cos\uec una sorta di \u201cinterlocutore-specchio\u201d a cui l\u2019individuo pu\uf2 ricorrere nel suo dialogo interno per promuovere inediti percorsi di auto-relazione