USERS′ PERCEPTION OF KOWLOON PARK, HONG KONG:VISITING PATTERNS AND SCENIC ASPECTS

Hong Kong is a hyper-dense city with 7x10(6) people living in an area of 1100km(2). One way to improve the livability of compacted and congested cities like Hong Kong is through the provision of urban parks, an aspect that has largely been under-researched. This study focuses on how users perceive and utilize various facilities in the Kowloon Park. The findings revealed that the Kowloon Park is one of the most preferred parks in Hong Kong for both local residents and tourists. Users were quite satisfied with the park's facilities. Notably, the most important component of an urban park is its greenery. This is followed by water elements, seating places, and facilities for various recreational activities. The improvements users would like to see in urban parks include good design and management, meeting users' needs, overcoming barriers to use, and providing a high quality and varied experience for different groups in the community. The findings of this study provide a good basis to address park management issues from the users' perspective. In particular, parks should provide easy access, encourage optimum usage and enable complimentary improvements to the environment.

Cumulative prospect theory-based user equilibrium model with stochastic perception errors

The cumulative prospect theory(CPT) is applied to study travelers' route choice behavior in a degradable transport network. A cumulative prospect theory-based user equilibrium(CPT-UE) model considering stochastic perception error(SPE) within travelers' route choice decision process is developed. The SPE is conditionally dependent on the actual travel time distribution, which is different from the deterministic perception error used in the traditional logit-based stochastic user equilibrium. The CPT-UE model is formulated as a variational inequality problem and solved by a heuristic solution algorithm. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the application of the proposed model and efficiency of the solution algorithm. The effects of SPE on the reference point determination, cumulative prospect value estimation, route choice decision and network performance evaluation are investigated.

Users’ Perception and Satisfaction of Current Situation of Home Health Care Services in Jordan

Background: The healthcare system in Jordan is evolving and has to continuously respond to the changing risk profile of the population. The purpose of this study was to examine perception of users and providers of the quality of home health care services. Methods: A descriptive design was used to collect data from a convenience sample of 82 users of home health care services. Results: Users had low to fair satisfaction (30.5% - 69.5%) about the quality of care provided, had moderate satisfaction (72.0% to 81.7%) about the information received, and had low to fair satisfaction about education related to goal of treatment and medication (46.4% - 53.3%). Users had high level of agreement (>70%) that health agencies provided interpersonal care. Conclusion: The ability of the frail people to choose from a variety of cost-effective long-term care services is limited.

Assessing Users’ Perceptions of the Current Maintenance Disorder of Public Secondary School in Ogun, Nigeria

The challenges facing public schools are multifaceted and include: teachers dissatisfaction, non-commitment of educators, chronic absenteeism by educators, low morale, poor work ethics by educators, late coming of both educators and learners, overcrowding in classes, lack of technical resources and many more. A cursory investigation of public secondary school buildings in Ado-Odo/Ota L.G.A shows its deplorable conditions of structural, aesthetical and decorative disrepair. Therefore the paper focused on examining users “perception of the present deplorable physical condition and neglect of public secondary school. The study engaged the use of quantitative method of analysis, employing the use of questionnaire administered randomly and distributed face-to-face to targeted despondences”. The result of findings revealed performance/productivity of building users depends largely on working and learning condition of building. The outcomes of the research would help policy makers, facilities maintenance experts and professionals alike to device a policy for regular maintenance of public building in other to enhance performance and increase productivity amongst users.

Information perception and feedback mechanism and key techniques of multi-modality human-robot interaction for service robots

With the increasing of the elderly population and the growing hearth care cost, the role of service robots in aiding the disabled and the elderly is becoming important. Many researchers in the world have paid much attention to heaRthcare robots and rehabilitation robots. To get natural and harmonious communication between the user and a service robot, the information perception/feedback ability, and interaction ability for service robots become more important in many key issues.

Climate change impact in the Western Himalaya:people's perception and adaptive strategies

The Himalaya represents a vast mountain system and globally valued for its significant role in regulation of global as well as regional climate that has direct impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services crucial for sustenance of millions of people in Himalaya and adjoining areas. However, mountain regions worldwide are impacted by climate change and at the same time represent distinctive area for the assessment of climate related impacts. Climate change impacts in Himalayan region have its implications on food production, natural ecosystems,retreat of glacier, water supply, human and animal health and overall human well being. The livelihood and food security of the people inhabited in region largely depend on climate sensitive sectors i.e.agriculture, livestock, forestry and their interlinkages with each other, and has the potential to break down food and nutritional security as well as livelihood support systems. People's perception and understanding of climate can be an important asset when it comes to adaptation to climate change impact;however it is not taken into consideration for the development of policy design and implementation of modern mitigation and adaptation strategies by governments and other civil society organizations.The knowledge of local people and farming communities for rural landscape management and sustainable use of bioresources is gaining credence as a key strategy to cope up with the climate change.Therefore, the present study analyzes the indigenous knowledge of local people and their perceptions on climate change, and also documented adaptation approaches at local level in mountain ecosystem of western Himalaya. The study could be useful to policy makers to design appropriate adaptation strategies to cope up with the impacts of climate change.

Climate Change: Trends and People’s Perception in Nepal

In the context of climate change, the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as floods and droughts will increase which could put tremendous challenges in water resources management in the coming days. While scientific knowledge on climate threats and changing climate patterns are essential, it is also important to consider the impacts in relation to how the threats are perceived and handled by local people. This paper intends to assess the trend and people’s perception on temperature and precipitation. Three focus groups’ discussion and a total number of 240 households were interviewed during field visit. The collected information was scaled from the least preferred-1 to the most preferred-5 based on their preferences. The trend of mean of annual average, maximum and minimum temperature indicates that the temperature has increased significantly and precipitation intensity and magnitude are also in increasing trend in the monsoon and postmonsoon seasons which may raise the extreme flood events. These facts were verified with the people’s perception. This finding could be useful for formulation of effective flood management policy and plan in this river basin as well as very applicable for other similar areas.

Beyond Bloom’s: Students’ Perception of Bloom’s Taxonomy and its Convolution with Cognitive Load

Bloom’s taxonomy is widely used in educational research to categorize the cognitive skills required to answer exam questions.For this study,we analyzed how students categorize exam questions(high-level question or low-level question,)gathered data as to their rationale for categorization,and compared their categorizations to those of experts.We found that students consistently rank high-level questions incorrectly.We analyzed student reasons for their categorizations,and found that for many of the incorrectly categorized questions the students referred to reasons related to Cognitive Load Theory.This shows that cognitive load prevents students from accurately assessing the cognitive level of an exam question.Thus,extra cognitive load in exam questions may prevent those questions from accurately measuring the skills and knowledge of the student.This points to the need for instructors to eliminate cognitive load from their exams.

Summarizing vehicle driving decision-making methods on vulnerable road user collision avoidance

With the development of intelligent vehicles and autonomous driving technology,the safety of vulnerable road user(VRU)in traffic has been more guaranteed,and many research achievements have been made in the key area of collision avoidance decision-making methods.In this paper,the knowledge mapping method is used to mine the available literature in depth,and it is found that the research focus has shifted from the traditional accident cause analysis to emerging deep learning and virtual reality technology.This paper summarizes research on the three core dimensions of environmental perception,behavior cognition and collision avoidance decision-making in intelligent vehicle systems.In terms of perception,accurate identification of pedestrians and cyclists in complex environments is a major demand for VRU perception;in terms of behavior cognition,the coupling of VRU intention identification and motion trajectory prediction and other multiple factors needs further research;in terms of decision-making,the intention identification and trajectory prediction of collision objects are not included in the risk assessment model,and there is a lack of exploration specifically for cyclists'collision risk.On this basis,this paper provides guidance for the improvement of traffic safety of contemporary VRU under the conditions of intelligent and connected transportation.

A MULTILAYER FEEDFORWARD NEURAL NETWORK MODEL FOR VISUAL MOTION PERCEPTION

The local visual motion detection mechanism used in the visual systems of primatescan only sense the motion component oriented perpendicularly to the contrast gradient of thebrightness pattern.But the visual system of higher animals can adaptively determine the actualdirection of motion through a learning process.In this paper a multilayered feedforward neuralnetwork model for perception of visual motion is presented.This model employs W.Reichardt’selementary motion detectors array and T.Kohonen’s self-organizing feature map.We explored theself-organizing principles for perception of visual motion.The computer simulations show thatthis neural network is able to recognize the true direction of motion through an unsupervisedlearning process.In addition,the neurons with the same or similar motion direction selectivitytend to appear in“functional columns”which seem to be qualitatively similar to the corticalmotion columns observed by electrophysiological and cytohistochemical studies in certain higherareas such as MT.It proves that motion-detection by spatio-temporal coherences,mapping,co-operation,competition,and Hebb rule may be the basic principles for the self-organization ofvisual motion perception networks.

The DNP: Knowledge and perceptions of students in an accelerated master’s program in nursing

While the nursing community generally agrees that the Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree will strengthen nursing as an academic discipline, there is little known about students’ perceptions of the advanced degree. Nursing students enrolled in an accelerated master’s program in nursing (N = 45) were surveyed to assess their knowledge of the DNP degree while also identifying the perceived effect a DNP might have on their careers, on nursing as a discipline, and on public perceptions of nursing practice. In this study, 51% of participants supported the transition to the DNP as the standard degree for practice nursing while 29% were opposed. The majority of participants (71%) planned to pursue an advanced practice nursing degree/certification with 81% of this group signifying that they would do so even if a DNP is required. The majority of participants agreed that the DNP will improve public perception of advanced practice nursing, but 71% thought the title of “doctor” would confuse patients. While current nursing students are generally informed of the upcoming DNP transition, there is disagreement regarding its implications for their careers and for the extent of public understanding.

Interests of Livestock Activities within Agroforestry Systems in Guadeloupe: Stakeholders’ Opinions and Farmers’ Perceptions

The Valab project (Integrated Ecosystemic value-enhancement of the Guadeloupean Forest Agrobiodiversity) is a participatory action research that aims to explore the feasibility of diversification activities within the forest understorey. In the exploratory phase of the project, we studied stakeholders’ opinions on the positive and negative impacts of introducing livestock activities within a forest environment, as well as breeders’ constraints or motivations for setting up livestock units within agroforestry systems in the private forests of Guadeloupe. To establish a diagnosis of the current situation, 51 stakeholders (St) and 49 farmers (Fr) were interviewed on their perceptions, opinions, motivations and preferences. Forty-one percent of the St has had a generally positive appreciation of livestock activities, while on the opposite 31% have had a resolutely negative posture depending on their area of expertise. Their views on the possible positive effects or negative interactions between livestock and agroforestry activities were analysed in order to suggest possible approaches for the authorities or associations. Unanimously, the farmers replied that their motivations followed economic strategies: for self-consumption or sale. But their decision-making processes were also non-economic. Many of them (36% Fr) gave importance to their activity in the construction of their identity, whether it was through a desire to perpetuate traditions or to maintain family activities. The main constraints identified were natural constraints (61% Fr), including topography, climate and predators. While 28% of Fr notified their motivations for environmental protection. Another constraint was of a technical nature (44% Fr) since farmers asked for more technical references or support services. Further researches are required to study the interactions between animals and the undergrowth by describing their respective ecosystem services in order to enhance their positive interactions.

Empirical Research on Tourists' After-trip Perception of Landscape Preference in the Confucius Temple in Nanjing City

Thurstone’s Comparative Judgment Model was applied to measure characteristics of tourists’after-trip perception of landscape preference in the Confucius Temple,a famous historical block in Nanjing City.The results show that(a)as time goes by,the tourists’time perception differentiation has continuously sublimated from the general experience into the peak experience,and gradually evolved into the core experience element in the overall perception.In terms of content,perceptional contents of tourists decrease in sequence of the Confucian culture,the commercial culture and the culture of refined scholars.As a whole,tourists’after-trip perception differentiation has 3 sections:halo zone,sub-halo zone,and gray zone.(b)Because of tourism development,the Confucian culture is influenced by other cultures,and the commercial culture shows the trend of"over-generalization",and the culture of refined scholars has weakening carriers and modes of inheritance.Inheritance of its unique cultural connotations deserves increasing attention.

Ethics and Integrity in Building Employee＇s Perceptions

Malaysia has long been involved in the initiative of becoming a high income country by the year 2020. In this essence, fighting and eliminating any means of corruption in the public and private companies have been one of the key challenges in the long run. The globalization of businesses has somehow led to an increase in the number of unethical conduct and hazardous corruption. In the urge to enliven ethics and integrity in a company and among employees, the whole business processes and stakeholders should position code of ethics and integrity at its highest standard. However, can ethics and integrity really increase the company＇s reputation, strengthening its business operations and sustainability, and deliver trust amongst employees and employers？ The objective of this study is to analyze the perceptions of employees on issues pertaining ethics and integrity. The study has been conducted in one of the giant telecommunication companies in Malaysia where a sample of 7,056 employees were the participants involved in the survey. The study has used questionnaires to collect data. The data have then been analysed using the SPSS data analysis software. The findings explained that employees view the company as an ethical place to work where the finance department is deemed to have the highest level of integrity. While in matters of corruption risk areas, there are still practices of bribery. It is also founded that a majority of respondents about 93% agree that the company＇s initiatives are effective in building business integrity and that the level of business ethics and integrity has improved over the last two years. Running a business with ethics and integrity while selecting the fight business partners will create a corporation of ethics, integrity, and anti-corruption.

基于S-O-R理论的新型公共阅读空间用户流失行为分析——来自大众点评网用户评论

文章以大众点评网站中新型公共阅读空间的评论数据为对象,以S-O-R模型为理论基础,利用Python爬取其“中评”与“差评”的评论数据,运用内容分析法归纳得出新型公共阅读空间用户流失行为的主要因素,并构建新型公共阅读空间用户流失行为模型。在此基础上,提出提高新型公共阅读空间服务效能的相关建议,为提高新型阅读空间的服务质量,降低用户流失率提供参考。

Customization Product Design Based on User's Emotion and Needs

The paper presents a design method that ensures the ingenuity of the product form as well as the whole and exact expression of user’s needs. The key idea is to establish an automatic design system which can transform the user’s language needs into the product features in real-time. A rifle was taken as a research instance and soldiers were chosen as evaluation customers. The theory of fuzzy set and semantic difference are adopted to evaluate the relationship between user’s needs and product features as well as their alternatives. FAHP (fuzzy analytic hierarchy process) is utilized to judge the user’s satisfactory forms. This method can also be applied to other product form designs.

Use of methotrexate in inflammatory bowel disease in 2014: A User's Guide

Methotrexate has been used an immunomodulator in many autoimmune diseases,including inflammatory bowel disease. However,many physicians are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with its use in the management of inflammatory bowel disease. We summarize the data for use of methotrexate in common clinical scenarios:(1) steroid dependant Crohn's disease(CD);(2) maintenance of remission in steroid free CD;(3) azathioprine failures in CD;(4) in combination therapy with Anti-TNF agents in CD;(5) decreasing antibody formation to Anti-TNF therapy in CD;(6) management of fistulizing disease in CD; and(7) as well as induction and maintenance of remission in ulcerative colitis. An easy to use algorithm is provided for the busy clinician to access and safely prescribe methotrexate for their inflammatory bowel disease patients.

改进D-S算法的多感知机器人泄漏源识别研究

危化品泄漏场域环境复杂多变,泄漏源的识别受风速、光照强度、噪声等多重因素影响,当前多以智能机器人探测,利用嗅觉或视觉进行目标识别,但单类传感器识别结果可靠性差,提出一种改进Dempster-Shafer(D-S)证据理论的识别方法,模拟人类多感官识别机制,综合处理嗅觉、视觉和听觉识别信度;通过引入参考证据获取证据源全局信息,解决了经典D-S算法中存在的证据冲突问题,并在MATLAB中进行了算例验证。结果表明,相比嗅觉、视觉和听觉单类传感器识别信度分别提高了42.5%、51.2%和38.4%;对于冲突数据,克服了经典D-S算法、Yager算法融合失效的缺陷,相比Murphy算法识别信度提高了33%,可实现泄漏源的高信度识别,融合决策可靠性好。

Frequent Itemset Mining of User’s Multi-Attribute under Local Differential Privacy

Frequent itemset mining is an essential problem in data mining and plays a key role in many data mining applications.However,users’personal privacy will be leaked in the mining process.In recent years,application of local differential privacy protection models to mine frequent itemsets is a relatively reliable and secure protection method.Local differential privacy means that users first perturb the original data and then send these data to the aggregator,preventing the aggregator from revealing the user’s private information.We propose a novel framework that implements frequent itemset mining under local differential privacy and is applicable to user’s multi-attribute.The main technique has bitmap encoding for converting the user’s original data into a binary string.It also includes how to choose the best perturbation algorithm for varying user attributes,and uses the frequent pattern tree(FP-tree)algorithm to mine frequent itemsets.Finally,we incorporate the threshold random response(TRR)algorithm in the framework and compare it with the existing algorithms,and demonstrate that the TRR algorithm has higher accuracy for mining frequent itemsets.