Search results

A combined approach of additive Holt–Winters, support vector regression, simple moving average and generalized simulated annealing with error correction and optimal parameter selection techniques emphasizing optimal smoothing period in residual adjustment is developed and proposed to predict datasets of container throughput at major ports.

The additive Holt–Winters model describes level, trend and seasonal patterns to provide smoothing values and residuals. In addition, the fitted additive Holt–Winters predicts a future smoothing value. Afterwards, the residual series is improved by using a simple moving average with the optimal period to provide a more obvious and steady series of the residuals. Subsequently, support vector regression formulates a nonlinear complex function with more obvious and steady residuals based on optimal parameters to describe the remaining pattern and predict a future residual value. The generalized simulated annealing searches for the optimal parameters of the proposed model. Finally, the future smoothing value and the future residual value are aggregated to be the future value.

The proposed model is applied to forecast two datasets of major ports in Thailand. The empirical results revealed that the proposed model outperforms all other models based on three accuracy measures for the test datasets. In addition, the proposed model is still superior to all other models with three metrics for the overall datasets of test datasets and additional unseen datasets as well. Consequently, the proposed model can be a useful tool for supporting decision-making on port management at major ports in Thailand.

The proposed model emphasizes smoothing residuals adjustment with optimal moving period based on error correction and optimal parameter selection techniques that is developed and proposed to predict datasets of container throughput at major ports in Thailand.

This study aims to investigate patterns of information use among undergraduate engineers as they progress through their academic programs. The primary objective was to discern how second and fourth-year students differ in their use of different types of information while performing specific tasks, namely, conducting labs, composing reports and undertaking projects.

The research used an online questionnaire to collect data, focusing on the comparative analysis of second and fourth-year engineering students’ information use. The analytical framework comprised a chi-square test, residual analysis and exploratory data analysis, for evaluating statistical significance and identifying trends over time.

The results demonstrated a statistically significant difference in information use between second and fourth year undergraduates. Notably, fourth year students exhibited a preference for disciplinary genres, such as journal articles, patents and technical reports. This coincided with a decline in fourth year students’ use of educational genres, including textbooks and instructors’ handouts, notes and slides. These shifts in information use were observed consistently across all three tasks.

The uniqueness of the study resides in its innovative approach to exploring information use by investigating the relationship between genres and tasks over the course of students’ academic programs. The research introduces a novel approach for visualizing changes in information use. By describing the evolving preferences of undergraduate students from novice to emerging professional, this study contributes valuable insights into the nuanced ways in which information is used throughout the levels of engineering education.

This study provides detailed insights into how electricity rationing affects shopping and media consumption in an emerging market context. Given that electricity rationing (also known as load-shedding) is a regular occurrence in many countries, this research brings a unique consumer perspective.

The study employed a qualitative exploratory design to investigate the effect of electricity rationing on shopping and media consumption. A combined convenience and snowball sampling technique was utilised to select 78 households across various locations in South Africa. Through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis, themes were extracted and explained.

The findings showed that, for higher-income households, media consumption remained relatively consistent or increased during load-shedding periods. Middle-income families showed a mixed pattern of media use in response to load-shedding. Lower-income households were found to bear the brunt of media-consumption constraints caused by electricity shortages. Consumers are increasingly switching to streaming alternatives to adapt to the limitations of load-shedding. The availability of streaming platforms on mobile devices and laptops and limited household battery backups allows viewers to sidestep disruptions caused by outages.

While electricity outages are the norm in many countries, the impact on shopping and media consumption is significant. To date, no other research has comprehensively explored the impact of these outages on consumer behaviour in emerging markets.

Financial literacy is crucial in explaining a broader set of investment behaviors. This paper investigates what financial literacy, wine knowledge, risk propensity and wine purchase behavior have in common.

The analysis is on a questionnaire distributed online to an equal number of young adults from a traditional wine-producing and consuming country (France) and a country less linked to wine by tradition (the UK).

The analysis shows how financial literacy, financial education and financial risk attitudes impact the attitudes toward wine purchase decisions. Results indicate that participants prefer to drink wine for pleasure rather than for potential financial gain. Significant relationships exist between financial literacy, wine consumption frequency and willingness to store and pay for wine.

These results allow for a better understanding of wine purchasing behavior in light of willingness to pay, invest and store.

• (1)

  Financial literacy has a positive role in influencing wine storage and investments.

• (2)

  Culture shapes the impact of financial literacy, habits and risk on wine investments.

• (3)

  Gender and age have a role in influencing wine investments.

Financial literacy has a positive role in influencing wine storage and investments.

Culture shapes the impact of financial literacy, habits and risk on wine investments.

Gender and age have a role in influencing wine investments.

This paper describes oral language as a multi-faceted and unconstrained phenomenon, including its social purpose in societies and the implications of this for education. It provides a critique of the concepts of oral language which have come to dominate literacy and language education policy across the Organisation of Economic Collaboration and Development (OECD) in Anglophone countries like Australia. This paper synthesises the interdisciplinary evidence regarding the nature of oral language from the broad field of “language sciences” and explains the implications of this for literacy education. The paper includes recommendations for educational research, school leaders and policymakers.

A synthesis of interdisciplinary evidence from across the “language sciences” is outlined, drawing on Aristotle’s notion of sound with meaning. The evidence highlights the emphasis given to “sound” and “meaning” within various perspectives and shows that meaning is essential to oral language and provides a lens with which to evaluate educational policy and practice.

Findings from a synthesis of evidence across the language sciences and research on school-based practice suggest a number of implications for policy and practice in linguistically diverse settings. Firstly, phonological awareness through musical and drama processes can be applied in the early years of oral language development. Secondly, that oral language is a complementary communicative tool rather than an isolated practice. Finally, that oral language for the classroom may better reflect language’s social purpose to coordinate around meaning.

This paper is an important clarifier at a time when the place of oral language has become constrained within particular educational models in the Anglosphere. This paper highlights that oral language is a basis for learning to read and write throughout the schooling years, but also in life in the ongoing generative work that language allows and demands.

This research aims to propose a high-performance-based model of remote teaching where trained teachers (those who deliver lectures by using different tools i.e. Microsoft Team, Zoom, etc.) can get the desired results through artificial intelligence (AI) awareness, knowledge sharing and transformational leadership in the future.

This research is quantitative in nature and convenience sampling is followed to gather data from 307 trained faculty (those who deliver lectures by using different tools i.e. Microsoft Team, Zoom, learning management systems, etc.) from various universities of the federal capital territory (FCT) Islamabad and district Rawalpindi of Punjab province, Pakistan who worked online from home during novel corona lockdown. SmartPLS is used for data analysis and structural equation modeling is performed to test the suggested model.

Results revealed that AI awareness has a significant positive influence on knowledge sharing but exhibited a negative significant impact on teacher performance. Likewise, knowledge sharing acts as a partial mediator; however, transformational leadership moderates between remote working and knowledge sharing.

During the pandemic, the mode of instruction shifted from physical to online, generating several barriers for teachers who were used to on-campus teaching. This research presented an effective model for knowing the mechanism of possible and reliable implications at educational institutions of developing countries to get the desired outcomes of effective online teaching in calamity situations.

This paper investigates causal connections between childhood adversities and chronic health problems among Brazilians aged 50 and over.

The study employed propensity score matching (PSM) using data from the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSI-Brazil). The sample analyzed consisted of two groups: individuals who experienced childhood adversities and those who did not.

Individuals who experienced nutritional and health adversities in childhood are more likely to develop health problems at older ages, such as high blood pressure, osteoporosis, asthma, rheumatism and chronic column problems in adulthood.

The main limitation of this research is the use of a cross-sectional database, which poses challenges such as recall bias and sample selection bias.

The study reinforces the importance of investing in childhood to mitigate the severity of chronic diseases in later life.

The findings support increased investment in childhood nutritional programs and healthcare, which can improve human capital and reduce long-term medical and economic losses due to chronic diseases.

While economic research on medical issues is abundant in developed countries, where a predictable causal relationship between childhood adversities and chronic health problems in later life has been established, there is a lack of depth in this research in developing countries, particularly in Brazil. This study aims to contribute to health policy formulation, the development of medical facilities and research in Brazil.

This study aims to examine the effects on student motivation and perception of technological interventions within undergraduate mechanical engineering and product design and manufacture programs at a Sino-foreign international university. The authors use an augmented reality game application within a class on Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DfMA) that was developed using the approaches of microlearning and digital game-based learning (DGBL).

Structured as design-based research, the study reports on developing innovative educational interventions and provides an empirical investigation of their effectiveness. Data were collected using a mixed methods approach, using pre- and post-tests and questionnaires, together with researcher observations and participant interviews.

Through two rounds of playtests, the game positively affected intrinsic motivation and encouraged higher-order cognitive learning, critical thinking, communication and collaboration. Collaborative learning plays a significant role, DGBL is preferred over traditional methods and microlearning reduces information density and cognitive overload.

The study contributes to our understanding of digital game-based interventions on students’ intrinsic motivation and provides insights into effective ways to design instructional materials in similar teaching and learning settings.

The study aims to explore how healthcare workers (HCWs) navigate and experience time when caring for older cancer patients living with other illnesses.

This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of how HCWs conceptualise and navigate the temporal aspects of delivering personalised care to older people living with multimorbidity. Building on research from organisation studies and the sociology of time, we interviewed 19 UK HCWs about their experiences of delivering care to this patient group.

Our findings illustrate how the delivery of personalised care contradicts contemporary models for healthcare delivery defined by efficiency and standardisation. We found that HCWs engage with time as both a valuable commodity to be rationed and prioritised within a constrained context and as a malleable resource for managing workload and overcoming “turbulence” in the system. However, participants in this study also shared how the simultaneous multiplicity and lack of time had a profoundly personal impact on them through the emotional toll associated with “time debt” and “lost” time.

This research presents a unique analysis of how time is conceptualised and navigated in contemporary healthcare, offering valuable insights for policy improvement. We conclude that personalised models of healthcare are incompatible with many current temporal structures of treatment trajectories and work-practices, by nature of being centred around the person and not the system of delivery.

As the two sides of the same coin, usefulness and usability have emerged as pivotal research themes in user experience field. This study compares cognitive effort and cognitive resource allocation strategy across documents varying perceived usefulness and then across documents with different objective usability (unimodal vs multimodal discourses).

A controlled user study of four identifying tasks related to public health epidemics was conducted to collect data, including document usefulness as perceived by participants, presentation modes of the document and gaze behaviors on each document.

Usefulness and modality discourse impact cognitive effort and resource allocation strategy in health information search. In useless health documents, spatial encoding resource spending increased significantly with multimodal discourse, and a spatial browsing strategy with an evident exploratory feature was applied; while in useful documents, including low-useful and high-useful, both spatial and information encoding resource spending increased significantly with multimodal discourse, and an information processing strategy with an evident comprehensive feature was applied. Notably, multimodal discourse failed to enhance decision-making effectiveness. Furthermore, in useful documents, the interaction effect of the presentation mode of useful information and multimodal discourse on cognitive effort followed an inverted U-shape pattern.

This paper sheds new light on the interaction effect of usefulness and usability on cognitive effort and resource allocation strategy, highlighting its significance in cognitive effort detecting for multimodal discourse and improving effectiveness and efficacy of health information identification by optimizing information presentation mode design.