High Number Of Users Research Articles

Characterising online museum users: a study of the National Museums Liverpool museum website

Museums are increasing access to their collections and providing richer user experiences via web-based interfaces. However, they are seeing high numbers of users looking at only one or two pages within 10 s and then leaving. To reduce this rate, a better understanding of the type of user who visits a museum website is required. Existing models for museum website users tend to focus on groups that are readily accessible for study or provide little detail in their definitions of the groups. This paper presents the results of a large-scale user survey for the National Museums Liverpool museum website in which data on a wide range of user characteristics were collected regarding their current visit to provide a better understanding of their motivations, tasks, engagement and domain knowledge. Results show that the frequently understudied general public and non-professional users make up the majority (approximately 77%) of the respondents.

Arquitectura y videojuegos Escenarios reales para entornos virtuales

La mejora tecnológica que en las últimas décadas ha experimentado la industria de los videojuegos, ha propiciado la utilización de escenarios cada vez más realistas que, por su similitud con el entorno representado, consiguen llamar de manera más efectiva la atención del usuario, a la vez que garantizan una profunda inmersión del mismo en el juego. En este acercamiento a la realidad arquitectónica de los escenarios utilizados en los videojuegos, el empleo de modelos virtuales obtenidos a partir de levantamientos arquitectónicos llevados a cabo con las últimas tecnologías, como son el escáner láser o la fotogrametría, permite llegar al máximo de la fidelidad con el modelo original. Este modelo tridimensional es construido a partir de millones de medidas de la realidad (nubes de puntos) y si la precisión configurada en los equipos de medición es lo suficientemente alta y disponemos de información de color, estas nubes de puntos ya pueden considerarse una representación virtual realista del objeto. Con un posterior procesamiento de los datos se consiguen superficies texturizadas, generadas como una Red Irregular Triangulada. Esta superficie texturizada permite realizar al modelo digital numerosos estudios de diversa naturaleza, además de ser mucho más apta para visualizaciones realistas que la nube de puntos original. Esta nueva representación digital de la realidad, propia del registro del Patrimonio Arquitectónico, con un procesamiento adecuado de los datos puede ser utilizada como matriz ideal para la creación de escenarios virtuales en el diseño de videojuegos que a su vez, con los correspondientes algoritmos de reconversión, pueden ser enfocados al estudio de las dinámicas urbanas por posibilitar la recogida y procesado de datos de un gran número de usuarios que facilitan un trabajo de campo inabordable de otra manera por razones tanto temporales como económicas.

A group decision making support system for the Web: How to work in environments with a high number of participants and alternatives

One of the main challenges that the appearance of Web 2.0 and the overall spreading of the Internet have generated is how to tackle with the high number of users and information available. This problem is also inherited by the group decision making problems that can be carried out over the Web. In this article, to solve this issue, a group decision making support system that allows the use of a high number of participants and alternatives is presented. This method allows any number of participants to join the decision making process at any time. Furthermore, they let them provide information only about a certain subset of alternatives. The high participation rate can provide enough information for the decision process to be carried out even if the participants do not provide information about all the high number of available alternatives.

Physical Activity in Public Parks of High and Low Socioeconomic Status in Colombia Using Observational Methods.

Public parks are an important resource for the promotion of physical activity (PA). This is the first study in Colombia and the fourth in Latin America to describe the characteristics of park users and their levels of PA using objective measures. A systematic observation assessed sex, age, and the level of PA of users of 10 parks in an intermediate-size city in Colombia, classified in low (5 parks) and high (5 parks) socioeconomic status (SES). A total of 10 daily observations were conducted, in 5 days of the week during 3 periods: morning, afternoon, and evening. In total, 16,671 observations were completed, recording 46,047 users. A higher number of users per park, per day, were recorded in high SES (1195) versus low SES (647). More men were observed in low-SES than high-SES parks (70.1% vs 54.2%), as well as more children were observed in low-SES than high-SES parks (30.1% vs 15.9%). Older adults in high-SES parks were more frequent (9.5% vs 5.2%). Moderate to vigorous PA was higher in low-SES parks (71.7% vs 63.2%). Low-SES parks need more green spaces, walk/bike trails, and areas for PA. All parks need new programs to increase the number of users and their PA level, considering sex, age group, and period of the week.

Traffic differentiation in dense collision-free WLANs using CSMA/ECA

The ability to perform traffic differentiation is a promising feature of the current Medium Access Control (MAC) in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) protocol for WLANs proposes up to four Access Categories (AC) that can be mapped to different traffic priorities. High priority ACs are allowed to transmit more often than low priority ACs, providing a way of prioritising delay sensitive traffic like voice calls or video streaming. Further, EDCA also considers the intricacies related to the management of multiple queues, virtual collisions and traffic differentiation. Nevertheless, EDCA falls short in efficiency when performing in dense WLAN scenarios. Its collision-prone contention mechanism degrades the overall throughput to the point of starving low priority ACs, and produce priority inversions at high number of contenders.Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Enhanced Collision Avoidance (CSMA/ECA) is a compatible MAC protocol for WLANs which is also capable of providing traffic differentiation. Contrary to EDCA, CSMA/ECA uses a contention mechanism with a deterministic backoff technique which is capable of constructing collision-free schedules for many nodes with multiple active ACs, extending the network capacity without starving low priority ACs, as experienced in EDCA. This work analyses traffic differentiation with CSMA/ECA by describing the mechanisms used to construct collision-free schedules with multiple queues. Additionally, evaluates the performance under different traffic conditions and a growing number of contenders. Furthermore, it introduces a way to eliminate Virtual Collisions (VC), which also contributes to the throughput degradation in EDCA WLANs. Simulation tests are performed using voice and video packet sources that emulate commonly used codecs. Results show CSMA/ECA outperforming EDCA in different commonly-found scenarios with high number of users, including when both MAC protocols coexist in the same WLAN.

Resource discovery in the peer to peer networks using an inverted ant colony optimization algorithm

In recent years, the attractiveness of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks has been grown rapidly due to the easiness of use. The P2P system is a decentralized relationship model in which every party has the analogous abilities and either party can start a relationship session. In these networks, due to the high number of users, the resource discovery process becomes one of the important parts of the P2P networks. But, in many previously proposed methods, there is a common problem that is called load balancing. If the balance of workload is inefficient, it reduces the resource utilization. Therefore, in this article, we propose the Inverted Ant Colony Optimization (IACO) algorithm, a variety of the basic Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm, to improve load balancing among the peers. In the proposed method, the effect of pheromone on the selected paths by ants is inverted. In this approach, ants start to traverse the graph from the requester peer and each ant chooses the best peer for moving. Then, requirements and pheromone amount are updated. Finally, we simulate the method and evaluate its performance in comparison to the ACO algorithm in different terms. The obtained results show that the performance of the IACO is better than the ACO algorithm in terms of load balancing, waiting time and resource utilization.

Collective organization of discourse expertise using information technology – CODE IT!

Abstract This paper offers a short report on a participatory citizen science project and offers some reflections on the lessons learned. In particular, we report on our aims and methods, and the development and use of a web application that we designed to enable a collective analysis of press releases allowing a high number of users. Specifically, we give a brief account of the HTML- and PHP-based platform, which was used to analyze and review press releases on a controversial vaccine.

Intelligent Algorithm for Enhancing MPEG-DASH QoE in eMBMS

Multimedia streaming is the most demanding and bandwidth hungry application in today’s world of Internet. MPEG-DASH as a video technology standard is designed for delivering live or on-demand streams in Internet to deliver best quality content with the fewest dropouts and least possible buffering. Hybrid architecture of DASH and eMBMS has attracted a great attention from the telecommunication industry and multimedia services. It is deployed in response to the immense demand in multimedia traffic. However, handover and limited available resources of the system affected on dropping segments of the adaptive video streaming in eMBMS and it creates an adverse impact on Quality of Experience (QoE), which is creating trouble for service providers and network providers towards delivering the service. In this paper, we derive a case study in eMBMS to approach to provide test measures evaluating MPEG-DASH QoE, by defining the metrics are influenced on QoE in eMBMS such as bandwidth and packet loss then we observe the objective metrics like stalling (number, duration and place), buffer length and accumulative video time. Moreover, we build a smart algorithm to predict rate of segments are lost in multicast adaptive video streaming. The algorithm deploys an estimation decision regards how to recover the lost segments. According to the obtained results based on our proposal algorithm, rate of lost segments is highly decreased by comparing to the traditional approach of MPEG-DASH multicast and unicast for high number of users.

Trends in contraceptive demands and unmet need for family planning in migrant population of Uttarakhand

Background: The knowledge of contraceptive use and unmet need is important to know the constraints for unmet need based on user perspective. The aim of the study was to find the prevalence of Contraceptive use, Contraceptive preferred and the Un-met demand for contraceptives. Methods: Married, non-pregnant women of reproductive age group (15-49 years) from the migrant population were interviewed by Census method using pre-designed and pre-tested instrument by cross-sectional survey. Operational definitions for unmet need for spacing, limiting and unfelt need used in the study were as per NFHS -4 findings and traditional methods of contraception like abstinence, withdrawal were included in Un-met need for contraceptive due to its very high failure rate. Results: 58.44% study subjects had ‘Ever Used FP’ and 56.78% are currently using FP methods. The CPR is 56.7% by ‘Any Method’ and 43.0% by ‘Modern method’. The method which is most popular is ‘Sterlisation 29% and 20.96% and ‘Others’ i.e. highly unreliable methods like coitus interruptus, calendar method etc. found high number of users. The reasons for non use were apprehension of complication/side effects in 39%) and inconvenience or the difficulties with modern contraceptive methods or lack of knowledge by 7.67% and 6.95% respectively, 16% were relied on traditional methods, such as periodic abstinence, withdrawal and herbal mixtures from traditional healers as well as LAM 8% for a FP method, all of which have high failure rate. Only 24.8% Women were decision maker regarding the time and type of contraceptive to be used. The unmet need was 29.7% out of which the unmet needs for spacing and limiting were 9.6 per cent and 20.1 per cent, respectivelyConclusions: The unmet need is high and can be addressed by removing the constraints such as poor accessibility to the knowledge thus removing apprehension for side effects, improve accessibility to resources and low decision-making autonomy.

Significant of BER Detection Using Hybrid Genetic Algorithm for CDMA System

In this paper, CDMA system is considered to enhance the detection techniques, which uses genetic algorithm practice to introduce an optimum multi-user indicator based on bit synchronization for code division multiple access via high level of noise (Gaussian channel). The proposed method presented in this paper is to define the transmitted bit sequence and optimization in the receiver using hybrid GA scheme, which considered a complicated method to match the users’ bits correlation metric. A Matlab simulation results shows that, the BER performance under certain condition of SNR for multi-user detector methods indicate the single-user convolution bound, despite the fact that a lower complication as associated to the best multi-user detection. Particularly the hybrid GA structure is more suitable for a high number of users and suitable for CDMA system enhancement in order to perform lower computational complexity in shorter time period.

A Multiobjective Wavelength Routing Approach Combining Network and Traffic Engineering With Energy Awareness

In modern optical networks, infrastructure management is faced with the challenge of using expensive equipment and communication resources as efficiently as possible. This now includes keeping power consumption costs at a minimum and using the available optical links in a balanced way, in addition to the traditional goals of providing the best possible performance to the end customers while meeting their quality requirements. Accordingly, this paper presents a heuristic single-step lightpath routing and wavelength assignment algorithm, handling online dynamic connection requests within a fully distributed network control plane. By using shortest path routing, the presented scheme determines the best compromise solution between the users' and carrier's objectives. The former can be mainly expressed in terms of connection QoS requirements, while the latter comprises network engineering (distributing the load in order to achieve near-optimum resource usage) and containing energy consumption. This approach is able to find, in a polynomial computing time, a multiobjective optimization solution that maximizes the carriers' return of investment and supports a high number of users' request while drastically reducing the network operational expenditures, as extensively demonstrated through a simulation.

A Methodology for Designing and Evaluating Cloud Scheduling Strategies in Distributed Videoconferencing Systems

Over the last few years, videoconferencing systems have experienced several changes that enable videoconferencing applications in personal devices to a high number of users. To efficiently attend this high and variable demand, deploying distributed videoconferencing servers in cloud-based infrastructures is highly recommended. However, videoconferencing systems have particular characteristics that impede the application of regular resource scheduling solutions used in other kinds of distributed environments. In this paper, we propose a methodology to design and evaluate scheduling strategies adapted to the necessities of each specific scenario. It involves using a new metric to estimate the resource consumption of each connection and provides a set of coefficients to evaluate the efficiency of the strategy. We test the methodology in a real setup and compare the behavior and performance of three scheduling algorithms. The conclusion is that the proposed methodology allows us to configure decision policies adapted to the requirements and necessities of a range of use cases. Thereby, we achieve a more efficient way of using cloud resources, improving the service performance and saving costs.

The Influence of Sensory Gardens on the Behaviour of Children with Special Educational Needs

This study explores the use of sensory gardens by observing the zones and how they are utilised by children with special educational needs. Methods applied were interviews, observation and behaviour mapping, which was used in conjunction with the affordance theory. Affordance was categorised by landscape furniture, the soft and hard landscape in relation to three categories of activities: Sensory stimulation, physical and social skills. The findings discovered continuous pathways that link the sensory garden to the site context, had easy access to the features and had the highest number of users. This study also found that users spent a longer time in zones where sensory, rather than aesthetic value, was emphasised.

Social Media Phenomena: Understanding the Perceived Features of Social Media and its effect on User Experiences and the Frequency of Usage

This study explores the adoption of various kinds of social media application and their effect on user experiences. The study specifically investigates instant messaging applications (IMA) on the perceived features of IMA and user experiences. IMA are vital communication mediums that are tremendously used for communication throughout the Gulf countries. This study explores the phenomena of IMA trends and usage by examining user’s contacts, experiences, and perceived features and its effect on use. A quantitative method was used for data collection that was based on random questionnaire distribution in public and private universities in Kuwait. Total sample size was 250 respondents. Results show differences in males and females in their perception about IMA, where females have greater IMA experiences and perceive more features than males when using IMA. Findings indicate the highest number of users (94.4%) use WhatsApp, and second highest is (60.4%) use Snap Chat. User’s experience is found highest (87.6%) in text chatting, and second highest (70.4%) in photo sending. Results also show the highest number of contacts with whom they communicate is friends, and second highest with family. Results also show that the most key features of IMA perceived by users is their ability to interact with groups at the same time, and second highest feature is that it is free of charge.

Data warehouse design approaches from social media: review and comparison

With the rise of social media in our life, several decision makers have worked on these networks to make better decisions. In order to benefit from the data issued from these media, many researchers focused on helping companies understand how to perform a social media competitive analysis and transform these data into knowledge for decision makers. A high number of users interact at any time on different ways in social media such as by expressing their opinions about products, services or transaction related to the organization which can prove very helpful for making better projections. In this paper, we provide a literature review on data warehouse design approaches from social media. More precisely, we start by introducing the main concepts of data warehouse and social media. We also propose two classes of data warehouse design approaches from social media (behavior analysis and integration of sentiment analysis in data warehouse schema) and expose for each one the most representative existing works. Afterward, we propose a comparative study of the existing works.

A utilização das redes sociais na perspetiva das empresas de turismo em espaço rural

This paper identifies the perceptions and behaviours of owners/ managers of rural small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMTEs) regarding the use of social networks at the present time and in the future. Based on a qualitative perspective, nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with owners / managers of SMTEs based in the Minho-Lima region of northern Portugal. The costs reduction in acquiring new customers, improving credibility and corporate reputation are some of the main perceived advantages. Facebook stands out as being the most used social network, given the greater ease of achieving a broader market in an easy and fast way, essentially considering the high number of users. However, this paper also demonstrates that there is a strong lack of knowledge of how social networks, particularly Facebook, can be used in efficiently and effectively way. This paper seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the potential of social networks for tourism businesses operating in the rural context. Understanding these perceptions is important to identify initiatives and communication strategies appropriated to enterprises reality, contributing to encourage a greater and more effective use of social networks.

Numerical Method for Constructing Fixed Right Shift (FRS) Code for SAC-OCDMA Systems

In optical code division multiple access (OCDMA) systems, multiple access interference (MAI) problem which amplifies with the number of users actively involving in the network robustly bound the performance of such network. In this paper an algorithm to generate binary code sequences based on spectral amplitude coding (SAC) technique for CDMA under optical communication systems environment named fixed right shifting (FRS) is proposed. This algorithm is built with minimum cross correlation (MCC) using some type of Jordan matrices with straightforward algebraic methods. By using the code weight W and the number of users N, various sets of binary code sequences for the possibilities of even and odd combination are constructed. Furthermore, this algorithm allows users with different code sequences to transmit data with minimum likelihood of interference. Simulation results show our technique for an agreeable bit error rate (BER) of 10-12 can support a higher number of users in deterministic and stochastic methods compared to reported techniques such Modified Quadratic Congruence (MQC) and Modified Frequency Hopping (MFH).

Acoustic performance of contemporary public libraries: an evaluation of public libraries in Melbourne, Australia

ABSTRACTContemporary public libraries play an important role in modern society providing a wide range of community services in addition to the traditional function of affording access to written art and information. Libraries have experienced increasing usage as they have developed into multipurpose facilities, adapting to changes in technology and society. Despite these changes, study and reading areas with good acoustic conditions have remained important for concentrated learning and work. This study investigates the acoustic conditions of seven public libraries in metropolitan Melbourne using objective measurements. Reverberation time measurements were undertaken in the State Library of Victoria which has the highest number of users of the libraries considered. The results showed that the noise levels under operating conditions were generally higher than expected. The reverberation time was high and other measures such as speech intelligibility were poor. Even though some noise management strategies were being employed to enhance acoustic conditions, indoor noise levels in contemporary public libraries are concerning. Noise generated from footsteps on hardwood floors, people talking, equipment operation and noise from traffic were the main sources of noise observed. Recommendations for improving acoustic conditions include application of absorptive materials for the floors and walls and appropriate noise insulation for façades.

Contextual investigation of factors affecting sludge accumulation rates in lined pit latrines within Kampala slum areas, Uganda

Pit latrines in slums areas of Uganda fill up faster than might be expected from some estimates owing to inappropriate use and failure to consider critical factors affecting sludge accumulation rates at the planning, design and construction stages. This study sought to investigate factors affecting filling rates of lined pit latrines in slum areas of Kampala with the goal of contributing to accurate planning, design, construction, emptying and overall maintenance. Fifty-five pit latrines were selected from the five divisions of Kampala city using stratified random sampling. Data collected included: number of users, frequency of emptying, years taken since last emptying, type of non-faecal materials deposited, cross-sectional dimensions of the pit, rate of sludge degradation and geo-physical factors of pit location. Methods used were: field surveys, questionnaires and key informant interviews plus on-site depth measurement. Mass loss tests to investigate the rate of sludge degradation were carried out in the laboratory at moisture content levels similar to those in pit latrines. Sludge accumulation rates were calculated using volume of sludge in the pit, number of users and time taken since last emptying. Statistical analyses included correlation and one-way ANOVA. Results revealed that number of users and type of material deposited in the pit latrines, especially non-faecal matter, had a significant (p < 0.05) effect on sludge accumulation rate. Public pit latrines with a higher number of users had lower sludge accumulation rates and this was attributed to greater degradation taking place and greater restriction on entry of non-faecal matter. The rate of sludge degradation was higher at 90–100% than 80–90% moisture content, due to better degradation conditions. Tighter restrictions on non-faecal material deposition into pit latrines are recommended to reduce filling rates of pit latrines in slum areas. Keywords : sludge accumulation rates, slum areas, faecal matter, degradation, lined pit latrines

Opioid usage in Denmark, Norway and Sweden – 2006–2014 and regulatory factors in the society that might influence it

Abstract Aims To relate changes in the number of opioid users in Denmark, Norway and Sweden during 2006-2014 to changes in national regulatory and economic incentive factors. Methods The material consists of data drawn from the national prescription databases in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Data on the number of opioid users per 1000 inhabitants were collected for all ages, both sexes and for the period 2006-2014. Concomitant changes in regulatory or economic incentives were identified and related to the drug statistics. Results For all opioids in the period 2006-2014 Denmark had the lowest number ofusers but the largest increase in users. Norway had the highest number of users but a lower increase. The number of users in Sweden was very stable showing no change in number of users. The number of morphine users in Denmark increased from 2009 to 2014. The number of users of oxycodone decreased from 2010 to 2014. The Danish health authorities recommended using morphine as first drug of choice in 2010 and warned about potential drug dependency of oxycodone in 2011. In Sweden the number of users of oxycodone increased over the period with the largest increase from 2012 to 2013. The number af tramadol users decreased from 2011. Prior to these changes tramadol was declared to be classified as an addictive drug 2011. Conclusions Changes in the countries’ opioid use appeared in the public prescription-databases in a timely manner after introduction of national recommendations not to use oxycodone and prefer morphine as first choice, or classify tramadol as an addictive drug. National drug statistics show the end-result of the doctors’ prescribing behavior and the population’s use of opioids. Thorough investigation of prescription-data can help to detect and explain the interplay between culture, society and medical reasons for prescribing opioids.