Situational Circumstances Research Articles

A novel framework for optimizing the edge network node for wearable devices

The Multi-access edge computing (MEC) server would provide context-aware capabilities. When edge computing uses high-quality computing performance to supplement edge applications with vast IoT-based data services, substantial constraints are placed on the collaboration of edge nodes. Conversely to cloud computing, situational circumstances in the edge network are more complicated. In this paper, we provide a novel Edge Network (EDN) optimization (EDN-Opt) to boost the efficiency of edge computing jobs. In particular, we initially specify the parameters for cooperative assessment through the Internet of Things (IoT). Furthermore, the effectiveness of the proposed architecture is shown using real datasets collected from elderly individuals and various activity trackers. A comprehensive study on QoC intended with EDN is used to assess collaboration effectiveness. The cooperative optimization method developed provides improved efficiency To assess the effectiveness of EDN optimization, the discrepancy between the proposed equivalent and the real equivalent is examined. Investigation in this sector analyses several practical cases. The Spearman rank correlation factor is +1 or −1 when a perfect monotonic association is attained with no identifying data. The examination of this article demonstrates that trials show that our proposed edge cooperation optimization technique can quickly assess the EDN and then provide information on the collaborative relationship's replacement occurrences that can help the EDN's design.

Socio-Economic Status of Kingariya

Analyzing the socioeconomic situation and current circumstances of the Kingariya community of Dalit Muslims in Puraini, Nepalgunj, was the goal of this study. They are a group of traditional dancers and cultural performers from the upper caste of Muslims. Muslims from the Dalit community work as wage laborers in agriculture and construction. Despite spending a lot of time in the Terai region of Nepal, they are poor and landless. The primary goal of this study is to examine the socioeconomic situation of the Kingariya community in Kingariyanpurwa, Puraini, in the Banke district. In this study, a descriptive and exploratory research design was used. The socioeconomic situation of the Kingariya people is generally described in chronological sequence in this study design. Both primary and secondary data are used in this investigation. Interviews were used to gather primary data from the field survey, while secondary data came from the Nepalgunj Sub-Metropolitan Office, private agencies, government offices, numerous research publications, and other pertinent literature and websites on the internet. The 26 Dalit Muslim households in this study area make up the study's target population. To determine the socioeconomic status of the dalit Muslim community, a purposeful sample technique was chosen. The small population of Dalit Muslims lives in Puraini, Nepalgunj. In the 56 total households for the household survey, there were 26 Kingariya households, or 50% of all households. The study's conclusion is that Muslims live in a socioeconomically deplorable situation. They are hardworking, straightforward, and illiterate, yet they are also poor. High cast has complete control over them in all aspect of life. The socioeconomic status of the Muslim population has had both positive and negative effects over time.

Zabluda u krivičnom pravu Republike Srbije

The paper presents the institution of mistake (error) in our criminal law, focusing on its legal regulation as a ground for exculpation. The fact that mistake is a psychological and legal concept whose meaning includes several substantial elements is acknowledged. The legal relevance of mistake contributes to its various treatment in legislation. Given that criminal law, as a branch of legislation, deeply engages with human rights, mistake becomes a crucial institution for excluding the guilt of a perpetrator. Depending on the type of mistake, and the legal and situational circumstances in which it is considered, two main categories can be recognized: mistake of fact (error facti) and mistake of law (error iuris). Their effect must be evaluated in the contest of a specific criminal case. This paper will elucidate the general term and types of mistakes, exploring their effects on the culpability of the perpetrator of the criminal act.

Characteristics of methods of verbal-communicative interaction in social-psychological activity

The article, based on the analysis of scientific sources and empirical material, characterizes modern methods of verbal-communicative interaction in social-psychological activity. Definitions of key concepts of the context "methods of verbal-communicative interaction in social-psychological activity" (method, verbal, communicative, interaction, etc.) were analyzed. Methods of verbal-communicative interaction in socio-psychological activity are considered as methods of verbal communication between subjects in the field of social work and psychological practice for the purpose of obtaining, exchanging, correcting, etc. information. It is noted that the indicated methods should be applied constructively, that is, with maximum benefit for both sides of communication in the field of social work and psychological practice. Attention is focused on the fact that there is no universal method of verbal-communicative interaction in social-psychological activity, since each time in a specific social-communicative situation (circumstances of communicative interaction) the choice of method will be determined by a number of factors caused by communicators (social workers, psychologists and recipients of social -psychological services) and for the purpose of professional communication. A scientific and practical interpretation of pedagogical methods of education in the socio-psychological space was carried out. Separated methods of verbal-communicative interaction, which constitute a verbal influence on the formation of the individual's consciousness in socio-psychological activity, are characterized in detail: message, explanation, instruction or instruction, story, monologue, conversation, dialogue, debate, discussion, lecture. The results of an experimental study of selected methods of verbal-communicative interaction were presented, which established the need for the undeniable training of social-psychological workers for the organization and application of these methods. Similar methods of interactive learning were selected. Each of the characterized methods of verbal-communicative interaction has its own specificity and is situationally appropriate, which must be determined by a social worker or psychologist depending on certain professional circumstances and individual characteristics of recipients of social-psychological services. A schematic representation of a group of methods of verbal-communicative interaction in social-psychological activity has been developed.

Current Situation and Issues of Education Equity in China

With the continuous progress and development of Chinese society, people's understanding of education has gradually deepened and their expectations of the quality of education have become higher and higher. As a prominent issue in the field of education, equity in education has been widely concerned by the education sector and even by all sectors of society. Equity in education has three main dimensions: equity at the start of education, equity in the process of education and equity in educational outcomes. Equity at the start of education refers to the opportunity to start a learning career regardless of gender, race, origin, economic situation, living environment and other circumstances. The current situation in each of these three areas is different because it builds on the previous two areas to ensure that learners of different abilities have access to an appropriate level of education.

Who Deserves European Solidarity? How Recipient Characteristics Shaped Public Support for International Medical and Financial Aid during COVID-19

AbstractInternational solidarity is indispensable for coping with global crises; however, solidarity is frequently constrained by public opinion. Past research has examined who, on the donor side, is willing to support European and international aid. However, we know less about who, on the recipient side, is perceived to deserve solidarity. The article argues that potential donors consider situational circumstances and those relational features that link them to the recipients. Using factorial survey experiments, we analyse public support for international medical and financial aid in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results show that recipient countries' situational need and control, as well as political community criteria, namely, group membership, adherence to shared values and reciprocity, played a crucial role in explaining public support for aid. Important policy implications result: on the donor side, fault-attribution frames matter; on the recipient side, honouring community norms is key to receiving aid.

A Comparative Study of LSTM Variants in Prediction for Tesla’s Stock Price

Long short-term memory (LSTM) is widely used in the stock market to train the prediction model and forecast future stock prices. Applying the LSTM method to research may incur some problems and facilitate the improvement of the method. Therefore, many LSTM variants are put forward under different circumstances. This paper surveys four LSTM variants, including Vanilla, Stacked, Bi-directional, and CNN LSTM on two different data sets regarding Tesla's stock price. Two data sets mentioned in this paper represent different stock types. To be more specific, data set 1 refers to stocks with a single long-term trend, while data set 2 can be seen as an example of stocks with more complexity. The result shows that the Vanilla LSTM reaches the highest prediction accuracy on the data set without any irregular shift in the long-term trend. CNN LSTM also provides decent predictions for the stock price. Otherwise, the Stacked LSTM performs the best for stock prediction. Bi-LSTM and CNN LSTM are also suitable for stock forecasting in more complicated situations. The change in preference for model selection proves that a company's operation situation and market circumstances also influence the prediction performance of LSTM variants.

Lijiang flood characteristics and implication of karst storage through Muskingum flood routing via HEC-HMS, S. China

Abstract We analyzed the characteristics of main karstic/non-karst reaches of the Lijiang River to uncover the causes behind different flood behaviors by providing a better understanding of the flood formation. Having 63 years of rainfall-runoff data and applying the HEC-HMS model, geo/hydrological features were investigated. The available reservoir capacity of karts (ARCK) was included through soil moisture accounting loss data to assess its impact. In particular, the expected instantaneous peak discharge rates/times were found largely imbalanced with generated unit hydrographs. Moreover, significant gaps among the floods’ features for different subbasins in terms of required peak modifications (2–4 times larger for mid-upstream, respectively) were mainly associated with the unique karst structure and initial condition due to various ARCK in rainy/dry seasons. Besides, notable dissimilarities between the wedge/prism storage volumes and the hydrograph’s wave traveling/receding time were observed owing to the geomorphological conditions. Although the contribution rates of drivers in karst flood formation cannot be quantitively modeled, based on our results the ARCK emerged to play a substantial role on the forecasted results, comparatively. Our results suggest that since ARCK varies, taking it into account (as initial abstraction) results in a more reliable estimation. This was underpinned by the results in which the unmodified simulations had a qualified rate of 52% accuracy on average and increased to 67.5% after the ARCK inclusion. This work adds to the body of evidence illustrating that in karst hydrology, ignoring the situational circumstances in modeling might lead to inaccuracies in flood forecasting for such dynamic watersheds.

Implications of Nocebo in Anaesthesia Care

(Anaesthesia. 2022;77(suppl 1):11–20. doi: 10.1111/anae.15601) Nocebo, sometimes recognized as the adverse counterpart to placebo, refers to an increased pain sensitivity related to a previous experience or communication that confers a negative expectation for the course of an intervention. These unfavorable responses potentially can be mitigated by certain presentation tactics by providers. Conversely, the lack of awareness of the nocebo effect in provider interactions and other situational circumstances may, intentionally or unintentionally, induce or exacerbate “real” side-effects that are unpleasant for the patient. The literature attributes many factors to the patient’s experience of nocebo and brings the potential for this consideration to enter into every physician-patient anesthesia encounter.

Understanding the Development of a Design Thinking Mindset During a Biomedical Engineering Third-Year Course.

As students gain more experience with design concepts, they should progress from novice to expert design thinkers. The purpose of this research was to identify the constructs of growth in design thinking (DT) over short- (one weekend) and long-term (10weeks) design challenges. A DT mindset questionnaire was completed by students in a third-year undergraduate biomedical design course at the beginning of the course, after a one-weekend design challenge, and on completion of the course. After the short design challenge, an improvement in 15 of the 19 constructs was observed relative to baseline. Six of these constructs: mindfulness and awareness of the process, embracing risk, abductive thinking, envisioning new things, creative confidence, and optimism to make an impact, were sustained over the course of the semester indicating that a prolonged period of experiential learning can maintain short-term gains in DT. Three of the constructs: holistic views (considering the problem as a whole), diversity, and curiosity showed improvement following the short-term design challenge,then deterioration suggesting that situational circumstances are significant contributors to these constructs of DT. DT generally improves with the opportunity to collaborate, communicate, and design for a specific outcome. However, situational factors including team diversity, instructor expertise, dedicated time for team collaboration, and prior experiences can affect changes in the DT skillset.

Protest injuries: A situational analysis of injurious protests in Gauteng

In this article, we investigate contextual and situational circumstances of protest events that record injurious outcomes for civilians and examine how these differ from protests which do not record such outcomes. Using the IRIS database, we examine how contextual factors, including protest period, protest location, type of protest, reason for protest, and situational factors, such as damage to property, arrests and police response contribute to civilian injury. Using multiple logistic regression analysis, it was found that: 1) protest-related injuries were more frequent during the late-2000s than the 2010-15 period; 2) protest location was not a significant predictor of protest injury; 3) protests which recorded arrests and damage to property were more likely to report injurious outcomes; and 4) the addition of an aggressive police response was significant in determining protestor injury outcomes. Our findings have implications for public policing strategies, highlighting the role of different modalities of police response in the mitigation or escalation of violence at protest events.

Honor Killings in the United States From 1990 to 2021: Primary Victims and Corollary Victims

Although honor killings often include multiple fatalities in the U.S., the situational circumstances of why these offenders target corollary victims remain unknown. We used open-source data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database to qualitatively examine 66 primary and corollary victims of 26 honor killings in the U.S. between 1990 and December 2021. One third of the cases involved corollary victims, and half of all victims were corollary victims. Corollary victims were especially common when the primary victim was the offender’s (ex-)partner. These findings add to the growing body of knowledge that recognizes similarities between IPHs and honor killings.

Regional changes in stimulant drug use during COVID-19 pandemic in Finland: A wastewater study

AimSince March of 2020, tight measures against COVID-19, newly declared as pandemic by World Health Organization, affected almost all areas of our lives. Similarly, as with other aspects of community life, marked changes were expected to take place in the drug scene during and after the first lockdown period (16.3.2020–14.4.2020 in Finland). Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is an approach established as an objective means for monitoring regional drug use. In Finland, we began WBE in 2012 with ten cities, and ended up to 27 cities (approximately 60% of Finnish population) since 2020. This study illustrates regional trends in stimulant drug use in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic as a part of trend monitoring for up to 10 years.MethodComposite 24-h samples of untreated wastewater were collected twice a year during one-week sampling periods from the inlets of wastewater treatment plants. Every other year 1-2 sampling campaigns were performed in the four biggest cities only. In 2020, two extra sampling periods (total of four periods) were carried out to evaluate the impact of measures against COVID-19 on drug use. Samples were analyzed with a fully validated UHPLC-MS/MS system. Daily drug consumption was calculated from the measured concentrations of the drugs or their metabolites in wastewater.ResultsWhile the stimulant drug consumption has been steadily increasing in Finland during the years of WBE, in 2020 the overall trend leveled off, with drug use being in higher level than ever before. However, the changes observed after the first quarter of 2020 varied markedly in different cities, with deepest decrease in Mariehamn, Åland, and highest increases in Lappeenranta and Vihti. During 2021, consumption of amphetamine, the dominant stimulant drug in Finland, was reduced by half from March to November/December. Instead, cocaine use remained in its newly increased level in Helsinki metropolitan area, bringing consumption of these two drugs record close to each other.COVID-19 measures may have played a role in the leveling observed in overall stimulant drug use trend, but the changes varied regionally and remained minor and transient in most cities. It seems that drug use was less affected by lockdown in 2020, as well as other measures, than many other societal phenomena. The marked fall of amphetamine consumption observed after spring of 2021 is temporally related to large seizures of drugs, which may have exhausted drug supplies. However, it can be speculated whether COVID-19 measures may have, for their part, delayed the recovery of illicit market after the seizures. Although the overall national drug situation is by far dominated by the biggest cities with largest populations, this study with opposing drug use trends in different cities shows again the importance of including a range of cities with different sizes and geographical locations in monitoring programs, both for a realistic picture of the overall drug situation, and to be able to offer objective and comparable data to various actors of both national and local level.ConclusionDrug use was less affected by measures against COVID-19 than many other societal phenomena. To obtain a realistic picture of the multifaceted drug situation, both during normal and exceptional circumstances such as COVID-19, it is essential to include a representative and wide enough selection of cities in monitoring programs.

Link Between Irrational Beliefs and Important Markers of Mental Health in a German Sample of Athletes: Differences Between Gender, Sport-Type, and Performance Level.

In this article, we conducted the first meaningful study of irrational beliefs (IBs) in a German sample of athletes. Moreover, we investigated associations between IBs and potential general as well as sport-specific markers of mental health in German athletes. As general markers, we considered psychological distress and wellbeing in addition to IBs, and as sport-specific markers, we considered anxiety, perfectionism, and athletic identity. To achieve this, our first step was to translate and validate a specific measure of irrational beliefs, namely the Irrational Performance Beliefs Inventory (iPBI). The iPBI is a performance-relevant measure that captures specific IB, taking into account the situational circumstances of the target population, namely operators in different performance context (academia, sports, business, medicine, etc.). Its theoretical basis is largely Ellis’ work on rational and irrational beliefs. We developed a short and a long version of the iPBI, which both capture four core IBs (i.e., demandingness, awfulization, low frustration tolerance, and depreciation). Factorial validity was confirmed by a confirmatory factor analysis (comparative fit index = 0.92) with data from 234 athletes. Both versions of the newly developed iPBI showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha > 0.77) and retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficients >0.71). Results of the correlational analyses indicated low positive relationships between IBs and athletes’ psychological distress, and low negative relations between IBs and wellbeing. In terms of sport-specific markers, there were low to moderate correlations with IBs. This study also examined the differences in IBs between females and males, individual and team sport athletes, and across three different performance levels. Implications of these findings are discussed along with approaches for future research and applied work.

A flatter curve affords hospitals greater time to prepare for a pandemic surge

This paper quantifies the benefits of flattening the curve (with a constant total patient load over the study period) on the risk of a hospital bed shortage in a pandemic. Using discrete-event simulation of patient care paths in hospitals, synthetic data that eliminates issues of confounding affects from the simultaneous occurrence of regional response actions and/or changes in resources, treatments or other situational circumstances, is produced for estimating hospital capacity for pandemic response. Results from systematically designed numerical experiments produced several findings. These include that the higher the acceleration in pandemic patient demand growth, the greater the impact of the intervention. Cutting this acceleration by 75% from the greatest studied rate created over four additional weeks to prepare for an 80% risk of running out of intensive care beds. Additionally, the greater the acceleration in growth, the fewer the days with a high risk of running out of beds, but the greater the total number of critical patients that could not be served with existing resources. Finally, the lower this acceleration, the fewer resources or modifications needed to cope with the surge, but the longer they are needed. The findings further show how hospitals can benefit from analytical tools that exploit digital health information to predict and plan for need levels and time to onset of these levels. These tools can be embedded within a real-time framework in which automated and early warnings can inform the selection of strategies for managing or coping with expected increases in demand for emergency hospital services.

Нарративный подход в исследовании миграции учителей

The article is devoted to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the study of teacher migration. It is worth noting that in Russia, the migration of teachers has not become a separate topic for research. Based on the analysis of modern approaches to migration and mobility, the strengths and weaknesses of the research strategies of “mobile turn” and “attachment to place” are revealed, the heuristic possibilities of quantitative and qualitative methodology in the study of teacher migration are revealed. The purpose of the article is to provide a rationale and a conceptual basis for research on the migration of teachers and graduates of pedagogical universities. The article identifies the causes, forms and consequences of teacher migration, as well as key trends characteristic of modern labor migration processes in the educational space of the Russian school, using a specially developed narrative interview technique. The article talks about the need to apply a narrative approach to the analysis of the communicative form of narration. The method of narrative interview was used in the mobile methodology as a “strategy of mixing methods” Go along and Recovery of memories, to study the social experience of the teacher and collect information about the place, time and situational circumstances of his migration. Today, a number of studies are presented in which there are changes in the interpretations of the study of migration, and which form the basis for new theoretical approaches to the study of migration processes.

Support and Satisfaction: Perspectives of Older Grandparent Caregivers About Faith-Based Communities

ABSTRACT Older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren are a hidden caregiving population. Religion serves as a protective factor for many older adult caregivers. The caregiving and religion literature often excludes exploration of caregivers’ satisfaction with social support provided by faith-based communities. Nineteen older grandparents raising adolescent grandchildren participated in in-depth qualitative interviews regarding the lived experiences of their social support and satisfaction woth faith-based communities. Research questions were: (1) describe, if any, what types of support you receive from church or religious groups? and (2) how satisfied are you with the support from church or religious groups? The diverse sample of grandparents were White (n = 10), Black/African American (n = 7), Native American (n = 1), and Filipino (n = 1). Respondents were primarily married (58%), white/nonHispanic (53%), grandmothers (84%), with some college education or college graduate (79%). Older grandparent caregivers identified key people, situational circumstances, and tangible goods that enhanced their wellbeing and posed opportunities for more support. Five themes characterizing social support and satisfaction with older grandparent caregivers’ perspectives of their faith-based communities were emotional support, activities and resources, stopped attending church, attended church but did not seek support, and mixed satisfaction with religious support. Implications are presented for social work education and social work practice.

Gender variation in the requestive behaviour of Early Modern Scottish and English letter-writers? A study of private correspondence

AbstractThis study applies the methods of variational pragmatics, a discipline situated at the intersection of pragmatics and variationist sociolinguistics, to historical data to explore the effect of the macro-social factors gender and region on request choices in Scottish and English private letters written between 1570 and 1700. It specifically examines gender variation regarding the choice of request strategies and of internal downgrading modification, e.g. the use of modal auxiliaries or hedges. Overall, the analysis only finds limited evidence for gender differences in the private correspondence data. The requestive behaviour of Scottish and English female and male letter-writers displays similar directness levels and both genders also employ mitigating modifiers to a similar degree. It is shown that the requestive style of women and men is determined by the situational circumstances of a letter rather than by gender. Moreover, when zooming in on the level of direct realisation strategies, the analysis provides evidence that the macro-social factor region has a greater impact on the choice of realisation strategies than gender.

The advantages of virtual dogs over virtual people: Using augmented reality to provide social support in stressful situations

Past research highlights the potential for leveraging both humans and animals as social support figures in one’s real life to enhance performance and reduce physiological and psychological stress. Some studies have shown that typically dogs are more effective than people. Various situational and interpersonal circumstances limit the opportunities for receiving support from actual animals in the real world introducing the need for alternative approaches. To that end, advances in augmented reality (AR) technology introduce new opportunities for realizing and investigating virtual dogs as social support figures. In this paper, we report on a within-subjects 3x1 (i.e., no support, virtual human, or virtual dog) experimental design study with 33 participants. We examined the effect on performance, attitude towards the task and the support figure, and stress and anxiety measured through both subjective questionnaires and heart rate data. Our mixed-methods analysis revealed that participants significantly preferred, and more positively evaluated, the virtual dog support figure than the other conditions. Emerged themes from a qualitative analysis of our participants’ post-study interview responses are aligned with these findings as some of our participants mentioned feeling more comfortable with the virtual dog compared to the virtual human although the virtual human was deemed more interactive. We did not find significant differences between our conditions in terms of change in average heart rate; however, average heart rate significantly increased during all conditions. Our research contributes to understanding how AR virtual support dogs can potentially be used to provide social support to people in stressful situations, especially when real support figures cannot be present. We discuss the implications of our findings and share insights for future research.

Project value as practice: Interactive valuation practices in architectural design projects

In project research, value has been conceptualized either as something subjective in peoples’ minds or as an objective reality. However, in practice, project actors encounter, express, and negotiate value both subjectively (e.g., as ideals and beliefs) and objectively (e.g., as the price) depending on the evolving circumstances of real-life situations. To capture the project value phenomenon from project actors’ perspective, we adopt a projects-as-practice approach on project value, which puts the emphasis on the activity, process or practice of valuation rather than on value as something in itself. This suggests that project value must be understood with a focus on valuation practices, through which various project actors express what they value, and through which they evaluate the alternative ways of proceeding with the project tasks in hand. Using practice-level interaction data from three projects in an architectural practice, we reveal three nexuses of interrelated valuation practices with distinct practical rationalities, through which various considerations of project actors manifest themselves and get resolved in different ways. We argue that these valuation practices combined create an ongoing process of reconciliation in the observed projects and enact project value on an ongoing basis. We discuss how the cross-cutting issues of relational constitution of valuation practices, temporality as well as power relationships configure the practical rationality of valuation practices, thus determining the enacted project value. Our study complements the existing research on project value by establishing project value as practice, and by highlighting relational constitution, temporality, and power as key issues for the study of the project value phenomenon.