Successive Symbols Research Articles

Society’s Behavior of Personal Transportation Utilization in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

This study aims to provide an overview of the most dominant variable affecting individuals in the use of private transportation (cars). The population in this study was the users of private car as many as (N = 200) respondents scattered around Makassar. The independent variables consisted of attitude (X1), subjective norms (X2) and perceived behavioral control (X3), while behavior (Y1) as the dependent variable. Moreover, the sampling technique used in this study was purposive random sampling and the data were analyzed by using descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression. The data analysis was processed by using SPSS 22. The results showed that the attitude variable (X1) is the most dominant variable and has an influence towards behavior variable compared to other independent variables. Private cars are still seen as a symbol of success and a reliability of an individual. It means that it is also considered to increase the prestige or social status of the people despite its transportation function which is safer and more convenient.

Constructing de Bruijn sequences with co-lexicographic order: The [formula omitted]-ary Grandmama sequence

A k-ary de Bruijn sequence of order n is a circular k-ary string of length kn which contains every k-ary string of length n exactly once as a substring. It is well-known that a k-ary de Bruijn sequence of order n can be constructed by concatenating the aperiodic prefixes of the k-ary necklaces of length n in lexicographic order. In this article we prove that an alternate de Bruijn sequence is created by replacing lexicographic order with co-lexicographic order. We also provide a simple successor rule for generating each successive symbol in O(n)-time.

Austerity to materialism and brand consciousness: luxury consumption in India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to understand the role of materialism and brand consciousness in determining the luxury consumption among the young Indian consumers.Design/methodology/approachIn order to measure materialism, brand consciousness, attitude toward luxury brands and purchase intention, pre-established scale items were used to design the self-administered questionnaire. A valid sample of 342 respondents was collected through mall intercepts, in-store intercepts, luxury brands exhibitions and festivals and international airports. The relationship was tested using regression analysis.FindingsThe findings support that the materialism and brand consciousness are positively related to the luxury consumption in India and play an important role in predicting the behavior of the young luxury buyers. The Indian youth is buying expensive luxury brands as symbols of status success and wealth in order to fulfill their materialistic goals. The desire to own and possess the well-known and expensive brand names demonstrates the importance the consumers attach to the social and symbolic value of the luxury brands.Practical implicationsThe study reveals that the young Indian luxury buyers choose to buy brands that are most advertised. Creative advertisements enhancing luxury brands’ symbolic and social value can be effective. The study has implications for the international luxury brands, as they are expensive, well known and famous among the global consumers.Originality/valueThe key contribution of the study is the establishment of materialism and brand consciousness as important antecedents in the development of attitude toward luxury brands among the young Indian consumers.

The Journey Towards Excellence: Effects of Professional Learning and Leadership on Singapore's Education System

For many nations, Singapore is a symbol of success. Although it has no major natural resources or political advantages to rely on, the country has undergone rapid development over the last 50 years. In Singapore's journey from a newly-independent impoverished country in the mid-1960s to today's successful economic powerhouse, education has played a paramount role. Singaporeans are well educated, with half of students receiving a university education. Starting in the 1990s, the government, recognizing that its population needed to be better prepared to meet the demands of its rapidly expanding economy, instituted a series of educational reforms. These changes were intended to enhance creativity and critical thinking in students and to increase collaboration and leadership among teachers. Key to these reforms was an emphasis on teachers' ongoing and professional learning. This case study investigates the teachers' professional learning and leadership actions in Singapore to determine the impact of both on this country's educational reforms.

CP-Less OFDM With Alignment Signals for Enhancing Spectral Efficiency, Reducing Latency, and Improving PHY Security of 5G Services

Although orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is a widely accepted waveform in many standards and is expected to keep its dominance in future 5G systems with various types of parameterized waveforms, its performance in terms of spectral efficiency as well as transmission latency is usually degraded due to the excessive usage of cyclic prefix (CP). Particularly, in highly dispersive channels, CP rate might be very large in order to maintain the low-complex frequency-domain equalization. In this paper, we propose a novel method that can fit the low latency and high spectral efficiency requirements of future 5G wireless services by eliminating the need for inserting CP between successive OFDM symbols while keeping the whole detection process the same at the receiver side. In order to achieve that, we utilize specially designed alignment signals that can cancel the interference of one symbol on the other and add an additional signal component that makes the signal circularly convolved with the channel at the receiver side. Simulation results prove the superiority of the proposed scheme in terms of enhancing spectral and power efficiency, reducing latency, and improving physical-layer security against eavesdropping while using a low-complexity one-tap frequency-domain equalizer. These numerous, simultaneous, and desirable advantages have the potential to make the proposed technique a suitable fit for future 5G wireless services and applications including Internet of Things-based massive machine-type communication, ultra-reliable and low-latency communication, and enhanced mobile broadband.

Compressed Sensing Based Recursive Estimation of Doubly-Selective Channels for High-Mobility OFDM Systems

For an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) system in high-mobility applications, channel suffers from both frequency-selective and time-selective fading introduced by Doppler shift. Large pilot overhead is needed to estimate the numerous parameters of doubly-selective channel, resulting in low-spectral efficiency. In this paper, considering the correlation of practical wireless channels in high-dimensional signal spaces, a recursive channel estimation scheme based on compressed sensing (CS) is proposed for high-mobility OFDM systems to reduce the pilot overhead. Specifically, by exploiting the sparsity of OFDM channel in basis expansion model (BEM), the sparse BEM coefficients is estimated instead of numerous channel taps. Then we theoretically verify that the BEM coefficients corresponding successive OFDM symbols also share a common support. To utilize this temporal correlation of BEM coefficients, a recursive channel estimation algorithm derived from the classical modified CS algorithm is proposed to improve the present estimation by prior channel information from previous estimation. Theoretical and simulation results demonstrate that the proposed recursive channel estimation scheme preforms better than conventional schemes in various scenarios, even with less pilot overhead.

Gucci: Facing Growing Challenges in China

High economic growth, increasing disposable incomes and an emerging middle class that was optimistic about the future had created a booming market for luxury goods in China. Growing wealth was accompanied by greater willingness to spend and travel. Many Chinese now had the opportunity to travel for business and leisure and this had increased their exposure to luxury brands and lifestyles overseas. The culture of gift giving for business as well as social reasons was also fuelling this demand. Luxury goods were also a symbol of success in this emerging market. Gucci had seen tremendous growth in China but of late, this growth had stagnated due to the slowing economy and the government’s crackdown on corruption. The preferences of Chinese consumers were also changing. The case illustrates some problems luxury brands faced in China as the market matured and how environmental changes affect the marketing strategy of luxury brands. The case provides students the opportunity to suggest ways on how Gucci should move forward.

On the Statistics of the Error Propagation Effect of Binary Differential Phase-Shift Keying

We study a traditional problem related to binary differentially coherent phase-shift keying (DPSK) modulation, where an error in a symbol tends to cause an error in the next symbol; this phenomenon is referred to as error propagation. We derive the double bit-error rate (DBER) of two successive DPSK symbols over additive white Gaussian noise and Rician fading. Our findings show that the DBER decreases as the signal-to-noise ratio increases. A tight closed-form upper bound for the average DBER over a slowly varying Rician channel is also presented to simplify the numerical evaluation.

Social capital and social entrepreneurship and innovation culture

Entrepreneurship is the mark and symbol of effort and success in business and entrepreneurs are the pioneers of successful businesses in the society. Their ability to take the opportunities, their strength in innovation and their capacity in succeeding are the standards which modern entrepreneurship is measured by. Entrepreneurs in leading, management, innovation, competency, job production, competition, efficiency and establishing new companies have an important role in economic growth. According to a kind of belief, entrepreneurship as a revolution is necessary for the societies. The importance of this revolution in current century is increasingly more than industrial revolution.

Compressive channel estimation for universal filtered multi‐carrier system in high‐speed scenarios

Due to the high mobility of communication, channel times can vary rapidly and system performance can be decreased. In this study, pseudo-random noise is used as the guard interval and the training sequence in the time domain in order to estimate the channel-based compressive sensing scheme. This scheme reduces the number of pilots in the frequency domain and improves spectrum efficiency. By adequately exploiting the sparse characteristics and temporal correlation of the wireless channel, a low complexity compressive channel estimation scheme is proposed. Firstly, the authors average the successive symbols of the channel impulse response in the coherence time to improve the accuracy of the coarse channel estimation. Secondly, a low complexity partial priori information CoSaMP (PPI-CoSaMP) algorithm is proposed to accurately estimate the channel state information. Finally, based on the precise time delay, the accurate gains are estimated based on the least-squares algorithm. The simulation results show that compared with the conventional algorithms, the number of observation points required by the PPI-CoSaMP algorithm is reduced by at least 25%. Moreover, the proposed scheme is more robust at larger multipath channel delays. The complexity of the proposed scheme is reduced by 51.21% compared with the conventional CoSaMP algorithm.

Research Enterprise Performance Evaluation Based on BP-LM Neural Network

Objective]For the better development of the enterprise, enterprise performance evaluation is the symbol of the overall enterprise success.[Methods]In this study, we use Levenberg Marquardt (LM) algorithm to improve the BP neural network to evaluate the performance of enterprises.[Result]Through the simulation test of the relevant data of a car company in 2010-2016, it is proved that the improved BP neural network can improve the performance of the enterprise more quickly and accurately.[Conclusion]LM - BP neural network of enterprise performance evaluation can make enterprises better understand themselves

Quality, safety and environment management systems (QSE): analysis of empirical studies on integrated management systems (IMS)

Since the early 2000s, the adoption of management systems dedicated to quality, environment and safety in company, has become an important activity for many organisations. They are considered a symbol of success and a prerequisite for the survival and savings (time, cost, resources). In fact, to survive and prosper in a competitive environment, companies need to address all aspects of their processes, including the reduction of costs, the welfare of their employees and the protection of environment work. However, the reality of each type of integrated system is different from one organization to another, and numerous internal and external factors, will condition its morphology. The aims of this paper is to discuss some empirical studies that have documented the experiences of organizations in certain countries such as Spain, Italy, China, India, Australia, which conducted us to investigate the situation of Moroccan companies operating in different sectors and activities, to assess performance levels, to identify priority areas for improvement and to determine the strengths and weaknesses, the possibility of success and failure firms interrogated on quality, safety and environment management systems and also discuss the perceptions of companies about the benefits and difficulties most experienced during integration of their management systems.

My impossible dream

Lined up with my new classmates at the barre we stand in silence in first position, waiting for the music to begin. I catch a quick glance of myself in the mirror. “Look at you!” I think to myself harshly, “you still don’t belong here even after all those years trying to fit into the ballet world.” To my right stands 13-year-old Katie, shorter than me and thin as a stick. To my left is 12-year-old Stephanie with a normal body for her age and still not developed. As I look around the room it is the same: 14, 15 and 16-year-olds, all thin, all perfect ballet bodies and then me. Twenty-eight years old, slightly overweight and still trying to fit in where I don’t belong. The music starts and I temporarily forget the mirror, concentrating on the exercise. I bend into a plie but I can’t forget my body totally. I feel my knees ache as they strain under the weight of my body and the tips of my fingers tingle as I stretch out my arm. It is a good kind of ache as I put my body through the barre exercises, the kind that makes me feel good about exercising. “Come on girls, you are dancers so please look like dancers,” the teacher instructs as we move into second position as a synchronised group. ‘Look like dancers.’ The phrase repeats in my head as I again gaze into the mirror and see myself as anything but. I have always thought of myself as different. Different in the sense that while growing up I never, in my mind, seemed to fit into what society deemed ‘normal’. For me this society was Southern California, home to movie stars and the latest fashion trends; the so-called ‘beautiful people’. In the 1980s and 1990s, this society demanded a certain look that was anything but normal, and growing up in this shadow of influence, if you did not fit in – you knew it. It is still much the same today. Anywhere you go, advertisements and media coverage about beauty, diet and how to live bombard you. People who stand out are often targeted and made fun of for being and looking different from the ideal. During my early years and even before I was born, my grandmother had small parts in movies, acted in the regional theatre and did some modelling. My aunt too was a fashion model and did some commercial work in television. They both were heavily influenced by the Hollywood image of thin, beautiful bodies. I remember how both my grandmother and my aunt looked during their moment in the spotlight – thin. My aunt was always so thin you could see her bones. This fascinated me for some strange reason. Yet the terms anorexia or bulimia were never discussed. She was never thought of as too thin, from what I heard. Beauty and thinness were held over my head like a prize, a symbol of success in a hard town like Los Angeles. The message I got was, ‘achieve success in the movies, television or media and your troubles will be taken care of’. The only problem was that in order to do that you had to fit their image. As a child, I thought everyone in my family looked ‘normal sized’ except me. From the moment I could understand words, I was judged as being too pudgy or chubby. My family would comment that I had the body structure of my father who

Application of Kalman filter in frequency offset estimation for coherent optical quadrature phase-shift keying communication system

The frequency offset estimation (FOE) schemes based on Kalman filter are proposed and investigated in detail via numerical simulation and experiment. The schemes consist of a modulation phase removing stage and Kalman filter estimation stage. In the second stage, the Kalman filters are employed for tracking either differential angles or differential data between two successive symbols. Several implementations of the proposed FOE scheme are compared by employing different modulation removing methods and two Kalman algorithms. The optimal FOE implementation is suggested for different operating conditions including optical signal-to-noise ratio and the number of the available data symbols.

Performance Analysis of Coded SSK Modulation on Block-Fading Channels

In this paper, we analyze the performance of convolutionally coded space-shift keying (SSK) modulation on block-fading channels. We derive the transfer function bound for the conditional error performance of coded SSK modulation. Existing works on SSK error performance focus mostly either on uncoded systems or on coded systems with independent fading between successive symbols. Code performance analysis is complicated by the fact that SSK modulation does not yield a uniform symbol, i.e., the error probability of a bit in a symbol is not independent of the position of the bit in the label. Furthermore, there are no nearest neighbors in the SSK constellation. The code and modulation must be jointly analyzed. We show techniques that can be employed to derive the error transfer function of the convolutional code. The degrees of separation in SSK modulation are accurately represented. The diversity order achieved by the system can be predicted. We also show a technique that can simplify analysis of the coded system. We present simulation results that demonstrate the asymptotic accuracy of the derived transfer function bound.

Investigation of The Impacts of Social Capital on Organizational Entrepreneurship in Tehran Municipality

Entrepreneurship is the symbol of endeavor and success in business, and entrepreneurs play a crucial role in economic and social development of communities. Since Organizational Entrepreneurship (OE) contribute to earning stable finance required for administration of urban affairs, it is very important in the case of municipalities. For this reason, this study aims to investigate the role of social capital (SC) in the development of entrepreneurship in Tehran municipality. Research method was descriptive and non-experimental, and required data were collected through 204 questionnaires distributed among managers and experts of the organization. Stratified sampling was used, in which 37 managers and 167 experts participated. Number of male participants was 147, and number of female participants was 57. The mean age of participants was 41 years, and its standard deviation was 0.765. In order to test the research hypothesis, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used. The results of the study showed that social capital and its three dimensions (Cognitive, Relational and Structural dimensions) had positive significant effect on organizational entrepreneurship.

The Research of Literary Criticism (Materialism in The Great Gatsby Novel by Fitzgerald)

The material as the life’s necessities of human changes into prestige of the human himself. Material is no longer interpreted as the life’s necessities but it changes into money. It becomes the symbol of success and happiness. This shift process certainly brings a lot of change to the human nature. Material which at the beginning is considered as the life necessities turns into human obsession to reach the happiness. In the literary criticism, materialism is one of approach to analyze the values in the literary works. Its used by Fitzgerald to view the complexity of the story in the ‘Great Gatsby’ Novel, but unfortunately the fact, its ironic because material satisfaction is only empty happiness as reflected in this paper.

From Compound Houses to Villas: The Incremental Transformation of Dakar’s Urban Landscape

This paper examines the transformation of the housing typology in informal neighbourhoods located on the periphery of Dakar, Senegal. More specifically, it documents the spatial logics and factors guiding the construction of new multi-storey houses called “villas”, which are significantly transforming the landscape of the city. Studies have thus far examined villas through the lenses of migrants’ investments and lifestyles, associating these houses with new functions and decorative elements and materials inspired by time spent abroad, with innovative ways of building and dwelling that disrupt more popular housing practices. Based upon an architectural survey of seventeen houses and the detailed stories of their construction, this paper argues that while the Senegalese villa is influenced by global networks and symbols of success, it is also deeply rooted in popular housing forms and building practices. Moreover, because house-building processes are predominantly incremental, the construction of this new house type is not limited to migrants and other privileged dwellers. Although at different speeds, most residents are building and transforming their houses according to spatial and constructive logics characteristic of villas. These results have implications for housing policies and programmes because they contribute to challenging assumptions about residential production, new housing typologies and the pivotal actors of these urban transformations.

Contribution of vanity to consumer apparel advertising perception

Purpose – A recent marketing trend is sending short message service (SMS) apparel advertisements to capture young adult consumers’ attention. These targeted consumers are reluctant to view SMS advertisements due to perceived irrelevant advertising content. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumer vanity trait and perceived SMS apparel advertising values for 291 college-aged Generation Y consumers (aged between 18 and 24) from the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The study opted for a quantitative, correlational design to investigate the relationships among vanity traits and perceived SMS apparel advertising values. An internet-based survey collected vanity trait attributes, perceived SMS apparel advertising values, and demographics from the participant. Correlation and multiple regression analyses tested the degree of association and measured the strength of predictive relationships among the said variables. Findings – Empirical findings of this study reveal a positive, predictive relationship between vanity traits and perceived SMS apparel advertising values. Symbols of success is the most dominant vanity trait for males and ethnic minorities. Research limitations/implications – Excluded from the present study was investigating the relationship between personality and consumer vanity trait. Personality evolves with the individual’s worldview and lived experience. It would be interesting to explore achievement-vanity through the consumers’ life story. Practical implications – Consumer adoption and abandonment of the latest fashion trends can occur quickly. The timing of an SMS apparel advertising campaign and advertising content relevancy are critical to initiate the targeted consumers’ interest. Originality/value – This paper sheds some lights on the contribution of psychological predispositions to apparel consumption-related situations for consumers.

God blesses those who wear Prada

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is: to explore the impact of religiousness (i.e. intrinsic religiousness, extrinsic religiousness) on purchase intention of luxury brands, affective attitude, and self-presentation; and, to explore the mediating effect of affective and self-presentation attitudes towards luxury brand purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach – Data were derived using convenience sampling at three large universities (i.e. one public and two private universities) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Researchers hand-delivered approximately 600 questionnaires to students in classrooms and public spaces (e.g. canteens and lounge rooms) of the universities. However, of the 525 questionnaires returned, only 491 were usable thereby offering an overall response rate of 81 per cent. Findings – The study found that intrinsic religiousness was related positively to affective attitudes towards luxury brands while extrinsic religiousness was positively related to self-presentation attitudes. Affective attitude and self-presentation were positively related to consumer intention to purchase luxury brands. Practical implications – The result of the present study shows that religious consumers are not necessarily anti materialism and often opt for luxury brands over purely utilitarian possession. This finding has important implications. First, it may create future ethical problems as materialism has been found to correlate with unethical behaviours such as the purchase of counterfeits. Second, materialism has been linked to insecurity. When religious consumers view worldly possessions as symbols of achievement or success, sources of happiness, and representations of luxury, they may use possessions rather than religious text to hinder insecurity and shape the self. Originality/value – This is one of the few studies exploring the impact of religiousness on luxury brands possession in Indonesia, a country with the largest Muslim population in the world and home to a highly religious society.