28579 research outputs found
Sort by
Performance Analysis and Optimization of STAR-RIS-Aided Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems Relying on Imperfect Hardware
Get PDFSimultaneously transmitting and reflecting reconfigurable intelligent surface (STAR-RIS)-aided cell-free massive multiple-input multiple-output (CF-mMIMO) systems are investigated under spatially correlated fading channels using realistic imperfect hardware. Specifically, the transceiver distortions, time-varying phase noise, and RIS phase shift errors are considered. Upon considering imperfect hardware and pilot contamination, we derive a linear minimum mean-square error (MMSE) criterion-based cascaded channel estimator. Moreover, a closed-form expression of the downlink ergodic spectral efficiency (SE) is derived based on maximum ratio (MR) based transmit precoding and channel statistics, where both a finite number of access points (APs) and STAR-RIS elements as well as imperfect hardware are considered. Furthermore, by exploiting the ergodic signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs) among user equipment (UE), a max-min fairness problem is formulated for the joint optimization of the passive transmitting and reflecting beamforming (BF) at the STAR-RIS as well as of the power control coefficients. An alternating optimization (AO) algorithm is proposed for solving the resultant problems, where iterative adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) and bisection methods are proposed for circumventing the non-convexity of the RIS passive BF and the quasi-concave power control sub-problems, respectively. Our simulation results illustrate that the STAR-RIS-aided CF-mMIMO system attains higher SE than its RIS-aided counterpart. The performance of different hardware parameters is also evaluated. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the SE of the worst UE can be significantly improved by exploiting the proposed AO-based algorithm compared to conventional solutions associated with random passive BF and equal-power scenarios
The Dual Pathways to Masculinity Threats: The Roles of Social Role Incongruity and Social Connection in Masculine Identity Maintenance Among Gay and Straight Men
Get PDFHumans are hardwired to seek out social connections, as well as monitor for warning signs that their belonging may be at risk. Social identities provide a mechanism through which to monitor belonging, shaping how people understand and see themselves, as well as how they are perceived by others. This large qualitative study (n = 203) presents a dual‐pathway model of masculinity threats for self‐identified gay and straight men, integrating theoretical models of the psychological need to belong, role congruity theory and social identity theory. Using reflexive thematic analysis to code descriptions of masculinity‐threatening experiences, we identified two contexts in which threats were experienced: (1) through private and public experiences of role incongruity and (2) through public experiences with social rejection. Furthermore, the content of threats experienced spanned six themes: (a) perceived femininity; (b) deviation from heteronormativity; (c) competency; (d) physical prototypicality; (e) social prototypicality and (f) sociometer. Notably, the few men who felt they had never experienced a masculinity threat before were more likely to believe this was due to the positive regard and self‐esteem they derive from their connections with others. The findings complement and extend the existing research on masculinity threats in meaningful ways: First, they show that gender‐role incongruity can lead to masculinity threats for both straight and gay men. Second, they highlight that social inclusion also plays a significant role in both gay and straight men's experiences with masculinity. Furthermore, the findings have important implications for understanding when, and for whom, masculinity threats may lead to antisocial behaviours
Enhancing Tourist Attitudes and Behaviours in Islamic Religious Tourism through Virtual Reality: The Role of Emotional Attachment and VR Presence
Get PDFThis study explores the integration of immersive technologies, specifically virtual reality (VR), to
enhance tourist experiences in the rapidly expanding religious tourism sector. Despite VR's potential,
limited research has examined its impact on religious tourism. This study addresses this gap by
investigating the role of emotional attachment in influencing VR presence during pre-, on-site, and
post-experiences of VR-mediated religious tourism. A quantitative survey was conducted with 201
respondents who participated in VR religious tourism activities. The empirical analysis, conducted
using SPSS & AMOS Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), assessed how VR-mediated religious
tourism impacts VR presence and tourist attitudes before actual visits. The findings enhance the
understanding of VR's role in shaping Islamic religious tourists' attitudes and behaviours, revealing
the positive influence of VR across different stages of the visit. The study also highlights the
significant role of emotional attachment in enhancing pre-visit intentions, demonstrating its impact
on visit intention and emotional connection. This research underscores VR's potential to improve
value creation, influence attitude changes, and enhance user experiences in religious tourism. By
extending the existing literature, this study offers new insights into how VR can be effectively utilised
to boost tourist engagement and satisfaction in the religious tourism sector
Neurotechnology for augmenting group decision-making
Get PDFGroup decision-making is a fundamental process across various domains, including healthcare, business, defence and education where collective intelligence often outperforms individual judgments. However, traditional group decisions are susceptible to biases, social influence, and inefficiencies, which can undermine their effectiveness. Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) at a time, begins to be used in able-bodied people, for instance, decision-making. BCIs offer a novel approach to augmenting group decision-making by integrating neural and behavioral signals to enhance accuracy and efficiency. Collaborative BCIs (cBCIs), which aggregate brain activity from multiple users, can objectively estimate decision confidence, enabling more effective weighting of individual inputs and reducing reliance on self-reported confidence, which is prone to bias. The proposed cBCI is widely applied in different kinds of tasks, such as spacecraft navigation, target detection and localization, visual matching, visual search, speech perception, face recognition, target detection in realistic videos, aiding pandemic scenarios. Groups assisted by the cBCI or other techniques with cBCIs demonstrate significantly better decision-making performance compared to both individuals and traditional groups of the same size using the majority rule. The thesis also mentions using (single) BCI and other techniques could benefit decision-making. For example, exploring whether subject and task-independent neural correlates of the decision-making confidence, how unimodal or bimodal cues affect the decision confidence, whether transfer-learning techniques could be used to predict the decision confidence and forming such Human-machine Teaming to improve the group decision-making performance. The post-cut effects are also useful to study the connectivity in the brain for the future. Furthermore, it examines the effects of constrained communication on individual and group decision-making several tasks. It finds that communication decreases performance, but a cBCI improves group decisions even in this scenario. In addition, the cBCI’s confidence estimates are more reliable predictors of decision accuracy than self-reported confidence, which becomes unreliable when communication is introduced. At the end of thesis, some additional ideas are proposed, which leads to better develop the BCI in the future
A Flight Back to Ground: Jung’s Recalcitrant Fourth as Rape into Consciousness. Symbolic Rape and Literal Rape in Persephone’s Myth
Get PDFAbstractPatricia Berry’s interpretation of the Demeter/Persephone myth, and her concept of rape into consciousness, illuminate intrapsychic dynamics. However, this symbolic lens may inadvertently distance us from the devastating nature of literal rape—a reality the Homeric Hymn encapsulates. Jung’s concept of recalcitrant fourth offers a crucial counterpoint, demanding a shift from the symbolic to the empirical world. This violent flight back to ground forces a confrontation with life’s material and sensorial dimensions, where literal rape reaps trauma and death. Jung’s fourth, reconceptualized here as rape into consciousness, compels the retrieval of the neglected: elements absent from conscious awareness. Guided by this concept and the Persephone myth, the author examines rape’s concrete realities, urging witness to its traumatic devastation. The Persephone/Demeter myth, in Jung’s view, reflects a split between matriarchal and patriarchal worlds. The Homeric Hymn intensifies this fracture, bringing into full view the violence perpetrated by the patriarchy against the two female protagonists. Played within the divine realm, this archetypal gender conflict reverberates throughout history, appearing in different forms, from the personal sphere to the horrors of war and terror. The events of October 7th serve as a grim reminder of its enduring presence.</jats:p
Resolving the Problem of Land Ownership in Nigeria
Get PDFThis article argues that the application of customary law, which generally applies to members of indigenous tribes, alongside statutory law, which is modelled on English common law, creates tension between both legal systems in relation to the ownership of land in Nigeria. The article identifies legal pluralism as the main cause of this tension. It employs the use of the Volksgeist theory, a theory which considers a nation as a community of people linked together by historical, geographical and cultural ties, to explain the underpinnings of customary law and examines the legal framework on land ownership under customary law and under the Land Use Act 1978. It concludes that the existence of two legal systems on land ownership in Nigeria is unworkable and proffers ways of resolving the problem
Similarity-attraction theory perspective on service employees and service robots’ interactions
Get PDFBuilding on the similarity-attraction theory and congruity theory, this research explores how a service robot’s ethnic appearance (i.e., congruent vs. incongruent with mainstream ethnicity) and accent (i.e., non-standard vs. standard) influence employees’ expected enjoyable interactions and expected service robot helping behavior, leading positive word-of-mouth to work with robots. We tested hypotheses using a scenario-based 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design with Chinese restaurant employees (Study 1) and UK hotel employees (Study 2). Both studies reveal that the congruity of robots’ appearance with the mainstream population leads to employees’ expected enjoyable interaction and service robot helping behavior. Enjoyable interaction has positive effects on employees’ word-of-mouth. The moderating effect of service robot accents was supported by the Chinese sample, but not by the UK sample. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of human-robot interactions and highlights the importance of involving employees’ perceptions of appearance and functional features when designing service robots
Pixel Memories: Do Lifelog Summaries Fail to Enhance Memory but Offer Privacy-Aware Memory Assessments?
Get PDFWe explore the metaphorical "daily memory pill" concept – a brief pictorial lifelog recap aimed at reviving and preserving memories. Leveraging psychological strategies, we explore the potential of such summaries to boost autobiographical memory. We developed an automated lifelogging memory prosthesis and a research protocol (Automated Memory Validation “AMV”) for conducting privacy-aware, in-situ evaluations. We conducted a real-world lifelogging experiment for a month (n=11). We also designed a browser “Pixel Memories’’ for browsing one-week worth of lifelogs. The results suggest that daily timelapse summaries, while not yielding significant memory augmentation effects, also do not lead to memory degradation. Participants’ confidence in recalled content remains unaltered, but the study highlights the challenge of users’ overestimation of memory accuracy. Our core contributions, the AMV protocol and "Pixel Memories" browser, advance our understanding of memory augmentations and offer a privacy-preserving method for evaluating future ubicomp systems
Infant neural processing of mother's face is associated with falling reactivity in the first year of life.
Get PDFIt is well established that faces evoke a distinct neural response in the adult and infant brain. Past research has focused on how the infant face-sensitive ERP components (N290, P400, Nc) reflect different aspects of face processing, however there is still a lack of understanding of how these components reflect face familiarity and how they change over time. Further, there are only a few studies on whether these neural responses correlate with other aspects of development, such as infant temperament. In this longitudinal study (N∼60), we recorded infant visual ERPs in response to mother and stranger face stimuli at 4, 6 and 9 months of age. Our results showed that, compared to a stranger face, the mother face evoked a larger N290 at 4 months and a larger P400 at 6 months. At 9 months, no difference was found between mother and stranger faces. However, at 9 months we found that the P400 and Nc amplitudes evoked by the mother face were associated with infant falling reactivity. We conclude that the neural responses associated with the processing of faces, and specifically the face of the mother, are related to the development of infant individual characteristics
Food loss and waste management in the retail food supply chain: Methods and framework to achieve environmental sustainability.
Get PDFFood loss and waste (FLW) represents critical challenge to environmentally sustainable development, impacting food security, waste management, and climate change. One-third of the world's food is disposed of, with 13 % lost between harvest and the supply chain and 17 % wasted domestically and in food services. Food loss and waste (FLW) in retail supply chains is a critical issue demanding new frameworks due to its significant economic, social, and environmental impacts, including pollution, resource depletion, and climate change contributions. Effective operational and inventory management practices to reduce FLW can yield significant cost savings and increased economic and environmental performance of the retail supply chain. A new framework is needed to combine all aspects related to logistics, packaging, and management practices to comprehensively address the FLW issue in the retail chain. This study critically analyses empirical research from 2009 to 2025 to identify key research gaps and to propose strategies for FLW reduction. The research identifies three primary gaps: limited focus on FLW due to inefficient packaging strategies, insufficient information on logistical inefficiencies that cause FLW, and scarce literature on how management practices affect perishable food chain. By addressing these gaps, the study aims to enhance understanding of FLW reduction strategies, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches and cooperation across the supply chain. By examining the impact of packaging, logistics, and management practices, this research provides insights into improving operational performance through the reduction of FLW and development of sustainable waste management systems. The findings underscore importance of proactive actions and innovation from both public authorities and private sector in reducing FLW. Effective strategies for FLW reduction can lead to significant environmental, social, and economic benefits, contributing to a more sustainable and efficient food supply chain