Measuring Presence in Virtual Environments: A Survey

The effectiveness of a virtual reality experience is strongly affected by the sense of presence of the users involved. This article reviews the different definitions of presence and the main proposed methods to measure it through the analysis of 1,214 papers published in the past 30 years. From the analysis of 239 user studies, we found that 85.8% used subjective measures, 11.7% used a combination of subjective and objective measures, while 2.5% used only objective measures. We also identified, from the studies reviewed, 29 main factors to evoke presence in virtual environments, grouped into four categories: Engagement, Personal Characteristics, Interaction Fidelity, and Display Fidelity.

Women’s health behaviour change after receiving breast cancer risk estimates with tailored screening and prevention recommendations

Background The Predicting Risk of Cancer at Screening (PROCAS) study provided women who were eligible for breast cancer screening in Greater Manchester (United Kingdom) with their 10-year risk of breast cancer, i.e., low (≤1.5%), average (1.5–4.99%), moderate (5.-7.99%) or high (≥8%). The aim of this study is to explore which factors were associated with women’s uptake of screening and prevention recommendations. Additionally, we evaluated women’s organisational preferences regarding tailored screening. Methods A total of 325 women with a self-reported low (n = 60), average (n = 125), moderate (n = 80), or high (n = 60) risk completed a two-part web-based survey. The first part contained questions about personal characteristics. For the second part women were asked about uptake of early detection and preventive behaviours after breast cancer risk communication. Additional questions were posed to explore preferences regarding the organisation of risk-stratified screening and prevention. We performed exploratory univariable and multivariable regression analyses to assess which factors were associated with uptake of primary and secondary breast cancer preventive behaviours, stratified by breast cancer risk. Organisational preferences are presented using descriptive statistics. Results Self-reported breast cancer risk predicted uptake of (a) supplemental screening and breast self-examination, (b) risk-reducing medication and (c) preventive lifestyle behaviours. Further predictors were (a) having a first degree relative with breast cancer, (b) higher age, and (c) higher body mass index (BMI). Women’s organisational preferences for tailored screening emphasised a desire for more intensive screening for women at increased risk by further shortening the screening interval and moving the starting age forward. Conclusions Breast cancer risk communication predicts the uptake of key tailored primary and secondary preventive behaviours. Effective communication of breast cancer risk information is essential to optimise the population-wide impact of tailored screening.

Personal traits of the prophet muhammed their relationship to moral values

The aim of the research is to identify the personal characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. The research sample consisted of 360 individuals from different spectrums in society. The descriptive and analytical method was used, and a questionnaire was prepared for the personal characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and a questionnaire of the moral and human values in the contemporary world. : The personal characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad were as follows: The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be prayers and peace, was characterized by sincerity, honesty and generosity among his companions. He was characterized by humility, justice, forgiveness and pardon. He was characterized by sincerity in secret, openness and mercy for children. He was never afraid of anyone as long as he was right and his courage increased after the prophetic mission, from the human and moral values that have been agreed upon in the contemporary world: love and defense of the homeland, preservation of sacred places, love for school and appreciation of teachers, rationalization of the use of water and electricity, appreciation of scientific progress Generous hospitality, advising others, visiting patients, appreciating professions and respecting their owners, being kind to others, maintaining order, maintaining the law and respecting rights Child, animal welfare, justice, loyalty, patience, honesty, humility and respect for the rights of others, sympathy for the poor, selflessness, sincerity in work, tolerance for others, seeking lawful earnings, suppressing anger, kindness to animals, generosity, avoiding bad behaviors, Hide anger and do good deeds, love beauty, arts and inventions, appreciate scientific progress, provide advice to others, and the research also found that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the personal characteristics of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him and between the human and moral values in the contemporary world.

Auditing Risk Prediction of Long-Term Unemployment

As more and more governments adopt algorithms to support bureaucratic decision-making processes, it becomes urgent to address issues of responsible use and accountability. We examine a contested public service algorithm used in Danish job placement for assessing an individual's risk of long-term unemployment. The study takes inspiration from cooperative audits and was carried out in dialogue with the Danish unemployment services agency. Our audit investigated the practical implementation of algorithms. We find (1) a divergence between the formal documentation and the model tuning code, (2) that the algorithmic model relies on subjectivity, namely the variable which focus on the individual's self-assessment of how long it will take before they get a job, (3) that the algorithm uses the variable "origin" to determine its predictions, and (4) that the documentation neglects to consider the implications of using variables indicating personal characteristics when predicting employment outcomes. We discuss the benefits and limitations of cooperative audits in a public sector context. We specifically focus on the importance of collaboration across different public actors when investigating the use of algorithms in the algorithmic society.

Varying Degrees of Animal Reification by Stakeholders in Experimental Research

The attitude towards animals in research depends on both the role of the stakeholder and their personal characteristics. Most studies on the subject have been carried out on stakeholders from biomedical research institutes with comparatively few sociological studies on stakeholders from agricultural research centers. Previous findings suggest that animal caretakers at agricultural research centers felt undervalued by the hierarchy, and that animal reification was present in the sector. This may indicate that a lack of consideration for the animal subjects correlates with an inadequate sensitivity towards humans. Since these findings were published twenty years ago, there has been an increasing emphasis on the importance and actions of ethics committees in research, animal welfare bodies, and public concern for animals, which may have impacted the current perspective. To better understand current degrees of animal reification amongst stakeholders of agricultural research, we conducted semi-directive interviews at a leading agricultural research institute in France (INRAE). The interviews targeted both animal caretakers and researchers who were involved in the study of infectious diseases in livestock, or the behavior of horses and quails. After having transcribed the recorded interviews into text, semi-automatized analyses were carried out to categorize them into distinct groups, from which the most characteristic words and sentences were extracted. Three groups of stakeholders were identified: (i) animal caretakers involved in invasive infectious disease research; (ii) animal caretakers involved in behavioral research; and (iii) researchers. The findings show that animal caretakers felt acknowledged by their hierarchy. It is possible the increased skill criteria for people recruited into this position over the years, combined with greater prospects for continuous learning and development in the profession, may have fostered a more respectful regard across the hierarchy. The animal caretakers clearly expressed that their primary objective was to successfully execute the research protocols and that the animals were viewed as prototypes for research, with which they could, on occasion, develop a bond with. The bond was more important for animal caretakers involved in behavioral studies than for those involved in the study of infectious diseases, where invasive biological sampling and restraining of the animals is required. Researchers prioritized the procurement of robust data to test hypotheses, analyze phenomena, and publish their results. Their concern for the animals rather reflected the views of the general public opposed to thought-out personal opinions on the matter; this is possibly due to their comparatively limited interaction with the animals. They considered the animals in abstract terms that were indicative of reification. This study concludes that animal reification is still present, albeit to varying degrees amongst the stakeholders.

Does moral commitment predict resistance to corruption? experimental evidence from a bribery game

Corruption is ubiquitous in practice and has severe negative consequences for organizations and societies at large. Drawing on a laboratory experiment, we propose that individuals high in moral commitment are less likely to engage in corrupt behaviors and prefer foregoing financial benefits. Specifically, we posit that individuals refrain from corruption (i) the more they endorse integrity (incorruptibility) as a protected value and (ii) the higher their level of Honesty-Humility. The results of a two-step experiment largely support our expectations: people who treat compromises to integrity as unacceptable were less willing to accept bribes, and Honesty-Humility decreased bribe-giving. The findings are robust to demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, cultural background) and additional personal characteristics (e.g., risk tolerance, dispositional greed) and have important implications for ongoing theory-building efforts and business practice.

Effects of country of origin and importers’ innovativeness in new product trials

Purpose The purpose of this study is to seek to investigate whether and how country of origin (COO) cues – category-country image (CCI) and typicality – and importers’ domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) influence importers’ propensity to the trial new value and premium products. Moreover, it aims to understand whether and how the relationship between the COO effect and industrial purchase intentions is moderated by importers’ propensity to innovate (DSI). Design/methodology/approach International importers completed a quantitative online survey. Factor analysis was used to summarize the latent constructs into orthogonal scores. General linear modeling was applied to the scores to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicate that importers’ propensity to trial value products is directly influenced by CCI and importers’ DSI. For premium products, typicality has a positive effect on their propensity to trial. Also, CCI and DSI have positive effects on the trial of value products, and the effect is more pronounced than for premium products. Importers’ DSI positively moderates CCI in premium product trials, while it negatively moderates typicality in value products. Practical implications This research provides important managerial implications for practitioners seeking to increase foreign sales, strengthening importers’ product perceived value through COO cues. Exporters should distinguish between value and premium products and, in the selection of international channel partners, they must be attentive to importers’ personal characteristics, such as their propensity to innovate. Exporters selling value products should communicate CCI more clearly and, when targeting innovative importers, opt for atypical products instead of traditional ones. For premium products, which require more complex decisions, exporters should especially underscore product typicality and, with innovative importers, emphasize positive CCI. Originality/value By focusing on the two critical issues of product selection and price levels, this study’s original contribution is to emphasize that, for the same product category, in industrial purchasing decisions of value versus premium products, the COO effect can be different. It also highlights the importance of investigating the COO effect by concentrating on industrial buyers’ personal characteristics, here the DSI of importers, as moderating variables.

Research on the Use of Neural Network for the Prediction of College Students’ Mental Health

A healthy mental status of students plays an important role in getting quality of education. Hence, research on the prediction of college students’ mental health status is of great importance and considered as a hot area of research. In this specific research study, back propagation (BP) algorithm is adopted to learn verities of characteristics of different students from the historical data of the students including: psychological characteristics, basic personal characteristics, and socio-economic characteristics. In the initial stage of the modeling, data preprocessing steps are used to prepare the data to be used by the BP algorithm for building model. The rationales behind the use of BP algorithm are its capability of handling heterogeneity of data and exploring correlations among different characteristics. The proposed model enhances the capability of BP algorithm for risk prediction of psychological problem of the students and achieves higher precision of psychological problem prediction. The results obtained show that the error between the predicted and measured values is 0.88%.

The Influence of New Agricultural Business Entities on Farmers’ Employment Decision

The purpose of this article is to explore the influence of new agricultural business entities on farmers’ employment decision and provide reference for improving policies related to new agricultural business entities and farmers’ employment. This paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework of “new agricultural business entities—land transfer and purchase of agricultural socialized services—farmers’ employment decision”, and then empirically tests the impact of new agricultural business entities on farmers’ employment decision by combining the analysis methods of the benchmark regression, propensity score matching and mediation effects. The research shows that: (1) New agricultural business entities are beneficial for promoting farmers’ employment decision. (2) Renting out land and the purchase of agricultural socialized services have a positive and partially mediating effect between the new agricultural business entities and farmers’ employment decision, and the mediating effects of the two paths account for 7.12% and 6.25% of the total effects, respectively. (3) In addition to key variables, personal characteristics of decision-making, family characteristics and production and management characteristics are also key factors that affect farmers’ employment decision. (4) The new agricultural business entities increase the probability of farmers’ employment (with legal contract) and entrepreneurship, and reduce the idle labor force in rural areas. Finally, this study proposes some policy recommendations including establishing a perfect farmland transfer market, developing rural industry properly and improving agricultural socialized service systems.

Socio-technical Factors Impacting Patients’ Adoption of Mobile Health Tools: Systematic Literature Review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Mobile Health (mHealth) tools have emerged as a promising healthcare technology that may contribute to cost savings, better access to care, and enhanced clinical outcomes; however, it is important to ensure their acceptance and adoption in order to harness this potential. Patient adoption has been recognized as key challenges that require further exploration. OBJECTIVE The aim of this review was to systematically investigate the literature to understand the factors impacting patients’ adoption of mHealth tools, by considering socio-technical factors (from technical, social and health perspectives). METHODS A structured search was completed following the participants, intervention, comparators, and outcomes (PICO framework. MEDLINE PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and SAGE database were searched for the studies published between January 2011 and July 2021 in the English language, yielding 5873 results, of which 147 studies met the inclusion criteria. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines (PRISMA) and the Cochrane handbook were followed to ensure a systematic process. RESULTS The technical factors impacting patients’ adoption of mHealth tools were categorized into 6 key themes: usefulness, ease of use, data related, monetary factors, technical issues, and user experience; which were divided into 20 sub-themes. Health related factors were categorized into 6 key themes: the disease or health condition, the care team’s role, health consciousness and literacy, health behavior, relation to other therapies, integration into patient journey, and the patients’ insurance status. Social and personal factors were split into 3 key clusters: moderating factors, personal characteristics, and social and cultural aspects; these were divided into 19 subthemes, highlighting the importance of considering these factors when addressing potential barriers to mHealth adoption and how to overcome them. CONCLUSIONS This review builds on the growing body of research that investigates patients’ adoption of mHealth services, and highlights the complexity of the factors impacting adoption, including personal, social, technical, organizational and healthcare aspects. We recommend a more patient-centered approach, by ensuring the tools’ fit into the overall patient journey and treatment plan, emphasizing inclusive design, warranting comprehensive patient education and support, empowering and mobilizing clinicians and care teams, addressing ethical data management issues, and focusing on healthcare policies that may facilitate adoption. CLINICALTRIAL NA