Identification of Usability Issues of Interactive Technologies in Cultural Heritage through Heuristic Evaluations and Usability Surveys

Usability is a principal aspect of the system development process to improve and augment system facilities and meet users’ needs and necessities in all domains. It is no exception for cultural heritage. Usability problems of the interactive technology practice in cultural heritage museums should be recognized thoroughly from the viewpoints of experts and users. This paper reports on a two-phase empirical study to identify the usability problems in audio guides and websites of cultural heritage museums in Vietnam, as a developing country, and Australia, as a developed country. In phase one, five-user experience experts identified usability problems using the set of usability heuristics, and proposed suggestions to mitigate these issues. Ten usability heuristics identified a total of 176 problems for audio guides and websites. In phase two, we conducted field usability surveys to collect the real users’ opinions to detect the usability issues and examine the negative-ranked usability. The outstanding issues for audio guides and websites were pointed out. Identification of relevant usability issues and users’ and experts’ suggestions for these technologies should be given immediate attention to helping organizations and interactive service providers improve technologies’ adoptions. The paper’s findings are reliable inputs for our future study about the preeminent UX framework for interactive technology in the CH domain.

IMPLEMENTATION OF NORMATIVE ECONOMY ON BUSINESS ACTIVITY IN THE PERIOD OF RASULULLAH SAW

Nowadays not all entrepreneurs implement the concept of normative economy in conducting their business activity, particularly Muslim entrepreneurs which it relates to Islamic Economic Principle. The purpose of this article is to analyze the implementation of normative economy on business activity in the period of Rasulullah SAW. This article uses qualitative methods with the analysis of literacy study approach. The result of this paper shows that Prophet Muhammad SAW has carried out business activities based on normative economic concepts that emphasize ethics in conducting business. As the Prophet said; I have been sent to perfect the moral standard, narrated by Abu Hurairah. The conclusion of this article is that ethics is a principal aspect in business since according to Islam those economic activities cannot be separated from ethics. Thus, it is essential for Muslim entrepreneur to implement ethics on their business activity.

Nutrition Monitoring and Calorie Estimation using Internet of Things (IoT)

Diet observation is one of the principal aspect in precautionary health care that aims to cut back varied health risks. The various recent advancements in smartphone and wearable sensing element technologies have paved way to a proliferation of food observation applications that are based on automated image processing and intake detection, with an aim to beat drawbacks of the standard manual food journaling that's time overwhelming, inaccurate, underreporting, and low adherent. The currently developed food logging methods are very much time consuming and inconvenient that limits their effectiveness. The proposed work presents an Internet of Things (IoT) based mobile-controlled calorie estimation system to make technical advancements in healthcare industry. The proposed system operates on mobile environment, which allow the user to acquire the food image and quantify the calorie intake mechanically. The Mqtt protocol based MyMqtt broker is used to connect the application and the edge device and also to store the data in the Thingspeak cloud. A deep convolutional network is employed to classify the food accurately within the system. The volume estimation is done using sensors and the calorie approximation is done using formula

Bank Capital and Profitability: An Empirical Study of South African Commercial Banks

Bank capital is a principal aspect of regulation and will determine how long a bank remains in business from a regulatory point of view. Prior research on the relationship between capital and profitability has largely focused on developed economies, especially the USA, and Europe and the results have been inconclusive. There is no evidence of such research done to date that focuses on an emerging economy such as South Africa. Using South Africa as a unit of analysis and using the Generalised Methods of Moments (GMM), and Panel Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) or Pooled IV method as the estimation techniques, this study tested the hypothesis that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between bank capital and profitability. The results provided evidence of a positive relationship between capital ratio (CAR), return on equity (ROE) and return on assets (ROA). From a bank specific strategic decision‑making perspective, this would assist financial institutions and investors in tailoring investment decisions in response to policy decisions that relate to bank capital. From the public policy perspective, this would assist both governments and regulators in formulating better‑ informed policy decisions regarding the importance of bank capital.

Taxonomic Approach for Species Diversity of Yeasts and Yeasts-like Fungi through D1/D2 Region of Large Subunit Ribosomal DNA Sequences

The identification of yeasts or yeasts-like fungi and verify their diversity are principal aspect for bioindustry and ecosystem sustainability. Taxonomic approach provides identification tool to ensure the taxonomic position of yeasts and yeasts-like fungi which definitely set to utilization concerns. The aim of this study is to understanding the taxonomic position of yeasts and yeasts-like fungi from the distinctive of its sequences relationship. Yeasts and yeasts-like fungi strains were isolated through various culture dependent methods from natural resources samples of Karimun Besar Island, Province of Riau Islands, Indonesia. The identification process was performed through amplifying the accurate DNA-based in D1/D2 region of large subunit (26S) ribosomal DNA. As the result, a total of 85 isolates of yeasts and yeasts-like fungi were obtained with 16 closest related taxa through phylogenetic tree construction. Ascomycetous was the predominating group representing 91% of the total isolates sequences followed by Basidiomycetous (8%) and Zygomycetous (1%). The black yeasts (yeasts-like) known as Aureobasidium melanogenum was predominant species with represent to 54% of total isolates and present in particular habitat. Taxonomically, there are six isolates are represent to be novel taxa candidates which pretend to enhance genetic resources of yeasts and yeasts-like fungi especially from Indonesia. In addition, this information provides specific technique to reach specific yeasts or yeasts-like fungi species in nature by managing the sample collection and culture methods.

Electronic structure, optical and thermodynamic properties of ternary hydrides MBeH3 (M = Li, Na, and K)

Electronic band structure, optical and thermodynamic properties of ternary hydrides MBeH3 (M = Li, Na, and K) were studied using ab initio density functional theory (DFT). The effect of the adopted approximation to the exchange-correlation functional of the DFT is explicitly investigated by considering four different expressions of two different classes (local-density approximation and generalized-gradient approximation). The calculated magnitude of B classifies MBeH3 (M = Li, Na, and K) as easily compressible materials. The bonding interaction in these compounds is quite complicated. The interaction between M and BeH6 is ionic and that between Be and H comprises both ionic and covalent characters. The electronic structure of the complex hydride was investigated by calculating the partial and total densities of states, and electron charge density distribution. Large gaps in the density of states appear at the Fermi energy of LiBeH3, NaBeH3, and KBeH3 indicating that these classes of hydrides are insulators. Optical properties, including the dielectric function, reflectivity, and absorption coefficient, each as a function of photon energy, are calculated and show an optical anisotropy for LiBeH3 and KBeH3. Through the quasi-harmonic Debye model, in which the phononic effects are considered, temperature dependence of volume V(T), bulk modulus B(T), and thermal expansion coefficient α(T), constant-volume and constant-pressure specific heat (Cv and Cp) and Debye temperature ΘD, the entropy S, and the Grüneisen parameter γ were calculated at wide pressure and temperature ranges. The principal aspect of the obtained results is the close similarity of MBeH3 (M = Li, Na, and K) compounds.

Mirar como maestros para el desarrollo de la comprensión lectora. Blogs educativos para la competencia profesional en futuros docentes

Within the different lessons that develop in the courses of Primary Education and Master of Teacher Education, a principal aspect is the professional competence and teacher’s noticing (Mason, 2002). Through this, the students, as future teachers, begins to interpret the teaching situations and reflects on how learning to learners in the different classrooms and subjects occurs.One of several proposals for improving this educational look passes through the new possibilities of the Internet. In this paper we analyze some teacher’s blogs as a platform for the development of this "teacher’s noticing" and reading competence. We start from general examples of educational thinking and educational action blogs (Balagué and Zayas, 2007) to focus on teaching of language and literature and children's literature, spaces of academic reflection on literary education, reading comprehension and e-literacy.After analysis of twenty-five models we conclude that all these spaces allow us to develop the professional noticing of students to teachers of different educational stages. Reading comprehension of the content contained in these blogs allows students to demonstrate the development of the noticing.

Mirar como maestros para el desarrollo de la comprensión lectora. Blogs educativos para la competencia profesional en futuros docentes

Within the different lessons that develop in the courses of Primary Education and Master of Teacher Education, a principal aspect is the professional competence and teacher’s noticing (Mason, 2002). Through this, the students, as future teachers, begins to interpret the teaching situations and reflects on how learning to learners in the different classrooms and subjects occurs.One of several proposals for improving this educational look passes through the new possibilities of the Internet. In this paper we analyze some teacher’s blogs as a platform for the development of this "teacher’s noticing" and reading competence. We start from general examples of educational thinking and educational action blogs (Balagué and Zayas, 2007) to focus on teaching of language and literature and children's literature, spaces of academic reflection on literary education, reading comprehension and e-literacy.After analysis of twenty-five models we conclude that all these spaces allow us to develop the professional noticing of students to teachers of different educational stages. Reading comprehension of the content contained in these blogs allows students to demonstrate the development of the noticing.

Self-love in Adam Smith and the Stoic Oikeiosis

Some interpreters associate Smith with the Stoics. My aim in this paper is to discuss this position in relation with one principal aspect of this view, adopted by most of these authors, according to which the Smith’s concept of self-love is narrowly linked to the Stoic notion of oikeiosis. I intend here to demonstrate that Smithian self-love, as seen through the lens of the Stoics themselves, is instead supportive of an Epicurean interpretation of Smith, taken from Mandeville, in spite of his Stoic narrative and his apparent rejection of the system of the author of the Fable of Bees. So it is possible to classify Smith as a ‘voluntarist’ in contrast to the ‘realism’ predominant in his time.