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This volume consists of selected refereed papers from the fourth annual conference on Australian Research in Early Childhood Education. The papers represent a cross-section of research interests in the field of early childhood education, care, and development. Differing methodologies are also featured in this issue. The papers are: (1) "Ethics in Early Childhood Field Experiences" (Coombe and Newman); (2) "The Teacher's Role in Outdoor Play: Preschool Teachers' Beliefs and Practices" (Davies); (3) "Some Implications of Popularity at Age Four" (Dockett and Degotardi); (4) "Intertextuality and Beginning Reading Instruction in the Initial School Years (Harris and Trezise); (5) "Love, Care and Politics in Low Income Early Childhood Settings: The Process of Constructing a Professional Identity" (Hill and Veale); (6) "Directors of Early Childhood Services: Experience, Preparedness and Selection" (Hayden); (7) "Teachers Coping with Changes: The Stories of Two Preschool Teachers" (Kelly and Berthelsen); (8) "A Teaching and Learning Initiative Using Audiographics Conferencing: Some Emerging Issues" (Perry and others); (9) "An Enforceable Code of Ethics: What Do Practitioners Think?" (Pollnitz); (10) "Creativity: What Does It Mean in the Family Context?" (Tennent and Berthelsen); (11) "How Family-Centred are Early Intervention Services Staff and Parent Perceptions?" (Dempsey and Carruthers); (12) "An Examination of a Young Child's Response to Performance: Implications for Arts Curricula" (Suthers and Larkin); and (13) "Teaching Dilemmas and Employment Relationships in Child Care Centres" (Burton). Each article contains references. (EV)

This study compared the sociometric status of boys and girls and investigated the role of various social behaviors in determining the peer status of boys and girls. Participants were 835 fourth graders from eight elementary schools serving a lower- to lower middle-class population. An unlimited nominations procedure was used in the fall and spring; children nominated peers in their grade for each of the following items: (1) liked most: (2) liked least; (3) starts fights; (4) gets in trouble; (5) someone you hang around with; (6) is a leader; and (7) plays alone and stays away from others. The number of nominations received for each child for each criterion was counted and standardized within grade. Results indicated that boys were twice as likely to be rejected and half as likely to be popular as girls. Girls were more likely to be neglected and less likely to be controversial than boys. Sixty percent of the children retained their peer status from fall to spring. Boys received higher scores for aggression and getting in trouble, and lower scores for being a prosocial leader and being withdrawn than girls. From fall to spring, antisocial behaviors increased for boys and prosocial behaviors increased for girls. Being a leader and staying away from peers were stronger determinants of social preference for boys than for girls, whereas low leadership and high stay-away scores were stronger determinants for low social preference for boys than for girls. (Six tables and 5 figures illustrate the findings.) (KDFB)

This study compared the social adjustment of abused and nonabused children, ages 4 to 11 years, and examined whether sociometric status and friendship quality differentially predict children's loneliness and teacher ratings of peer behavior. Thirty-five abused children from a structured residential treatment center and 43 nonabused children from the elementary school in which the abused children were enrolled were compared on sociometric status, loneliness as measured by the Child Loneliness Scale, teacher ratings of social behaviors, and observational and self-report measures of friendship quality (Friendship Observation Scale and Friendship Quality Questionnaire, respectively). Children with friends, based on reciprocal nominations during sociometric assessments, were assessed on friendship quality during free play and games playing, and were given the Friendship Quality Questionnaire. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) was given to all children. Results indicated that abused children and children without friends scored lower than nonabused and children with friends on the PPVT-R, respectively. Abused children were not rated lower sociometrically than nonabused children. Abused children did not differ from nonabused on several measures of friendship quality, resolving conflicts and helping each other. However, abused children were observed to be more negative and less proactive in interactions. Abused children rated their friendships as being more prone to conflict, higher on betrayal, and lower on caring. Friendless abused children scored highest on loneliness; nonabused children with friends scored lowest. Several friendship variables accounted for significant variance in teacher ratings and loneliness, beyond that accounted for by sociometric status. Contains 13 references. (KDFB)

Using a detailed classification of 25 social strategies, this study investigated the relationship between children's sociometric status and their use of social strategies. Subjects were 220 boys, 5 to 7 years of age, who were classified into sociometric status types of popular, average, or rejected. Each subject generated as many responses as possible to four stories depicting different social problems: object conflict, object loss or damage, group entry, and activity conflict. Analysis revealed that popular boys generated more strategies than average boys from the categories of "compromise, take turns, negotiate" and "wait and hover," and fewer strategies from the category "aggress physically." Rejected boys generated more solutions than average boys from the categories "behave in a prosocial but unrealistic manner,""play something else with peer," and "wait and hover." Results also showed that social problem type strongly influenced strategy use. (MM)

This study analyzed the relation between the friendship networks of parents and the peer networks of their children. Subjects were 255 second- through fifth-grade children of an inner-city primary school in the western part of Berlin, Germany, who were interviewed about friends. In the interview, children were asked to name other children with whom they shared activities outside school. In the second phase of data collection, a subsample, composed of the parents of 116 children, were interviewed separately at home about their social networks. Analysis revealed that the number of mothers' and fathers' leisure-time friends was positively related to the number of the children's peer relationships with non-classmates, but not with classmates. In the case of fathers, the relation was similar for sons and daughters. For mothers, the relation depended on their employment status: for mothers employed full time, the number of leisure-time friends correlated positively with the number of peer relationships of girls, but negatively with the number of peer relationships of boys. For mothers who were not employed full time, the number of leisure-time friends was positively related to their sons' and daughters' peer relationships with non-classmates. (Contains 13 references, 2 figures, and 8 tables.) (MM)

This study investigated the impact of different types of parental support on children's social integration in peer relationships in middle childhood. Subjects were 116 second- through fifth-grade children from an inner-city primary school in Berlin (West), who were interviewed about their friends. Sociometric tests were also conducted. The parents of these children were interviewed separately at home about their support behaviors and other behaviors relevant for their child's peer interactions and relationships. Results indicated that although mothers' and fathers' support behaviors were correlated, the impact of mothers' and fathers' behaviors on the child's relationships varied with the child's gender. Multiple regression analyses showed that daughters' and sons' social integration could be predicted by mothers' and fathers' support behaviors, especially the behaviors categorized as "shaping of conditions" (behaviors that express concern and facilitate their child's peer interactions). Mediation (defined as immediate involvement in the child's peer interactions) and consultation (defined as coaching and counseling of the child) were less beneficial or were counterproductive to the child's social integration. The results suggest that certain parental behaviors may be elicited by the child's position among peers. (MM)

This study examined the similarity among 45 sibling pairs in the third through fifth grade, in their social and academic adaptation to the school setting as evaluated by multi-agent and multi-method assessment of adjustment. Measurements included teacher ratings and rankings of academic skills, social behavior, and peer acceptance; peer sociometric ratings by all classmates; and direct observations of children on the playground with peers and in the classroom with teachers and peers. Comparisons were made with a set of randomly selected unrelated subject pairs matched with each sibling on sex, grade, and classroom. Significant correlations were found only among sibling pairs on peer ratings of social preference, teachers' judgments of academic competence (math and reading), popularity, social behavior and school adjustment, positive behavior with peers on the playground, and teachers' disapproving behavior in the classroom. Results provided support for a social interactional perspective of shared environmental influences on sibling similarity, and underscored the need for more multi-agent and method research on sibling concordant and discordant adjustment. (Author/MM)

This study examined the interchange of emotional cues during interactions between parents and their popular or rejected children. Participants were 28 4- and 5-year-old preschool children and their parents. Children were selected as popular or unpopular using a sociometric nomination procedure conducted in their preschool or day care classroom. Children were equally divided by gender and popularity. Parents and children were videotaped in two sessions. For each session, parent and child were seated facing one another and were told that they could play any game that involved the use of their hands as long as they stayed in their seats. Each session lasted approximately 8 minutes. Videotapes were coded by undergraduate research assistants who were blind to the children's sociometric status. A mutually exclusive and exhaustive coding catalog using facial, verbal, and postural cues was devised to code the videotapes second by second for the full 8 minutes. Analysis revealed that parents of rejected children displayed more anger and used more neutral cues than parents of popular children, while parents of popular children used more affect-laden guidance and apologized more than parents of rejected children. Sequential analysis of negative affect sequences revealed differences for popular and rejected children playing with same-sex parents. Significant differences were found between patterns in children's play with mothers and fathers. (MM)

This study compared the social reputation of: (1) children with a cancer which did not involve the central nervous system (N=26); (2) children with a primary malignancy involving the central nervous system (N=15); and (3) children with sickle cell disease (N=33) to matched, same classroom peers using a measure of social reputation, the Revised Class Play (RCP). All children were ages 8 to 15. Each child's classroom teacher completed the RCP, which assesses sociability-leadership, aggressive-disruptive, and sensitive-isolated interpersonal qualities. Analysis showed children with cancer were nominated more often for roles on the sociability-leadership dimension and less often for roles on the aggressive-disruptive factor. Brain tumor survivors were nominated more often for sensitive-isolated roles. Children with sickle cell disease were not significantly different from peers. Results suggest that chronic illness per se does not have a negative impact on children's social reputation. The data demonstrated that the stressful life events associated with cancer or sickle cell disease did not have a significant negative impact on school adjustment for school-aged children with these diseases. Includes 29 references. (DB)

Currently, in both developed and developing societies, there seems to be something of a "crisis of confidence" regarding the ability of formal professional training programs to impact significantly on teachers' instructional and managerial effectiveness in the classroom. From the Caribbean, this paper reports a small-scale project involving: (1) the collection of research data by trainees themselves on their students' perceptions of the dimensions of peer group popularity and unpopularity; and (2) the subsequent utilization of the findings in the psychology component of a program for graduate secondary teachers to enhance understanding of theoretical issues and their practical awareness of classroom dynamics. (Author)

Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) has gained popularity over the RSA cryptosystem as it preserves the same security level with lower key sizes. In ECC-based encryption, it involves using the most common method such as Koblitz's embedding method to embed the message into points on an elliptic curve. This paper focuses on Demytko's cryptosystem which uses the points on an elliptic curve represented as y2 ≡ x3 + ax + b (mod n). Demytko's cryptosystem is known to have a slower decryption speed compared to other cryptosystems such as RSA and KMOV cryptosystem, motivating the need for speeding up the cryptosystem. In this paper, we present the implementation of the Chinese Remainder Theorem (CRT) during the decryption process of Demytko's cryptosystem. The numerical tests demonstrate that the execution time for decryption is decreased by approximately 1.10 times when CRT is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planning a tourism trip requires careful consideration, especially the travelling time, budget, and personal interests. As the number of places to visit increases, planning and prioritizing a trip effectively can be challenging. This problem is known as Tourist Trip Design Problem (TTDP). This study aims to solve TTDP that prioritizes user preference and Points of Interest (POIs) attraction popularity. The integer problem formulation of TTDP consists of a single objective function which is to maximize the benefit without exceeding the budget and allocation time. The benefit is optimizing the number of points of interest (POIs) to visit while satisfying all the constraints. A greedy algorithm is proposed that is able to consider user preference and POIs popularity. To minimize the distance traveled between POIs, the algorithm is improved by incorporating the Clarke-Wright Saving algorithm. The performance of the enhanced algorithm is tested on 37 POIs in Langkawi Island, Malaysia. In addition, the operating hours and touring time of POIs were also considered. The start node is fixed at Jetty Point and the tourist is assumed to spend at least one night there. The enhanced algorithm is coded in Matlab and results shows that a maximum of 6 POIs can be visited in a one-day trip. An insight into the itinerary's carbon footprint is also presented, taking into account the use of medium-sized cars by tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publishing industry is highly competitive, and predicting the popularity of books before their publication can significantly benefit publishers and authors alike. Publishers tend to put a lot of resources into all the books they choose to publish. If the book ends up being unsuccessful or does not perform as well as it was supposed to, they lose the time and resources spent on that book. There is no measure that can validate the editors' decisions about books and predict their popularity. In our paper, we propose a novel approach for predicting the popularity of books before publication using the text of books as the primary data source. We investigate the connection between two independent data sets and a book's popularity. The first one is the various textual features of book manuscripts, and the second is the metadata of the book, like the topic, the genre, and the author. To validate the proposed approach, we have used a large data set of published books and their corresponding ratings and rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music popularity prediction has become one of the uprising topics in the upcoming years and it has the potential to help artists and composers into composing and releasing songs that are able to increase their popularity in the music industry. The goal of this research is to use a dataset which consists of songs from Spotify, along with the audio features to find out what are the features that can assist in predicting a track's popularity after filtering several genres and a ran ge of popularity rates. The machine learning methods used for this research are K-Nearest Neighbours Classifier, Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machine with RBF kernel, Gradient Boosting Classifier and Random Forest Classifier that acts as a comparison method where it guides the research in evaluating which model is suitable to be used for prediction. The expected result for this research is to achieve at least more than 90% of accuracy or higher than the results achieved from other researchers. It is to be hoped that the proposed algorithms can achieve a spectacular result while providing insights on which of the following audio features may be helpful in music popularity prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online social media platforms such as YouTube have grown in popularity in recent years, providing as critical routes for content creators, advertisers, and platform administrators to access a large worldwide audience. Accurate video popularity prediction is critical for improving content strategy, increasing user engagement, and increasing video visibility. This study intends to improve video popularity prediction accuracy by presenting a fresh methodology that goes beyond traditional analysis. To construct a more effective prediction model, the suggested method combines examining metadata, such as title, description, and channel title, with thumbnail analysis. The project aims to dramatically increase prediction accuracy by extracting relevant information from both metadata and thumbnails. To do this, multiple classification techniques, including Support Vector Machine, Gradient Boosting, Random Forest, Extreme Gradient Boosting, and K-Nearest Neighbors, were used to train and forecast the model. Notably, when it came to feature extraction, the Gradient Boosting and Random Forest algorithms achieved amazing accuracy of 97% when using all extracted and original data, and 82% and 92% when using only extracted features. In comparison, previous studies employing simply extracted features obtained only 74% accuracy. These findings demonstrate the potential benefit of integrating metadata and thumbnail data research to get insights into the elements that drive video popularity and lead to more accurate predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing popularity of a programming language has influenced people to learn and apply it in developing software. This has caused many experts to compete in providing various kinds of guidelines, such manual books or tutorials shared on the internet. The emergence of online discussion forums, such as Stack Overflow, also adds to the list of outstanding guide resources. This has also been an advantage for people who want to learn programming languages and help increase the popularity of certain programming languages. However, the aspects that affect the popularity of the programming languages discussed on Stack Overflow has not been studied. This study aims to further investigate the factors that influence the popularity of three programming languages in an online discussion forum, Stack Overflow. The programming languages used in this study are defined based on the top 3 most popular languages in 2022 from the Tiobe Index, namely Python, C, and Java. The dataset used in the analysis is 4,028,928 questions shared on Stack Overflow that relate to these programming languages. The popularity of the 3 programming languages is analyzed based on 3 aspects, the trends, appropriate solutions, and users. The results show that Python is the most popular programming language discussed by developers in Stack Overflow based on the trends, the number of accepted answers, and users. It has been indicated by the increase of its discussion since 2008, the high solution provision compared to other languages, and a large number of users in many countries. In addition, the study findings are also beneficial for readers and future research to get insights and recommendations about the feasibility of Stack Overflow as a reading resource that relates to the 3 analyzed programming languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music is the practice of arranging tones or other sounds in a sequential or layered fashion. A composition of notes with continuity and unity is produced by a temporal relationship. A musical note basically is a sound produced by any musical instrument or a human voice. A musical note is a basic musical unit. When it comes to performance and quality, music and its notes have specific characteristics. The links between the notes are maintained when playing notes with various frequencies to create music. Automated music creation has been a hot topic lately, and using deep learning to tackle difficulties in literary arts has recently received much interest. The goal of this project is to create music in the frequency domain utilizing midi files and a variety of LSTM architecture of the RNN neural networks. It will also help musicians to predict the popularity among the types of listeners of the song created using the generated music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased availability of mobile devices has changed various industries and will continue to improve how information is processed in the future. Because of its improved mobile capabilities, augmented reality has become increasingly popular. The AR market is expected to grow at a rapid pace in the coming years, with some of the largest names in tech industries leading the way. Companies who want to stay ahead of the curve should at the very least think about how augmented reality could be integrated into their operations. Many smartphone applications have recently implemented Augmented Reality in different functional areas; the objective here is to investigate the various areas of Augmented Reality applications and to assess its success and potential in various fields. This paper will also provide an overview of Augmented Reality and analyze its potential and popularity in different functional areas. It will assist businesses, entrepreneurs, app developers, etc., in determining if Augmented Reality applications are appropriate for the functional area in which they are operating and might help them gain a competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the performance of the daily tasks by people in this era, particularly on how they utilize a reminder application to remind them to perform their daily tasks. The main purpose of this study is to propose a location-based reminder application in order to fulfil the wide variety of needs of reminder applications' users. The article has adopted Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology in the process of application development. A survey has been done to investigate the popularity of reminder applications in the current market. The analysis indicates that most of the people are not familiar with reminder applications but are willing to try out a reminder application with location services, which is the proposed application, the HOLA Application HOLA is a greeting in Spanish use when meeting someone. HOLA Application is focused on the location-based reminder, and thus, the outcome of the application may lack generalizability. However, the functionality of the application will satisfy the needs of most of the general reminder applications' users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study is to predict the movie's popularity in social media using machine learning algorithms like logistic regression algorithm and linear regression algorithm. Novel linear regression algorithm and novel logistic regression algorithm with sample size = 10 was iterated 20 times for predicting popular videos The Linear Regression classifier produces a better accuracy of (97.5%) than the Logistic regression classifier (81.6%). The significance of linear regression (p < 0.03 Independent sample T-test) is high Within the limits of the study the results proved that linear regression algorithm is significantly better for the movies popularity prediction process compared to the logistic regression algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing number of internet user influence the rise of internet data. One of the increasing internet data takes the form of online forum postings. These forum postings could be accessed from numerous postings portals on the internet. Some portals show only the posting title to let the readers decide whether they want to read it or not by reading the title only. In this study, the author study whether an online postings headline or title could influence reading interest in the community by using the Naïve Bayes and decision tree methods as a comparison. Based on analysis using Naïve Bayes and Decision Tree algorithm, the result shows that title of postings can influence as high as 73% popularity of the postings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conserving the earth cannot be done by one generation, but it requires the next generation to protect the earth in a sustainable manner. Agent of change are needed to create the next environmentalists. Biology education students who are a prospective teacher potential to create a generation that loves the environment. The earth hour is a global movement that campaigns for energy savings. This movement also provide environmental education to the community. This research is a quantitative descriptive study that aims to see the popularity of earth hour movement and the perspective of biology education students of UIN Sunan Gunung Djati on these movement. The results showed that 93% of biology education students knew this movement, but only few knew more about this global movement. Even so, they are optimistic that this movement can have a positive impact on the earth. Based on these results, we can conclude that the earth hour movement is highly popular among biology education students. We hope that the popularity of the earth hour movement will open their way of thinking to understand environmental issues by taking concrete steps to make energy-saving movements that are born from the form of conscious thinking. Thus, together we are optimistic that we will be able to face the challenges of global warming that hit the earth. Biology education students with environmental awareness are at the forefront of creating a generation that is wise to the natural environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea that individuals can have a digital mindset has gained popularity against the backdrop of radical shifts toward digital transformation and the future of work. Despite the burgeoning scholarly interest across disciplines, efforts to conceptualize digital mindset remain fragmented so far. This paper starts a discourse about unresolved ontological assumptions and theoretical inconsistencies. We address the prevailing knowledge fragmentation by synthesizing three research streams on individuals’ affect, behaviors, and cognitions in the context of digital transformation and revealing their underlying commonalities. We propose that two beliefs jointly form the integrative foundation of individuals’ digital mindset: how individuals think about and perceive (a) digital technologies (as opportunity or threat) and (b) their own abilities (as malleable or fixed) in the context of digital transformation. Our theoretical synthesis lays the groundwork for future research to work toward an inter-nomological network and a more holistic understanding of individuals’ digital mindset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general formula for the free sum of two polytopes in d-dimensional space is provided in this paper, as a brief description of the relationship between the Ehrhart sequence of the free sum of polytopes has recently gained popularity in a variety of fields. The property of the free sum of the polytope was used in the d-dimension to use C(n, d), a convex polytope with n distinct points on a rational normal curve in Rd, where n is greater than d. An algorithm is written, and some implementation examples are shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

YouTube has become a popular platform to watch videos online from a variety of content creators. YouTube allows content makers to legitimise their modern videos through the Collaborator programme. It is important to build content where the most critical area unit to promote video quality is meta-level options (titre, tag, thumbnails and outline). Videos are remembered jointly by the social dynamics, i.e. the relationships between producers and YouTube users. We tend to investigate sensitivity of YouTube's meta-level choices and social structures through observational study of victimisation real-world awareness comprising of half-dozen million videos distributed over 25,000 platforms. Initial day scan counts, differential among subscribers, separation of the finger nail video, Google hits, various keywords, stream class, title length and different higher-casuals letters inside the title are primary different level features that could be utilised to assess video popularity. The most important meta-level options that affect scan numbers for a video embrace are the following: In addition, when a video is announced, optimization of metadata options can maximise video visibility. We appear to discover, within the framework of social dynamics, there is a causative relationship among channel views, and associating subscribers differ. To boot the video replay results in a passing channel, the planner offers insights. Our results provide a good understanding of YouTube's user presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, the traffic on an internet is experiencing an unprecedented growth as users demands are increasing daily. In addition, the nodes in wireless network support mobility and topology changes frequently. Due to high traffic and user mobility, the content delivery performance of IP based wireless networks degrades as end to end connection establishment is no more feasible. In this regards, Information Centric Networking (ICN) provides great support to manage large traffic in high scenario due to its default caching feature. Further, to improve performance of an ICN network, the design of an efficient caching strategy is always in demand. To this end, we propose a popularity based heterogeneous caching (PHC) scheme to enhance cache capacity utilization of entire ICN network by considering different cache capacity of each network node. The scheme tries to improve cache capacity of network nodes by caching diverse contents on network and by eliminating redundancies. The proposed PHC shows significant improvement in cache capacity utilization in comparison to various existing caching schemes by offering high cache hit ratio and reduced content access delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recommender Systems have become omnipresent in our everyday life, helping us making decisions and navigating in the digital world full of information. However, only recently researchers have started discovering undesired and harmful effects of automated recommendation and began questioning how fair and ethical these systems are, while influencing our day-to-day decision making, shaping our online behaviour and tastes. In the latest research works, various biases and phenomena like filter bubbles and echo chambers have been uncovered among the resulting effects of recommender systems and rigorous work has started on solving these issues. In this narrative survey, we investigate the emergence and progression of research on one of the potential types of biases in recommender systems, i.e. Popularity Bias. Many recommender algorithms have been shown to favor already popular items, hence giving them even more exposure, which can harm fairness and diversity on the platforms using such systems. Such a problem becomes even more complicated if the object of recommendation is not just products and content, but people, their work and services. This survey describes the progress in this field of study, highlighting the advancements and identifying the gaps in the research, where additional effort and attention is necessary to minimize the harmful effect and make sure that such systems are build in a fair and ethical way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has long been considered that the authors of the earliest Islamic Arabic documents did not write hamzah, a sign for the glottal stop. For instance, the Qur'ān was compiled with an orthography representing the Hijazi dialect, which lacked hamzah. After the expansion of Islam to those speaking other Arabic dialects and to non-Arabs, hamzah was added to some Qur'ān manuscripts as coloured dots, but a universal rule did not exist. Hamzah only came to be written consistently after the new scripts, such as Thulth, gained popularity on paper in the eleventh century. However, during the last decade a new group of hamzah, referred to as 'proto-hamzah', was discovered in early Islamic inscriptions and graffiti. At present, twelve examples of hamzah that belong to this group are known. This paper introduces a new example of proto-hamzah in Wādī al-Khirqah, Saudi Arabia, which differs in appearance from any existing example. By analysing the new material, as well as the existing proto-hamzah, in its historical and geographical contexts, the position of proto-hamzah in the development of Arabic orthography will be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the urgent need for an inclusive society, the demand for metrics to evaluate the impact of different types and scales of organizations has grown significantly in recent years. The challenge of how to evaluate the impact coming from social innovation (SI) has emerged as an important question posed by various actors, such as academic researchers, students, project managers, leaders of organizations, and policymakers. To find an answer to this question, this research seeks to contribute to bridging the gap between SI initiatives and the evaluation of their impacts. Despite the interest and popularity of the topic of SI, this gap can be justified due to the lack of tools and frameworks to help organizations approach SI impact assessment. Although indicators have been widely used by researchers in different fields of study, the current literature has failed to develop indicators, frameworks or methodologies to assess the impact of SI initiatives. The research includes an investigation of the state of the art in terms of measuring the impact of SI, based on both scientific literature and practitioners' reports. Based on this analysis, a set of thirty-eight indicators was identified to assess the impact of SI. From the literature consulted, it can be seen that the results highlight the gap in the literature regarding the lack of instruments and frameworks. Regarding the set of thirty-eight indicators identified, if applied as a complement to a measurement tool, the indicators can be used as a first attempt to help organizations address the evaluation and effectiveness of the SI impact on their actions. The proposal may contribute to bring to light new evidence in the SI domain for policymakers, researchers and governments, then contributing to a better understanding of the impact of SI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New ideas and new products are the major strengths for revenue growth in today's vibrant commercial setting. The growing popularity of customer-orientated technological innovation has led to different approaches that feature customer involvement in new product development. The transition from an old model with no or little customer involvement to a customer-based approach that values customer feedback on innovations requires more attention to competitors in the field as their products are based on similar concepts. Innovation based on the customers' needs is a more commercially beneficial and interactive approach to fulfill the market need. Importantly, involving customers in the innovation process requires a new set of concerns, concepts, and decision-making: customers have a lot of options, and companies have to compete for business ever more intensely. When preparing a survey for market research, the main goal should be to validate consumer needs and willingness to buy the product. Determining the demographic to which the product appeals to can narrow down a target market and the features of the product that interest customers. Additionally, customer surveys, market analysis, and business plans are some important elements for success. How to conduct market research is especially vital. This article will focus on successful market research methods, sample survey questions, survey samples, results, and an analysis of productive innovations. New product designs developed by undergraduate students using market research will also be summarized. In addition, this work teaches students to master various skills, such as research, persistence, design, construction, and technical writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Build-to-Rent is an emerging long-term housing asset class and alternative housing product that is gaining popularity in the Europe, North America and Australia. Build-to-Rent is a high-end, long-term residential rental product, built and operated by specialist developers for a single institutional owner. This paper uses a summative content analysis approach to identify key stakeholders out of which a framework for the adoption of Build-to-Rent for the middleincome housing market in Johannesburg, South Africa is developed. The model is based on collaborative planning and systems dynamics approaches. A literature review of existing legislative and policy documents forms the basis of a key stakeholders' register within South Africa's existing institutional and legislative frameworks. This is followed by the proposal of the Collaborative-Integrated Operational Framework (CIOF) which may be adopted in order to mainstream Build-to-Rent in the Johannesburg housing sector. The findings demonstrate that there exists a wellestablished policy environment in South Africa, amenable to the adoption of Build-to-Rent in Johannesburg. The need for a collaborative planning approach, which fosters buy-in from all spheres of government and other stakeholders within the housing sector is further reinforced through the development of this framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research in progress, we investigated the effects of mobile applications' permission requests and their popularity among users. We collected data from 7959 Android apps on the Android app market across different application categories, and examined apps' permission requests, number of downloads, and users' ratings. We noted that permission requests that have privacy intrusion concerns influence apps ratings to different extents. For requests that have privacy intrusion concerns and can be easily noted by users, such as requests to camera, users increase the number of unfavourable one star rating's. For requests that have privacy intrusion concerns but cannot be easily noted by users, such as request to read contacts, the influences on user ratings are not significant. The findings reveal that users are at a disadvantaged position as they may not be aware of privacy intrusions when the request involves actions by the app that cannot be observed by users. To further understand users' decision process, we plan to conduct interviews and an experiment, in which we will prime users' privacy concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Server virtualization and cloud based data centre solutions are becoming popular for effective resource utilization, better manageability and cost reduction. However, advantage of maximizing resource utilization may elevate performance issues due to poor resource allocation mechanism such as network bandwidth. The inefficient provisioning of network bandwidth to application results in performance degradation, despite having sufficient processing and memory resources. Traditional approaches prioritize network traffic on the basis of application type and allocate the network bandwidth accordingly. In this paper we propose an OpenFlow based adaptive QoS framework for efficient network bandwidth allocation, which monitors the application’s load in a real time and allocate network bandwidth dynamically according to application popularity. As a result, sufficient network bandwidth is allocated to popular applications. The performance evaluation on a real test bed shows that by using our proposed framework, maximum number of user sessions associated with popular application can meet their QoS targets, which can eventually improve the end user satisfaction level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the concept of business models has gained popularity. This is especially the case since researchers can use the business model lens to investigate connections between single companies and their respective business ecosystems. However, the research on these connections is still fragmented and incomplete. In this article, we address this issue and report the results of a systematic literature review on the topics of business model innovation and business ecosystems. We performed a descriptive review of the subject and identified recurring themes in literature. Findings indicate that approaching business model innovation from a company-centric view might understate potentially far-reaching implications in business ecosystems. Subsequently, we contribute to the understanding of business model innovation in the context of business ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now a days, mobile manipulators are increasing its popularity on modern industries due to their ability to enhance process flexibility and performance. Mobile manipulators are a wide field of research and one of the main directions is trying to control the whole system as a single device. In this context, this paper addresses the problem of path planning of the end-effector of a mobile manipulator. The proposed approach is based on the integration of the kinematic chain of both the manipulator and the omni-directional base. At the end, a collision-free path planner for the mobile manipulator in complex and known environments with obstacles using A * is derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Sustainable development of tourism is increasingly seen as the only possible form of tourism development in the destination. Also, awareness of the need for environmental protection is on the rise, which affects the increase in popularity of ecotourism and ecotourism destinations. Through the ecological sustainability of the tourism destination, the natural resources are protected and thus the natural attractions of importance for the development of tourism are preserved. Bearing this in mind, such sustainable development can be a long-term source of the destination’s competitive advantage in the tourism market. The aim of the paper is to determine which are the key factors that influence whether a tourist will perceive a tourism destination as ecologically sustainable. The methods used in this paper include fieldwork and cabinet research. The survey was carried out on random sample by sending a questionnaire via e-mail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popularity information is usually thought to have a great impact on individual's decision making and choice. However, most of the websites are displaying products by its popularity. This could potentially result in the popularity effect being overestimated because popularity is confounded with position when they are sorted in the descending order. In this paper, we try to fill this gap in literature by bridging together popularity effect and position effect to understand whether popularity effect overcomes position effect. By conducting a series of lab experiments, our results suggest that popularity effect is overestimated in prior studies, and its effect becomes less salient when we consider the position effect. Our results have both theoretical implication and practical implication for the website designer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are in the era of having too much information. While having more information is usually good for individual's decision making, it could make the decision more difficult if the information is conflicting with each other. Previous research has shown that popularity information greatly impacts people's choice in multiple online context, however these studies have not examined the impact of conflicting popularity information. In this paper, we study people's decision making when popularity information conflicts, specifically when total number of view (VIEW) is not consistent with the percentage of dislike (DISLIKE%). We argue that people are more likely to choose a product that has higher VIEW and higher DISLIKE% when the proportion of change is higher in VIEW than in DISLIKE%. However, people would prefer lower VIEW and lower DISLIKE% products when DISLIKE% changes higher than VIEW. When the change in these two popularity information is the same, people tend to prefer product that has higher VIEW. Our findings have significant theoretical and practical contributions to both research and online website designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides evidence on the possible barriers that affect the massification of solutions based on virtual reality (VR) and augmented (AR). To gather this evidence, nine sessions of Focus Groups were held with 43 people in total. Users of VR or AR applications, potential users and non-users were involved. The evidence obtained shows a plurality of entry barriers to decrease the lack of value perception related to applications using VR and AR. The majority of the sample shows a strong relation with theses technologies only with leisure and entertainment. Also some biases and less value of an immersive virtual reality for daily experiences or activities. However, AR was received better to daily purposes it was also not well connected with urban people routine in their perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to determine the rate of validity of the serial position effect and its possible modification in relation to the different types of emotional advertising appeals. It relies on the knowledge from the previous works by the above author, which are dedicated to a similar subject and provide the basis for extending the position effect theory with information concerning the advertising appeals and emotions. This treatise begins by defining the serial position effect and author's findings from previous research on the relationship between this effect and cognitive processes, such as attention and memory. The main research findings have shown that the presence of emotional appeal, such as fear, humor, sincerity or sexual themes, affects the validity of the serial position effect. When conducting our research, we have included yet another factor, which has an impact on the overall validity of the serial position effect - "likability" or popularity of advertising. Popularity of advertising was correlated with memorability and we uncovered the potential links, which are in line with those presented by the experts in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research which is presented in this paper mainly concentrates on "gated housing settlements" focusing on resident's urban walking experiences. Today, in Turkey as well as in other countries round the globe, there is a rise and growing popularity in gated housing settlements. In many parts of the world, there are some differences and similarities when comparing them, but their main characteristics is that they are isolated from public urban spaces. They have extended walls around and gates with securities which restrict access and seperate them form the exterior world. Consequently, urban public spaces remain in between the closed circles of the settlements are consist of streets, parking areas and sidewalks which are surrounded by high borders of the settlements. A research was conducted and a case study was done to analyse and explore the urban walking experiences in the selected neighborhood in Istanbul. The study used observations, interviews and spatial analyses in order to understand and compare the citizens' perceptions of public spaces which are left in between the gated settlements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous research has shown that online news items with a large number of likes foster exposure by subsequent users, the effects of likes on public opinion perceptions and personal opinions are less clear. Drawing on ideas from the spiral of silence theory, exemplification research, and studies on social information effects, we contend that individuals use popularity cues such as likes as sources for assessing public opinion. We further argue that individuals may even adapt their personal opinions to the tenor reflected in those cues. The assumptions were tested using data from an online experiment with 501 participants who encountered media items with varying numbers of likes for two controversial issues. Findings show that only individuals with low levels of need for cognition are likely to use likes as indicators of public opinion. We further found no support for an effect of likes on personal opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During adolescence, young people learn how social acceptance and popularity among peers translate into power. The internet adds flexibility to these relationships because adolescents can exercise greater independence in choosing peer groups. This study examined how young people negotiate their social status in offline and online spaces. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with adolescents (aged 12-18) in Canberra, Australia (N=17) from February to June 2014. The type of power exerted online differs from that exerted offline; different skill sets are required to attain social status. Offline power translates into online power but not vice versa. However, participants appreciated the broader social networks that were afforded online and explored new boundaries of social interaction. In doing so, they were skeptical of the partial depiction that were portrayed online. Different values and status ladders were explored, which provided them with opportunities to develop new power relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid rise in popularity over recent years of live cinema screenings of theatrical performances, known as 'event cinema', this paper examines this new medium of entertainment and the extent to which it is a hybrid of two quite different media. It explores the differences between storytelling and direction techniques on stage and on screen, and the extent to which remediating between the two changes the way the audience experiences the performance. It asks what audiences for these events are looking for and expecting, and examines some sharply differing approaches which have been taken by different screen directors. Finally it suggests that as remediations these are, in effect, adaptations of the original stage work, and that therefore the screen director should take editorial responsibility, and credit for what has become a separate artistic entity from the original stage performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The huge popularity and evolution of the Web in the last decade, and the rapid advances in ICT allowed an exponential growth of the volume and diversity of data produced by social media. The widespread use of social media has encouraged citizens to give their opinions more freely and actively participate in several aspects of modern life. The data provided in this context can have a great impact on business, where often opinions of customers may contribute to the success of a product or service, or destroy the reputation of a brand or a company. The effective and full use of social media by organizations require that they are able to monitor and analyse the high volumes of heterogeneous data that are produced by these media, so as to obtain relevant information and valuable insights for decision making and for conducting their business. Due to the diversity of social media monitoring tools available and wide range of features offered, we propose a framework to classify and guide the process of adoption of such a tool (or set of tools) by an organization. While the design of the framework is still at an early stage, its foundations are presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]