Digital self-control interventions for distracting media multitasking - A systematic review

Digital distractions can interfere with goal attainment and lead to undesirable habits that are hard to get red rid of. Various digital self-control interventions promise support to alleviate the negative impact of digital distractions. These interventions use different approaches, such as the blocking of apps and websites, goal setting, or visualizations of device usage statistics. While many apps and browser extensions make use of these features, little is known about their effectiveness. This systematic review synthesizes the current research to provide insights into the effectiveness of the different kinds of interventions. From a search of the ‘ACM’, ‘Springer Link’, ‘Web of Science’, ’IEEE Xplore’ and ‘Pubmed’ databases, we identified 28 digital self-control interventions. We categorized these interventions according to their features and their outcomes. The interventions showed varying degrees of effectiveness, and especially interventions that relied purely on increasing the participants' awareness were barely effective. For those interventions that sanctioned the use of distractions, the current literature indicates that the sanctions have to be sufficiently difficult to overcome, as they will otherwise be quickly dismissed. The overall confidence in the results is low, with small sample sizes, short study duration, and unclear study contexts. From these insights, we highlight research gaps and close with suggestions for future research.     

Factors involved in associations between Facebook use and college adjustment: Social competence,perceived usefulness,and use patterns

Although previous research has investigated widespread use of social media, especially Facebook, by youth attending college, the conditions under which these media foster adjustment to college remain unclear. This study tested a model illuminating pathways linking social competence to college adjustment via students’ perceptions about the usefulness of Facebook and ways in which they used the medium. Self-report survey data from 321 college students (M age = 20.09; 58% female; 84% Caucasian) attending a major Midwestern university supported the proposed model, indicating that higher social competence could foster or impede college adjustment, depending upon how it was related to beliefs about the usefulness of different Facebook functions and how these perceptions, in turn, were associated with patterns of Facebook use. Findings underscore the importance of considering connections among personal attributes, perception of media effectiveness, and media behaviors in assessing the implications of social media for users’ psychosocial well-being.     

Technical and economic analysis of solvent-based lithium-ion electrode drying with water and NMP

Processing lithium-ion battery (LIB) electrode dispersions with water as the solvent during primary drying offers many advantages over N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP). An in-depth analysis of the comparative drying costs of LIB electrodes is discussed for both NMP- and water-based dispersion processing in terms of battery pack $/kWh. Electrode coating manufacturing and capital equipment cost savings are compared for water vs. conventional NMP organic solvent processing. A major finding of this work is that the total electrode manufacturing costs, whether water- or NMP-based, contribute about 8–9% of the total pack cost. However, it was found that up to a 2?×?reduction in electrode processing (drying and solvent recovery) cost can be expected along with a $3–6?M savings in associated plant capital equipment (for a plant producing 100,000 10-kWh Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) batteries) using water as the electrode solvent. This paper shows a different perspective in that the most important benefits of aqueous electrode processing actually revolve around capital equipment savings and environmental stewardship and not processing cost savings.     

Why do people purchase virtual goods? A uses and gratification (U&G) theory perspective

Few literature studies have investigated the relationships between different uses and gratifications (U&Gs) of mobile instant messaging (MIM) apps, continuation, and purchase intentions. To address this gap, the researchers aimed to examine the influence of the content, social, process, and technology U&Gs of MIM on continuation intentions toward MIMs, and purchase intentions toward virtual goods available on MIMs. A comprehensive research model was developed based on the U&G theory, which was tested using cross-sectional data from 309 Japanese MIM users. The study considered six different U&Gs of MIM as independent variables and purchase intentions towards stickers and continuation intentions towards MIM as dependent variables. The study results suggest that exposure U&G has a significant positive association with MIM sticker purchase intentions. The entertainment and affection U&G are positively associated with continuation intentions towards MIM use. The study contributes to the literature by investigating U&Gs that motivate MIM users to have both positive purchase intentions toward virtual goods, such as stickers, and continuation intentions toward MIMs. The study has significant theoretical and practical implications for both researchers and practitioners who are interested in virtual goods, the virtual economy, MIM apps, social media, new media, and the service economy.     

Flame Front Deformation Instabilities of Filtration Combustion for Initial Thermal Perturbation

The flame front deformation instability of low-velocity filtration combustion within an inert packed bed is studied based on the initial preheating non-uniformity. Based on the experimental phenomena, an initial thermal perturbation model is numerically proposed so as to predict the deformation behaviors of the flame front instabilities. The numerical prediction indicates that the assumption of an initial thermal perturbation is a feasible explanation as the cause of the flame front inclination instability. As the initial thermal perturbation increases, the phenomena of the flame front break and shrinking instabilities could easily occur at high filtration velocity or low equivalence ratio. Moreover, the evolutions of the flame front break rate and the shrinking rate are quantitatively analyzed.     

轻质滤料滤池的试验与研究

轻质滤料滤池是以比水密度略小的滤料为滤床的滤池，通过以净水厂的原水和污水处理厂的二级处理出水为过滤试验对象，所取得的结果表明：下向流轻质滤料滤池对浊度和悬浮固体（SS）的去除率分别可以达到80％和45％，而滤床的水头损失不超过15cm。因此轻质滤料滤池可以以预过滤的形式配置在过滤处理的净水和污水的处理工艺中。     

腐蚀磨损过程中材料的环境脆性

从腐蚀磨损的交互作用、腐蚀磨损与应力腐蚀及氢脆的异同出发，论述了磨损加速腐蚀及腐蚀加速磨损的微观机制，指出材料的环境脆性与腐蚀对磨损的加速作用程度有关．从腐蚀对磨损的加速作用、比能耗、磨痕硬度等方面分析了不锈钢 Cl^-体系、Ni-P镀层 NaOH溶液、H4340钢与Ti6A14V合金 稀硫酸溶液体系、铜合金 NH4^ (NH3)或S^2-溶液中的环境脆化行为和规律，总结出材料环境脆性的力学判据，展望了今后腐蚀磨损的研究方向．     

石化企业实时数据管理引擎设计与实现

实时数据管理系统是流程企业控制信息网络与管理信息网络平滑集成的基础，为两者的数据通讯提供桥梁。介绍了笔者在炼油化工C企业IMS建设中的实时数据管理引擎设计与开发，具有其先进性与实用性。     

An MPEG‐4 Compliant Interactive Multimedia Streaming Platform Using Overlay Networks

This paper presents a multimedia streaming platform for efficiently transmitting MPEG‐4 content over IP networks. The platform includes an MPEG‐4 compliant streaming server and client, supporting object‐based representation of multimedia scenes, interactivity, and advanced encoding profiles defined by the ISO standard. For scalability purposes, we employ an application‐layer multicast scheme for media transmission using overlay networks. The overlay network, governed by the central entity of the network distribution manager, is dynamically deployed according to a set of pre‐defined criteria. The overlay network supports both broadcast delivery and video‐on‐demand content. The multimedia streaming platform is standards‐compliant and utilizes widespread multimedia protocols such as MPEG‐4, real‐time transport protocol, real‐time transport control protocol, and real‐time streaming protocol. The design of the overlay network was architected with the goal of transparency to both the streaming server and the client. As a result, many commercial implementations that use industry‐standard protocols can be plugged into the architecture relatively painlessly and can enjoy the benefits of the platform.     

基于两层均匀媒质的GPEN SAR地下目标成像方法及其性能分析

地表穿透合成孔径雷达(Ground PENetration SAR,GPEN SAR)为了探测掩埋在地下的目标,通常工作在多层媒质的环境中。传统成像模型是建立在同一均匀媒质的假设上,不再适合于GPEN SAR的实际情况。本文首先建立了两层分区均匀媒质中的成像模型,然后利用后向投影(BP)算法定量分析了成像几何参数、土壤参数等对成像的影响,进而提出了一种修正的后向投影(MBP)算法。MBP算法不仅能够校正两层分区均匀媒质对成像定位的影响,还能估计目标的掩埋深度,提供目标三维位置坐标。仿真结果验证了MBP算法在不同信噪比环境下,对多目标的三维定位精度能满足实际的需要。