This study examines text messaging behavior of ETSU undergraduates. Data come from a survey of 485 students enrolled during the 2010 fall semester. The current study explores the effects of sex, age, and extroversion on (1) the volume of texts a person sends and (2) preferences for texting or calling. The study also explores the use of cell phones as a means of avoiding others during co-present interaction. Findings reveal that age is the strongest predictor of text messaging, with younger respondents being more likely to text. The study also finds that women prefer texting, while men prefer voice calls. Age affects preference as well, with younger respondents preferring texting and older respondents preferring voice calls. The study also finds that women are much more likely to use cell phones to avoid others during co-present interaction.

Digital video recorders have given a growing number of viewers the ability to skip television commercials. In an effort to combat ad-skipping, television providers and advertisers are looking at ways to embed advertising into the video content; one way this can be accomplished is with graphic overlays known as snipes. Little is known about how content providers use snipes and what research they have conducted. This study is qualitative and uses long telephone interviews with 8 respondents from various cable television network and broadcast affiliate stations; examining the characteristics of innovation, as found in Rogers's (1995) diffussion of innovation theory. One discovery is that some cable networks are taking measures to ensure that snipes do not appear during emotional moments in the narrative. The study is the first piece of academic research dedicated to understanding how snipes are used and stands as a foundation for future research on the subject.

The challenge of interoperability is to retain model integrity when different software applications exchange and interpret model data. Transferring CAD data between heterogeneous CAD systems is a challenge because of differences in feature representation. A study by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) performed in 1999 made a conservative estimate that inadequate interoperability in the automotive industry costs them $1 billion per year. One critical part of eliminating the high costs due to poor interoperability is a neutral format between heterogeneous CAD systems. An effective neutral CAD format should include a current-state data store, be associative, include the union of CAD features across an arbitrary number of CAD systems, maintain design history, maintain referential integrity, and support multi-user collaboration. This research has focused on extending an existing synchronous collaborative CAD software tool to allow for a neutral, current-state data store. This has been accomplished by creating a Neutral Parametric Canonical Form (NPCF) which defines the neutral data structure for many basic CAD features to enable translation between heterogeneous CAD systems. The initial architecture developed begins to define a new standard for storing CAD features neutrally. The NPCF's for many features have been implemented in a multi-user interoperability program and work between NX and CATIA CAD systems. The 2D point, 2D line, 2D arc, 2D circle, 2D spline, 3D point, extrude, and revolve NPCF's will be specifically defined. Complex models have successfully been modeled and exchanged in real time and have validated the NPCF approach. Multiple users can be in the same part at the same time in different CAD systems and create and update models in real time.

The current study sought to explore the effects of eating behaviors on mental health and the internalization of attitudes toward one's appearance. This was performed through a survey distributed through a global online market research firm, Dynata, and gathered 495 eligible participants. Of those, 78 represented the plant-based group, and 417 represented the non-plant-based group. Each completed the survey containing sections with the Mizes Anorectic Cognitions Scale (MACS) to assess if they were at low or high risk for having/developing an eating disorder, a section determining if participants were plant-based (defined as a regimen that encourages whole, plant-based foods and discourages meats, dairy products, and eggs as well as all refined and processed foods (Tuso et al., 2013)) or not, and asking what their perceived benefits were from their plant-based (or lack of plant-based) diet, a section on the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance (SATAQ-4), and finally, the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS). The status of participants being plant-based or non-plant-based was analyzed as this study sought to explore past research that found plant-based diets to be physically and mentally beneficial (Beezhold et al., 2014; Benefits of Plant-Based Diets, 2021; Daneshzad et al., 2019). A series of statistical tests were conducted on SPSS 28 to analyze which groups (high risk for E.D. and plant-based, high risk for E.D. and non-plant-based, low risk for E.D. and plant-based, or low risk for E.D. and non-plant-based) were statistically significant compared to one another. The findings revealed the plant-based group to contain higher percentage of high risk for eating disorder participants. The plant-based group, regardless of high risk, was negatively associated with higher levels of scores on four out of the five sections including internalization of attitudes towards appearance, weight-based pressures from family, weight-based pressures from peers, and higher levels of reported depression, anxiety, and stress. Pressures felt from the media did not display a statistically significant level of difference between any of the high/low risk and plant-based to high/low risk and non-plant-based. The results were interpreted using social learning theory, which proposes that humans have evolved an advanced capacity for observational learning, enabling them to acquire knowledge, attitudes, values, emotional proclivities, and competencies through information conveyed by a rich variety of actual and symbolic models (Bandura, 2002). This allowed for cause and effects to be hypothesized for why the plant-based group was negatively associated with worse mental health and internalization of attitudes towards appearance. Among these hypothesized causes included participants adopting a plant-based diet due to its growing social media popularity, users learning from observation and leading to aquired knowledge, attitudes, values, and beliefs on the diet. Furthermore, those with an obsession of clean-eating could have led many high-risk for E.D. participants to fulfill their internalized thin-ideal and pressure from family and peers regarding appearance through this popular diet they have observed through social media, which would be consistent with previous studies (Holmgren, 2017; Stewart & Ogden, 2020). Limitations include the small sample size of plant-based dieters without equal representation of low to high risk for E.D.s, along with the limitation on not knowing the reasoning why each participant is plant-based (ethical, environmental, health, diet purposes, or due to social learning and popularity) nor for how long they have adhered to this lifestyle. Future research should expand this study to more locations, analyze for differences based on age groups, and build upon the current study to allow for more generalizability.

Even when end-to-end encryption is used in centralized messaging services, problems related to security, privacy, availability, and transparency remain. These problems can be avoided or reduced by using a decentralized architecture. The most notable previous attempts at decentralized messaging protocols have been based on peer-to-peer or federated networks. In a federated network, anyone can run servers that clients interact with and that interoperates with other servers in the network, whereas there is no distinction between clients and servers in a peer-to-peer network. Current peer-to-peer messaging protocols lack functionality that users expect from a messaging service, such as multi-device history and asynchronous messaging. These problems are currently being circumvented through centralized components. Current federated messaging protocols can provide most of the functionality that users demand from a messaging service but suffer from other problems. Federated protocols commonly have uncertainty in terms of interoperability in the network. Furthermore, federated messaging protocols require users to trust one node through which they send messages and assume that users have sufficient knowledge to make the correct decision of which node to trust. Users have been shown to become concentrated on one or a few nodes, which leads to many of the problems with a centralized messaging service. This study presents a decentralized messaging protocol that operates on so-called canister smart contracts on the Internet Computer blockchain. The Internet Computer operates on nodes provided by independent data centers with a consensus model that allow up to one-third of the data centers to be faulty or malicious. The presented messaging protocol allows for messages to be sent from one public key to a collection of public keys and stores the messages on the Internet Computer. New canister smart contracts are created once the previous ones are out of memory to provide theoretically infinite scalability. The evaluation of the presented messaging protocol shows that it takes approximately 5 seconds to send a message and less than 1 second to retrieve messages. Furthermore, the cost of sending and storing one million messages with a size of 100 kB for one year is estimated at $4,200. / Centraliserade meddelandetjänster kan förbättras gällande säkerhet och integritet med hjälp av end-to-end-kryptering. Det finns dock fortfarande problem med säkerhet, integritet, tillgänglighet och öppenhet i centraliserade meddelandetjänster. Dessa problem kan undvikas eller minskas genom att använda en decentraliserad arkitektur. De mest anmärkningsvärda tidigare försök på decentraliserade meddelandeprotokoll har baserats på peer-to-peer- eller federerade nätverk. De nuvarande peer-to-peer-protokollen för meddelandehantering saknar funktionalitet som användare förväntar sig av en meddelandetjänst, exempelvis historik på flera enheter och asynkrona meddelanden. Dessa problem kringgås för närvarande genom centraliserade komponenter. De nuvarande federerade meddelandeprotokollen kan tillhandahålla de flesta av de funktioner som användare förväntar sig av en meddelandetjänst, men lider av andra problem. Federerade protokoll är ofta osäkra när det gäller driftskompatibilitet i nätverket. Dessutom kräver federerade meddelandeprotokoll att användarna litar på en nod som de skickar meddelanden genom, och förutsätter att användarna har tillräckligt med kunskap för att fatta rätt beslut om vilken nod de ska lita på. Det har visat sig att användarna samlas på en eller ett fåtal noder, vilket leder till många av de problem som finns i en centraliserad meddelandetjänst. I den här studien presenteras ett decentraliserat meddelandeprotokoll som är uppbyggt av, så kallade, canister smart contracts på blockkedjan Internet Computer. Internet Computer fungerar på noder som tillhandahålls av oberoende datacenter med en konsensusmodell som tillåter att upp till en tredjedel av datacentren kan vara felaktiga eller illvilliga. Det presenterade meddelandeprotokollet gör det möjligt att skicka meddelanden från en offentlig nyckel till en samling offentliga nycklar och lagrar meddelandena på Internet Computer. Nya canister smart contracts skapas när de föregående har slut på minne för uppnå teoretiskt sett oändlig skalbarhet. Utvärderingen av det presenterade meddelandeprotokollet visar att det tar ungefär 5 sekunder att skicka ett meddelande och mindre än 1 sekund att hämta meddelanden. Dessutom uppskattas kostnaden för att skicka och lagra en miljon meddelanden med en storlek på 100 kB i ett år till 4200 dollar.

Thesis (M.A. (Communication Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / The use of communication technologies has brought changes to our daily ways of doing things. Youth use technology for different purposes at different locations. As technology grows everyday with various advantages, its benefits come along with some disadvantages. Road accidents are one of the major problems that South Africa experiences. The focus of this study was to explore the danger of texting and driving and its potentials for road accidents. This research focused on the negative impact of technology, mainly technological distraction, while driving. Broadly, this research looks at the social and cultural impact of texting and mobility, with specific focus on distracted driving. This study is significant in the social analysis of technology use and distraction; this significance is made more important considering that there is very limited study of this social issue in South Africa. The always-available communication culture (such as texting while driving) should be viewed as a problematic phenomenal. For data collection, the researcher conducted a survey with adults and youth drivers to explore the perceptions and attitudes of drivers towards cell phone use, texting and driving. The researcher also conducted roadside observations of drivers to investigate the occurrence of distracted driving due to technology use, and interviews were conducted with Traffic Officers to share their professional experience on observing incidences of texting and driving. The study reveals that technology use, texting and driving is a common problem among young drivers, while adults tend to be more careful and engage less in this activity. Aspect of the findings of the study shows that 60% of drivers report that they have sent a text while driving. Moreover, the study explores ways of curbing cell phone use texting and driving on South African roads. There should be more research on distracted driving and technology use, so that more suggestions on how to curb technology use while driving can be offered

The increased importance of social media influencers in marketing activities has been evident in recent years. The purpose of the thesis was to understand the cognitive processing of social media micro influencers’ content and the resultant behavioral outcome of follower engagement and purchase intention. Specifically, it has aimed to evaluate if the format of the content had an impact on cognitive processing and ascertains the resultant outcomes of engagement and purchase intention. Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) adapted to social media, was used, and adopted in the study in order to understand and evaluate the purpose as well as the information process of individuals. The research was narrowed down to the micro-influencers in the fashion and beauty industry sharing content, as the industry's high usage of influencer marketing and disseminating persuasive messages on Instagram. The research was conducted by using the Experimental Vignette Methodology (EVM) in a quantitative experiment. By doing so, it enabled the research to examine the participants' response to natural stimuli with quantitative results. A questionnaire together with exposure to three stimuli were used as instrumental in the collection of data. The sample was collected through social media platforms, mainly Instagram and Facebook, and via email to the students of LTU. The collected data was later analyzed, through SPSS, in two levels: impact and hypothesis testing. The impact measurement was analyzed by using repeated measures ANOVA and later the multilinear regression analysis to test the independent variables of content format relation to the dependent variables of engagement (comment and like) and purchase intention (tendency and likelihood). The findings indicated a support to the existing theory of ELM, by confirming the importance of the argument quality in the persuasive message. High lighting in the importance of text content format,in both engagement via commenting and purchase intention, when the information is processed through the more long-lasting central route. The results contributed to current literature in micro influencer and social media influencer marketing by extending the literature in persuasive messaging in relation to the content format. The research provided practical implications with insights into the cognitive processing of content and its implications in consumer engagement and purchase intention to both managers as well as to the content providers, social media influencers. The study presented relative information for content creation, communication and opened possibilities for further research in persuasive messaging in the micro media influencer segment.

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Med en ökande tillväxt inom flygtrafikbranschen behöver de bakomliggande flygtrafikledningssystemen uppgraderas för att möta den växande komplexiteten i syfte att säkerställa en ordnad flygtrafik. Här anses det arkitekturella konceptet System Wide Information Management (SWIM) för distribuerade flygledningssystem vara lösningen för att bygga system som är lättare att underhålla och enklare kan kan samverka med varandra. År 2021 fastslog Europeiska unionen att samtliga operativa intressenter inom det aeronautiska informationsutbytet i EU skall tillhandahålla och kunna konsumera SWIM-tjänster och erbjöd då en uppsättning tjänstegränssnittsbindningar för intressenter att hävda foglighet med för att efterfölja de nya regleringarna. Bland dessa finner vi AMQP Messaging och WS Light som utiliserar AMQP respektive HTTP som meddelandeprotokoll. Tidigare forskning har visat att AMQP presterar bättre än HTTP inom de flesta områden, men denna studie undersöker om någon av de två lämpar sig bättre som meddelandeprotokoll för en europabaserad SWIM-implementation genom att analysera resultatet i en SWIM-kontext. Med hjälp av en komparativ analys och kvantitativ dataanalys jämförs de två meddelandeprotokollen i denna studie för att identifiera liknande och åtskiljande karaktärsdrag samt för att svara på om någon av de två lämpar sig bättre för ändamålet. De punkter protokollen jämförs på är struktur, overhead och effektivitet, interoperabilitet och kompabilitet, tillförlitlighet och feltolerans samt förekomster i Eurocontrols SWIM Registry. Studiens resultat visar att AMQP är den lämpligaste kandidaten av de två sett till implementationstrender och prestanda, men att det är bör göras en avvägning innan en intressent väljer vilket gränssnitt denne skall implementera. / With an increasing growth within the aviation industry, the underlying air traffic control systems needs to be upgraded to meet the growing complexity for ensuring an organized air traffic. This is where the architectural concept System Wide Information Management (SWIM) for distributed air traffic control systems is believed to be the solution for building systems that are easier to maintain and can cooperate with ease. In the year 2021, the European Union decided that all operative stakeholders within the aeronautical information exchange in EU shall provide and be able to consume SWIM services, and provided a set of service interface bindings for stakeholders to claim conformance to in order to follow the new regulations. Among these we find AMQP Messaging and WS Light that utilizes AMQP and HTTP, respectively, as messaging protocols. Previous research has shown that AMQP performs better than HTTP in most areas, but this study analyses the result in a SWIM context to see if any of the two is a more suitable messaging protocol in a Europe based SWIM implementation. Through a comparative analysis and a quantitative data analysis the two messaging protocols are compared in this study to identify similar and distinctive characteristics to answer whether one of the two is a better candidate for the purpose. The protocols are compared on their structure, overhead and efficiency, interoperability and fault tolerance, and their occurances in Eurocontrol's SWIM Registry. The result of the study shows that AMQP is the more suitable candidate of the two, in regards to trends in current implementations as well as performance metrics, but a stakeholder should make a trade-off before choosing what service interface binding to implement.