Search Results (3)

Background: Addictive behaviors such as tobacco/e-cigarette smoking, at-risk alcohol consumption, cannabis use or compulsive internet use are common among apprentices. ready4life is a mobile app-based preventive intervention program for apprentices that promotes life skills and reduces risky behavior. The present study tested the efficacy of ready4life for addiction prevention among apprentices in Switzerland within a controlled trial. Methods: Two-arm, cluster-randomized controlled trial including assessments at baseline and follow-up after 6 months. Participants of the intervention group received coaching by a conversational agent for 16 weeks. The main outcome measure was a composite score for addictive behaviors, which included (1) at-risk drinking, (2) tobacco/e-cigarette smoking, (3) cannabis use and (4) problematic internet use. Results: A total of 2275 students from 159 vocational school classes in Switzerland, were invited for study participation. Of these, 1351 (59.4%) students with a mean age of 17.3 years and a male proportion of 56.6% provided informed consent to participate. The follow up assessment at month 6 was completed by 962 (71.2%) study participants. The results concerning the primary outcome showed a stronger decrease of addictive behaviors between baseline and follow up in the intervention group compared to the control group. In particular, significant effects were observed for at-risk drinking and problematic Internet use, while no significant effects were observed for tobacco/e-cigarette smoking and cannabis use. Conclusions: The majority of apprentices invited for program participation within vocational schools participated in the ready4life program for addiction prevention. The mobile app-based coaching was effective in reducing risk behaviors such as at-risk drinking and problematic Internet use in a group of adolescents who have an especially high risk of engaging in addictive activities. Full article

Many studies in the literature have presented multiple remote sensing techniques for defect inspection of paintings. At present, however, papers on defect inspection and restoration of oriental architectural arts—such as door god paintings—are still rare. If an aged and damaged door god painting needs a restoration, then following the style and treatment skill of the original artist as much as possible is important for the restoration. Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to access the original artists for some of the aged door god paintings. This paper considers the texture features of auspicious patterns of armors on warrior door gods as useful information to recognize styles of door god paintings by unknown artists. First, a two-level two-dimensional discrete wavelet transform coupled with co-occurrence matrix calculation was adopted to analyze the texture features, based on the descriptors of angular second moment (ASM), entropy (ENT), contrast (CON), homogeneity (HOM), dissimilarity (DIS), correlation (COR), and cluster tendency (CLU), in the four orientations of 0° (horizontal), 45° (vertical), and 90° and 135° (double diagonal). Second, a two-tailed t-test based on the analyzed texture features was introduced into the hypothesis testing for demonstrating the master and apprentice relationships between the surveyed artists, and for recognizing the door god painting styles of unknown artists as well. The experimental results show that the proposed method effectively describes the texture features of the auspicious patterns of the surveyed door god paintings, and is able to determine the useful co-occurrence features for recognizing unknown artists’ painting styles. Full article

Knowledge learning and diffusion have long been discussed in the literature on the dynamics of industrial clusters, but recent literature provides little evidence for how different actors serve as knowledge brokers in the upgrading process of apprentice-based clusters, and does not dynamically consider how to preserve the sustainability of these clusters. This paper uses empirical evidence from an antique furniture manufacturing cluster in Xianyou, Fujian Province, in southeastern China, to examine the growth trajectory of the knowledge learning system of an antique furniture manufacturing cluster. It appears that the apprentice-based learning system is crucial during early stages of the cluster evolution, but later becomes complemented and relatively substituted by the role of both local governments and focal outsiders. This finding addresses the context of economic transformation and provides empirical insights into knowledge acquisition in apprentice-based clusters to question the rationality based on European and North American cases, and to provide a broader perspective for policy makers to trigger and sustain the development of apprentice-based clusters. Full article