Digitized information and network have made an enormous impact on the music and movie industries. Internet piracy is popular and has greatly threatened the companies in these industries. This study tests Hunt-Vitell’s ethical decision model and attempts to understand why and how people share unauthorized music files with others in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The norm of anti-piracy, the ideology of free software, the norm of reciprocity, and the ideology of consumer rights are proposed as four deontological norms related to (...) using P2P systems. The model is tested using a scenario survey with four alternatives; the results indicate that the deontological norm of anti-piracy is not a main factor in affecting P2P users’ ethical considerations regarding sharing files with others. This finding suggests that to protect their property rights, record companies should try to realize the consumer benefits brought via new digital and network technology, instead of simply declaring their intellectual property and resisting the innovations resulting from new technologies. (shrink)

Deep learning is an effective approach to solving image recognition problems. People draw intuitive conclusions from trading charts. This study uses the characteristics of deep learning to train computers in imitating this kind of intuition in the context of trading charts. The main goal of our approach is combining the time-series modeling and convolutional neural networks to build a trading model. We propose three steps to build the trading model. First, we preprocess the input data from quantitative data to images. (...) Second, we use a CNN, which is a type of deep learning, to train our trading model. Third, we evaluate the model’s performance in terms of the accuracy of classification. The experimental results show that if the strategy is clear enough to make the images obviously distinguishable the CNN model can predict the prices of a financial asset. Hence, our approach can help devise trading strategies and help clients automatically obtain personalized trading strategies. (shrink)

With the implementation of national carbon emission reduction policies and the development of online shopping, manufacturers are making low-carbon efforts and selling products through dual channels. This paper constructs a dual-channel supply chain decision-making model composed of low-carbon emission reduction manufacturers and retailers and studies the optimal decision-making problem of the supply chain under subsidies by the government based on emission reduction R&D and per unit product emission reduction. The research results show the following: when the government subsidizes emission reduction (...) R&D, the emission reduction will have an impact on retailers’ optimal prices, manufacturers’ optimal wholesale prices, and optimal direct sales channel sales prices. The profit of the manufacturer increases with the increase in carbon emissions, and the profit of the manufacturer increases to a certain level and then appears to decline. When the government adopts a subsidy method based on the emission reduction per unit product, the manufacturer’s wholesale price and the selling price of direct sales channels, as well as the retailer’s own optimal price, will increase with the increase in emission reductions. Retailers’ profits will increase linearly with the increase in carbon emissions. Manufacturers’ profits will first increase in a straight line and then increase in a curve. (shrink)

Prefabricated construction is a state-of-the-art construction technology of both socio-economic and environmental benefits, but sometimes, it is not welcome due to its high cost. Governments play an important role in deeply promoting prefabricated construction, but its effects are not clear. This paper developed a system dynamics model for investigating and simulating the impacts of government incentive strategies on prefabricated construction by considering the evolutionary game process between the government and contractors. Data of Shanghai, China, is collected for demonstration and validation (...) of the developed simulation model. Results show that the evolutionary stable strategy does not exist in static game process; the rate of adopting prefabricated construction is affected by the level of penalties and subsidies; dynamic incentive strategies can better improve the stability of the evolutionary game process; and the rational range of incentive rate can be obtained. Findings of this study facilitate governments to formulate and improve the incentive strategies of prefabricated construction, thus boosting the development of construction industrialization. (shrink)

In association with the development of intermittent renewable energy generation, dynamic multiobjective dispatch faces more challenges for power system operation due to significant REG uncertainty. To tackle the problems, a day-ahead, optimal dispatch problem incorporating energy storage is formulated and solved based on a robust multiobjective optimization method. In the proposed model, dynamic multistage ES and generator dispatch patterns are optimized to reduce the cost and emissions. Specifically, strong constraints of the charging/discharging behaviors of the ES in the space-time domain (...) are considered to prolong its lifetime. Additionally, an adaptive robust model based on minimax multiobjective optimization is formulated to find optimal dispatch solutions adapted to uncertain REG changes. Moreover, an effective optimization algorithm, namely, the hybrid multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimization and Teaching Learning Based Optimization, is employed to seek an optimal Pareto front of the proposed dispatch model. This approach has been tested on power system integrated with wind power and ES. Numerical results reveal that the robust multiobjective dispatch model successfully meets the demands of obtaining solutions when wind power uncertainty is considered. Meanwhile, the comparison results demonstrate the competitive performance of the PSO-TLBO method in solving the proposed dispatch problems. (shrink)

Understanding and predicting extreme turning points in the financial market, such as financial bubbles and crashes, has attracted much attention in recent years. Experimental observations of the superexponential increase of prices before crashes indicate the predictability of financial extremes. In this study, we aim to forecast extreme events in the stock market using 19-year time-series data of the financial market, covering 12 kinds of worldwide stock indices. In addition, we propose an extremes indicator through the network, which is constructed from (...) the price time series using a weighted visual graph algorithm. Experimental results on 12 stock indices show that the proposed indicators can predict financial extremes very well. (shrink)

The third member of the Shahejie Formation is the main hydrocarbon exploration target in the KL-A oilfield, Bohai Bay Basin, East China. The facies classification is an essential step in mapping the depositional system of Es3 within the Bohai Bay Basin. The facies model is important for identifying the “sweet” lithology within the reservoirs. We characterize the facies of Es3 by integrating cores, well logs, and seismic data. The analysis indicates that the Es3 consists of fan delta deposits. The analysis (...) using well logs and cores indicates that there are five different lithofacies for the Es3 Formation: massive sandstone, horizontally bedded sandstone, trough cross-bedded sandstone, ripple cross-laminated sandstone, and massive mud. The microfacies of Es3 include distributary channel, distributary mouth bar, interdistributary bay, and lacustrine mudstone deposits. The sweet lithologies for hydrocarbon accumulation within the KL-A oilfield include the coarse- and fine-grained sand developed within the channels and distributary mouth bar. We use seismic rms amplitude strata slices to determine the horizontal distribution of facies of the fan delta. The correlation between rms amplitude and well logs indicates that relatively low rms amplitude anomalies on the strata slices can be used as an indicator for sandstone within the KL-A oilfield. (shrink)

After fault occurs, the fault diagnosis of wind turbine system is required accurately and quickly. This paper presents a fault diagnostic method for open-circuit faults in the converter of permanent magnet synchronous generator drive for the wind turbine. To avoid misjudgement or missed judgement caused by improper thresholds, the proposed method applies Local Mean Decomposition and Multiscale Entropy into the converter of wind power system fault diagnosis for the first time. This paper uses a novel multiclass support vector machine to (...) classify the faults hardly diagnosed by other methods. Simulation results show that the method has the characteristics of high adaptability, high accuracy, and less diagnosis time. (shrink)

Monetary Intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the bright side of Monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics, frames money attitude in the context of pay and life satisfaction, and controls money at the macro-level and micro-level. We theorize: Managers with low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior will have high subjective well-being: pay satisfaction and (...) quality of life. Data collected from 6586 managers in 32 cultures across six continents support our theory. Interestingly, GDP per capita is related to life satisfaction, but not to pay satisfaction. Individual income is related to both life and pay satisfaction. Neither GDP nor income is related to Happiness. Our theoretical model across three GDP groups offers new discoveries: In high GDP entities, “high income” not only reduces aspirations—“Rich, Motivator, and Power,” but also promotes stewardship behavior—“Budget, Give/Donate, and Contribute” and appreciation of “Achievement.” After controlling income, we demonstrate the bright side of Monetary Intelligence: Low love of money motive but high stewardship behavior define Monetary Intelligence. “Good apples enjoy good quality of life in good barrels.” This notion adds another explanation to managers’ low magnitude of dishonesty in entities with high Corruption Perceptions Index. In low GDP entities, high income is related to poor Budgeting skills and escalated Happiness. These managers experience equal satisfaction with pay and life. We add a new vocabulary to the conversation of monetary intelligence, income, GDP, happiness, subjective well-being, good and bad apples and barrels, corruption, and behavioral ethics. (shrink)

Humanities Open Book Program, a joint initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Ensuring adequate informed consent for surgery in a trauma setting is challenging. We developed and pilot tested an educational video containing information regarding the informed consent process for surgery in trauma patients and a knowledge measure instrument and evaluated whether the audiovisual presentation improved the patients’ knowledge regarding their procedure and aftercare and their satisfaction with the informed consent process. A modified Delphi technique in which a panel of experts participated in successive rounds of shared scoring of items to forecast (...) outcomes was applied to reach a consensus among the experts. The resulting consensus was used to develop the video content and questions for measuring the understanding of the informed consent for debridement surgery in limb trauma patients. The expert panel included experienced patients. The participants in this pilot study were enrolled as a convenience sample of adult trauma patients scheduled to receive surgery. The modified Delphi technique comprised three rounds over a 4-month period. The items given higher scores by the experts in several categories were chosen for the subsequent rounds until consensus was reached. The experts reached a consensus on each item after the three-round process. The final knowledge measure comprising 10 questions was developed and validated. Thirty eligible trauma patients presenting to the Emergency Department were approached and completed the questionnaires in this pilot study. The participants exhibited significantly higher mean knowledge and satisfaction scores after watching the educational video than before watching the video. Our process is promising for developing procedure-specific informed consent and audiovisual aids in medical and surgical specialties. The educational video was developed using a scientific method that integrated the opinions of different stakeholders, particularly patients. This video is a useful tool for improving the knowledge and satisfaction of trauma patients in the ED. The modified Delphi technique is an effective method for collecting experts’ opinions and reaching a consensus on the content of educational materials for informed consent. Institutions should prioritize patient-centered health care and develop a structured informed consent process to improve the quality of care. The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier is NCT01338480. The date of registration was April 18, 2011. (shrink)

Background Ensuring adequate informed consent for surgery in a trauma setting is challenging. We developed and pilot tested an educational video containing information regarding the informed consent process for surgery in trauma patients and a knowledge measure instrument and evaluated whether the audiovisual presentation improved the patients’ knowledge regarding their procedure and aftercare and their satisfaction with the informed consent process. Methods A modified Delphi technique in which a panel of experts participated in successive rounds of shared scoring of items (...) to forecast outcomes was applied to reach a consensus among the experts. The resulting consensus was used to develop the video content and questions for measuring the understanding of the informed consent for debridement surgery in limb trauma patients. The expert panel included experienced patients. The participants in this pilot study were enrolled as a convenience sample of adult trauma patients scheduled to receive surgery. Results The modified Delphi technique comprised three rounds over a 4-month period. The items given higher scores by the experts in several categories were chosen for the subsequent rounds until consensus was reached. The experts reached a consensus on each item after the three-round process. The final knowledge measure comprising 10 questions was developed and validated. Thirty eligible trauma patients presenting to the Emergency Department were approached and completed the questionnaires in this pilot study. The participants exhibited significantly higher mean knowledge and satisfaction scores after watching the educational video than before watching the video. Conclusions Our process is promising for developing procedure-specific informed consent and audiovisual aids in medical and surgical specialties. The educational video was developed using a scientific method that integrated the opinions of different stakeholders, particularly patients. This video is a useful tool for improving the knowledge and satisfaction of trauma patients in the ED. The modified Delphi technique is an effective method for collecting experts’ opinions and reaching a consensus on the content of educational materials for informed consent. Institutions should prioritize patient-centered health care and develop a structured informed consent process to improve the quality of care. Trial registration The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier is NCT01338480. The date of registration was April 18, 2011. (shrink)

With the rapid growth of various complex networks, link prediction has become increasingly important because it can discover the missing information and predict future interactions between nodes in a network. Recently, the CAR and CCLP indexes have been presented for link prediction by means of different triangle structure information. However, both indexes may lose the contributions of some shared neighbors. We propose in this work a new index to make up the weakness and then improve the accuracy of link prediction. (...) The proposed index focuses on a new triangle structure, i.e., the triangle formed by one seed node, one common neighbor, and one other node. It emphasizes the importance of these triangles but does not ignore the contribution of any common neighbor. In addition, the proposed index adopts the theory of resource allocation by penalizing large-degree neighbors. The results of comparison with CN, AA, RA, ADP, CAR, CAA, CRA, and CCLP on 12 real-world networks show that the proposed index outperforms the compared methods in terms of AUC and ranking score. (shrink)

To improve the reliability of power grid fault diagnosis by enhancing the processing ability of uncertain information and adequately utilizing the alarm information about power grids, a fault diagnosis method using intuitionistic fuzzy Petri Nets based on time series matching is proposed in this paper. First, the alarm hypothesis sequence and the real alarm sequence are constructed using the alarm information and the general grid protection configuration model, and the similarity of the two sequences is used to calculate the timing (...) confidence. Then, an intuitionistic fuzzy Petri Nets fault diagnosis model, with an excellent ability to process uncertain information from intuitionistic fuzzy sets, is constructed, and the initial place value of the model is corrected by the timing confidence. Finally, an application of the fault diagnosis model for the actual grid is established to analyze and verify the diagnostic results of the new method. The results for some test cases show that the new method can improve the accuracy and fault tolerance of fault diagnosis, and, furthermore, the abnormal state of the component can be inferred. (shrink)

Due to the development of information technology, music piracy has become an escalating problem. This study attempts to employ the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the social identity theory to investigate the antecedents of downloading pop music illegally from the Internet, the relationship between the intention to illegally download music and the intention to buy music, and the moderating effects of idolatry. Data were collected from 350 teenagers in Northern Taiwan through questionnaire interviews conducted in city centers where teenagers (...) gather. The results of partial least squares (PLS) analyses reconfirm the explanatory power of the TPB model with regard to the pop music illegal downloading behavior. However, it is interesting to note that the intention to illegally download music does not have a significant influence on the intention to buy music. This finding contradicts our common intuitions. Further analyses also reveal that idolatry moderates the relationship between the intention to illegally download music and the intention to buy music. For teenagers with high idolatry, a higher music downloading intention results in a lower buying intention. One possible explanation is the price of music CDs. Several interviews were also held to verify our results. Implications and a discussion are then provided. (shrink)

We investigated whether, in the emergency department, educational video-assisted informed consent is superior to the conventional consent process, to inform trauma patients undergoing surgery about the procedure, benefits, risks, alternatives, and postoperative care. We conducted a prospective randomized controlled trial, with superiority study design. All trauma patients scheduled to receive trauma-related debridement surgery in the ED of Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital were included. Patients were assigned to one of two education protocols. Participants in the intervention group watched an educational video (...) illustrating informed consent information, whereas those in the control group read an informed consent document. The primary outcome was knowledge scores and the secondary outcome was assessment of patient satisfaction. A multivariable regression model, with predefined covariates, was used to analyze differences in knowledge scores and patient satisfaction levels between the groups. A total of 142 patients were enrolled, with 70 and 72 assigned to the intervention and control groups, respectively. Mean knowledge scores were higher in the intervention ) than in the control group. By multivariate analysis, the intervention group had significantly greater differences in knowledge scores. Age, injury severity score, and baseline knowledge score significantly affected the differences in knowledge scores. Significant improvements were observed in patients’ perception of statements addressing comprehension of the information provided, helpfulness of the supplied information for decision making, and satisfaction with the informed consent process. Multivariate analysis showed significant correlations between video education and patient satisfaction. Both the educational approach and severity of injury may have an impact on patient understanding during the informed consent process in an emergency environment. Video-assisted informed consent may improve the understanding of surgery and satisfaction with the informed consent process for trauma patients in the ED. Institutions should develop structured methods and other strategies to better inform trauma patients, facilitate treatment decisions, and improve patient satisfaction. The ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier is NCT01338480. The date of registration was April 18, 2011. (shrink)

Monetary intelligence theory asserts that individuals apply their money attitude to frame critical concerns in the context and strategically select certain options to achieve financial goals and ultimate happiness. This study explores the dark side of monetary Intelligence and behavioral economics—dishonesty. Dishonesty, a risky prospect, involves cost–benefit analysis of self-interest. We frame good or bad barrels in the environmental context as a proxy of high or low probability of getting caught for dishonesty, respectively. We theorize: The magnitude and intensity of (...) the relationship between love of money and dishonest prospect may reveal how individuals frame dishonesty in the context of two levels of subjective norm—perceived corporate ethical values at the micro-level and Corruption Perceptions Index at the macro-level, collected from multiple sources. Based on 6382 managers in 31 geopolitical entities across six continents, our cross-level three-way interaction effect illustrates: As expected, managers in good barrels, mixed barrels, and bad barrels display low, medium, and high magnitude of dishonesty, respectively. With high CEV, the intensity is the same across cultures. With low CEV, the intensity of dishonesty is the highest in high CPI entities —the Enron Effect, but the lowest in low CPI entities. CPI has a strong impact on the magnitude of dishonesty, whereas CEV has a strong impact on the intensity of dishonesty. We demonstrate dishonesty in light of monetary values and two frames of social norm, revealing critical implications to the field of behavioral economics and business ethics. (shrink)

This study aimed to discuss the relationships among the brand image of universities (external variables), university satisfaction (mediating variables) and customer lifetime value (internal variables). The findings can serve as a reference for higher educational institutions in strengthening their advantages and overcoming their shortcomings, as well as for administrative decision-making. A questionnaire survey was conducted on university students in Taiwan, and 470 valid samples were retrieved. The data were analysed with structural equation modelling and multi-group analysis. The results showed that (...) brand image influences customer satisfaction, which in turn affects customer lifetime value. Satisfaction is a partial mediating variable between brand image and customer lifetime value. Multi-group analysis found that gender has no interfering effect between brand image and satisfaction, nor does it between satisfaction and customer lifetime value or between brand image and customer lifetime value. (shrink)

In 2012, China officially declared, as a national strategy of governance, the development of ecological consciousness, the promotion of what has been called “eco-civilization,” and the development of “ecological citizens.” In this paper, we argue that the concept of green burial reflects a number of the values underlying “eco-civilization” and ecological citizenship: respect for nature, respect for humanity, and the ecologically-sensitive rational awareness of the “harmony between nature and humanity, as in the saying “天人合一” Tian Ren He Yi = “Nature (...) and human beings combine into an integral whole”). The practice of green burial can play a valuable role in promoting the construction of an eco-civilization, although many people in China—and elsewhere—may be reluctant to accept it. One reason for this may be that the concept and practice of green burial are so new that it does not yet have a place in the ecological awareness of China’s citizens, who are the main subjects of the construction of eco-civilization. In our view, it is necessary to increase citizen awareness of green burials and their value, and to encourage people to participate in the practice. This is a reflection of the values that underlie ecological citizenship, but also serves to promote these values. While our proposal in this paper is to argue for green burial as an element in realizing this model of “eco-civilization” in China, its relevance clearly extends beyond the Chinese context. (shrink)

The S-transform is one of the most widely used methods of time-frequency analysis. It combines the respective advantages of the short-time Fourier transform and wavelet transforms with scale-dependent resolution using Gaussian windows, scaled inversely with frequency. One of the problems with the traditional symmetric Gaussian window is the degradation of time resolution in the time-frequency spectrum due to the long front taper. We have studied the performance of an improved S-transform with an asymmetric bi-Gaussian window. The asymmetric bi-Gaussian window can (...) obtain an increased time resolution in the front direction. The increased time resolution can make event picking high resolution, which will facilitate an improved time-frequency characterization for oil and gas trap prediction. We have applied the slightly modified bi-Gaussian S-transform to a synthetic trace, a 2D seismic section, and a 3D seismic cube to indicate the superior performance of the bi-Gaussian S-transform in analyzing nonstationary signal components, hydrocarbon reservoir predictions, and paleochannels delineations with an obviously higher resolution. (shrink)

The dynamics of a delay multiparticle swarm, which contains symmetric and asymmetric pairwise influence functions, are analyzed. Two different sufficient conditions to achieve conditional flocking are obtained. One does not have a clear relationship with this delay, and the other proposes a range of processing delays that affect the emergence of a flock. It is also pointed out that if the interparticle communication function has tail dissipation, unconditional flocking can be guaranteed. Compared with the previous results, the range of the (...) communication rate β that allows a flock to emerge has been expanded from 1/4 to 1/2. (shrink)

Background: To evaluate the effectiveness of a multifaceted intervention in improving emergency department (ED) patient privacy and satisfaction in the crowded ED setting. Methods: A pre- and post-intervention study was conducted. A multifaceted intervention was implemented in a university-affiliated hospital ED. The intervention developed strategies to improve ED patient privacy and satisfaction, including redesigning the ED environment, process management, access control, and staff education and training, and encouraging ethics consultation. The effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated using patient surveys. Eligibility (...) data were collected after the intervention and compared to data collected before the intervention. Differences in patient satisfaction and patient perception of privacy were adjusted for predefined covariates using multivariable ordinal logistic regression. Results: Structured questionnaires were collected with 313 ED patients before the intervention and 341 ED patients after the intervention. There were no important covariate differences, except for treatment area, between the two groups. Significant improvements were observed in patient perception of "personal information overheard by others", being "seen by irrelevant persons", having "unintentionally heard inappropriate conversations from healthcare providers", and experiencing "providers' respect for my privacy". There was significant improvement in patient overall perception of privacy and satisfaction. There were statistically significant correlations between the intervention and patient overall perception of privacy and satisfaction on multivariable analysis. Conclusions: Significant improvements were achieved with an intervention. Patients perceived significantly more privacy and satisfaction in ED care after the intervention. We believe that these improvements were the result of major philosophical, administrative, and operational changes aimed at respecting both patient privacy and satisfaction. (shrink)

Colloquially, episodic memory is described as “the memory of personally experienced events”. Even though episodic memory has been studied in psychology and neuroscience for about six decades, there is still great uncertainty as to what episodic memory is. Here we ask how episodic memory should be characterized in order to be validated as a natural kind. We propose to conceive of episodic memory as a knowledge-like state that is identified with an experientially based mnemonic representation of an episode that allows (...) for a mnemonic simulation thereof. We call our analysis the Sequence Analysis of Episodic Memory since episodes will be analyzed in terms of sequences of events. Our philosophical analysis of episodic memory is driven and supported by experimental results from psychology and neuroscience. We discuss selected experimental results that provide exemplary evidence for uniform causal mechanisms underlying the properties of episodic memory and argue that episodic memory is a natural kind. The argumentation proceeds along three cornerstones: First, psychological evidence suggests that a violation of any of the proposed conditions for episodic memory amounts to a deficiency of episodic memory and no form of memory or cognitive process but episodic memory fulfills them. Second, empirical results support a claim that the principal anatomical substrate of episodic memory is the hippocampus. Finally, we can pin down causal mechanisms onto neural activities in the hippocampus to explain the psychological states and processes constituting episodic memory. (shrink)

The dynamic models are proposed to investigate the influence node activity has on rumor spreading process in both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks. Different from previous studies, we believe that the activity of nodes in complex networks affects the process of rumor spreading. An active node can have contact with all the nodes it directly links to, while an inactive node could only interact with its active neighbors. We explore the joint effort of activity rate, spreading rate and network topology on (...) rumor spreading process by mean-field equations and numerical simulations, which reveals that there exists a critical curve consisting of critical activity rate and spreading rate; meanwhile, activity rate and spreading rate both have influence on the final rumor spreading scale. (shrink)

Characterizing heavy oil viscosity by nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation time measurements is much more challenging than characterizing light oil viscosities. Crude oils contain a wide range of hydrocarbons, resulting in broad [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] distributions that vary with the oil composition. Most often, a single geometric mean value [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text] is correlated with the crude oil viscosity, which cannot accurately account for the inherent complexity of the oil constituent information. Furthermore, as (...) the viscosity increases, some of the protons in the oil relax too quickly to be observable by logging or laboratory NMR instruments. This results in deficiencies of relaxation time and signal amplitude that give rise to apparent [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] distributions and apparent hydrogen index. Using [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] distributions in NMR viscosity models could produce erroneous heavy oil viscosity estimations. Several attempts have been made to overcome these challenges by taking into account [Formula: see text] at a fixed interecho time, or a TE-dependent [Formula: see text]. We have developed a new radial-basis-function-based heavy oil viscosity model using the entire [Formula: see text] distribution, rather than [Formula: see text], with an option of including the NMR-derived [Formula: see text]. Because both of these quantities are TE dependent, it is desirable to include multiple TE data to develop the model. In addition, the principal component analysis method was applied to extract major variations of features embedded in the [Formula: see text] distributions, while discarding distribution features that are derived from random noise. The coefficients of the RBFs were derived using laboratory NMR [Formula: see text] measurements at ambient and elevated temperatures between 23.5°C and 39.5°C and corresponding viscosity measurements on 50 oil samples. These oil samples were collected from different parts of a shallow viscous oil reservoir in Kuwait. It was observed that the use of this newly developed RBF method showed significant improvement in terms of the reliability of the viscosity prediction compared to some recently published heavy oil viscosity correlations. (shrink)