Search results for: older person

Authors: David Simpson, Kyle Nash

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There is considerable evidence linking slow, deliberative reasoning (system 2) with utilitarian judgments in dilemmas involving the sacrificing of another person for the greater good (other-sacrificial dilemmas). Joshua Greene has argued, based on this kind of evidence, that system 2 drives utilitarian judgments. However, the evidence on whether system 2 is associated with utilitarian judgments in self-sacrificial dilemmas is more mixed. We employed process dissociation to measure a self-sacrificial utilitarian (SU) parameter and an other-sacrificial (OU) utilitarian parameter. It was initially predicted that contra Greene, the cognitive reflection test (CRT) would only be positively correlated with the OU parameter and not the SU parameter. However, Greene’s hypothesis was corroborated: the CRT positively correlated with both the OU parameter and the SU parameter. By contrast, the CRT did not correlate with the other two moral parameters we extracted (altruism and deontology).

Keywords: dual-process model, utilitarianism, altruism, reason, emotion, process dissociation

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Authors: Lian Kösters, Wendy Smits, Raymond Montizaan

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The number of solo self-employed in the Netherlands has been increasing for years. The relative increase is among the largest in the EU. To explain this increase, most studies have focused on the supply side, workers who offer themselves as solo self-employed. The number of studies that focus on the demand side, the employer who hires the solo self-employed, is still scarce. Studies into employer behaviour conducted until now show that employers mainly choose self-employed workers when they have a temporary need for specialist knowledge, but also during projects or production peaks. These studies do not provide insight into the employers’ considerations for different contract types. In this study, interviews with employers were conducted, and available literature was consulted to provide an overview of the several factors employers use to compare different contract types. That input was used to set up a vignette study. This was carried out at the end of 2021 among almost 1000 business owners, HR managers, and business leaders of Dutch companies. Each respondent was given two sets of five fictitious candidates for two possible positions in their organization. They were asked to rank these candidates. The positions varied with regard to the type of tasks (core tasks or support tasks) and the time it took to train new people for the position. The respondents were asked additional questions about the positions, such as the required level of education, the duration, and the degree of predictability of tasks. The fictitious candidates varied, among other things, in the type of contract on which they would come to work for the organization. The results were analyzed using a rank-ordered logit analysis. This vignette setup makes it possible to see which factors are most important for employers when choosing to hire a solo self-employed person compared to other contracts. The results show that there are no indications that employers would want to hire solo self-employed workers en masse. They prefer regular employee contracts. The probability of being chosen with a solo self-employed contract over someone who comes to work as a temporary employee is 32 percent. This probability is even lower than for on-call and temporary agency workers. For a permanent contract, this probability is 46 percent. The results provide indications that employers consider knowledge and skills more important than the solo self-employed contract and that this can compensate. A solo self-employed candidate with 10 years of work experience has a 63 percent probability of being found attractive by an employer compared to a temporary employee without work experience. This suggests that employers are willing to give someone a less attractive contract for the employer if the worker so wishes. The results also show that the probability that a solo self-employed person is preferred over a candidate with a temporary employee contract is somewhat higher in business economics, administrative and technical professions. No significant results were found for factors where it was expected that solo self-employed workers are preferred more often, such as for unpredictable or temporary work.

Keywords: employer behaviour, rank-ordered logit analysis, solo self-employment, temporary contract, vignette study

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Authors: Mohammad A. Alolayan, John S. Evans, James K. Hammitt

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The value of statistical life has been estimated for a middle eastern country with high economical subsidization system. In this study, in-person interviews were conducted on a stratified random sample to estimate the value of mortality risk. Double-bounded dichotomous choice questions followed by open-ended question were used in the interview to investigate the willingness to pay of the respondent for mortality risk reduction. High willingness to pay was found to be associated with high income and education. Also, females were found to have lower willingness to pay than males. The estimated value of statistical life is larger than the ones estimated for western countries where taxation system exists. This estimate provides a baseline for monetizing the health benefits for proposed policy or program to the decision makers in an eastern country. Also, the value of statistical life for a country in the region can be extrapolated from this this estimate by using the benefit transfer method.

Keywords: mortality, risk, VSL, willingness-to-pay

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Authors: Nantakrit Yodpijit, Teppakorn Sittiwanchai

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The number of older adults is rising rapidly. The world’s population becomes aging. Falls is one of common and major health problems in the elderly. Falls may lead to acute and chronic injuries and deaths. The fall-prone individuals are at greater risk for decreased quality of life, lowered productivity and poverty, social problems, and additional health problems. A number of studies on falls prevention using fall detection system have been conducted. Many available technologies for fall detection system are laboratory-based and can incur substantial costs for falls prevention. The utilization of alternative technologies can potentially reduce costs. This paper presents the new design and development of a wearable-based fall detection system using an Accelerometer and Gyroscope as motion sensors for the detection of body orientation and movement. Algorithms are developed to differentiate between Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and falls by comparing Threshold-based values with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Results indicate the possibility of using the new threshold-based method with neural network algorithm to reduce the number of false positive (false alarm) and improve the accuracy of fall detection system.

Keywords: aging, algorithm, artificial neural networks (ANN), fall detection system, motion sensorsthreshold

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Authors: Riya Mishra, Trayambak Tiwari, Anju Lata Singh, I. L. Singh, Tara Singh

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Decrement in vigilance task performance echoes impediment in effortful attention; here attention fluctuated in the realm of external and internal milieu of a person. To examine this fluctuation across time period, we employed two experiments of vigilance task with variation in thought probing rate, which was embedded in the task. The thought probe varies in terms of <2 minute per thought probe and <4 minute per thought probe during vigilance task. A 2x4 repeated measure factorial design was used. 15 individuals participated in this study with an age range of 20-26 years. It was found that thought probing rate has a negative trend with vigilance task performance whereas the subjective measures of mind-wandering have a positive relation with thought probe rate.

Keywords: criterion response, mental status, mind-wandering, thought probe, vigilance

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Authors: J. Jarolímek, P. Urban, P. Pavlínek, D. Dzúrová

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The industry constitutes a dominant economic sector in Czechia. The automotive industry represents the most important industrial sector in terms of gross value added and the number of employees. The objective of this study was to analyse the occurrence of occupational diseases (OD) in the automotive industry in Czechia during the 2001-2014 period. Whereas the occurrence of OD in other sectors has generally been decreasing, it has been increasing in the automotive industry, including growing spatial discrepancies. Data on OD cases were retrieved from the National Registry of Occupational Diseases. Further, we conducted a survey in automotive companies with a focus on occupational health services and positions of the companies in global production networks (GPNs). An analysis of OD distribution in the automotive industry was performed (age, gender, company size and its role in GPNs, regional distribution of studied companies, and regional unemployment rate), and was accompanied by an assessment of the quality and range of occupational health services. The employees older than 40 years had nearly 2.5 times higher probability of OD occurrence compared with employees younger than 40 years (OR 2.41; 95% CI: 2.05-2.85). The OD occurrence probability was 3 times higher for women than for men (OR 3.01; 95 % CI: 2.55-3.55). The OD incidence rate was increasing with the size of the company. An association between the OD incidence and the unemployment rate was not confirmed.

Keywords: occupational diseases, automotive industry, health geography, unemployment

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Authors: Yaprak Aydin

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The rural is no longer a space of only agricultural activities that gave into the global market demands; or an idyll to return after retirement; or only a reservoir of cultural values, but rather a vision to redefine the future in terms of production and consumption relations. Gulpınar in Turkey and Ashtarak in Armenia are two towns where a new ground of dialogue between two communities has been initiated: ‘energy democracy’, which is a significant driving force in a sense of gathering people of two historically conflicted communities around common future concerns; and in a sense of transforming the accepted knowledge on the rurality and all the social structures it represents. This paper seeks to provoke a discussion of to what extent such a rurality is attainable by contextualizing – through visits and meetings in person – two towns and two communities within a renewable energy project called 'Under the Same Sun' carried out by two local civil society organizations together at two public spaces.

Keywords: civil society, energy democracy, prosumer communities, renewable energy, transnational rurality

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Authors: Ketwadee Madden

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Product or service image is among the vital factors that predict individuals’ choice of buying a product or services, goes to a place or attached to a person. Similarly, in the context of tourism, the destination image is a very important factor to which tourist considers before making their tour destination decisions. In light of this, the objective of this study is to conceptually investigate among French tourists, the determinants of Thailand’s tourism destination image. For this objective to be achieved, prior studies were reviewed, leading to the development of conceptual framework highlighting the determinants of destination image. In addition, this study develops some hypotheses that are to be empirically investigated. Aside these, based on the conceptual findings, suggestions on how to motivate European tourists to chose Thailand as their preferred tourism destination were made.

Keywords: cognitive destination image, affective destination image, motivations, risk perception, word of mouth

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Authors: Sipu Guo, Silin Huang

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Background: Most studies investigate the link between executive function and allostatic load (AL) among adults aged 18 years and older. Studies differed regarding the specific biological indicators studied and executive functions accounted for. Specific executive functions may be differentially related to allostatic load. We investigated the comorbidities of executive functions and allostatic load via network analysis. Methods: We included 603 adolescents (49.84% girls; Mean age = 12.38, SD age = 1.79) from junior high school in rural China. Eight biological markers at T1 and four executive function tasks at T2 were used to evaluate networks. Network analysis was used to determine the network structure, core symptoms, and bridge symptoms in the AL-executive function network among rural adolescents. Results: The executive functions were related to 6 AL biological markers, not to cortisol and epinephrine. The most influential symptoms were inhibition control, cognitive flexibility, processing speed, and systolic blood pressure (SBP). SBP, dehydroepiandrosterone, and processing speed were the bridges through which AL was related to executive functions. dehydroepiandrosterone strongly predicted processing speed. The SBP was the biggest influencer in the entire network. Conclusions: We found evidence for differential relations between markers and executive functions. SBP was a driver in the network; dehydroepiandrosterone showed strong relations with executive function.

Keywords: allostatic load, executive function, network analysis, rural adolescent

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Authors: Sungwon Jung

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The percentage of 20 years or older apartment houses in South Korea is approximately 20% (1.55 million houses), and the explosive increase of aged houses is expected around the first planned new towns. Accordingly, we should prepare for social issues such as difficulty of housing lease and degradation of housing performance. The improvement of performance of aged houses is essential for achieving the national energy and carbon reduction goals, and we should develop techniques to respond to the changing construction environment. Furthermore, we should develop a performance evaluation system that is appropriate for the demands of residents such as the improvement of remodeling floor plan by performance improvement in line with the residence type of the housing vulnerable groups such as low-income group and elderly people living alone. For this purpose, remodeling techniques and business models optimized for the target complexes must be spread through the development of various business models. In addition, it is necessary to improve the remodeling business by improving the laws and systems related to the improvement of the residential performance and to prepare techniques to respond to the increasing business demands. In other words, performance improvement and evaluation and knowledge systems need to be researched as new issues related to remodeling that has not been addressed in the existing research.

Keywords: remodelling, performance evaluation, web-based system, big data

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Authors: Saleem Abuleil, Khalid S. Alsamara

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Events represent a significant source of information on the web; they deliver information about events that occurred around the world in all kind of subjects and areas. These events can be collected and organized to provide valuable and useful information for decision makers, researchers, as well as any person seeking knowledge. In this paper, we discuss an ongoing research to target stock markets domain to observe and record changes (events) when they happen, collect them, understand the meaning of each one of them, and organize the information along with meaning in a well-structured format. By using Semantic Role Labeling (SRL) technique, we identified four factors for each event in this paper: verb of action and three roles associated with it, entity name, attribute, and attribute value. We have generated a set of rules and techniques to support our approach to analyze and understand the meaning of the events taking place in stock markets.

Keywords: natuaral language processing, Arabic language, event extraction and understanding, sematic role labeling, stock market

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Authors: Andrew Anis Fakhrey Mosaad

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Introduction: There are many different types of sleep disorders, each with serious implications for a person's health and a large financial burden on society. Method: This review offers a framework based on the International Classification of Sleep Disorders to aid in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. Differentiating between primary and secondary insomnia is covered, along with pharmacological and nonpharmacological therapy options. Common abnormalities of the circadian rhythm are mentioned along with their therapies, such as light therapy and chronotherapy. This article discusses the identification and management of periodic limb movement disorder and restless legs syndrome. The therapy of upper airway resistance syndrome and obstructive sleep apnea are the main topics of discussion. Conclusion: The range of narcolepsy symptoms and results, as well as diagnostic procedures and treatment, are discussed. The causes, outcomes, and treatments of many types of insomnias, such as sleep terrors, somnambulism, and rapid eye movement (REM) behavior sleep disorders, are discussed.

Keywords: diagnosis, treatment, sleep disorders, insomnia

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Authors: Liz Jackson

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Fear is usually considered as a basic emotion. In society, it is normally cast as undesirable, but also as partly unavoidable. Fear can be said to underlie courage or be required for courage, or it can be understood as its foil. Fear is not normally promoted (intentionally) in education, or treated as something that should be cultivated in schools or in society. However, fear is a basic, to some extent unavoidable emotion, related to truly fearsome things in the world. Fear is also understood to underlie anxiety. Fear is seen as basically disruptive to education, while from a psychological view it is an ordinary state. that cannot be avoided altogether. Despite calls to diminish this negative and mixed feeling in education and society, it can be regarded as socially and personally valuable, and psychologically functional in some situations. One should not take for granted the goodness of fear. However, it can be productive to explore its moral worth, and uses and abuses. Such uncomfortable feelings and experiences can be cultivated and explored via educational and other societal influences, in ways that can benefit a person and their relations with others in the world, while they can also be detrimental.

Keywords: virtue ethics, philosophy of education, moral philosophy, fear

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Authors: Chris Nelson

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Quality and excellence are qualitative topics that are usually addressed based on knowledge and past experience from leadership and those in charge of the organization. The significance of this study is to highlight the differences and similarities between these two mindsets and how an operational staff can most appropriately use them in the workplace. Quality and excellence are two words that are talked about a lot in the manufacturing world. Buzzwords such as operational excellence, quality controls, and efficiencies are discussed in the boardroom as well on the shop floor. These terms are used quite frequently and with good reasons. When a person visits their favorite local restaurant, They go because 1) they like the food and 2) the people are some of the greatest individuals to be around. With that in mind, they know they always put out quality food. They do not always go because the quality of the food is far superior than other restaurants. But the quality of ingredients always meets their expectations. When they compare them to the term excellence, they are disappointed. The food never looks like the pictures on the menu. But when have you ever been to a restaurant where the food looks the same as on the menu? For them, when evaluating which buzzword to use as a guiding star, its simple: excellence. The corporation can accomplish these goals by operating at a standard that far exceeds customer’s wants and needs.

Keywords: industrial engineering, innovation, management and technology, logistics and scheduling, six sigma

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Authors: Florge Francis A. Sy

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Acute pancreatitis (AP) is an inflammatory condition of the pancreas with local and systemic complications. Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) has a higher mortality rate. Laboratory parameters like the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), red cell distribution width (RDW), and mean platelet volume (MPV) have been associated with SAP but with conflicting results. This study aims to determine the predictive value of these parameters on the severity and in-hospital mortality of AP. This retrospective, cross-sectional study was done in a private hospital in Cebu City, Philippines. One-hundred five patients were classified according to severity based on the modified Marshall scoring. The admitting hemogram, including the NLR, RDW, and MPV, was obtained from the complete blood count (CBC). Cut-off values for severity and in-hospital mortality were derived from the ROC. Association between NLR, RDW, and MPV with SAP and mortality were determined with a p-value of < 0.05 considered significant. The mean age for AP was 47.6 years, with 50.5% being male. Most had an unknown cause (49.5%), followed by a biliary cause (37.1%). Of the 105 patients, 23 patients had SAP, and 4 died. Older age, longer in-hospital duration, congestive heart failure, elevated creatinine, urea nitrogen, and white blood cell count were seen in SAP. The NLR was associated with in-hospital mortality using a cut-off of > 10.6 (OR 1.133, 95% CI, p-value 0.003) with 100% sensitivity, 70.3% specificity, 11.76% PPV and 100% NPV (AUC 0.855). The NLR was not associated with SAP. The RDW and MPV were not associated with SAP and mortality. The admitting NLR is, therefore, an easily accessible parameter that can predict in-hospital mortality in acute pancreatitis. Although the present study did not show an association of NLR with SAP nor RDW and MPV with both SAP and mortality, further studies are suggested to establish their clinical value.

Keywords: acute pancreatitis, mean platelet volume, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio, red cell distribution width

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Authors: Maya Kagan, Michal Itzick, Patricia Tal-Katz

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Social workers hold a variety of roles and practices, and one of these involves the care, treatment, and rehabilitation of disabled people. The current study assesses the association between demographic factors, attitudes towards social workers, the stigma attached to seeking social worker help, perceived social support, and psychological distress - and the self-reported likelihood of seeking social worker help, among people with physical disabilities (PWPD) in Israel. Data collection utilized structured questionnaires, administered to a sample of 435 PWPD. Statistical analyses were done using SPSS software. The findings suggest that women, older respondents, people with more positive attitudes towards social workers, with higher levels of psychological distress and of social support, and with a lower level of stigma, reported a greater likelihood of seeking social worker help. The study's conclusion is that there are certain avoidance factors among PWPD that might discourage them from seeking professional social worker help. Therefore, it is important that social workers identify these factors and develop interventions aimed at encouraging PWPD to seek professional social worker help in case of need, and also develop practices adjusted to PWPD's unique needs.

Keywords: attitudes towards social workers, people with physical disabilities, perceived social support, psychological distress, seeking help, stigma

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Authors: H. Ali, A. Whitehead

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Providing a panoramic view of famous landmarks around the world offers artistic and historic value for historians, tourists, and researchers. Exploring the history of famous landmarks by presenting a comprehensive view of a temporal panorama merged with geographical and historical information presents a unique challenge of dealing with images that span a long period, from the 1800’s up to the present. This work presents the concept of temporal panorama through a timeline display of aligned historic and modern images for many famous landmarks. Utilization of this panorama requires a collection of hundreds of thousands of landmark images from the Internet comprised of historic images and modern images of the digital age. These images have to be classified for subset selection to keep the more suitable images that chronologically document a landmark’s history. Processing of historic images captured using older analog technology under various different capturing conditions represents a big challenge when they have to be used with modern digital images. Successful processing of historic images to prepare them for next steps of temporal panorama creation represents an active contribution in cultural heritage preservation through the fulfillment of one of UNESCO goals in preservation and displaying famous worldwide landmarks.

Keywords: cultural heritage, image registration, image subset selection, registered image similarity, temporal panorama, timescapes

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Authors: Newton Rathnasiri Ranaweera Kalu Arachchige

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Academics argue that Greek myths and legends have had an influence on Buddhist stories: Jataka tales, Theri Gata (Psalms of older Buddhist nuns), and even Mahavansa (a Sri Lankan historical chronicle). However, this article asserts that there is evidence in Sophocles King Oedipus to argue that the Buddha’s life story and key Buddhist concepts have influenced pre-Christian Greek philosophy and literature, especially Sophocles’ King Oedipus. When reading the text with the notion that there could be intertextual relationships or new texts are built on the existing texts and discourses, the reader may see that Sophocles’ play contains incidents that remind them of the special occasions of the Buddha’s life, his utterances and the key Buddhist concepts such as the truth of suffering, cessation of suffering, the three poisons (greed, hatred, and delusion), and finding the truth within one’s own self. The present intertextual study explored only the special occasions of the Buddha’s life to make it more focused and found that Sophocles alludes to the Buddha’s life story in his attempt to raise a moral culprit to a moral hero with higher moral values. This article, however, acknowledges that one needs to cross-check the other historical and philosophical references when claiming that Sophocles has had influence from the Buddha’s life story in King Oedipus.

Keywords: Buddhism, the Buddha’s life story, King Oedipus, Greece, tragedy, Sri Lanka

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Authors: Nuran Bahar, Mehmet A. Akcayol

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In the aviation industry, many faults may occur frequently during the maintenance processes and assembly operations of complex structured aircrafts because of their high dependencies of components. These faults affect the quality of aircraft parts or developed modules adversely. Technical employee requires long time and high labor force while checking the correctness of each component. In addition, the person must be trained regularly because of the ever-growing and changing technology. Generally, the cost of this training is very high. Augmented Reality (AR) technology reduces the cost of training radically and improves the effectiveness of the training. In this study, the usage of AR technology in the aviation industry has been investigated and the effectiveness of AR with heads-up display glasses has been examined. An application has been developed for comparison of production process with AR and manual one.

Keywords: aerospace, assembly quality, augmented reality, heads-up display

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Authors: Meifang Chen

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Background: As China increased its engagement in global health affairs and research, global Health (GH) emerged as a new discipline in China after 2010. Duke Kunshan University (DKU), as a member of the Chinese Consortium of Universities for Global Health, is the first university that experiments “Western-style” liberal arts and sciences (LAS) education pedagogy in GH undergraduate and postgraduate programs in China since 2014. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant disruption to education across the world. At the peak of the pandemic, 45 countries in the Europe and Central Asia regions closed their schools, affecting 185 million students. DKU, as many other universities and schools, was unprepared for this sudden abruptness and were forced to build emergency remote learning systems almost immediately. This qualitative study aims to gain a deeper understanding of 1) how Chinese students and parents embrace GH training in the liberal arts and sciences education context, and 2) how the COVID pandemic influences the students’ learning experience as well as affects students and parents’ perceptions of GH-related study and career development in China. Methods: students and parents at DKU were invited and recruited for open-ended, semi-structured interviews during Sept 2021-Mar 2022. Open coding procedures and thematic content analysis were conducted using Nvivo 12 software. Results: A total of 18 students and 36 parents were interviewed. Both students and parents were fond of delivering GH education using the liberal arts and sciences pedagogy. Strengths of LAS included focusing on whole person development, allowing personal enrichment, tailoring curriculum to individual’s interest, providing well-rounded knowledge through interdisciplinary learning, and increasing self-study capacity and adaptability. Limitations of LAS included less time to dive deep into disciplines. There was a significant improvement in independence, creativity, problem solving, and team coordinating capabilities among the students. The impact of the COVID pandemic on GH learning experience included less domestic and abroad fieldwork opportunities, less in-person interactions (especially with foreign students and faculty), less timely support, less lab experience, and coordination challenges due to time-zone difference. The COVID pandemic increased the public’s awareness of the importance of GH and acceptance of GH as a career path. More job and postgraduate program opportunities were expected in near future. However, some parents expressed concerns about GH-related employment opportunities in China. Conclusion: The application of the liberal arts and science education pedagogy in GH training were well-received by the Chinese students and parents. Although global pandemic like COVID disrupted GH learning in many ways, most Chinese students and parents held optimistic attitudes toward GH study and career development.

Keywords: COVID, global health, liberal arts and sciences pedagogy, China

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Authors: C. Caçador, M. J. Reis Lima, J. Oliveira, M. J. Veiga, M. Teixeira Veríssimo, F. Ramos, M. C. Castilho, E. Teixeira-Lemos

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In the present study we evaluated the nutritional status of 214 institutionalized elderly residents of both genders, aged 65 years and older of 11 care homes located in the district of Viseu (center of Portugal). The evaluation was based on anthropometric measurements and the Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) score. The mean age of the subjects was 82.3 ± 6.1 years-old. Most of the elderly residents were female (72.0%). The majority had 4 years of formal education (51.9%) and was widowed (74.3%) or married (14.0%). Men presented a mean age of 81.2±8.5 years-old, weight 69.3±14.5 kg and BMI 25.33±6.5 kg/m2. In women, the mean age was 84.5±8.2 years-old, weight 61.2±14.7 kg and BMI 27.43±5.6 kg/m2. The evaluation of the nutritional status using the MNA score showed that 24.0% of the residents show a risk of undernutrition and 76.0% of them were well nourished. There was a high prevalence of obese (24.8%) and overweight residents (33.2%) according to the BMI. 7.5% were considered underweight. We also found that according to their waist circumference measurements 88.3% of the residents were at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) and 64.0% of them presented very high risk for CVD (WC≥88 cm for women and WC ≥102 cm for men). The present study revealed the coexistence of a dual form of malnutrition (undernourished and overweight) among the institutionalized Portuguese concomitantly with an excess of abdominal adiposity. The high prevalence of residents at high risk for CVD should not be overlooked. Given the vulnerability of the group of institutionalized elderly, our study highlights the importance of the classification of nutritional status based on both instruments: the BMI and the MNA.

Keywords: nutritional satus, MNA, BMI, elderly

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Authors: Syeda Mahnaz Hassan

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Social work as a specialized field, grounded in scientific knowledge and skills, is more inclined towards problem-solving process rather than charity focused approach. Medical social work, as a primary method, deals with the bio-psychosocial-spiritual elements of an individual with a problem and assesses the pliability and strength of the patients, social support systems, and their families, to assist the patients to resolve their problems independently. The medical social worker, also known as case-worker or care-worker, has to play a substantial role in the rehabilitation and retrieval of an affected person. This paper examines the roles played and responsibilities discharged by the Medical Social Workers internationally and specifically concerning Pakistan. The capacity constraints and challenges confronted by Medical Social Workers in hospitals have also been highlighted, and some policy implications have been suggested to enhance the capabilities of Medical Social Workers for serving the patients in a befitting manner.

Keywords: medical social work, Pakistan, patients, rehabilitation

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Authors: Namrata Mishra

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Health of a person plays a vital role in the collective health of his community and hence the well-being of the society as a whole. But, in today’s fast paced technology driven world, health issues are increasingly being associated with human behaviors – their lifestyle. Social networks have tremendous impact on the health behavior of individuals. Many researchers have used social network analysis to understand human behavior that implicates their social and economic environments. It would be interesting to use a similar analysis to understand human behaviors that have health implications. This paper focuses on concepts of those behavioural analyses that have health implications using social networks analysis and provides possible algorithmic approaches. The results of these approaches can be used by the governing authorities for rolling out health plans, benefits and take preventive measures, while the pharmaceutical companies can target specific markets, helping health insurance companies to better model their insurance plans.

Keywords: breadth first search, directed graph, health behaviors, social network analysis

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Authors: Seyedeh Azadeh Johari

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For thousand years, the literature of the world has been mostly composed of men, and in all different forms of it, men have tried to propose their masculine desires, ideologies, and beliefs. What has been less written about or studied, however, was the role that female desire plays in the predominantly masculine society, and mostly the role of male desires was the key point in literature. Male writers have mostly shown their female characters either as stereotypes and void of dynamic characters, images of a meek person who bent to the will of her male superiors or as wicked or villains. The only exception was the kind of strong and courageous women who have mostly been masculinized by their authors, mostly male authors, as showing the valuable or important features of men, instead of women’s. These characters are transgendered by the author and have a gender identity or expression that differs from the sex to which they were assigned. This is the issue that is discussed in this project. We will refer to some examples of female characters who show masculine traits and characteristics.

Keywords: comparative literature, female, masculinized, transgendered

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Authors: Alba Barbara-i-Molinero, Rosalia Cascon-Pereira, Ana Beatriz Hernandez

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Students’ transitions from high school to the university have been challenged by the lack of continuity between both contexts. This mismatch directly affects students by generating feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, which increases the dropout rates and reduces students’ academic success. This discontinuity emanates because ‘transitions concern a restructuring of what the person does and who the person perceives him or herself to be’. Hence, identity becomes essential in these transitions. Generally, identity is the answer to questions such as who am I? or who are we? This is integrated by personal identity, and as many social identities as groups, the individual feels he/she is a part. A case in point to construct a social identity is the identification with a profession. For this reason, a way to lighten the generated tension during transitions is applying strategies orientated to enhance students’ professional identity in their point of entry to the higher education institution. That would create a sense of continuity between high school and higher education contexts, increasing their Professional Identity Strength. To develop the strategies oriented to enhance students Professional Identity, it is important to analyze what influences it. There exist several influencing factors that influence Professional Identity (e.g., professional status, the recommendation of family and peers, the academic environment, or the chosen bachelor degree). There is a gap in the literature analyzing the impact of these factors on more than one bachelor degree. In this regards, our study takes an additional step with the aim of evaluating the influence of several factors on Professional Identity using a cohort of university students from multiple degrees between the ages of 17-19 years. To do so, we used hierarchical regression analyses to assess the impact of the following factors: External Motivation Conditionals (EMC), Educational Experience Conditionals (EEC) and Personal Motivational Conditional (PMP). After conducting the analyses, we found that the assessed factors influenced students’ professional identity differently according to their bachelor degree and discipline. For example, PMC and EMC positively affected science students, while architecture, law and economics and engineering students were just influenced by PMC. Basing on that influences, we proposed three different strategies aimed to enhance students’ professional identity, in the short and long term. These strategies are: to enhance students’ professional identity before the incorporation to university through campuses and icebreaker activities; to apply recruitment strategies aimed to provide realistic information of the bachelor degree; and to incorporate different activities, such as in-vitro, in situ and self-directed activities aimed to enhance longitudinally students’ professional identity from the university. From these results, theoretical contributions and practical implications arise. First, we contribute to the literature by identifying which factors influence students from different bachelor degrees since there is still no evidence. And, second, using as a benchmark the obtained results, we contribute from a practical perspective, by proposing several alternative strategies to increase students’ professional identity strength aiming to lighten their transition from high school to higher education.

Keywords: professional identity, higher education, educational strategies , students

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Authors: Sebastian Del Corral Winder, Kiriana Sanchez, Mixalis Poulakis, Samantha Gray

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This paper seeks to explore White privilege and Whiteness. Being White in the U.S. is often perceived as the norm and it brings significant social, economic, educational, and health privileges that often are hidden in social interactions. One quality of Whiteness has been its invisibility given its intrinsic impact on the system, which becomes only visible when paying close attention to White identity and culture and during cross-cultural interactions. The cross-cultural interaction provides an emphasis on differences between the participants and people of color are often viewed as “the other.” These interactions may promote an increased opportunity for discrimination and negative stereotypes against a person of color. Given the recent increase of violence against culturally diverse groups, there has been an increased sense of otherness and division in the country. Furthermore, the accent prestige theory has found that individuals who speak English with a foreign accent are perceived as less educated, competent, friendly, and trustworthy by White individuals in the United States. Using the consensual qualitative research (CQR) methodology, this study explored the cross-cultural dyad from the White individual’s perspective focusing on the psychotherapeutic relationship. The participants were presented with an audio recording of a conversation between a psychotherapist with a Hispanic accent and a patient with an American English accent. Then, the participants completed an interview regarding their perceptions of race, culture, and cross-cultural interactions. The preliminary results suggested that the Hispanic accent alone was enough for the participants to assign stereotypical ethnic and cultural characteristics to the individual with the Hispanic accent. Given the quality of the responses, the authors completed a secondary analysis to explore Whiteness and White privilege in more depth. Participants were found to be on a continuum in their understanding and acknowledgment of systemic racism; while some participants listed examples of inequality, other participants noted: “all people are treated equally.” Most participants noted their feelings of discomfort in discussing topics of cultural diversity and systemic racism by fearing to “say the ‘wrong thing.” Most participants placed the responsibility of discussing cultural differences with the person of color, which has been observed to create further alienation and otherness for culturally diverse individuals. The results indicate the importance of examining racial and cultural biases from White individuals to promote an anti-racist stance. The results emphasize the need for greater systemic changes in education, policies, and individual awareness regarding cultural identity. The results suggest the importance for White individuals to take ownership of their own cultural biases in order to promote equity and engage in cultural humility in a multicultural world. Future research should continue exploring the role of White ethnic identity and education as they appear to moderate White individuals’ attitudes and beliefs regarding other races and cultures.

Keywords: culture, qualitative research, whiteness, white privilege

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Authors: M. Hetmańczyk, R. Polaniak, K. Brukało, E. Grochowska-Niedworok

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Eating behaviours of people are determined by knowledge gained at different stages of life. Children’s diet is especially important. They have to eat meals regularly. Meals should consist of protein, carbohydrates and fat, and drinking the right amount of water. Mistakes in children’s diets affect their health and may lead to health issues such as diabetes, overweight, obesity or malnutrition. The aim of the study was to assess the eating habits among 10-15-year-old children. To achieve this aim, the study included children aged 10-15 years living in Silesia Province, Poland; the participants consisted of 52.08% girls and 47.92% boys. Authorial questionnaire contains 28 questions about eating habits. The results of 192 students were subjected to analysis. The results show that half of the surveyed students participated in physical activity every day. Most children ate 4-5 meals every day, but the breaks between them were too long (four and more hours). Children generally ate cooked meals. Most children ate first breakfast every day, but only one third of studied children ate a second breakfast daily, while 93.75% ate vegetables at least once a day, 94.79% ate fruit at least once a day, and 79.17% drink a daily glass of milk or more. The study found that the eating behaviours of the surveyed children were unsatisfying. While the children did not participate in physical activity often enough, girls took part slightly more often. Children eat second breakfast not often enough. Younger children (10-12 years old) are doing it more often than the older children (13-15 years old). Gender is not a determinant of the frequency of second breakfast consumption.

Keywords: eating habits, children, diet, nutrition status

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Authors: Maedeh Gharazi

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Adults with age 50 and older will include more than 70% of the diabetic populace by the year 2025. More established patients with diabetes are more inclined to have concurrent ceaseless conditions like hypertension, dyslipidemia, and cardiovascular sickness that may affect their nutritious necessities. The issue of achievement and support of an ideal body weight in elderly diabetic persons may not be as direct as in other age gatherings, and the risk-benefit ratio may be diverse too. Albeit expanded predominance of overweight and weight in the elderly adds to insulin resistance and hyperglycemia, more seasoned tenants of long haul care offices who experience the ill effects of diabetes have a tendency to be underweight. Both may mean insufficient nutritional status and lead to expanded grimness and mortality. The attendant problems of appetite changes, palatability of food, dietary restrictions, loneliness, and depression may influence the sort and amount of food devoured by elderly persons. Organized screening devices may recognize nutrition related issues that warrant proof based mediations. Despite the fact that glucose control and health concerns are essential calculates diet change in the more established populace, different contemplations incorporate personal satisfaction and individual inclinations. Redoing of nutritious rules to the needs of the more seasoned diabetic patient bodes well.

Keywords: diabetes, nutritious necessities, insulin resistance, glucose control

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Authors: Nisha Budhwar, Sunita Daniel

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In this paper, we analyse the stability of the SEIR model of malaria with infective immigrants which was recently formulated by the authors. The model consists of an SEIR model for the human population and SI Model for the mosquitoes. Susceptible humans become infected after they are bitten by infectious mosquitoes and move on to the Exposed, Infected and Recovered classes respectively. The susceptible mosquito becomes infected after biting an infected person and remains infected till death. We calculate the reproduction number R0 using the next generation method and then discuss about the stability of the equilibrium points. We use the Lyapunov function to show the global stability of the equilibrium points.

Keywords: equilibrium points, exposed, global stability, infective immigrants, Lyapunov function, recovered, reproduction number, susceptible

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Authors: D. Beziakina, E. Bulgakova

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This study continues the research on Tuvinian intonation and presents a general cross-dialect analysis of intonation of Tuvinian declarative utterances, specifically the character of the tone movement in order to test the hypothesis about the prevalence of level tone in some Tuvinian dialects. The results of the analysis of basic pitch characteristics of Tuvinian speech (in general and in comparison with two other Turkic languages - Uzbek and Azerbaijani) are also given in this paper. The goal of our work was to obtain the ranges of pitch parameter values typical for Tuvinian speech. Such language-specific values can be used in speaker identification systems in order to get more accurate results of ethnic speech analysis. We also present the results of a cross-dialect analysis of declarative intonation in the poorly studied Tuvinian language.

Keywords: speech analysis, statistical analysis, speaker recognition, identification of person

Procedia PDF Downloads 470