Search results for: Qualitative Research.
5840 Automatic Real-Patient Medical Data De-Identification for Research Purposes
Authors: Petr Vcelak, Jana Kleckova
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Our Medicine-oriented research is based on a medical data set of real patients. It is a security problem to share patient private data with peoples other than clinician or hospital staff. We have to remove person identification information from medical data. The medical data without private data are available after a de-identification process for any research purposes. In this paper, we introduce an universal automatic rule-based de-identification application to do all this stuff on an heterogeneous medical data. A patient private identification is replaced by an unique identification number, even in burnedin annotation in pixel data. The identical identification is used for all patient medical data, so it keeps relationships in a data. Hospital can take an advantage of a research feedback based on results.Keywords: DASTA, De-identification, DICOM, Health Level Seven, Medical data, OCR, Personal data
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16255839 Analysis of the Topics of Research of Brazilian Researchers Acting in the Areas of Engineering
Authors: Jether Gomes, Thiago M. R. Dias, Gray F. Moita
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The production and publication of scientific works have increased significantly in the last years, being the Internet the main factor of access and diffusion of these. In view of this, researchers from several areas of knowledge have carried out several studies on scientific production data in order to analyze phenomena and trends about science. The understanding of how research has evolved can, for example, serve as a basis for building scientific policies for further advances in science and stimulating research groups to become more productive. In this context, the objective of this work is to analyze the main research topics investigated along the trajectory of the Brazilian science of researchers working in the areas of engineering, in order to map scientific knowledge and identify topics in highlights. To this end, studies are carried out on the frequency and relationship of the keywords of the set of scientific articles registered in the existing curricula in the Lattes Platform of each one of the selected researchers, counting with the aid of bibliometric analysis features.Keywords: Research topics, bibliometrics, topics of interest, Lattes Platform.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8175838 Analyzing the Relation of Community Group for Research Paper Bookmarking by Using Association Rule
Authors: P. Jomsri
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Currently searching through internet is very popular especially in a field of academic. A huge of educational information such as research papers are overload for user. So community-base web sites have been developed to help user search information more easily from process of customizing a web site to need each specifies user or set of user. In this paper propose to use association rule analyze the community group on research paper bookmarking. A set of design goals for community group frameworks is developed and discussed. Additionally Researcher analyzes the initial relation by using association rule discovery between the antecedent and the consequent of a rule in the groups of user for generate the idea to improve ranking search result and development recommender system.
Keywords: association rule, information retrieval, research paper bookmarking.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14335837 Impacts of E-Learning on Educational Policy: Policy of Sensitization and Training in E-Learning in Saudi Arabia
Authors: Layla Albdr
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Saudi Arabia instituted the policy of sensitizing and training stakeholders for e-learning and witnessed wide adoption in many institutions. However, it is at the infancy stage and needs time to develop to mirror the US and UK. The majority of the higher education institutions in Saudi Arabia have adopted e-learning as an alternative to traditional methods to advance education. Conversely, effective implementation of the policy of sensitization and training of stakeholders for e-learning implementation has not been attained because of various challenges. The objectives included determining the challenges and opportunities of the e-learning policy of sensitization and training of stakeholders in Saudi Arabia's higher education and examining if sensitization and training of stakeholder's policy will help promote the implementation of e-learning in institutions. The study employed a descriptive research design based on qualitative analysis. The researcher recruited 295 students and 60 academic staff from four Saudi Arabian universities to participate in the study. An online questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data were then analyzed and reported both quantitatively and qualitatively. The analysis provided an in-depth understanding of the opportunities and challenges of e-learning policy in Saudi Arabian universities. The main challenges identified as internal challenges were the lack of educators’ interest in adopting the policy, and external challenges entailed lack of ICT infrastructure and Internet connectivity. The study recommends encouraging, sensitizing, and training all stakeholders to address these challenges and adopt the policy.
Keywords: e-learning, educational policy, Saudi Arabian higher education, policy of sensitization and training
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5875836 Multi-Level Air Quality Classification in China Using Information Gain and Support Vector Machine
Authors: Bingchun Liu, Pei-Chann Chang, Natasha Huang, Dun Li
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Machine Learning and Data Mining are the two important tools for extracting useful information and knowledge from large datasets. In machine learning, classification is a wildly used technique to predict qualitative variables and is generally preferred over regression from an operational point of view. Due to the enormous increase in air pollution in various countries especially China, Air Quality Classification has become one of the most important topics in air quality research and modelling. This study aims at introducing a hybrid classification model based on information theory and Support Vector Machine (SVM) using the air quality data of four cities in China namely Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Tianjin from Jan 1, 2014 to April 30, 2016. China's Ministry of Environmental Protection has classified the daily air quality into 6 levels namely Serious Pollution, Severe Pollution, Moderate Pollution, Light Pollution, Good and Excellent based on their respective Air Quality Index (AQI) values. Using the information theory, information gain (IG) is calculated and feature selection is done for both categorical features and continuous numeric features. Then SVM Machine Learning algorithm is implemented on the selected features with cross-validation. The final evaluation reveals that the IG and SVM hybrid model performs better than SVM (alone), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) models in terms of accuracy as well as complexity.
Keywords: Machine learning, air quality classification, air quality index, information gain, support vector machine, cross-validation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9315835 Facility Location Selection using Preference Programming
Authors: C. Ardil
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This paper presents preference programming technique based multiple criteria decision making analysis for selecting a facility location for a new organization or expansion of an existing facility which is of vital importance for a decision support system and strategic planning process. The implementation of decision support systems is considered crucial to sustain competitive advantage and profitability persistence in turbulent environment. As an effective strategic management and decision making is necessary, multiple criteria decision making analysis supports the decision makers to formulate and implement the right strategy. The investment cost associated with acquiring the property and facility construction makes the facility location selection problem a long-term strategic investment decision, which rationalize the best location selection which results in higher economic benefits through increased productivity and optimal distribution network. Selecting the proper facility location from a given set of alternatives is a difficult task, as many potential qualitative and quantitative multiple conflicting criteria are to be considered. This paper solves a facility location selection problem using preference programming, which is an effective multiple criteria decision making analysis tool applied to deal with complex decision problems in the operational research environment. The ranking results of preference programming are compared with WSM, TOPSIS and VIKOR methods.
Keywords: Facility Location Selection, Multiple Criteria Decision Making, Multiple Criteria Decision Making Analysis, Preference Programming, Location Selection, WSM, TOPSIS, VIKOR
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5125834 Coconut Shells as the Alternative Equipment for Foot Reflexology
Authors: Nichanant Sermsri, Chananchida Yuktirat
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This research was the experimental research. Its purpose was to find out how coconut shells can be adapted to be equipment for foot and calf reflexology. The sample group was 58 female street vendors in Thewet Market, Bangkok, selected by selection criteria and voluntary. The data collecting tool was the Visual Analogue Scale. The massaging tool made from coconut shells was the key equipment for this research. The research team assessed the level of exhaustion and heart rate among sample group before and after the massage, then analyzed the data by mean, standard deviation and paired sample t-test.
We found out from the research that
- The level of exhaustion decreased 4.529 levels after the massage and the standard deviation was 1.6195. The heart rates went down 11.67 times/minute and the standard deviation was 6.742.
- The level of exhaustion and heart rate after the massage decreased with the statistically significance at 0.01
Keywords: Coconut Shells, Foot Massage, Foot Reflexology, Massaging Plate.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18265833 Customers 50+ Behavior in the Financial Market in the Czech Republic
Authors: K. Matušínská, H. Starzyczná, M. Stoklasa
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The paper deals with behaviour of the segment 50+ in the financial market in the Czech Republic. This segment could be said as the strong market power and it can be a crucial business potential for financial business units. The main defined objective of this paper is analysis of the customers´ behaviour of the segment 50- 60 years in the financial market in the Czech Republic and proposal making of the suitable marketing approach to satisfy their demands in the area of product, price, distribution and marketing communication policy. This paper is based on data from one part of primary marketing research. Paper determinates the basic problem areas as well as definition of financial services marketing, defining the primary research problem, hypothesis and primary research methodology. Finally suitable marketing approach to selected sub segment at age of 50-60 years is proposed according to marketing research findings.
Keywords: Population aging in the Czech Republic, Segment 50-60 years, Financial services marketing, Marketing research, Marketing approach.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20325832 Design of Modular Robotic Joints for Achieving Various Robot Configurations
Authors: Majid Tolouei-Rad, Anurag Dhull
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This paper describes various stages of design and prototyping of a modular robot for use in various industrial applications. The major goal of current research has been to design and make different robotic joints at low cost capable of being assembled together in any given order for achieving various robot configurations. Five different types of joins were designed and manufactured where extensive research has been carried out on the design of each joint in order to achieve optimal strength, size, modularity, and price. This paper presents various stages of research and development undertaken to engineer these joints that include material selection, manufacturing, and strength analysis. The outcome of this research addresses the birth of a new generation of modular industrial robots with a wider range of applications and greater efficiency.
Keywords: Actuator, control system, configuration, robot.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 32095831 A Bibliometric Assessment on Sustainability and Clustering
Authors: Fernanda M. Assef, Maria Teresinha A. Steiner, David Gabriel F. de Barros
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Review researches are useful in terms of analysis of research problems. Between the types of review documents, we commonly find bibliometric studies. This type of application often helps the global visualization of a research problem and helps academics worldwide to understand the context of a research area better. In this document, a bibliometric view surrounding clustering techniques and sustainability problems is presented. The authors aimed at which issues mostly use clustering techniques and even which sustainability issue would be more impactful on today’s moment of research. During the bibliometric analysis, we found 10 different groups of research in clustering applications for sustainability issues: Energy; Environmental; Non-urban Planning; Sustainable Development; Sustainable Supply Chain; Transport; Urban Planning; Water; Waste Disposal; and, Others. Moreover, by analyzing the citations of each group, it was discovered that the Environmental group could be classified as the most impactful research cluster in the area mentioned. After the content analysis of each paper classified in the environmental group, it was found that the k-means technique is preferred for solving sustainability problems with clustering methods since it appeared the most amongst the documents. The authors finally conclude that a bibliometric assessment could help indicate a gap of researches on waste disposal – which was the group with the least amount of publications – and the most impactful research on environmental problems.
Keywords: Bibliometric assessment, clustering, sustainability, territorial partitioning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3645830 Impact of Graduates’ Quality of Education and Research on ICT Adoption at Workplace
Authors: Mohammed A. Kafaji
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This paper aims to investigate the influence of quality of education and quality of research, provided by local educational institutions, on the adoption of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in managing business operations for companies in Saudi market. A model was developed and tested using data collected from 138 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of foreign companies in diverse business sectors. The data is analyzed and managed using multivariate approaches through standard statistical packages. The results showed that educational quality has little contribution to the ICT adoption while research quality seems to play a more prominent role. These results are analyzed in terms of business environment and market constraints and further extended to the perceived effectiveness of applied pedagogical approaches in schools and universities.
Keywords: Domestic Competition, Quality of Education, Quality of Research, ICT Adoption, Mediation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17645829 A Review on Technology Forecasting Methods and Their Application Area
Authors: Daekook Kang, Wooseok Jang, Hyeonjeong Lee, Hyun Joung No
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Technology changes have been acknowledged as a critical factor in determining competitiveness of organization. Under such environment, the right anticipation of technology change has been of huge importance in strategic planning. To monitor technology change, technology forecasting (TF) is frequently utilized. In academic perspective, TF has received great attention for a long time. However, few researches have been conducted to provide overview of the TF literature. Even though some studies deals with review of TF research, they generally focused on type and characteristics of various TF, so hardly provides information about patterns of TF research and which TF method is used in certain technology industry. Accordingly, this study profile developments in and patterns of scholarly research in TF over time. Also, this study investigates which technology industries have used certain TF method and identifies their relationships. This study will help in understanding TF research trend and their application area.Keywords: Technology forecasting, technology industry, TF trend, technology trajectory.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29295828 A Study of the Adaptive Reuse for School Land Use Strategy: An Application of the Analytic Network Process and Big Data
Authors: Wann-Ming Wey
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In today's popularity and progress of information technology, the big data set and its analysis are no longer a major conundrum. Now, we could not only use the relevant big data to analysis and emulate the possible status of urban development in the near future, but also provide more comprehensive and reasonable policy implementation basis for government units or decision-makers via the analysis and emulation results as mentioned above. In this research, we set Taipei City as the research scope, and use the relevant big data variables (e.g., population, facility utilization and related social policy ratings) and Analytic Network Process (ANP) approach to implement in-depth research and discussion for the possible reduction of land use in primary and secondary schools of Taipei City. In addition to enhance the prosperous urban activities for the urban public facility utilization, the final results of this research could help improve the efficiency of urban land use in the future. Furthermore, the assessment model and research framework established in this research also provide a good reference for schools or other public facilities land use and adaptive reuse strategies in the future.
Keywords: Adaptive reuse, analytic network process, big data, land use strategy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9155827 Environmental Management in Arid Regions:The Question of Water
Authors: Yousef Bakhbakhi, Mourad Boumaza
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Only recently have water ethics received focused interest in the international water community. Because water is metabolically basic to life, an ethical dimension persists in every decision related to water. Water ethics at once express human society-s approach to water and act as guidelines for behaviour. Ideas around water are often implicit and embedded as assumptions. They can be entrenched in behaviour and difficult to contest because they are difficult to “see". By explicitly revealing the ethical ideas underlying water-related decisions, human society-s relationship with water, and with natural systems of which water is part, can be contested and shifted or be accepted with conscious intention by human society. In recent decades, improved understanding of water-s importance for ecosystem functioning and ecological services for human survival is moving us beyond this growth-driven, supplyfocused management paradigm. Environmental ethics challenge this paradigm by extending the ethical sphere to the environment and thus water or water Resources management per se. An ethical approach is a legitimate, important, and often ignored approach to effect change in environmental decision making. This qualitative research explores principles of water ethics and examines the underlying ethical precepts of selected water policy examples. The constructed water ethic principles act as a set of criteria against which a policy comparison can be established. This study shows that water Resources management is a progressive issue by embracing full public participation and a new planning model, and knowledgegeneration initiatives.
Keywords: water resources, environmental management, publicparticipation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14365826 Identity of Cultural Food: A Case Study of Traditional Mon Cuisine in Bangkok, Thailand
Authors: S. Nitiworakarn
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This research aims to identify traditional Mon cuisines as well as gather and classify traditional cuisines of Mon communities in Bangkok. The studying of this research is used by methodology of the quantitative research. Using the questionnaire as the method in collecting information from sampling totally amount of 450 persons analyzed via frequency, percentage and mean value. The results showed that a variety of traditional Mon cuisines of Bangkok could split into 6 categories of meat diet with 54 items and 6 categories of desserts with 19 items.Keywords: Cultural identity, traditional food, Mon cuisine, Thailand.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31295825 Intelligent Network-Based Stepping Stone Detection Approach
Authors: Mohd Nizam Omar, Rahmat Budiarto
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This research intends to introduce a new usage of Artificial Intelligent (AI) approaches in Stepping Stone Detection (SSD) fields of research. By using Self-Organizing Map (SOM) approaches as the engine, through the experiment, it is shown that SOM has the capability to detect the number of connection chains that involved in a stepping stones. Realizing that by counting the number of connection chain is one of the important steps of stepping stone detection and it become the research focus currently, this research has chosen SOM as the AI techniques because of its capabilities. Through the experiment, it is shown that SOM can detect the number of involved connection chains in Network-based Stepping Stone Detection (NSSD).
Keywords: Artificial Intelligent, Self-Organizing Map (SOM), Stepping Stone Detection, Tracing Intruder.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14685824 The Importance of Compulsory Pre-School Education from the Parents’ Perspective in the Czech Republic
Authors: Beata Horníckova, Sona Lorencova
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The study deals with the presentation of the results of quantitatively oriented research. The research was conducted as part of a questionnaire survey with the aim to find out what are the attitudes of parents to compulsory preschool education in the Czech Republic. This research presents results from the area of importance of compulsory pre-school education from the parents’ perspective. The research method was a questionnaire, which was distributed to respondents through an online platform. The research involved 107 parents, who answered a total of 36 questions that found out their attitudes to last year’s compulsory preschool attendance. The results show that compulsory pre-school attendance has increased the importance of pre-school education. However, the results also show that the compulsory last year of preschool education is not more important according to parents than in previous years. Most participants consider compulsory pre-school attendance to be important and are happy that their child attends it. The results reveal the fact that the introduction of compulsory pre-school attendance has contributed to the importance of parents’ perceptions of pre-primary education.
Keywords: compulsory pre-school education, education of preschool children, kindergarten, parents
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5675823 Prediction of Research Topics Using Ensemble of Best Predictors from Similar Dataset
Authors: Indra Budi, Rizal Fathoni Aji, Agus Widodo
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Prediction of future research topics by using time series analysis either statistical or machine learning has been conducted previously by several researchers. Several methods have been proposed to combine the forecasting results into single forecast. These methods use fixed combination of individual forecast to get the final forecast result. In this paper, quite different approach is employed to select the forecasting methods, in which every point to forecast is calculated by using the best methods used by similar validation dataset. The dataset used in the experiment is time series derived from research report in Garuda, which is an online sites belongs to the Ministry of Education in Indonesia, over the past 20 years. The experimental result demonstrates that the proposed method may perform better compared to the fix combination of predictors. In addition, based on the prediction result, we can forecast emerging research topics for the next few years.
Keywords: Combination, emerging topics, ensemble, forecasting, machine learning, prediction, research topics, similarity measure, time series.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21085822 Nutrition Program Planning Based on Local Resources in Urban Fringe Areas of a Developing Country
Authors: Oktia Woro Kasmini Handayani, Bambang Budi Raharjo, Efa Nugroho, Bertakalswa Hermawati
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Obesity prevalence and severe malnutrition in Indonesia has increased from 2007 to 2013. The utilization of local resources in nutritional program planning can be used to program efficiency and to reach the goal. The aim of this research is to plan a nutrition program based on local resources for urban fringe areas in a developing country. This research used a qualitative approach, with a focus on local resources including social capital, social system, cultural system. The study was conducted in Mijen, Central Java, as one of the urban fringe areas in Indonesia. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques are used to determine participants. A total of 16 participants took part in the study. Observation, interviews, focus group discussion, SWOT analysis, brainstorming and Miles and Huberman models were used to analyze the data. We have identified several local resources, such as the contributions from nutrition cadres, social organizations, social financial resources, as well as the cultural system and social system. The outstanding contribution of nutrition cadres is the participation and creativity to improve nutritional status. In addition, social organizations, like the role of the integrated health center for children (Pos Pelayanan Terpadu), can be engaged in the nutrition program planning. This center is supported by House of Nutrition to assist in nutrition program planning, and provide social support to families, neighbors and communities as social capitals. The study also reported that cultural systems that show appreciation for well-nourished children are a better way to improve the problem of balanced nutrition. Social systems such as teamwork and mutual cooperation can also be a potential resource to support nutritional programs and overcome associated problems. The impact of development in urban areas such as the introduction of more green areas which improve the perceived status of local people, as well as new health services facilitated by people and companies, can also be resources to support nutrition programs. Local resources in urban fringe areas can be used in the planning of nutrition programs. The expansion of partnership with all stakeholders, empowering the community through optimizing the roles of nutrition care centers for children as our recommendation with regard to nutrition program planning.Keywords: Developing country, local resources, nutrition program, urban fringe.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10295821 Gender Differences in Research Output, Funding and Collaboration
Authors: Ashkan Ebadi, Andrea Schiffauerova
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In spite of the global efforts toward gender equality, female researchers are still underrepresented in professional scientific activities. The gender gap is more seen in engineering and math-intensive technological scientific fields thus calling for a specific attention. This paper focuses on the Canadian funded researchers who are active in natural sciences and engineering, and analyses the gender aspects of researchers’ performance, their scientific collaboration patterns as well as their share of the federal funding within the period of 2000 to 2010. Our results confirm the existence of gender disparity among the examined Canadian researchers. Although it was observed that male researchers have been performing better in terms of number of publications, the impact of the research was almost the same for both genders. In addition, it was observed that research funding is more biased towards male researchers and they have more control over their scientific community as well.
Keywords: Bibliometrics, collaboration, funding, gender differences, research output.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15375820 A Qualitative Study of Health-Related Beliefs and Practices among Vegetarians
Authors: Lorena Antonovici, Maria Nicoleta Turliuc
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The process of becoming a vegetarian involves changes in several life aspects, including health. Despite its relevance, however, little research has been carried out to analyze vegetarians' self-perceived health, and even less empirical attention has received in the Romanian population. This study aimed to assess health-related beliefs and practices among vegetarian adults in a Romanian sample. We have undertaken 20 semi-structured interviews (10 males, 10 females) based on a snowball sample with a mean age of 31 years. The interview guide was divided into three sections: causes of adopting the diet, general aspects (beliefs, practices, tensions, and conflicts) and consequences of adopting the diet (significant changes, positive aspects, and difficulties, physical and mental health). Additional anamnestic data were reported by means of a questionnaire. Data analyses were performed using Tropes text analysis software (v. 8.2) and SPSS software (v. 24.0.) Findings showed that most of the participants considered a vegetarian diet as a natural and healthy choice as opposed to meat-eating, which is not healthy, and its consumption should be moderated among omnivores. A higher proportion of participants (65%) had an average body mass index (BMI), and several women even assumed having certain affections that no longer occur after following a vegetarian diet. Moreover, participants admitted having better moods and mental health status, given their self-contentment with the dietary choice. Relatives were perceived as more skeptical about their practices than others, and especially women had this view. This study provides a valuable insight into health-related beliefs and practices and how a vegetarian diet might interact.
Keywords: Health-related beliefs, health, practices, vegetarians.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7605819 Challenges and Professional Perspectives for Pedagogy Undergraduates with Specific Learning Disability: A Greek Case Study
Authors: Tatiani D. Mousoura
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Specific learning disability (SLD) in higher education has been partially explored in Greece so far. Moreover, opinions on professional perspectives for university students with SLD, is scarcely encountered in Greek research. The perceptions of the hidden character of SLD along with the university policy towards it and professional perspectives that result from this policy have been examined in the present research. This study has applied the paradigm of a Greek Tertiary Pedagogical Education Department (Early Childhood Education). Via mixed methods, data have been collected from different groups of people in the Pedagogical Department: students with SLD and without SLD, academic staff and administration staff, all of which offer the opportunity for triangulation of the findings. Qualitative methods include ten interviews with students with SLD and 15 interviews with academic staff and 60 hours of observation of the students with SLD. Quantitative methods include 165 questionnaires completed by third and fourth-year students and five questionnaires completed by the administration staff. Thematic analyses of the interviews’ data and descriptive statistics on the questionnaires’ data have been applied for the processing of the results. The use of medical terms to define and understand SLD was common in the student cohort, regardless of them having an SLD diagnosis. However, this medical model approach is far more dominant in the group of students without SLD who, by majority, hold misconceptions on a definitional level. The academic staff group seems to be leaning towards a social approach concerning SLD. According to them, diagnoses may lead to social exclusion. The Pedagogical Department generally endorses the principles of inclusion and complies with the provision of oral exams for students with SLD. Nevertheless, in practice, there seems to be a lack of regular academic support for these students. When such support does exist, it is only through individual initiatives. With regards to their prospective profession, students with SLD can utilize their personal experience, as well as their empathy; these appear to be unique weapons in their hands –in comparison with other educators− when it comes to teaching students in the future. In the Department of Pedagogy, provision towards SLD results sporadic, however the vision of an inclusive department does exist. Based on their studies and their experience, pedagogy students with SLD claim that they have an experiential internalized advantage for their future career as educators.
Keywords: Specific learning disability, dyslexia, pedagogy department, inclusion, professional role of SLDed educators, higher education, university policy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 10105818 Bibliometric Analysis of the Research Progress on Graphene Inks from 2008 to 2018
Authors: Jean C. A. Sousa, Julio Cesar Maciel Santos, Andressa J. Rubio, Edneia A. S. Paccola, Natália U. Yamaguchi
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A bibliometric analysis in the Web of Science database was used to identify overall scientific results of graphene inks to date (2008 to 2018). The objective of this study was to evaluate the evolutionary tendency of graphene inks research and to identify its aspects, aiming to provide data that can guide future work. The contributions of different researches, languages, thematic categories, periodicals, place of publication, institutes, funding agencies, articles cited and applications were analyzed. The results revealed a growing number of annual publications, of 258 papers found, 107 were included because they met the inclusion criteria. Three main applications were identified: synthesis and characterization, electronics and surfaces. The most relevant research on graphene inks has been summarized in this article, and graphene inks for electronic devices presented the most incident theme according to the research trends during the studied period. It is estimated that this theme will remain in evidence and will contribute to the direction of future research in this area.
Keywords: Bibliometric, coating, nanomaterials, scientometrics.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9925817 Semantic Preference across Research Articles: A Corpus-Based Study of Adjectives in English
Authors: Valdênia Carvalho e Almeida
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The goal of the present study is to investigate the semantic preference of the most frequent adjectives in research articles through a corpus-based analysis of texts published in journals in Applied Linguistics (AL). The corpus used in this study contains texts published in the period from 2014 to 2018 in the three journals: Language Learning and Technology; English for Academic Purposes, and TESOL Quaterly, totaling more than one million words. A corpus-based analysis was carried out on the corpus to identify the most frequent adjectives that co-occurred in the three journals. By observing the concordance lines of the adjectives and analyzing the words they associated with, the semantic preferences of each adjective were determined. Later, the AL corpus analysis was compared to the investigation of the same adjectives in a corpus of Chemistry. This second part of the study aimed to identify possible differences and similarities between the two corpora in relation to the use of the adjectives in research articles from both areas. The results show that there are some preferences which seem to be closely related not only to the academic genre of the texts but also to the specific domain of the discipline and, to a lesser extent, to the context of research in each journal. This research illustrates a possible contribution of Corpus Linguistics to explore the concept of semantic preference in more detail, considering the complex nature of the phenomenon.
Keywords: Applied linguistics, corpus linguistics, chemistry, research article, semantic preference.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13475816 Designing Social Media into Higher Education Courses
Authors: Thapanee Seechaliao
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This research paper presents guiding on how to design social media into higher education courses. The research methodology used a survey approach. The research instrument was a questionnaire about guiding on how to design social media into higher education courses. Thirty-one lecturers completed the questionnaire. The data were scored by frequency and percentage. The research results were the lecturers’ opinions concerning the designing social media into higher education courses as follows: 1) Lecturers deem that the most suitable learning theory is Collaborative Learning. 2) Lecturers consider that the most important learning and innovation Skill in the 21st century is communication and collaboration skills. 3) Lecturers think that the most suitable evaluation technique is authentic assessment. 4) Lecturers consider that the most appropriate portion used as blended learning should be 70% in the classroom setting and 30% online.Keywords: Instructional design, social media, courses, higher education.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20365815 ARCS for Critical Information Retrieval Development
Authors: Suttipong Boonphadung
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The research on ARCS for critical information retrieval development aimed to (1) investigate conditions of critical information retrieval skill of the Mathematics pre-service teachers before applying ARCS model in learning activities, (2) study and analyze the development of critical information retrieval skill of the Mathematics pre-service teachers after utilizing ARCS model in learning activities, and (3) evaluate the Mathematics pre-service teachers’ satisfaction on using ARCS model in learning activities as a tool to development critical information retrieval skill. Forty-one of 4th year Mathematics pre-service teachers who have enrolled in the subject of Research for Learning Development of semester 2 in 2012 were purposively selected as the research cohort. The research tools were self-report and interview questionnaire that was approved as content validity and reliability (IOC=.66-1.00, α =.834). The research found that critical information retrieval skill of the research samples before using ARCS model in learning activities was in the normal high level. According to the in-depth interview and focus group, the result however showed that the pre-service teachers still lack inadequate and effective knowledge in information retrieval. Additionally, critical information retrieval skill of the research cohort after applying ARCS model in learning activities appeared to be high level. The result revealed that the pre-service teachers are able to explain the method of searching, extraction, and selecting information as well as evaluating quality of information, and effectively making decision in accepting information. Moreover, the research discovered that the pre-service teachers showed normal high to highest level of satisfaction on using ARCS model in learning activities as a tool to development their critical information retrieval skill.
Keywords: Critical information retrieval skill, ARCS model, Satisfaction.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15115814 Effective Communication with the Czech Customers 50+ in the Financial Market
Authors: K. Matušínská, H. Starzyczná, M. Stoklasa
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The paper deals with finding and describing of the effective marketing communication forms relating to the segment 50+ in the financial market in the Czech Republic. The segment 50+ can be seen as a great marketing potential in the future but unfortunately the Czech financial institutions haven´t still reacted enough to this fact and they haven´t prepared appropriate marketing programs for this customers´ segment. Demographic aging is a fundamental characteristic of the current European population evolution but the perspective of further population aging is more noticeable in the Czech Republic. This paper is based on data from one part of primary marketing research. Paper determinates the basic problem areas as well as definition of marketing communication in the financial market, defining the primary research problem, hypothesis and primary research methodology. Finally suitable marketing communication approach to selected sub-segment at age of 50-60 years is proposed according to marketing research findings.Keywords: Population aging in the Czech Republic, segment 50+, financial services, marketing communication, marketing research, marketing communication approach.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12105813 Dialogue Meetings as an Arena for Collaboration and Reflection among Researchers and Practitioners
Authors: Kerstin Grunden, Ann Svensson, Berit Forsman, Christina Karlsson, Ayman Obeid
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The research question of the article is to explore whether the dialogue meetings method could be relevant for reflective learning among researchers and practitioners when welfare technology should be implemented in municipalities, or not. A testbed was planned to be implemented in a retirement home in a Swedish municipality, and the practitioners worked with a pre-study of that testbed. In the article, the dialogue between the researchers and the practitioners in the dialogue meetings is described and analyzed. The potential of dialogue meetings as an arena for learning and reflection among researchers and practitioners is discussed. The research methodology approach is participatory action research with mixed methods (dialogue meetings, focus groups, participant observations). The main findings from the dialogue meetings were that the researchers learned more about the use of traditional research methods, and the practitioners learned more about how they could improve their use of the methods to facilitate change processes in their organization. These findings have the potential both for the researchers and the practitioners to result in more relevant use of research methods in change processes in organizations. It is concluded that dialogue meetings could be relevant for reflective learning among researchers and practitioners when welfare technology should be implemented in a health care organization.Keywords: Dialogue meetings, implementation, reflection, test bed, welfare technology, participatory action research.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4495812 Experience of the Formation of Professional Competence of Students of IT – Specialties
Authors: B. I. Zhumagaliyev, L. Sh. Balgabayeva, G. S. Nabiyeva, B. A. Tulegenova, P. Oralkhan, B. S. Kalenova, S. S. Akhmetov
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The article describes an approach to build competence in research of Bachelor and Master, which is now an important feature of modern specialist in the field of engineering. We provide an example of methodical teaching methods with the research aspect, including the formulation of the problem, the method of conducting experiments, analysis of the results. Implementation of methods allows the student to better consolidate their knowledge and skills at the same time to get research. Knowledge on the part of the media requires some training in the subject area and teaching methods.
Keywords: Professional competence, its model–specialties, teaching methods, educational technology, decision making.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15685811 Assessing Overall Thermal Conductance Value of Low-Rise Residential Home Exterior Above-Grade Walls Using Infrared Thermography Methods
Authors: Matthew D. Baffa
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Infrared thermography is a non-destructive test method used to estimate surface temperatures based on the amount of electromagnetic energy radiated by building envelope components. These surface temperatures are indicators of various qualitative building envelope deficiencies such as locations and extent of heat loss, thermal bridging, damaged or missing thermal insulation, air leakage, and moisture presence in roof, floor, and wall assemblies. Although infrared thermography is commonly used for qualitative deficiency detection in buildings, this study assesses its use as a quantitative method to estimate the overall thermal conductance value (U-value) of the exterior above-grade walls of a study home. The overall U-value of exterior above-grade walls in a home provides useful insight into the energy consumption and thermal comfort of a home. Three methodologies from the literature were employed to estimate the overall U-value by equating conductive heat loss through the exterior above-grade walls to the sum of convective and radiant heat losses of the walls. Outdoor infrared thermography field measurements of the exterior above-grade wall surface and reflective temperatures and emissivity values for various components of the exterior above-grade wall assemblies were carried out during winter months at the study home using a basic thermal imager device. The overall U-values estimated from each methodology from the literature using the recorded field measurements were compared to the nominal exterior above-grade wall overall U-value calculated from materials and dimensions detailed in architectural drawings of the study home. The nominal overall U-value was validated through calendarization and weather normalization of utility bills for the study home as well as various estimated heat loss quantities from a HOT2000 computer model of the study home and other methods. Under ideal environmental conditions, the estimated overall U-values deviated from the nominal overall U-value between ±2% to ±33%. This study suggests infrared thermography can estimate the overall U-value of exterior above-grade walls in low-rise residential homes with a fair amount of accuracy.
Keywords: Emissivity, heat loss, infrared thermography, thermal conductance.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 819