Search

Using district level data for urban areas in Java, we reassess the impacts of minimum wages on formal and informal sector employment, unemployment and labour participation. We employ the spatial Du...

As high-dimensional data measured with mixed-type variables gradually become prevalent, it is particularly appealing to represent those mixed-type high-dimensional data using a much smaller set of ...

BACKGROUND Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships exist in undergraduate medicine courses. A pilot Pharmacy Longitudinal Clerkship (pPLC) was funded to investigate delivery of this model of clinical education for student pharmacists. OBJECTIVE(S) To investigate the development, implementation and initial evaluation of a pPLC. METHODS The 11-week pPLC was delivered to two students in two GP practices in Scotland. Mixed theory-based methods were used to gather information on the pPLC structures and processes required and qualitative semi-structured Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) based interviews explored outcomes with key stakeholders. Informed written consent was obtained. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. University Ethics approval was granted. RESULTS Data were generated on resources and processes required for a pPLC including funds budgeted for and actually spent on staffing, student travel/subsistence and student clinical 'Kit Bags', learning outcomes, curriculum and training timetable, GP Practice/University contracts. Interviews were completed with the two students, three linked GP clinical supervisors and two Regional Tutors involved. The seven themes were identified and mapped to seven TDF domains including: increased levels of student confidence, and increased student enthusiasm for a career in pharmacy, need for definition of the role of the Regional Tutor for the PLC and GP positivity towards the expected outcomes of clerkship model versus traditional placements. CONCLUSION Findings are limited by the small number of participants and settings, but evaluation was positive and the work garnered information on requirements for resources and processes. This will inform 'roll out' of the PLC.

Sisal fibers are reported to have outstanding textile properties including high strength, absorbency, good dye uptake, exceptional durability and abundant availability suggesting their potential in...

OBJECTIVES To report on the rates of misinterpretation, confusion, and attribution of the anhedonia question in the PHQ-4 and Whooley questions by pregnant women. BACKGROUND The NICE Perinatal Mental Health guidelines recommend the use of the anhedonia question for depression screening, yet evidence suggests it may be misinterpreted or not be related to mood. METHOD Women attending a public hospital's antenatal clinic, communicating in English as their language of choice, completed either the PHQ-4 or the Whooley questions. Following comments to general evaluation questions in the first sample, women were asked a targeted anhedonia interpretation question, an anhedonia attribution question, and an ease of understanding question (PHQ-4: N = 37-119; Whooley: N = 31-100). RESULTS Across the PHQ-4 and Whooley formats around 15% of participants completely misinterpreted the anhedonia question, with a further 17% finding it difficult to understand. Around two-thirds of those experiencing the symptom said it was due to normal symptoms of pregnancy, and not related to their mood. In the PHQ-4 format, which included all three questions, 48% of the women had one or more of these issues. While CALD women appear to have greater difficulty understanding the question, there were no meaningful associations with whether English was spoken at home. CONCLUSION Almost half of the women incorrectly interpreted the anhedonia question, or said that it was confusing, or that it did not reflect low mood. These data indicate that the anhedonia question should not be used in screening women in the antenatal period, whether in the PHQ-4 or Whooley formats.

Aspects of the physical and social environment play an important role in shaping HIV-related risk/prevention behaviors and access to prevention and treatment services. Here, we describe the feasibility of integrating a web-based survey application to collect risk locations into Qualtrics and compare this approach with a JavaScript-based alternative. Between 2017 and 2018, we enrolled 29 persons living with HIV in Boston Massachusetts to complete an interviewer-administered questionnaire using Qualtrics. Surveys collected demographics; sex/drug use risk behaviors; locations where participants met sex partners, had condomless sex, attended group sex events, and shared a syringe or injection equipment with someone else (up to 10 locations each); and the locations where participants (a) had sex with each sex partner (past 6 months) and (b) used drugs with each drug use partner (past 6 months). Location data were collected using embedded links to an encrypted web-based survey application. Overall, participants provided valid coordinates 93% of the time; when an exact location was not provided, a neighborhood was provided instead, resulting in little missing data. Our findings suggest that this web-based data collection tool (alone or with embedded links in Qualtrics) is a feasible and secure option for collecting risk location data.

In this paper, a cascade PI-PD secondary control scheme is presented in automatic generation control (AGC) application under a deregulated environment. Along with conventional electric power genera...

In this study, a multiple model control scheme based on a second-level adaption design approach is established for a class of nonlinear discrete time systems. The nonlinear function of systems is r...

The increasing popularity of providing composite sustainable indicators for various tourism sectors has paved the way for different evaluation methods that comprehensively assess the sustainability...

Over the past few decades, many Southeast Asian governments have promoted English language education (hereafter ELE) as a linguistic pathway for developing human capital and improving global economic competitiveness of their nations. However, Kirkpatrick (2017. Language education policy among the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). European Journal of Language Policy, 9(1), 7–25. https://doi.org/10.3828/ejlp.2017.2) raises a valid concern that if the current language education policy of teaching only the national language plus English is retained in Southeast Asian polities, future multilinguals in the region will likely be transformed into bilinguals with proficiency in the national language and English. While instrumentalist discourses have shaped ELE policy in the region, the current status of English has also been facilitated, to a large extent, by a set of common ELE ‘fallacies’ [Phillipson (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford University Press]. This paper seeks to firstly address the ideological fallacies of ELE that underlie the pursuit of English. We then call for a reorientation towards viewing multilingualism-as-resource(s), and propose a ‘Na/ver/in’ multilingual model for Southeast Asian primary education. This model seeks to promote the combined use of the (na)tional language, (ver)nacular language(s)/regional lingua franca and (in)ternational language for primary education. We further argue that the way forward is a more balanced, inclusive, socially equitable and ethical approach to language policy and planning, informing the Naverin model.

It is often assumed that language variation is the main cause of the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon. Using a qualitative approach, this study, however, analyses and explains other, more fundamental ...

Working in Greece and Turkey: A Comparative Labour History from Empires to Nation-States, 1840–1940, edited by Leda Papastefanaki and M. Erdem Kabadayi, is a welcome contribution to the re-burgeoni...

In this article, we propose a new integrator scheme for a 3D geometrically exact beam. This scheme can conserve or decay energy, which is needed in dealing with stiff equations and long-term comput...

In Europe, 20% of road crashes occur at intersections. In recent years, evolving communication technologies are making V2V and V2I faster and more reliable; with such advancements, these crashes, as well as their economic cost, can be partially reduced. In this work, we concentrate on straight path intersection collisions. Connectivity-based algorithms relying on 5G technology and smart sensors are presented and compared to a commercial radar AEB logic in order to evaluate performances and effectiveness in collision avoidance or mitigation. The aforementioned novel safety systems are tested in a blind intersection and low adherence scenario. The first algorithm proposed is obtained by incorporating connectivity information to the original control scheme, while the second algorithm proposed is a novel control logic fully capable of utilizing also adherence estimation provided by smart sensors. Test results show an improvement in terms of safety for both the architecture and high prospects for future developments.

In this paper, an adaptive generalised function projective synchronisation scheme of fractional-order chaotic systems with different dimensions and orders and fully unknown parameters is presented....

Mother Tongue Education (MTE) in the Philippines seeks to educate learners from kindergarten to 3rd grade using their mother tongues. However, in Linguistically Diverse Contexts (LDCs) where multip...

Because crafting attractive and effective colors from scratch is a high-effort and time-consuming process in map and visualization design, transferring color from an inspiration source to maps and ...

This study introduces digital factor into the CES function to construct a normalised supply-side system of three-factor CES production function with factor-biased technological progress. Based on t...

This paper presents a new design methodology for robust fractional-order controllers with more than three parameters for first-order plus dead time systems using the synthesis scheme of the ‘more f...

This essay proposes to rethink Romanticism through the concept of bliss. I suggest not only that bliss is a core Romantic concept but also, more speculatively, that Romanticism as both a project an...

Extensive studies have been conducted on how to select efficient designs with respect to a criterion. Most design criteria aim to capture the overall efficiency of the design across all columns. Wh...

This study includes untreated sisal fibers, fibers that had been mercerized using 0.06 M NaOH and fibers cornified at 100°C in different volume fractions used as reinforcement into a general purpos...

Workplace-based interprofessional education (IPE) offers opportunities for pre-registration students to interact with patients in authentic settings. Senior dietetic, medical, nursing, physiotherapy and radiation therapy students took part in a workplace IPE initiative on cancer and palliative care informed by experiential learning theory and run by clinical tutors. Research was undertaken to gauge students and tutors' experiences of the initiative. The mixed methods approach included: Pre and post-administration of the University of West England Interprofessional questionnaire 'Communication and Teamwork Scale, 'Interprofessional Learning Scale,' 'Interprofessional Interaction Scale.' Two questions were added relating to cancer and palliative care. Separate focus group interviews were held with students and tutors. There was a positive shift in the Communication and Teamwork scale based on students' pre and post questionnaires, but no change in the other two scales. Analysis of student and tutor focus group data showed that both affirmed the IPE initiative for a range of reasons. A brief experiential, theory-informed IPE initiative with a focus on cancer and palliative care was well received by both students and clinical tutors. The mixed method approach highlighted some discrepancies between quantitative and qualitative results but when synthesized were explicable, demonstrating the value of using a mixed methods approach to research.

This article draws on a special issue of La’isha, Israel’s most popular women’s magazine, to study media representations of post-Soviet women. The March 2020 issue, dedicated to the 30th anniversar...

The Internet of Things (IoT) is going to create a heterogeneous network of billions or trillions of connected things with self-aware, self-configuration capabilities that will exchange data with ea...

The natural fiber composites are emerging as replacement materials in wide engineering fields. In this work, banana, sisal, and banana-sisal fibers of three different fiber lengths namely 3 mm, 5 m...

Film-cooling hole-geometry research needs a better understanding in the mechanism of film cooling effectiveness, which was recently shown to depend rather strongly on the counter-rotating vortex pa...

SQL injection is a type of database-targeted attack for data-driven applications. It is performed by inserting malicious code in the SQL query to alter and modify its meaning, enabling the attacker...

In this paper, an event-triggered P-type iterative learning control (ILC) scheme is developed, where the control input update only occurs in the event-triggered iterations. The event-triggered iter...

Data clustering from the Electronic Health Record(EHR) system is an important system for diagnosing the association between the preprocessing phase and the clinical profiles of patients. According ...

Network intrusion detection system (NIDS) is a system that analyses network traffic to flag malicious traffic or suspicious activities. Several recent NIDS datasets have been published, however, the lack of baseline experimental results on the full version of datasets had made it difficult for researchers to perform benchmarking. As the train-test distribution of the datasets has yet to be pre-defined by the creators, this further obstruct the researchers to compare the performance unbiasedly across each of the machine classifiers. Moreover, cross-validation resampling scheme have also been addressed in the literatures to be inappropriate in the domain of NIDS. Thus, rolling-origin – a standard resampling technique which is also known as a common cross-validation scheme in the forecasting domain is employed to allocate the training and testing distributions. In this paper, rigorous experiments are conducted on the full version of the three recent NIDS datasets: GureKDDCup, UNSW-NB15, and CIDDS-001. While the datasets chosen might not be the latest available datasets, we have selected them as they include the essential IP address fields which are usually missing or removed due to some sort of privacy concerns. To deliver the baseline empirical results, 10 well-known classifiers from Weka are utilized.

The joint mean-covariance models are widely used in longitudinal studies. To draw the mean and covariance patterns of data, joint modeling based on the normality assumptions with the modified Chole...

This article discusses the role that gender and age play in female crime and delinquency in Portugal, drawing on the voices of female offenders across different generations—childhood, youth, and ad...

This study investigated the treatment effect of curry leaves extract (CLE) and moringa leaves extract (MLE) on the melanosis of Pacific white shrimp during 15 days of chilled storage. These extract...

Fast-response virtual teams (FRVTs) have been developed as a response to emergent challenges faced by organizations that need to be addressed urgently. Even though FRVTs offer enormous potential in...

We developed a pedagogy addressing both academic literacies and critical analysis where students would, with limited facilitation, actively engage with texts and each other. In this article we refl...

The human factor is considered the weakest link in cybersecurity and inside the Security Operation Centers (SOC) and it represents the most important component at the same time. Human factor capabi...

The dynamic properties of rocks are of great significance to the stability and safety of rock slopes and geological engineering under dynamic loads (e.g. seismic load). In this paper, triaxial cycl...

In this paper, motivated by considerations of server utilization and energy consumption in cloud computing, we investigate a homogeneous queueing system with a threshold-based workload control sche...

High temperature electrochemical reaction parameters for type 316 L stainless steel (316 L SS) have been determined based on data measured in pure water at high temperatures to realize an analytica...