GSTF Digital Library (GSTF-DL): Open Journal Systems (Global Science and Technology Forum)
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Housing for Low-income Households in Thailand and its Potential for Self-reliant Lifestyle
No full textThis paper is based on the research “The potential of Eua-Arthorn housing project to support a self-reliant lifestyle as guided by the Philosophy of Sufficiency Economy: A housing development recommendation for a better living for allâ€. The research surveyed and studied the physical ability of Baan Eua-Arthorn housing project that developed by the National Housing Authority for low-income households. Baan Eua-Arthorn projects are mainly located within the urban area for easy access to the city. Based on the former research of single houses of housing development projects mainly developed by private sectors, this research continues to study the location in Phitsanulok’s urban area, but from a low-income household point of view. Comparing to the former research, the ability of self-reliant seems more important to lower-income households than others. However, the state’s housing development seems to have fewer interests in this aspect, resulting in a house with only one-third of the usual land plot of the private’s housing development projects. Therefore, each family will have to move beyond the boundary of the house to the communal spaces to gain enough area for food production. Hence, the idea of self-reliance will only be possible at a community level and cooperation of the community will be a key to the success
Communication Ecosystem Contexts: From Mass Audiences to Mass Messages
No full textMass media used to have ‘mass audiences’. Nowadays, and with the emergence of the Internet and other new media technologies, messages themselves have turned into ‘mass’. These ‘mass messages’ have different densities, varieties, and dynamics in different societies and different countries. Accordingly, in this paper, we take an ecological perspective and resemble mass messages to living organisms that form ‘communication eco-systems’. We then introduce ‘communication ecosystem context’ as a new umbrella concept encompassing various previously known communication contexts. Based upon historical evidences, communication ecosystem contexts are classification into long-term and short-term, which can be formed normally, forcefully, or due to turn of certain events. In this paper the impacts of communication ecosystem contexts on message perception and interpretation have been studied primarily in Iran, and comparison have been made with five different communication ecosystems of Germany, UK, Australia, USA and Canada
Self-Care Behaviours and Glycemic Control among Adults with Type 2 Diabetes
Get PDFAim: To explore self-care behaviours and glycemic control among adults with type 2 diabetes. Design: A descriptive cross-sectional design was used for the study. Methods: The revised summary of diabetes mellitus questionnaire was used to collect data and glycated haemaglobin. A random sample comprising of 350 Omani adults with type 2 diabetes were selected between January-June 2010. Structural equation modelling and ANOVA were used for analysis. Results/Findings: One-third of the adults with type 2 diabetes followed diet, foot care and medications (on an average of 3 days/7 days) compared to half percentage of them adhering to foot care. 27% of the total variance in self-car activities was accounted by diet, 32% by exercise and 17% by medications. Blood glucose monitoring, foot care, and smoking and HbA1c accounted for 60%, 78%, and 51% variances. The standardized path coefficients of diet, exercise, smoking, foot care, blood sugar monitoring and medications had a significantly positive influence on self-care behaviours. Conclusion: There were inadequate self-care behaviours among the majority of adults with type 2 diabetes with poor glycaemic control. Nurses should use the self-care management model when designing tailored educational interventions to enhance glycemic control
An Investigation of Older Korean Immigrants' Perspectives on Accessing Primary Health Care Services
Get PDFPurpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the issues related to primary care access by older (aged 60 years and older) Korean immigrants to Canada. As many elderly are managing ongoing chronic health conditions as part of their everyday lives, issues of access to health services are particularly important. The aim of the study is to generate insights to assist health care professionals to understand the nature of the challenges and issues older Korean immigrants face when seeking health care and how they resolve them. Methods: The study employed the methodology of interpretive description. Interview data were gathered from 10 older Korean immigrants (mean of age =71.5 years). Five of the participants were male and five were female. Open-ended interviews and field notes were used to collect data. Findings: The findings revealed that older Korean immigrants have had difficulty gaining access to appropriate primary health care services because of language and social barriers. Such barriers resulted in an inappropriate use of primary care services and contributed to delay in health care services and lack of continuity in service delivery. Also, primary health care was often unresponsive to the health care needs of older Korean immigrants. Conclusions: This study offers insights to assist health care professionals to understand the nature of the challenges and issues older Korean immigrants face when seeking health care and how they resolve them. Describing this phenomenon has provided some insights to propose interventions that respect the older Korean immigrants’ values and improve their access to primary health care. The insights from this exploratory study give some preliminary direction to health care professionals as they provide care that respect and support the older Korean immigrants
The Implementation of an Exercise by Prescription Program in Middle-aged Hypertensive African American Women
Get PDFThe purpose of this pilot study was to implement an 8 week exercise by prescription program in a rural community to decrease hypertension and change behaviors regarding physical activity in middle-aged African American women. Participants were asked to complete the International Physical Activity Questionnaire short form, the Exercise Stages of Change (short form) survey, and a manual blood pressure examination pre and post intervention. The sample size consisted of 10 middle-aged African American women with hypertension. Analysis of the descriptive statistics revealed that total time spent walking for at least 10 minutes increased from pre-intervention (M 111.90, SD 237.24) to post-intervention (M 132.10, SD 215.91) Data also indicated a decrease in pulse pressure from pre (M 47.80 SD 9.05) to post (M 47.10 SD 8.46) intervention. This study demonstrates that exercise prescriptions are an effective method of promoting physical activity in middle-aged African American women
Semantic UI: Automated Creation of Semantically Personalized User Interface
No full textInformation representation plays very important role for services and applications to be more attractive for end user. One design cannot fit varied preferences and be suitable for all users. User driven customization of user interface applied for particular application or service do not influence at overall satisfaction of a user and usability of other applications and services. Therefore, in the paper authors tackle challenges of UI personalization on semantic level; and present a framework for adaptive UI development, driven by personal semantic user profile and mashup of reusable adaptive visualization modules. Considering human as a powerful integrated part of IoT environment, UI adaptation and personalization framework has been extended with automated ontology-based UI creation (Semantic Scanner concept). Presented approach of on-the-fly semantically-driven adaptive UI creation facilitates a process of human integration into machine-oriented infrastructure
An Improvement of Velocity Variation with Offset (VVO) Method in Estimating Anisotropic Parameters
Get PDFSeismic anisotropy causes deviation of traveltimereflection from hyperbolic moveout. The deviation can be seen atfar offset and its deviation depends on anisotropic parameter andoffset. This paper discuss velocity variation with offset (VVO)method as a tool for estimating anisotropic parameters; ε and δ.Anisotropic parameter is one of important aspect in seismicanisotropy analysis. While other methods use non-hyperbolicmoveout for estimating anisotropic parameter, VVO method useshyperbolic assumption for moveout correction and leave reflectorunflat at far offset because anisotropy. The method calculatesresidual traveltime and then changes it into anisotropy velocity toobtain anisotropic parameter using linear inversion method. Thispaper provides an improvement and limitation of VVO methodin estimating anisotropic parameter. Comparison between VVOmethod and other established method is discussed theoretically inthis paper. To test the method, synthetic model is built and theresult show promising outcome in predicting ε. Meanwhileaccuracy for δ estimation depends on accuracy of moveoutvelocity. Advantage of VVO method is that ε and δ can beestimated separately using P-wave gather data without wellinformation
Gas Diffusivity and Thermal Properties of Compost-mixed Soils under Variable Water Saturation
Get PDFGas and heat transport through compostmixed landfill cover soils affect the emission of toxic gases and methane oxidization processes. In this study, we mixed soils with three different composts in the ratio of either 1:5 or 1:10 (compost:soil) to understand the effect of compost mixing for gas diffusivity and thermal properties. The gas diffusion coefficient (Dp), thermal conductivity (ï¬ ), and heat capacity (HC) were measured for soils, composts, and compost-mixed soils at different soil-water matric potentials (ï¹ ) starting from nearly saturated to ï¹ = -10,000 cm H2O and dry conditions. Data were fitted to the Brooks-Corey soil-water retention curve model to estimate the bubbling pressure (ï¹ b). For all materials, Dp increased linearly with increased air content (ï¥ ), and the Penman-Call linear Dp(ï¥ ) model with the model slope (C) and threshold soil-air content (ï¥ th) fitted the data well. The ï¥ th values increased with increasing compost content, relating non-linearly to the Brooks-Corey ï¹ b but highly linearly to the soil macroporosity. Analogous to the Dp(ï¥ ) model, Penman-Call type linear ï¬ (ï± ), and HC(ï± ) models with slopes (C′ and C′′) and intercepts (ï¬ 0 and HC0, thermal conductivity and heat capacity at a volumetric water content of ï± = 0) captured reasonably well the data measured from dry to wet conditions. The C′ forï€ ï¬ ï€ varied depending on the compost ratio and decreased with increasing compost ratio. The C′′ for HC, on the other hand, had less effect on the compost mix. The thermal properties under the dry condition, ï¬ 0 and HC0, were well correlated to the volumetric solid content. The results from this study will be helpful towards designing compost-mixed landfill cover soils with optimal heat and gas transport characteristics
Knowledge of Healthcare Legislation and Use of Preventive Health Services in the Tallahassee-Leon County area of northwest Florida in the United States
Get PDFResearch evidence indicates that racial/ethnic minorities in the United States, including African Americans, have low rates of access to and use of health care, including preventive health services. The implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has afforded health insurance coverage and increased access to preventive health services for eligible Americans. Despite the ACA provision of free access to preventive health services, there remains a gap in the use of those services by ethnic minorities. It is not clear whether that gap is due to lack of health insurance or lack of knowledge about the ACA provision. This study examines the extent to which knowledge or familiarity with the Act enhances the use of preventive health services among African Americans in the Tallahassee-Leon County area of northwest Florida. It used primary data collected from a survey conducted during March-April 2012 among a sample of self-identified African American adults in the area. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 22 was used for running frequency analysis on the dataset, which indicated that although majority of insured respondents used preventive health services, some of the insured did not use preventive services because they were unfamiliar with the ACA provision of free access to preventive services for insured people. Health promotion and awareness campaigns about the law’s benefits by local and state health departments can enhance the use of preventive services
Legends: Mirror of a People’s Mind
Get PDFThe legends of Cebu need to be preserved through an ethnoliterary critical anthology in order to keep alive its people’s heritage and letters. Cebu is the province located at the middle of the archipelagic Philippines. This is where the oldest city (Cebu City) and ( Colon St. ) street in the country are found [1]. Furthermore, Cebu City is declared as the first City of Culture by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and has contributed to the Philippines’ recognition as the ASEAN Culture Capital for 2010 and 2011[2]. The title allows the promotion of the region’s arts and culture to other Southeast Asian nations [3]. This ethnoliterary research anthologizes and analyzes the representative legends of Cebu in order to protect and uphold Cebuanos’ cultural heritage as well as offer understanding on Cebuanos’ collective psyché. Specifically, it focuses on the following: (1) the profile of the Cebuano tellers; (2) the legends of Cebu and their categorization; (3) their archetypal-thematic analysis; (4) the feminism revealed in the legendary characters, and (5) the collective Cebuano psyché reflected in the legends. The method of research used in this study is ethnoliterary research which involves interviewing the eighty-five (85) key informants who have retold the thirty-one (31) legends from the twenty-two (22) representative regions of Cebu. This study theorizes that the legends of Cebu, through their archetypes and themes, signify the collective Cebuano psyché. This research assumption is supported by the formalistic, mimetic, and feministic literary theories in the analytical approach toward delving into the legends focusing on their archetypal and thematic dimensions. The results of the quantitative analysis on the profiles of the respondents and the legends as well as the qualitative discourse analysis are these findings: (1) The profile of the oral literary tellers shows women as the cultural storytellers; (2) The legends of Cebu reveal the following: (a) They can be categorized into three: Living Human Beings, Mythical Creatures ( subdivided into: human-looking creatures, animal-looking creatures, and mysterious matter), and Dead Souls; (b) Majority of the legendary characters with identified gender are female (71.43%), which may suggest a gender bias with the negative portrayal of women; and (c) Nature (such as trees and rivers) is the common abode of mythical creatures; (3) The legends’ archetypes signify killer of the unborn, killer of the children, evil force, animal’s involvement in humans, strength of supernatural beings, kindness of supernatural beings, dead’s involvement in humans, vulnerability of women, magic and power in humans, with the themes: the protection of the young, and defenseless, the existence of other forces-good or bad, the inevitability of life after death, and the acquisition of powers by humans; (4) feminism is at play in the construction of the legends, as evidenced in the reported legendary characters’ women-as-witches stereotypes and the women-as-dead victims; and (5) The collective Cebuano psyché reveals the traits of being judgmental, inclined to hearsays, protective of their children, superstitious, believer of the dead and supernatural beings’ presence among the living, fearful, ritualistic, sin conscious, and gender bias. The new concepts that this study has contributed to the field of regional studies and literary traditions are: the generation of categories of the legends and the idea of feminism’s involvement in the Cebuano psyché as reflected in the legends