500 research outputs found
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Muslim Worldviews: Implications for Helping Professionals Providing Culturally Competent Care
No full textThis chapter seeks to provide an overview of traditional and contemporary Muslim worldviews, specifically beliefs and attitudes that may relate to help-seeking and interaction with human services such as counseling, health services, educational systems, and social services. Traditional Islamic beliefs and views, combined with contemporary issues and the experiences of living as a religious minority, can impact successful interaction between members of the Muslim community and service providers. In addition, basic knowledge of Muslim worldviews can aid helping professionals in providing effective, culturally competent care. This chapter focuses on traditional Islamic concepts of health and illness, common lay beliefs that stem from traditional views, attitudes towards treatment, and help-seeking patterns. The interplay of religiosity, acculturation, gender, family dynamics, and other relevant factors on help-seeking and service utilization are also presented to provide the reader with a holistic perspective of prevalent Muslim worldviews
Using Data Analytics to Predict Hospital Mortality in Sepsis Patients
No full textPredictive analytics can be used to anticipate the risks associated with some patients, and prediction models can be employed to alert physicians and allow timely proactive interventions. Recently, health care providers have been using different types of tools with prediction capabilities. Sepsis is one of the leading causes of in-hospital death in the United States and worldwide. In this study, the authors used a large medical dataset to develop and present a model that predicts in-hospital mortality among Sepsis patients. The predictive model was developed using a dataset of more than one million records of hospitalized patients. The independent predictors of in-hospital mortality were identified using the chi-square automatic interaction detector. The authors found that adding hospital attributes to the predictive model increased the accuracy from 82.08% to 85.3% and the area under the curve from 0.69 to 0.84, which is favorable compared to using only patients' attributes. The authors discuss the practical and research contributions of using a predictive model that incorporates both patient and hospital attributes in identifying high-risk patients
Is Ubiquitous Technology for Needs Data Management a Game Changer in Humanitarian Arena?
No full textOne in every 70 people around the world is caught up in a crisis (natural disasters, conflict, climate change, etc.) and urgently needs humanitarian assistance and protection according to the OCHA. The humanitarian community assists millions of people every year based on emerging humanitarian needs. Most of the time, the conditions inside the countries, once the humanitarian needs data is collected, are not very conducive and required simple ways to collect data like paper-based data collection with simple questions. This data is later entered into a database or spreadsheet using rigorous and time-consuming data entry efforts. Dynamic changes in needs of people; numbers of partners involved; the complexity of evolving processes; and emerging technologies over time has led to a change in processes for data collection and management. This article is an attempt to capture humanitarian data collection best practices and the use of different technologies in managing data to facilitate humanitarian needs assessment processes for the Syria crisis
How Can Accessibility for Deaf and Hearing-Impaired Players be Improved in Video Games?
No full textThis research investigates how the accessibility of video games can be improved for deaf and hearing-impaired players. The journal is divided into several areas, first, examining the use of subtitles and closed captions used in video games; and second, how visual cues can be used to provide better accessibility for deaf and hearing-impaired gamers. This includes effectively creating suitable atmospheres and mood in games through lighting as well as having a varied environment that prevents the players from getting bored with the setting of a game and finally exploring current best practices within the gaming industry. Through this research data the issues with accessibility can be found as well as how a lack of accessibility affects deaf and hearing-impaired gamers. Research from this investigation supports some of the evidence from other researchers in the field that accessibility features for deaf and hearing-impaired can be considered and implemented
Which Kinds of Legitimacy is Important?: A Case Study on the Corporate Life Cycle in an IT Company
No full textAlthough legitimacy has been identified as a vital issue for firms, existing literatures of legitimacy for firms mainly focus on one stage in their life cycle. To this end, this article applies the theory of cooperate life cycle to explore what the proper legitimacy that firms should obtain to increase their performance at their development stages. The authors develop a research model and run an empirical test on 496 IT firms. The results show that cognitive legitimacy, normative legitimacy, and regulative legitimacy play different roles across the life cycle of firms. The authors also find that proper strategy at the three stages in firms' life cycle can help them acquire and enhance the appropriate legitimacy. Furthermore, the proper legitimacy will help firms improve their performance. The findings are proved in a case study on 58.com, a leading classifieds information provider in China. This article makes contributions to management literature by extending the theory of legitimacy for firms and providing guidelines for firms to obtain the proper legitimacy at each stage of their life cycle
The Investigation of Dependence Between the Internet Measurement and Globalization
No full textUnder the new measurement for the internet supplied from the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), the authors relax the orthogonal and normality condition with the methodology based on empirical codependence structures and marginal distributions. The nonparametric dependence between the diffusion of the internet and different globalization indices is examined using a panel of 10 countries, as long as error terms do not follow multivariate Gaussian distributions. The model selections are ranked and the authors find the best dependence model. The empirical dependence of the Internet diffusion on the globalization is further demonstrated from the dynamic copula analysis
Strategic Values of Cloud Computing Transformation: A Multi-Case Study of 173 Adopters
No full textThis article aims to study the strategic transformative value dimensions of cloud computing. Organizational requirements, managerial strategic objectives, and their attendant challenges are very specific indicators that enable characterization of these dimensions. An exploratory study of 173 cases of companies, covering 17 distinct economic activity sectors, spread over all continents, was conducted, taking into account contingency factors such as culture, size, and structure. The elements of industry, strategy, and technology were also considered, as well as managerial cognition. The analyses of needs, objectives, challenges, implemented solutions, and results of the transformation to cloud computing, enabled us to identify these dimensions. Strategies to maximize the transformative value of cloud computing are then presented. The results of this study can be used by managers to facilitate and optimize this cloud computing transformation
Reversible Data Hiding with Multiple Data for Multiple Users in an Encrypted Image
No full textThis article presents a new method which embeds multiple data from multiple users in an encrypted image. Here, the data from several users is embedded into an encrypted image. Initially, the image is encrypted by the owner followed by embedding phase, where the encrypted image is divided into four sets. Two of them are used to embed the secret data, while others are remain unaltered. The secret data from multiple users are embedded into Most Significant Bit (MSB) of the encrypted image using their location maps. In the extraction phase, an individual owner can extract the data from the encrypted image using the assigned private key. Subsequently, in the image decryption and recovery phase, images can be recovered using the unaltered neighbor pixels. However, the secret image can be recovered losslessly using the encryption key only. The proposed scheme allows the extraction of the embedded information only for the authorized user out of several users without knowing the cover information. Various simulations have been made related to this, which show the high embedding rate and accuracy
Incorporating a Global Perspective Into Future-Oriented Forest Management Scenarios: The Role of Forest Footprint Analysis
No full textThis research serves to integrate the concept of an “ecological footprint” into future-oriented forest management scenarios. Scenarios are commonly used to explore stakeholder perceptions of possible forest futures, and are typically focused on the local impacts of different management choices. This article illustrates how global footprint analysis can be incorporated into scenarios to enable local forest stakeholders in the EU to consider the impacts of their local decisions at national and global levels. This illustration could be helpful to the construction of a forest decision support system that includes wood trade information and social processes (simulation of management decisions under changing political/economic conditions). It finds that different future forest management scenarios involving a potential increase or decrease of the harvested timber, or potential increase or decrease of subsidies for forest protection, combined with various possible changes in local consumption patterns, might have impact on both “internal” (local) and “external” (non-local) forest footprints
A Participative Method for Prioritizing Smart City Interventions in Medium-Sized Municipalities
No full textOne of the most critical issues relating to smart cities is the selection of the most suited interventions, among numerous available options. Especially when medium-sized municipalities are concerned that typically have less capabilities and available expertise, the need for a methodological framework for supporting the selection of possible interventions is profound. The aim of this article is to propose such a participative method for investigating the sectors in which a municipality could take actions, and for deciding on possible interventions. The approach includes citizens' opinion, municipality policy, and the organizational, technological and economic status of the municipality, as well as best practices from other smart cities. This way, a multi-criteria decision support model was developed, in order to select the best application scenarios for a medium-sized municipality. The model was applied in Samos Island in Greece, revealing that citizens show great interest in the development of smart applications. The whole approach can be easily applied, with the proper modifications, in a large variety of cities, offering a useful tool to decision makers and societies