Naresuan University Journal
Not a member yet
39887 research outputs found
Sort by
A systematic review of telephone delivered psychosocial interventions on relapse prevention, adherence to psychiatric medication and health risk behaviours in adults with psychotic disorder (protocol)
No full textApps and Adolescents: A Systematic Review of Adolescents' Use of Mobile Phone and Tablet Apps That Support Personal Management of Their Chronic or Long-Term Physical Conditions.
No full textBACKGROUND: The prevalence of physical chronic or long-term conditions in adolescents aged 10-24 years is rising. Mobile phone and tablet mobile technologies featuring software program apps are widely used by these adolescents and their healthy peers for social networking or gaming. Apps are also used in health care to support personal condition management and they have considerable potential in this context. There is a growing body of literature on app use in health contexts, thereby making a systematic review of their effectiveness very timely. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review the literature on the effectiveness of mobile apps designed to support adolescents' management of their physical chronic or long-term conditions. METHODS: We conducted a review of the English-language literature published since 2003 in five relevant bibliographical databases using key search terms. Two independent reviewers screened titles and abstracts using data extraction and quality assessment tools. RESULTS: The search returned 1120 hits. Of the 19 eligible full-text papers, four met our review criteria, reporting one pilot randomized controlled trial and three pretest/post-test studies. Samples ranged from 4 to 18 participants, with a combined sample of 46 participants. The apps reported were targeted at type 1 diabetes, asthma, and cancer. Two papers provided data for calculating effect size. Heterogeneity in terms of study design, reported outcomes, follow-up times, participants' ages, and health conditions prevented meta-analyses. There was variation in whether adolescents received guidance in using the app or were solely responsible for navigating the app. Three studies reported some level of patient involvement in app design, development, and/or evaluation. Health professional involvement in the modelling stages of apps was reported in all studies, although it was not always clear whether specific clinical (as opposed to academic) expertise in working with adolescents was represented. The dearth of studies and the small overall sample size emphasizes the need for future studies of the development, evaluation, use, and effectiveness of mobile apps to support adolescents' personal management of their conditions. CONCLUSIONS: A key finding of the review is the paucity of evidence-based apps that exist, in contrast to the thousands of apps available on the app market that are not evidence-based or user or professional informed. Although we aimed to assess the effectiveness of apps, the dearth of studies meeting our criteria meant that we were unable to be conclusive in this regard. Based on the available evidence, apps may be considered feasible health interventions, but more studies involving larger sample sizes, and with patient and health professional input at all stages, are needed to determine apps' acceptability and effectiveness. This review provides valuable findings and paves the way for future rigorous development and evaluation of health apps for adolescents with chronic or long-term conditions
Challenging stereotypes about gendered vulnerability to climate change:Asset adaptation in Mombasa and Cartagena
No full textSomething happened: Spectres of organization/disorganization at the airport
No full textThe article explores the practical accomplishment of organization at an international airport during the course of a number of ‘security alerts’ that disrupted routine ‘modes of ordering’ (Law, 1994). Airports, we suggest, invite us to re-think ‘organization’ as the partial, contingent and always-incomplete outcome of complex order(ing)s and disorder(ing)s played out across various spaces, agencies and materials. When ‘something happens’ we begin to see how spaces, agents and materials are subject to unexpected becomings: objects appear treacherous, spaces mutable, agencies ineffectual and informants unreliable. Following the work of Weick we might say that in such moments of uncertainty we are forced to reconsider our customary ways of thinking about objects, subjects and systems. We argue this thinking requires a relational understanding of organization so that we can better grasp how organizations are continuously being made and un-made through an on-going co-creation and dispersal of parts
On the Design of Gyroelectric Resonators and Circulators Using a Magnetically Biased 2-D Electron Gas (2-DEG)
No full textThis paper presents a theoretical investigation into the feasibility of designing tunable resonators and circulators exploiting the gyroelectric behavior of the high-mobility 2-D electron gas (2-DEG). Operational regions are assigned and the resonant and perfect circulation conditions for 2-DEG materials analyzed to demonstrate the potential of the design. Performance of the designed resonators and circulators are verified by inspecting the scattering parameters resulting from a Green’s function approach and full-wave electromagnetic simulation of the structures. Theoretical results prove the possibility of building planar 2-DEG based resonant microwave devices to work below the cyclotron frequency. Moreover, a 2-DEG circulator working in the same frequency range is theoretically feasible providing a high steady magnetic field is applied. A microwave circulator based on a magnetically biased 2-DEG cooled to 77 K is presented to work at 200 GHz in the presence of a 2.5-T magnetic field bias
Second-order counterexamples to the discrete-time Kalman conjecture
No full textThe Kalman conjecture is known to be true for third-order continuous-time systems. We show that it is false in general for second-order discrete-time systems by construction of counterexamples with stable periodic solutions. We discuss a class of second-order discrete-time systems for which it is true provided the nonlinearity is odd, but false in general. This has strong implications for the analysis of saturated systems
The removal of caesium ions using supported clinoptilolite
No full textIn this paper, the sorptive kinetic and diffusional characteristics of caesium ion removal from aqueous solution by carbon-supported clinoptilolite composites are presented. Natural clinoptilolite was supported on carbonaceous scaffolds prepared from date stones. Thermal treatment was applied to produce voids in the carbon which was conditioned using polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride to facilitate the clinoptilolite attachment. This method allowed the formation of a consistent zeolite layer on the carbon surface. The composite was applied in the removal of non-radioactive caesium ions showing an enhanced uptake from 55 mg g−1 to 120.9 mg g−1 when compared to clinoptilolite. Kinetic studies using Pseudo First Order model revealed an enhanced rate constant for carbon–clinoptilolite (0.0252 min−1) in comparison with clinoptilolite (0.0189 min−1). The Pseudo-First Order model described the process for carbon–clinoptilolite, meanwhile Pseudo Second Order model adjusted better for pure clinoptilolite. Diffusivity results suggested that mass transfer resistances involved in the Cs+ sorption are film and intraparticle diffusion for natural clinoptilolite and intraparticle diffusion as the mechanism that controls the process for carbon–clinoptilolite composite. The most significant aspect being that the vitrified volume waste can be reduced by over 60% for encapsulation of the same quantity of caesium due to the enhanced uptake of zeolit
Adapting the Crossmodal Congruency Task for Measuring the Limits of Visual- Tactile Interactions Within and Between Groups
No full textThe crossmodal congruency task (CCT) is a commonly used paradigm for measuring visual–tactile interactions and how these may be influenced by discrepancies in space and time between the tactile target and visual distractors. The majority of studies which have used this paradigm have neither measured , nor attempted to control, individual variability in unisensory (tactile) performance. We have developed a version of the CCT in which unisensory baseline performance is constrained to enable comparisons within and between participant groups. Participants were instructed to discriminate between single and double tactile pulses presented to their dominant hand, at their own approximate threshold level. In Experiment 1, visual distractors were presented at −30 ms, 100 ms, 200 ms and 400 ms stimulus onset asynchronies. In Experiment 2, ipsilateral visual distractors were presented 0 cm, 21 cm, and 42 cm vertically from the target hand, and 42 cm in a symmetrical, contralateral position. Distractors presented −30 ms and 0 cm from the target produced a significantly larger congruency effect than at other time points and spatial locations. Thus, the typical limits of visual– tactile interactions were replicated using a version of the task in which baseline performance can be constrained. The usefulness of this approach is supported by the observation that tactile thresholds correlated with self-reported autistic traits in this non-clinical sample. We discuss the suitability of this adapted version of the CCT for measuring visual–tactile interactions in populations where unisensory tactile ability may differ within and between groups
Efficacy and safety of sorafenib as first-line therapy of patients (pts) with advanced Child-Pugh B Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC): a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textBackground: Sorafenib is the only agent that has demonstrated a survival benefit in pts with advanced HCC. However, the outcome of sorafenib therapy in pts with advanced HCC and Child-Pugh B liver function remains unresolved.Methods: A systematic review of electronic databases identified studies investigating the use of first-line sorafenib therapy in pts with advanced HCC and Child-Pugh A or B liver function. Meta-regression comprising a linear regression weighted by study sample size was conducted to explore the association between baseline factors and overall survival (OS). Differences between efficacy and safety and tolerability parameters were explored using a meta-analysis. For efficacy, the generic inverse variance approach was used to pool hazard ratios (HR) comparing Child-Pugh A to Child-Pugh B status. For safety and tolerability, the Mantel Haenszel method was used to pool data for the odds ratio for grade 3 or 4 adverse events (AEs) (Hand foot skin reaction, rash, diarrhoea, stomatitis, fatigue, hypertension, hyperbilirubinemia, ascites, encephalopathy). Results: Data were available from 32 studies (12 Asian) comprising 6,542 pts treated between Aug 2002 and Sep 2012. Among these were 4 RCTs and 28 cohort studies. The median age was 61 years and 83% were male. Hepatitis B and C status (when reported) was positive in 35% and 17% respectively. Child-Pugh status was available for 6,360 pts (97%) among whom 5,171 (81%) pts were classified as Child-Pugh A and 1,189 (19%) pts as Child-Pugh B (B7 in 17 studies [53%], no delineation in 15 studies [47%]). Estimated median OS on sorafenib therapy for the entire cohort was 7.6 months: 8.7 months in Child-Pugh A and 4.2 months in Child-Pugh B pts. Meta-regression showed significant positive association between OS and older age (
