17628 research outputs found
Sort by
Exploring women’s experiences of breast or trunk lymphoedema following treatment for breast cancer
Get PDFBackground:The experiences of women who develop lymphoedema in the breast or trunk (BTL) after treatment for breast cancer have received little attention in either the academic or clinical setting. Consequently, women’s support needs remain unrecognized.Objective and Design:As this study sought to gain an understanding of women’s unheard experiences of a poorly understood condition, it was underpinned by The Silences Framework which facilitates research into sensitive or marginalized issues.Sample and Methods:Fourteen women with BTL participated in individual, unstructured interviews, some using photographs or drawings to reflect their experiences. The data was analyzed using the Listening Guide.Findings:Participants revealed that they were unprepared for the development of BTL; for many, the symptoms were unfamiliar and distressing. Furthermore, their concerns were often dismissed by healthcare professionals (HCPs), leading to long delays in obtaining an accurate diagnosis and treatment. For some women, the practical and emotional impact of developing BTL was profound.Practice Implications:Increased awareness and education about the risk of BTL as a potential side-effect of treatment for breast cancer is required for HCPs and patients. This will alleviate distress, better prepare patients, and ensure timely referral for treatment to manage this chronic condition
Credit rating downgrades and systemic risk
Get PDFWe examine whether changes in issuer credit ratings by the three main providers are associated with changes in systemic risk. First, we find that rating downgrades result in an increase in bank systemic risk, whereas upgrades do not proportionally reduce systemic risk. Second, we document that the positive relationship between rating downgrades and systemic risk can be mitigated by accounting-based stability factors, such as profitability and capital, but also enhanced by sovereign rating downgrades. Finally, we show that sovereign rating downgrades have a greater effect on bound banks’ systemic risk compared to non-bound banks
Introduction: Hugh MacDiarmid at 100
Get PDFExplains the background for this special issue, Hugh MacDiarmid at 100, in the Scottish Revival Network’s conference in August 2022, which marked the centenary of Hugh MacDiarmid’s first appearance in print under that name in The Scottish Chapbook in August 1922, and then, before summarizing the themes of each essay, discusses ways in which MacDiarmid’s legacy and reputation have become central to the Scottish literary canon but somewhat marginal to canonical modernism
Characteristic and Allowable Compressive Strengths of Dendrocalamus Sericeus Bamboo Culms with/without Node Using Artificial Neural Networks
Get PDFThe strength of construction material is a crucial consideration in the process of structural design and construction. Conventional materials such as concrete or steel have been widely utilized due to their predictable material performance. However, a significant obstacle to the widespread use of bamboo in structural elements lies in the challenge of its standardization. Many previous research studies have explored bamboo’s load bearing capacity, but the information remains limited due to variations in species, size, age, physical properties, moisture content, and other factors, making it difficult to predict their load-bearing capacity. This study aims to propose Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models to predict ultimate compressive load and compressive strength of Dendrocalamus Sericeus bamboo culm. Additionally, for structural design purposes, the proposed ANN models were employed to determine the characteristic and allowable compressive strengths. As a first step, experimental data from compressive tests in the literature were used for training and developing the ANN model. To investigate the effect of the node on compressive loading capacities, the test data were separated into two datasets, “Node” samples and “Internode” samples. Through the training process, ANN models were finally proposed, and the R-square values for the prediction of ultimate compressive load and compressive strength from the proposed ANN models were significantly higher than those obtained from the linear regression analyses used in the literature. Subsequently, the characteristic and allowable compressive strengths were calculated and compared to the strengths obtained from the experiment data, revealing a difference of approximately only 8.0%. Overall, the ANN models presented in this study offer promising predictive ability for both ultimate compressive load and compressive strength of Dendrocalamus Sericeus bamboo culm, as well as for determining characteristic and allowable strengths. Hence, ANN models are suggested to be adopted as a tool for the design and construction of bamboo buildings
Origin Region Wealth Effect and Inbound Tourism to Europe
No full textDespite the role of wealth in modelling the propensity to consume luxurious goods and services, the literature has so far neglected the role of wealth as inferred from the stock market in modelling tourism inflow. Using 43 European countries over the period 1994-2019, we demonstrate that demand-side wealth effect as inferred from the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) indexes is an important determinant of inbound tourism. We find that a good financial mood extrapolated from the bullish wealth effect positively influences the inflow of tourists to Europe. The effect of the relationship between external wealth effect and inbound tourism is higher for non-EU member countries and countries in Eastern Europe. Lastly, we find that the wealth effect in the USA was an important factor in predicting inbound tourism during the Global Financial Crisis
Responding to concerns related to the measurement of ICD-11 complex posttraumatic stress disorder using the International Trauma Questionnaire
No full textBackground: A recent study in this journal by Frewen et al. (2023) provided a critical analysis of the most widely used measure of ICD-11 Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), the International Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ). The article was a thoughtful review and gave voice to several widely held concerns about the nature of CPTSD as it is represented in ICD-11 and measured by the ITQ. The primary concern expressed by Frewen et al. was that the symptom profile of ICD-11 CPTSD, as represented in the ITQ, is too simple and fails to provide adequate coverage of the construct. Objective: Despite its quality, the article included several misunderstandings about the nature of ICD-11 CPTSD, and the function of the ITQ, that we wish to clarify. Participants: Not applicable.Setting: Not applicableResults: In this article, we provide a description of what ICD-11 PTSD and CPTSD are, a review of the process that led to their inclusion in ICD-11, how the ITQ was developed and refined to measure these constructs. We then provide responses to several of the most important concerns raised by Frewen et al. Conclusions: We highlight the clinical utility of the ICD-11 descriptions of PTSD and CPTSD and discuss how the ITQ can be used as part of a suite of clinical assessments to accurately describe and understand common experiences of psychological distress that often result from exposure to traumatic life events
Proposing an Approach for the Diffusion of Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPVs)—A Case Study
Get PDFConsistent probing into building integrity has led to the exploration of clean energy options such as building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV). BIPV has proven to be aesthetically pleasing, architecturally feasible, and capable of making buildings energy producers instead of mere energy consumers. Despite the enormous benefits of BIPV, its adoption and diffusion have been relatively sluggish and remain far below expectations, especially in developing countries like Ghana. This empirical study aims to assess the impact of advertising on BIPV awareness in Ghana. It also highlights the aesthetic preferences of various respondents. The study uses online surveys to gather quantitative data from 412 respondents across all 16 regions of the country. An initial study conducted on the awareness of BIPV in Ghana indicated a low rate of awareness. Therefore, a sensitisation poster and architectural visualization (AV) were adopted to boost awareness across all 16 regions of the country. Awareness of BIPV increased from 18% to 79.5% after the introduction of the sensitisation poster. Also, 88.8% of the respondents preferred BIPV to Building Applied Photovoltaic (BAPV) mainly because of aesthetics (beauty) and the cost benefits. The respondents indicated that aesthetics is paramount when choosing solar panels for their homes. This study therefore recommends high investment in awareness creation, development of specific design guidelines for BIPV applications and establishment of demo projects in developing countries. The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature on BIPV adoption and may be useful for BIPV manufacturers, marketers, government, and other stakeholders as it provides evidence on the often-neglected approach to BIPV diffusion
An Evaluation of the Transition from an Amateur to Professional Culture within Hong Kong's Elite Rugby Program
Get PDFCurrently little is known about the development of high-performance cultures in emerging nations. This study is the first of its kind examining an emerging rugby nation’s transition from an amateur to a professional full-time fifteen-a-side programme. Eleven full-time professional male rugby union players, the Head of the Hong Kong Rugby Union’s (HKRU) Elite Rugby Programme(ERP) and the HKRU’s peripatetic sport psychologist were interviewed. Inductive thematic analysis of semi-structured interview data revealed four emerging themes, namely; 1) an amateur environment that required change; 2) ERP’s professional culture building blocks; 3) leadership strategy and managing key stake holders and 4) managing on-going challenges in the ERP’s professional culture. Theoretical and applied implications for practitioners and programme leaders responsible for driving cultural change in their respective environments are discussed
Multi-modal Features Representation-based Convolutional Neural Network Model for Malicious Website Detection
Get PDFWeb applications have proliferated across various business sectors, serving as essential tools for billions of users in their daily lives activities. However, many of these applications are malicious which is a major threat to Internet users as they can steal sensitive information, install malware, and propagate spam. Detecting malicious websites by analyzing web content is ineffective due to the complexity of extraction of the representative features, the huge data volume, the evolving nature of the malicious patterns, the stealthy nature of the attacks, and the limitations of traditional classifiers. Uniform Resource Locators (URL) features are static and can often provide immediate insights about the website without the need to load its content. However, existing solutions for detecting malicious web applications through web content analysis often struggle due to complex feature extraction, massive data volumes, evolving attack patterns, and limitations of traditional classifiers. Leveraging solely lexical URL features proves insufficient, potentially leading to inaccurate classifications. This study proposes a multimodal representation approach that fuses textual and image-based features to enhance the performance of the malicious website detection. Textual features facilitate the deep learning model’s ability to understand and represent detailed semantic information related to attack patterns, while image features are effective in recognizing more general malicious patterns. In doing so, patterns that are hidden in textual format may be recognizable in image format. Two Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models were constructed to extract the hidden features from both textual and image-represented features. The output layers of both models were combined and used as input for an artificial neural network classifier for decision-making. Results show the effectiveness of the proposed model when compared to other models. The overall performance in terms of Matthews..
An investigation of the rotation patterns of international association meetings and events
Get PDFInternational association meeting and events (IAMEs) are a significant specialist segment of the business events sector. Noting the lack of longitudinal research available to confirm how these events rotate globally, regionally and over time, this study analysed the rotation patterns of IAMEs based on 236 meeting iterations sampled from the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) database and held between 2009-2019. Results confirm intuitive rotation patterns not previously determined by a data-driven analysis to date. Namely, that global events rotated more widely geographically but also less often, whilst most regional events were annual events. These regional events were held in the same continent of the association awarding the rights to host, thereby demonstrating less reach. Delegate numbers for both global and regional events were comparable. Association preferences for rotating IAMEs were geographically heterogenous. The implications of these rotation patterns are discussed and an associated future research agenda is outlined
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage Repository@Napier? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!