189 research outputs found
The effect of group-based cardiac rehabilitation models on the quality of life and exercise capacity of patients with chronic heart failure
No full textWhat a Difference Context Makes: Comparing Communication Strategies of Migration NGOs in Two Neighboring Countries
No full textThis research study compared non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working in the area of migration in two neighboring countries – Bulgaria and Turkey. Utilizing in-depth interviews with 39 NGO professionals in both countries, the analysis identified critical differences in public opinion dynamics, organizational structures and interdependencies, and government relationships. Further analysis unveiled how the local socio-economic and political context had impacted NGO communication strategies as well as the specific communication channels, public engagement activities, and social media campaigns in each country. Implications for communication scholarship during times of increasing migration flows and globalization are discussed.This article is published as Dimitrova, D., Ozdora-Aksak, E., What a Difference Context Makes: Comparing Communication Strategies of Migration NGOs in Two Neighboring Countries. Journal of Borderlands Studies. 31 Dec 2022. Latest Articles. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2022.2161065. Posted with permission. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.<br
The role of value references in shaping cultures of engagement: evidence from COVID-19 news on Facebook in Romania and the U.K.
No full textValues are consequential for opinion formation and remain a persuasive factor in shaping public attitudes. Still, the role of values remains under-researched in the context of online news production and engagement. This study investigates the intricate role values play by analyzing patterns of value references in online news coverage of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in two culturally distinct nations, Romania and the U.K. Conceptually, the study is based on Schwartz’s value typology; methodologically, it relies on the Concept Mover’s Distance method. Analyzing half a million Facebook posts, the study identifies four types of value references: universal, cultural, topic-based, and situational. We show that cultural values prevalent in British posts, such as stimulation and tradition, resonate with the culturally congruent context. Universal values, however, do not guarantee a high level of engagement. The findings underscore the nuanced impact of values in shaping online news engagement.This article is published as Cristina Monzer, Daniela V Dimitrova, The role of value references in shaping cultures of engagement: evidence from COVID-19 news on Facebook in Romania and the U.K., Human Communication Research, Volume 51, Issue 1, January 2025, Pages 40–51, https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqae021.© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Supplementary material is available online at Human Communication Research online
Urban green spaces′ effectiveness as a psychological buffer for the negative health impact of noise pollution: A systematic review
No full textNoise pollution is one of the four major pollutions in the world. Little evidence exists about the actual preventive benefits of psychological noise attenuation by urban green spaces, especially from the perspective of environmental medicine and, to the best of our knowledge, there is not a systematic analysis on this topic. The aim of this review was to systematically evaluate whether there is conclusive scientific evidence for the effectiveness of urban green spaces as a psychological buffer for the negative impact of noise pollution on human health and to promote an evidence-based approach toward this still growing environmental hazard. MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched for experimental and epidemiological studies published before June 04, 2013 in English and Spanish. Data was independently extracted in two step process by the authors. Due to the heterogeneity of the included studies qualitative assessment was performed. We found moderate evidence that the presence of vegetation can generally reduce the negative perception of noise (supported with an electroencephalogram test in one of the experimental studies; consistent with the data from two epidemiological studies; one experiment found no effect and one was inconclusive about the positive effect). This review fills a gap in the literature and could help researchers further clarify the proper implementation of urban green spaces as a psychological buffer in areas with population exposed to chronic noise pollution
Neighborhood noise pollution as a determinant of displaced aggression: A pilot study
No full textNoise pollution is still a growing public health problem with a significant impact on psychological health and well-being. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of noise on displaced aggression (DA) in different subgroups of residents in one of the neighborhoods of Plovdiv city. A cross-sectional semi-structured interview survey was conducted using specially designed data registration forms and 33 close-ended and open-ended questions, divided into two major panels - one original and a modified version of the Displaced Aggression Questionnaire (DAQ). The mean score for DA was 61.12 (±19.97). Hearing noises above the perceived normal threshold, higher noise sensitivity and continuous noises were associated with higher levels of DA. Low frequency and high intensity noises were also associated with higher DA scores. Multiple regression model supported these findings. Contradictory to previous research age was positively correlated with noise sensitivity and aggression. We speculated that this might be due to the relatively lower socio-economic standard and quality of life in Bulgaria. Therefore, social climate might be modifying the way people perceive and react to environmental noise. Finally, the DAQ proved to be a viable measurement tool of these associations and might be further implemented and modified to suit the purposes of psychoacoustic assessment
Occupational Noise Exposure and the Risk for Work-Related Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
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LAG 2.0 : refining a reusable adaptation language and improving on its authoring
No full textReusable adaptation specifications for adaptive behaviour has come to the forefront of adaptive research recently, with EU projects such as GRAPPLE, and PhD research efforts on designing an adaptation language for learning style specification [28]. However, this was not the case five years ago, when an adaptation language for adaptive hypermedia (LAG) was first proposed. This paper describes the general lessons learnt during the last five years in designing, implementing and using an adaptation language, as well as the changes that the language has undergone in order to better fulfil its goal of combining a high level of semantics with simplicity, portability as well as being flexible. Besides discussing these changes based on some sample strategies, this paper also presents a novel authoring environment for the programming-savvy adaptation author, that applies feedback accumulated during various evaluation sessions with the previous set of tools, and its first evaluation with programming experts
Factor Productivity of Chosen Bulgarian Agricultural Productions
No full textТhe study focus on the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) for selected agricultural sectors (fruit growing, viticulture and dairy cattle breeding). The methodology used to determine TFP is according to Regulation (EU) 834/2014 laying down monitoring and evaluation framework for CAP 2014-2020. The Laspeyers index was applied to analyze the development of agricultural production and to explore the influence of different factors on the production output during the CAP implementation. The change was reviewed in comparison to a basis period and TFP was estimated as an index coefficient represented as industry output and the driving inputs (including labour, capital, land, variable production costs and subsidies). The study reveals a significant change in TFP indexes over the period after Bulgaria’s accession to the EU. The results show the TFP indexes decrease for fruits and cow’s milk and increase for grapes (due to improved efficiency). There is a drop in production for grapes and cow’s milk but a significant increase in production quantities for fruits. Meanwhile, the TFP index for fruit growing is slumping down, which is explicated by tangible enhancement in investment and capital costs during the covered period, which deems to improve the productivity and efficiency in the coming years. There is a need to increase and target the financial support for viticulture and dairy farming in order to hoist up the productivity and production outputs.This article is published as Toteva, D., Dimitrova, D., Stoychev, V., Factor Productiviy of Chosen Bulgarian Agricultural Prouctions. Agriculture and Foresty, 2022, 68(3);147-159. doi: 10.17707/AgricultForest.68.3.12. Posted with permission. Open Access-policy: This is an open access journal with all the content freely available without charge to the users. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) definition of open access. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
We accepted Open Access-policy becouse of Higher Citation Impact of open access articles due to their high publicity and availability. It has been demonstrated that open access publications are more frequently cited! <br/
Multimodal Interface for DNA Alignment of Sequences
No full textMajor research efforts in Bioinformatics include sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and protein-protein interactions, and the modeling of evolution. To perform these specific tasks different tools are used. Using these tools separately is a time consuming, inefficient and expensive process. MIDAS is a tool that integrates sequence alignment, genome annotation, and spectral clustering and alignment under the same application. The challenge in this project is in representing the knowledge and analyzing the genome data. The DNA data is first transformed into Fourier domain and clustered in MATLAB based on Euclidean distances between the sequences. Our tool allows visualizing the DNA spectra together with a hierarchical tree in a multimodal interface. This in turn enables a bioinformatician to analyze patterns of a group of sequences. MIDAS is a standalone application which provides an interface around standard sequence alignment tools such as BLAT, ClustalW, as well as newer alignment tools such as Spectrogram analysis via integrating MATLAB code, server connections and data visualizations. JAVA is used as the main programming language during the development of MIDAS. The Spectrogram Analysis script-files in MATLAB are converted into JAVA classes. These classes are used to run standalone MATLAB applications from within JAVA.Media and Knowledge EngineeringElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
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