93 research outputs found
The Internet of Things: impact and implications for healthcare delivery
No full textThe Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of wireless, interrelated, and connected digital devices that can collect, send, and store data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. The IoT promises many benefits to streamlining and enhancing health care delivery to proactively predict health issues and diagnose, treat, and monitor patients both in and out of the hospital. Worldwide, government leaders and decision makers are implementing policies to deliver health care services using technology and more so in response to the novel COVID-19 pandemic. It is now becoming increasingly important to understand how established and emerging IoT technologies can support health systems to deliver safe and effective care. The aim of this viewpoint paper is to provide an overview of the current IoT technology in health care, outline how IoT devices are improving health service delivery, and outline how IoT technology can affect and disrupt global health care in the next decade. The potential of IoT-based health care is expanded upon to theorize how IoT can improve the accessibility of preventative public health services and transition our current secondary and tertiary health care to be a more proactive, continuous, and coordinated system. Finally, this paper will deal with the potential issues that IoT-based health care generates, barriers to market adoption from health care professionals and patients alike, confidence and acceptability, privacy and security, interoperability, standardization and remuneration, data storage, and control and ownership. Corresponding enablers of IoT in current health care will rely on policy support, cybersecurity-focused guidelines, careful strategic planning, and transparent policies within health care organizations. IoT-based health care has great potential to improve the efficiency of the health system and improve population health
Conclusion
No full textThis concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has demonstrated that a behavioral approach to democratic theory—one that rejects the rational actor model of decision making in favor of a picture of choice informed by empirical psychology—can yield important theoretical results. In order to do this, it focused on the phenomenon of framing effects and its relevance to normative theories of democracy. The author generated two results that will validate the behavioral approach. The first concerns democratic theories at the minimalist end of the spectrum. The second result applies to theories that place epistemic demands on the judgment of citizens.</p
Financial structures and economic development
No full textThe author constructs a model that captures the two-way nature of the relationship between financial and economic development - and allows societies at different levels of economic development and with different policies to choose different financial services. In this model, various types of financial contracts and institutions arise in response to the economic environment. Incentives for financial structures to emerge are generated by liquidity and productivity risk, the costs of gathering information and mobilizing resources, and the costs of financial transactions. The emergence and development of financial arrangements in response to the economic environment can alter investment decisions and per capita growth rates - while the level of per capita income helps determine the types of financial services a particular society chooses to develop and use. The author not only reconciles more empirical regularities than past theoretical studies have done, but highlights the role of public policies on financial activities. Policy has important implications for the rate of economic growth, the level of financial development, and the types of institutions providing financial services. The model also predicts that per capita growth rates should be related to the types of financial services provided by the financial sector. Thus, the most common empirical measure of financial development may not appropriately capture fundamental features of financial development.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Financial Intermediation,Governance Indicators
Plautus' 'Mercator': a commentary
No full textThis thesis comprises an introduction, a lemmatic commentary, and indices. The introductory
chapter, apart from a brief discussion of a more general nature, investigates the play and the
relation it bears to Philemon's Emporos, its lost Greek model, especially with regard to the actdivisions
of the Greek play and the pacing of the action in Plautus' adaptation. The commentary is
provided to address problems posed by the Latin text, notably those of exegesis, textual criticism,
metre, grammar, humour, imagery, staging, and the relationship to the Graeco-Roman comic
tradition. An attempt is also made to distinguish between elements which may reflect the Greek
comic tradition and those which suggest Plautine origin. In recent work about Plautus and
Philemon it has been argued that the plot of the Emporos underwent far-reaching changes at the
hands of Plautus, but the author of this thesis argues for the essential unity of the Mercator and
for Plautus' conservative treatment of the plot of the Greek original, at the same time allowing for
the fact that Plautus may have Romanised, exaggerated, and extended Philemon's play at certain
points. By its structure, metrical arrangement, pacing, juxtaposition of contrasting types, parallel
arrangement of core scenes, and the recurrence of key imagery, themes and motifs, the Mercator
proves to be a carefully conceived, effectively balanced, and well-composed play
Heterogeneity, distribution, and cooperation in common property resource management
No full textThe report considers the role of group heterogeneity in the success or failure of common property resource management. The author argues that cooperative agreements are less likely to come about when agents are highly heterogeneous along relevant dimensions - and existing agreements are more likely to break down as a group becomes more heterogeneous. The author crystallizes his argument in simple numerical examples and illustrates by reference to case studies on common property resource management, in particular, cases involving fisheries and irrigation systems. More work is needed to substantiate the author's argument, but his analysis so far supports the argument that equity and efficiency complement rather than oppose each other.Agricultural Research,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Poverty Assessment,Common Property Resource Development,Environmental Economics&Policies
Best-value in Korean public building construction
No full textAlthough the low-bid system has played a major role in public building construction sector for a long time, this system has arguably delivered work of low quality, an continued and rising number of claims within the industry. With these challenges in mind, the Korean government has sought to examine and possibly adopt best-value procurement as an alternative approach to delivering public building construction projects within Korea. The reality however is that although delivering arguably a number of advantages, best-value does present the government with its own peculiar challenges because of a lack of a precise understanding of what ‘best-value’ means. Hence, in this study, the author seeks to examine the concept of best-value and its application to Korean public building construction. To achieve the stated objectives, the author draws upon extant literature in ‘value’ procurement to critically examine the impact of ‘best-value’ concepts in Korean public building procurement. Data is obtained from a survey of 180 managers involved in the procurement and management of public buildings in Korea. Utilising ‘best-value’ criteria drawn from literature, the author employs Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to weight ‘best-value’ criteria identified through the survey. Based on the results of the AHP exercise, the following are found; (i) value depends on the state of each individual building which can be defined from a ‘need’ perspective, (ii) the primary criteria for ‘best-value’ in Korea public construction projects were ‘serviceability’, ‘safety’, ‘comfort’, ‘environmental friendliness’, ‘economical feasibility’, and ‘artistry’ and finally that (?) the importance of each primary criteria was dependent on the building type
Telehealth improves quality of life and protein intake in malnourished older adults: A meta-analysis
No full textFeasible delivery modalities for treating malnourished older adults living at home are of interest so as to improve patient outcomes and health service use. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to determine the efficacy of telehealth methods in delivering malnutrition-related interventions to community-dwelling older adults. Five databases were searched for studies in any language in November 2017. Quality was assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool and the GRADE approach. Thirteen publications (n=9 studies) had mostly low to unclear risk of bias. Participants were patients following hospital discharge (n=7 studies), with kidney disease (n=1 study), or cancer (n=1 study). Telehealth via telephone consultations (n=7 studies, 0-31% attrition) appear more feasible than internet-enabled telemedicine devices (n=2 studies, 50-61% attrition). Ten meta-analyses found that compared to usual care or no intervention, telehealth interventions improved protein intake by 0.13g/kg body weight per day ([95%CI: 0.01-0.25]; P=0.03; n=2 studies; n=200 participants; I2=41%; GRADE level: low) and improved quality of life (standardised mean difference: 0.55 [95%CI: 0.11-0.99]; P=0.01; n=4 studies with n=9 quality of life tools; n=248 participants; I2=84%: GRADE level: very low). There were non-significant trends towards improved nutrition status, physical function, energy intake, hospital readmission rates, and mortality in the intervention groups. This systematic review identified telephone consultations are an effective and feasible delivery method of malnutrition-related interventions for older adults living at home and are likely to result in clinical improvements compared to usual care or no intervention. Further research with larger samples and stronger study designs are now required
Engendering global democracy
No full textThe inadequacies of hegemonic liberal democratic ideas and institutions have been exposed by feminist theorists focusing on the marginalisation of women and by global theorists examining the impact of globalisation. These theorists have developed two distinct sets of reconstructive strategies that, until very recently, have remained in ignorance of each other. Further, both feminist and global democratic schemes have been dogged by problems in terms of their theorisation of power, politics, agency and change. Recent feminist arguments about citizenship and governance go some way to bringing together concerns about gender inequality and globalisation, but they remain centred on states and the states-system as vehicles for democratic representation and participation. This article argues that a more radical reconstructive strategy can be derived from debates about the democratisation of feminism itself. Drawing on the responses of black and third world feminists to racism in the white-dominated feminist movement, and examining their influence on efforts to organise transnationally, the article points to innovative ways of thinking about power, politics, agency and change. Together these amount to a democratic framework which has applicability beyond feminist organising and which confronts the marginalisations of both gender and globalisation
"Thank me therefore": Social Prestige, Probity and Self-determination of Nymue's character in Malory's "Le Morte Darthur"
No full textReinventing the non-profit theatre: a study of the growth of educational work in British non-profit theatres from the 1990s to the present
No full textThis thesis examines why non-profit theatres in Britain have become increasingly involved in educational work since the 1990s, from an historical and institutional perspective. With an assumption that this sector-wide organisational change has been caused by a shift in institutional environments of the arts sector, the thesis proposes an institutional framework, where three different institutional logics - artworld, market and policy - coexist and tend to dominate the institutional context at different times.
Using this theoretical framework, the thesis demonstrates that arts policy and management during the post-war period were shaped by the artworld logic. However, the two decades since 1979 have seen the environments become complicated because the institutional logics of the market and policy gained currency. Criticising the limitation of marketisation theory that has so far dominated most analyses of recent cultural policy, the thesis sheds light on the fact that active intervention by the state has replaced the arm’s length principle and the arts - especially arts education and participatory arts activities - are increasingly used for explicit social policy objectives. This phenomenon is defined as ‘politicisation’ of the arts. The rapid growth of educational work since the 1990s is conceptualised as an organisational adaptation of theatres to such environments.
The case study of four English theatres demonstrates that although the theatres have expanded education under unprecedented political pressure, they also try to implicitly resist external intervention and to maximise autonomy. This implies that politicisation is a complicated process of institutional change: whilst new rules, norms and expectations have been developed under the policy logic, the sector’s romantic view of the arts has been reformulated and old ways of working have persisted. Thus, the recent institutional change in the non-profit arts sector is better understood as an integration of different institutional logics, not as colonisation of the arts world by the market or politics. In these dynamics environments, the non-profit theatre can reinvent itself as a creative educator and social impact generator without fundamental transformation in its artistic and management sides
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