1,720,962 research outputs found
Optimising a couples-focused intervention to increase couples’ HIV testing and counselling using the person-based approach: a qualitative study in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa
No full textObjectives: this qualitative study explored how to optimise a couples-focused intervention to promote couples HIV testing and counselling (CHTC).Setting: Community setting in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa.Participants: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 couples who had participated in a couples-focused intervention and five staff members delivering the intervention. Partners were interviewed individually by researchers of the same gender. Intervention: a couples-focused intervention comprised of two group sessions and four couples counselling sessions was previously shown to significantly increase uptake to CHTC in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. However, more than half of couples participating in the intervention still chose not to test together during follow-up. Analysis: the transcripts were analysed using the table of changes from the person-based approach. Proposed optimisations were discussed with a community group to ensure the intervention was as persuasive and acceptable as possible.Results: many couples found it challenging to discuss CHTC with their partner due to an implied lack of trust. Optimisations to the intervention were identified to increase readiness to discuss CHTC, including education about serodiscordance, discussions about CHTC by peer mentors, and open discussion of personal barriers to CHTC during couples’ counselling sessions. Additional training for staff in open questioning techniques could help them feel more comfortable to explore couples’ perceived barriers to CHTC, rather than advising couples to test. A logic model was developed to show anticipated mechanisms through which the optimised intervention would increase uptake to CHTC, including increasing knowledge, increasing positive outcome beliefs, and managing negative emotions.Conclusions: in-depth qualitative research informed optimisations to a couples-focused intervention for further evaluation in South Africa to encourage uptake to CHTC. Suggestions are made for optimal methods to gain open feedback on intervention experiences where participants may be reluctant to share negative views.<br/
Vulnerability to food insecurity among students: a quantitative study at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Get PDFMasters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.The prevalence of food insecurity are reported to be high in South Africa and globally Research on food insecurity within the university student community is gaining momentum as food insecurity has been recognised as a growing issue facing students. Institutions of higher learning are a platform to improve students’ lives, and in South Africa, access to higher education has been made possible for students from poor socio-economic backgrounds through the National Financial Student Aid Scheme (NSFAS). In addition to several other challenges they face, students from poor socio-economic backgrounds (e.g., those receiving NSFAS funding) also experience food insecurity as a challenge in their university studies. This study aimed to provide an updated and current exploration of food insecurity among students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
The study used a non-experimental survey research design to generate quantitative data. A non-probability quota and convenience sampling method was used to collect data across all five university campuses from 438 students by administering the University Students Food Insecurity Questionnaire (USFIQ). This questionnaire consists of questions exploring anxiety or uncertainty about food supply, insufficient food quality, insufficient food intake, and physical consequences of food insecurity. A vulnerability to food insecurity scale is embedded in the questionnaire and provides an average vulnerability to food insecurity score for respondents.
The results from the study suggest that the problem of food insecurity is highly prevalent among the sample of UKZN students, with 48.6% reporting often or almost always experiencing food security-related difficulties. More specifically, 36.2% of the sample reported experiencing a serious level of food insecurity, and 12.4% reported experiencing a severe level of food insecurity. The findings from the study also suggested that the dominant factors (from those listed on the questionnaire) contributing to students’ vulnerability to food insecurity are other competing study-related expenses such as stationery, books, and photocopying. Other dominant factors (among those listed on the questionnaire) that influence the experience of food insecurity among the students included finishing their meal allowances before the next one was forthcoming or the family being unable to provide enough money to the student to buy food. The questionnaire also asked study participants to identify their strategies to access food. This component of the study suggests that most students rely on asking family members for money or food. The findings from the study also indicate a significant difference in vulnerability to food insecurity when comparing students receiving financial aid with those who are not. No significant differences were found between vulnerability to food insecurity in terms of students’ residence, campus, or level of hunger at the end or beginning of a semester.
The findings from this study point to the need for ongoing intervention at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (and within the Department of Higher Education and Training generally) to manage the problem of food insecurity among university students. There is a need for further research to explore the effects of food insecurity among students
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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