1,721,625 research outputs found

    Developing Innovative Solutions for Universal Design in Healthcare and Other Sectors

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    : For over half a century, researchers have sought to better understand the needs of people with disabilities in the built environment, and for more than a quarter century, they have sought to understand the effectiveness of universal design (UD) on a wide range of people and populations. This research led to the creation of the innovative solutions for Universal Design (isUD) building certification program, which addresses knowledge gaps in the practitioner's field with UD criteria. The isUD focuses on commercial buildings but aims to expand to other sectors including healthcare and residential settings. The research and outcomes used in the development and evaluation of the isUD combined with lessons learned from implementation of the isUD program suggest a path forward to improve and expand the program. Several research studies have evaluated the effectiveness of UD standards. One study compared university residence halls, one of which was built using a draft version of UD standards using a guided tour and online surveys among other methods.[1] Another study used online surveys to compare a workplace built using the isUD with the former workspace.[2] Another study used in-person surveys to compare public right-of-way features pre- and post- design intervention.[3] Lastly, an innovative doctoral dissertation that proposes a new methodological tool to evaluate UD in healthcare settings [4-5] has been analyzed to inform the isUD's expansion into the healthcare sector. The results indicate there is value in using UD to address equal access to and use of facilities for people with and without disabilities, and people of diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Facilities built using UD standards and tools are more usable, comfortable, and satisfying for users. However, the results also indicate there is room for improvement to make the isUD tool more effective. These improvements will better enable expansion of the tool to be usable in settings with more specialized requirements. While UD is often effective at improving human performance, health and wellness, and social participation across some measures, and while tools that assist with UD implementation may further help achieve these outcomes, to gain widespread adoption across multiple sectors, such tools must be shown to be consistently effective in achieving UD outcomes across all measures. These improvements can help expand availability of UD to a wider, more diverse audience

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

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    “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

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    We 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

    Designing Hospitals Through the Lens of Universal Design. An Evaluation Tool to Enhance Inclusive Healthcare Facilities

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    Various studies highlight a gap on reliable methods to measure the quality of projects and environments in terms of Universal Design (UD) and Design for All (DfA). In particular, healthcare facilities need decision support systems to improve the well-being of as many users as possible through a systematic approach. The present research proposes an evaluation tool to support designers and decision makers in the adoption of UD to develop healthcare facilities suitable for a wide range of users. Several methodologies have been adopted: an in-depth literature review on the current state of knowledge on UD evaluation, workshops and focus groups with both users and experts, and the analysis of four hospital case studies. The result was an evaluation framework built by using a Multi-criteria Analysis (MCA) methodology. The first version of the tool was applied to an American hospital and validated d in an Italian pilot case study. The research outlines a tool called Design for All A.U.D.I.T., able to evaluate Physical, Sensory-cognitive, and Social qualities based on a hierarchical framework with criteria and indicators based on UD and DfA. The framework evaluates the different areas of the hospital from outdoor to indoor spaces, allowing hospital administrators to act to improve the well-being of users according to the critical aspects of UD identified by the tool. The analysis provides a report of the facility status and design strategies to support designers for new projects or buildings renovations. The application shows that DfA A.U.D.I.T. can assess hospitals by examining both spatial qualities and DfA criteria. The tool could represent a decision support system in the national and international context, where many hospitals are not newly built. Further research will include application in different facilities and building typologies, aided by the flexible structure of the tool, which allows measurement of the environment's quality in terms of DfA and UD

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We 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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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
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