Location Based Services (LBS) are information services that can be\naccessed with mobile phones. They rely on the system's knowledge of the\ngeographical position and the identifier of the phone being used, and\ntherefore on collecting data on an identified or identifiable user. In\nthis respect, the French data protection act stipulates that users agree\nto be supplied with an LBS service on a fully transparent basis and that\ntheir location data must be erased or made anonymous once the service\nhas been (...) provided. In some cases, location-based services are provided\non the user's own request, but in other cases, the individual concerned\nis unaware of the fact that third parties know where s/he is. This\ncreates potential for surveillance and misuse on the part of both police\nand businesses. What is at stake here is not only the right of\nindividuals to freedom of movement and to privacy but also, and more\nperniciously, citizens' autonomy with regard to information and\ndecision-making. (shrink)

With the development of mobile communication technology, location-based services are booming prosperously. Meanwhile privacy protection has become the main obstacle for the further development of LBS. The k-nearest neighbor search is one of the most common types of LBS. In this paper, we propose an efficient private circular query protocol with high accuracy rate and low computation and communication cost. We adopt the Moore curve to convert two-dimensional spatial data into one-dimensional sequence and encrypt the points of (...) interest information with the Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan homomorphic encryption scheme for privacy-preserving. The proposed scheme performs the secret circular shift of the encrypted POIs information to hide the location of the user without a trusted third party. To reduce the computation and communication cost, we dynamically divide the table of the POIs information according to the value of k. Experiments show that the proposed scheme provides high accuracy query results while maintaining low computation and communication cost. (shrink)

The idea for an Internet of Things has matured since its inception as a concept in 1999. People today speak openly of a Web of Things and People, and even more broadly of an Internet of Everything. As our relationships become more and more complex and enmeshed, through the use of advanced technologies, we have pondered on ways to simplify flows of communications, to collect meaningful data, and use them to make timely decisions with respect to optimisation and efficiency. At (...) their core, these flows of communications are pathways to registers of interaction, and tell the intricate story of outputs at various units of analysis- things, vehicles, animals, people, organisations, industries, even governments. In this trend toward evidence-based enquiry, data is the enabling force driving the growth of IoT infrastructure. This paper uses the case of location-based services, which are integral to IoT approaches, to demonstrate that new technologies are complex in their effects on society. Fundamental to IoT is the spatial element, and through this capability, the tracking and monitoring of everything, from the smallest nut and bolt, to the largest shipping liner to the mapping of planet earth, and from the whereabouts of the minor to that of the prime minister. How this information is stored, who has access, and what they will do with it, is arguable depending on the stated answers. In this case study of location-based services we concentrate on control and trust, two overarching themes that have been very much neglected, and use the outcomes of this research to inform the development of a socio-ethical conceptual framework that can be applied to minimise the unintended negative consequences of advanced technologies. We posit it is not enough to claim objectivity through information ethics approaches alone, and present instead a socio-ethical impact framework. Sociality therefore binds together that higher ideal of praxis where the living thing is the central and most valued actor of a system. (shrink)

In light of the fact that social dynamics and unexpected uses of technology can inspire innovation, this book proposes a research model of design for emergence, ...

Point-of-interest recommendations are a popular form of personalized service in which users share their POI location and related content with their contacts in location-based social networks. The similarity and relatedness between users of the same POI type are frequently used for trajectory retrieval, but most of the existing works rely on the explicit characteristics from all users’ check-in records without considering individual activities. We propose a POI recommendation method that attempts to optimally recommend POI types to serve (...) multiple users. The proposed method aims to predict destination POIs of a user and search for similar users of the same regions of interest, thus optimizing the user acceptance rate for each recommendation. The proposed method also employs the variable-order Markov model to determine the distribution of a user’s POIs based on his or her travel histories in LBSNs. To further enhance the user’s experience, we also apply linear discriminant analysis to cluster the topics related to “Travel” and connect to users with social links or similar interests. The probability of POIs based on users’ historical trip data and interests in the same topics can be calculated. The system then provides a list of the recommended destination POIs ranked by their probabilities. We demonstrate that our work outperforms collaborative-filtering-based and other methods using two real-world datasets from New York City. Experimental results show that the proposed method is better than other models in terms of both accuracy and recall. The proposed POI recommendation algorithms can be deployed in certain online transportation systems and can serve over 100,000 users. (shrink)

Since the user recommendation complex matrix is characterized by strong sparsity, it is difficult to correctly recommend relevant services for users by using the recommendation method based on location and collaborative filtering. The similarity measure between users is low. This paper proposes a fusion method based on KL divergence and cosine similarity. KL divergence and cosine similarity have advantages by comparing three similar metrics at different K values. Using the fusion method of the two, the user’s (...) similarity with the preference is reused. By comparing the location-based collaborative filtering algorithm, user-based collaborative filtering algorithm, and user recommendation algorithm, the proposed method has the preparation rate, recall rate, and experimental effect advantage. In different median values, the proposed method also has an advantage in experimental results. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the issue of privacy protection in context aware services, through the use of entropy as a means of measuring the capability of locating a user’s whereabouts and identifying personal selections. We present a framework for calculating levels of abstraction in location and personal preferences reporting in queries to a context aware services server. Finally, we propose a methodology for determining the levels of abstraction in location and preferences that should be applied (...) in user data reporting during service provision, according to her personal privacy settings. (shrink)

Although traditionally, nursing research has paid little attention to geographical approaches, recent years have witnessed some initial research interest in the dynamic between nursing, space and place. Such research potentially represents the foundations of what may be termed a ‘geography of nursing’. Although, to date, some novel and valuable perspectives have been gained into the spatial features of nursing, no consideration has been given to the theoretical development of, and basis for, a geography of nursing. Furthermore, no consideration has been (...) given to philosophical heritage; the treatment of space and place in human geography and the insights that this may provide for the new field of research. In this context, this paper provides an historical review of geographical research and traces the evolution of how space and place have been conceptualized and operationalized by it. The paper outlines the emergence of a health geography subdiscipline and its own changing and diverse perspectives. In the final section, the central themes of the current geography of nursing are considered and, reflecting back on the theoretical concerns of contemporary human geography, the paper outlines some philosophies and theories on which future geography of nursing could be based. From a disciplinary perspective, one potential role of the geography of nursing is argued to be the maintenance of the relationship between health geography and mainstream health service and medical concerns, but in a place‐sensitive, patient‐sensitive and qualitative form. (shrink)

Respiratory illness continues to be a leading cause of paediatric morbidity and mortality in Indonesia. The Indonesian government is moving towards a more managed care-based approach as it reforms its health care system following the 1997 financial crisis. In order to better design contractual relationships between the payor and different providers, there needs to be a better understanding of the patterns and predictors of health services utilization for respiratory illness. This study uses the Indonesia Demographic and Health Survey (...) to study the determinants of private, public and non-formal provider utilization for respiratory illness. Multinomial logistic regression models for predicting use were constructed using the Andersen Behavioural Model as the conceptual framework. The findings indicate that age, household size, maternal education, religion, the asset index, location and illness severity play a role in determining use of private, public or non-formal providers. The results indicate that from a policy perspective, the Indonesian government needs be inclusive rather than exclusive in the choice of providers that are contracted by the managed care plans, in order to safeguard the health of the under-five population. (shrink)

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging global infrastructure that employs wireless sensors to collect, store, and exchange data. Increasingly, applications for marketing and advertising have been articulated as a means to enhance the consumer shopping experience, in addition to improving efficiency. However, privacy advocates have challenged the mass aggregation of personally-identifiable information in databases and geotracking, the use of location-based services to identify one’s precise location over time. This paper employs the framework of contextual (...) integrity related to privacy developed by Nissenbaum (Privacy in context: technology, policy, and the integrity of social life. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2010) as a tool to understand citizen response to implementation IoT-related technology in the supermarket. The purpose of the study was to identify and understand specific changes in information practices brought about by the IoT that may be perceived as privacy violations. Citizens were interviewed, read a scenario of near-term IoT implementation, and were asked to reflect on changes in the key actors involved, information attributes, and principles of transmission. Areas where new practices may occur with the IoT were then highlighted as potential problems (privacy violations). Issues identified included the mining of medical data, invasive targeted advertising, and loss of autonomy through marketing profiles or personal affect monitoring. While there were numerous aspects deemed desirable by the participants, some developments appeared to tip the balance between consumer benefit and corporate gain. This surveillance power creates an imbalance between the consumer and the corporation that may also impact individual autonomy. The ethical dimensions of this problem are discussed. (shrink)

Knearest neighbor search is an important problem in location-based services and has been well studied on static road networks. However, in real world, road networks are often time-dependent; i.e., the time for traveling through a road always changes over time. Most existing methods forkNN query build various indexes maintaining the shortest distances for some pairs of vertices on static road networks. Unfortunately, these methods cannot be used for the time-dependent road networks because the shortest distances always change (...) over time. To address the problem ofkNN query on time-dependent road networks, we propose a novel voronoi-based index in this paper. Furthermore, we propose a novel balanced tree, namedV-tree, which is a secondary level index on voronoi-based index to make our querying algorithm more efficient. Moreover, we propose an algorithm for preprocessing time-dependent road networks such that the waiting time is not necessary to be considered. We confirm the efficiency of our method through experiments on real-life datasets. (shrink)

The study here is a qualitative research based on multiple case studies of banking service providers to analyze the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the definition of the corporate identity of these kinds of organizations. The results show that, although companies increasingly integrate CSR into their business strategies, there are some aspects of its management such as its communication or the measurement of its results that detract from its success. These results have important implications for those managers (...) pursuing an effective management of CSR policies and strategies in their organizations, especially as the information comes from 6 of the biggest and most important banking institutions in a European country, with a declared assets (loans) volume which represents 62.75% of the total assets in the national banking industry, and thus largely representing the possible heterogeneity of the market in terms of company size, location, legal status, and management styles. (shrink)

With the advent of big data, the use of network data to characterize travel has gradually become a trend. Tencent Migration big data can fully, dynamically, immediately, and visually record the trajectories of population migrations with location-based service technology. Here, the daily population flow data of 346 cities during the Spring Festival travel rush in China were combined with different travel modes to measure the spatial structure and spatial patterns of an intercity trip network of Chinese residents. These (...) data were then used for a comprehensive depiction of the complex relationships between the population flows of cities. The results showed that there were obvious differences in the characteristics of urban networks from the perspective of different modes of travel. The intercity flow of aviation trips showed a core-periphery structure with national hub cities as the core distribution. Trips by train showed a core-periphery structure with cities along the national railway artery as the core. This gradually decreased toward hinterland cities. Moreover, the intercity flow of highway trips indicated a spatial pattern of strong local aggregation that matched the population scale. (shrink)

L'offre de services de géolocalisation via un téléphone mobile implique de connaître la localisation et l'identifiant du téléphone, donc de collecter des données relatives à un utilisateur identifié ou identifiable. À ce titre, la loi Informatique et Libertés exige que l'utilisateur consente en toute transparence à bénéficier d'un service géolocalisant et que ses données de localisation soient détruites ou anonymisées une fois la prestation fournie. Si, dans certains cas, l'utilisateur aspire à être localisé, dans d'autres cas, la personne concernée (...) ignore que sa position géographique est connue de tiers. Cette traçabilité subie laisse entrevoir de redoutables perspectives de contrôle ou d'abus tant de la part des services répressifs que des entreprises. L'enjeu ne porte pas uniquement sur les risques d'atteinte à la liberté d'aller et venir, et au respect de la vie privée. De façon plus pernicieuse, l'autonomie informationnelle et décisionnelle du citoyen peut être remise en cause.Location Based Services are information services that can be accessed with mobile phones. They rely on the system s knowledge of the geographical position and the identifier of the phone being used, and therefore on collecting data on an identified or identifiable user. In this respect, the French data protection act stipulates that users agree to be supplied with an LBS service on a fully transparent basis and that their location data must be erased or made anonymous once the service has been provided. In some cases, locationbased services are provided on the user s own request, but in other cases, the individual concerned is unaware of the fact that third parties know where s/he is. This creates potentialfor surveillance and misuse on the part of both police and businesses. What is at stake here is not only the right of individuals to freedom of movement and to privacy but also, and more perniciously, citizens autonomy with regard to information and decision-making. (shrink)

RATIONALE: The concept of evidence-based medicine is important in providing efficient health care. The process uses research findings as the basis for clinical decision making. Evidence-based practice helps optimize current health care and enables the practitioners to be suitably accountable for the interventions they provide. Little work has been undertaken to examine how allied health professionals change their clinical practice in light of the latest evidence. The use of opinion leaders to disseminate new evidence around the management of (...) low back pain into practice has been proposed. AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate if physiotherapists' clinical management of patients with low back pain would change following an evidence-based education package, which utilized local opinion leaders and delivered the best evidence. METHOD: Thirty musculoskeletal physiotherapists from a Community Trust in North Staffordshire were cluster randomized by location of work, to two groups. The intervention group received an evidence-based programme on the management of low back pain, including advice regarding increasing activity levels and return to normal activity and challenging patients' fears and beliefs about their pain. The control group received a standard in-service training package on the management of common knee pathologies. The physiotherapists' clinical management of patients with low back pain was measured prior to training and 6 months post training. Outcome measures were based on physiotherapists completing 'discharge summary' questionnaires, which included information relating to the use and importance of therapies for treating their low back pain patients. RESULTS: There were few significant differences in treatment options between the intervention and control groups post training. Whilst there was some indication that physiotherapists were already utilizing aspects of psychosocial management for patients with low back pain, there was little change in what physiotherapists perceived to be important to patient recovery and actual clinical practice following the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Psychosocial factors have been identified as an important factor in the recovery of patients with low back pain. This project incorporated the latest evidence on the management of low back pain and utilized the theory of opinion leaders to disseminate this evidence into clinical practice. Whilst there were some limitations in the overall size of the study, the results help to give an insight into the challenges faced by the health care system and researchers alike to ensure quality evidence is actually utilized by practitioners for the benefits of patient care. (shrink)

Competition for land is increasing as demand for multiple land uses and ecosystem services rises. Land regulation of the principles of landscape ecology is necessary to develop more sustainable approaches to land use planning. The research evaluated the present land patterns and determined best practices for its regulation of Dongwang Township in Quyang County, located in the Taihang Mountain area of Hebei Province, China. The research used the landscape ecology theory to construct an index system for landscape pattern analysis (...) based on the GIS and Fragstats 3.3 software. In this study, we examined the specific reasons that landscape ecology is superior to traditional methods in land consolidation planning and design, which is conducive to the comprehensive development of land ecological benefits. Landscape ecological planning can effectively reduce landscape fragmentation and improve intensive management. The result found that the descending order of the Shannon index was current landscape, landscape ecological planning, and traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning could protect the natural diversity than traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning enables the creation of long corridors, with higher densities and connectivity and lower average corridor widths than traditional planning. Besides, it can improve ecological service function values in the study area to varying degrees, thus discouraging residents from limiting themselves to grain production. This research has great potential to improve the visibility of ecosystem services in local land use planning and, thus, to improve the ecological functioning of future landscapes. (shrink)

Prehospital ambulance based research has unique ethical considerations due to urgency, time limitations and the locations involved. We sought to explore these issues through interviews with experts in this research field. We undertook semi-structured interviews with expert informants, primarily based in the UK, seeking their views and experiences of ethics in ambulance based clinical research. Participants were questioned regarding their experiences of ambulance based research, their opinions on current regulations and guidelines, and views about their general (...) ethical considerations. Participants were chosen because they were actively involved in, or in their expert capacity expressed an interest in, ambulance based research. Fourteen participants were interviewed including principal investigators, researchers, ethicists and medical lawyers. Five major themes were identified: Capacity, Consent, Clinical Considerations, Consultation and Regulation. Questions regarding consent and capacity were foremost in the discussions as all participants highlighted these as areas for concern. The challenges and use of multiple consent models reflected the complexity of research in this environment. The clinical theme referred to the role of paramedics in research and how research involving ambulance services is increasingly informing improvements to patient care and outcomes and reducing the burden on hospital services. Most felt that, although current regulations were fit for purpose, more specific guidance on implementing these in the ambulance setting would be beneficial. This related closely to the theme of consultation, which examined the key role of ethics committees and other regulatory bodies, as well as public engagement. By interviewing experts in research or ethics in this setting we were able to identify key concerns and highlight areas for future development such as improved guidance. (shrink)

This paper reports on a relationship between the University of Toronto and a non-profit, non-governmental (“third party”) certifying organization called Local Flavour Plus (LFP). The University as of August 2006 requires its corporate caterers to use local and sustainable farm products for a small but increasing portion of meals for most of its 60,000 students. LFP is the certifying body, whose officers and consultants have strong relations of trust with sustainable farmers. It redefines standards and verification to create ladders for (...) farmers, Aramark and Chartwells (the corporations that won the bid), and the University, to continuously raise standards of sustainability. After years of frustrated efforts, other Ontario institutions are expressing interest, opening the possibility that a virtuous circle could lead to rapid growth in local, sustainable supply chains. The paper examines the specificities of the LFP approach and of the Toronto and Canadian context. Individuals in LFP acquired crucial skills, insights, experience, resources, and relationships of trust over 20 years within the Toronto “community of food practice,” located in a supportive municipal, NGO and social movement context. (shrink)

The information in the working environment of industrial Internet is characterized by diversity, semantics, hierarchy, and relevance. However, the existing representation methods of environmental information mostly emphasize the concepts and relationships in the environment and have an insufficient understanding of the items and relationships at the instance level. There are also some problems such as low visualization of knowledge representation, poor human-machine interaction ability, insufficient knowledge reasoning ability, and slow knowledge search speed, which cannot meet the needs of intelligent and (...) personalized service. Based on this, this paper designs a cognitive information representation model based on a knowledge graph, which combines the perceptual information of industrial robot ontology with semantic description information such as functional attributes obtained from the Internet to form a structured and logically reasoned cognitive knowledge graph including perception layer and cognition layer. Aiming at the problem that the data sources of the knowledge base for constructing the cognitive knowledge graph are wide and heterogeneous, and there are entity semantic differences and knowledge system differences among different data sources, a multimodal entity semantic fusion model based on vector features and a system fusion framework based on HowNet are designed, and the environment description information such as object semantics, attributes, relations, spatial location, and context acquired by industrial robots and their own state information are unified and standardized. The automatic representation of robot perceived information is realized, and the universality, systematicness, and intuition of robot cognitive information representation are enhanced, so that the cognition reasoning ability and knowledge retrieval efficiency of robots in the industrial Internet environment can be effectively improved. (shrink)

The paper presents different clustering approaches in legal judgments from the Special Civil Court located at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. The subject is Consumer Law, specifically cases in which consumers claim moral and material compensation from airlines for service failures. To identify patterns from the dataset, we apply four types of clustering algorithms: Hierarchical and Lingo, K-means and Affinity Propagation. We evaluate the results based on the following criteria: entropy and purity; algorithm's ability in providing labels; legal (...) expert’s evaluation; and experimental complexity. The results demonstrate that the most advantageous approach is Hierarchical Clustering, since it has the best entropy and purity numbers, as well as the least difficulty for the expert to analyze the clusters, and the least experimental complexity. The main contribution of the paper is to show the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, especially to identify labels in unstructured and non-indexed legal texts. (shrink)

This article uses a research method that combines theoretical research and empirical analysis. It first introduces the relevant theories of energy service city distribution sites in the context of e-commerce and then the types of energy service city distribution sites and the composition of energy service city distribution systems. The network layout of the service city distribution site and the location objectives, principles, and processes of the model is studied to determine the network layout plan of the energy service (...) city distribution system in this paper. This paper fully considers the characteristics of the network operation mode of the energy service city distribution site and establishes an optimization model for the location selection and vehicle routing of the distribution center with the lowest total system cost under the simultaneous delivery service mode; based on the hierarchical solution strategy, a combination of deep learning is designed. Algorithms mainly include two-stage hybrid heuristic algorithm of cluster analysis, maximum coverage and genetic algorithm; simulation analysis is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the model and algorithm by data simulation, finally get the integrated optimization plan of distribution center location and routing, and put forward the operation strategy through the result expansion analysis. This paper studies the planning model based on the network layout planning of the energy service city distribution system under the e-commerce environment, aiming to promote the breakthrough development of urban smart logistics and prove the importance of the energy service city distribution station network layout planning. The purpose and results of the research are to reduce traffic and environmental pressures, achieve joint direct distribution, improve the efficiency of urban logistics and distribution, and solve the problem of the last mile of the city. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Learning from Examples of Civic Responsibility:What Community-Based Art Centers Teach Us about Arts EducationJessica Hoffmann Davis (bio)Introduction/QuestionThroughout the United States, beyond school walls, there struggles and soars a sprawling field of community art centers dedicated to education.1 Most frequently clustered on either coast in bustling urban communities, these centers provide arts training that enriches or exceeds what is offered in schools. They serve artists who need space for (...) work or performance, students who crave instruction and direction, and the broader community that enjoys attendant cultural enrichment. At the core, they create safe havens for arts learning that has been marginalized elsewhere.Unfettered by the demands and constraints of school administrations, these self-designed centers have been of considerable interest to arts education researchers over the last twenty years.2 Largely conceived and staffed by artists, they demonstrate artful alternatives to mainstream education: creative visions of teaching, learning, and assessment. Moreover, the positive impact these centers have had on students considered at risk across a number of variables has caught the attention of researchers looking for better ways to serve our youth.3The location of these centers beyond school walls, like their operation beyond the hours of the school day, would naturally seem to cast them as positive opportunities for extending arts learning that goes on in school. But with school art curricula scarce or in danger of elimination, supplementary options can seem threatening to school arts specialists. Administrators have regarded the opportunities that outside artists and centers provide as sufficient substitutes for a school-based course of sequential instruction in the arts. While vital funding sources encourage and sustain collaboration, a tension persists between the autonomy of outsider arts centers and the integrity [End Page 82] of insider school arts programs. For students disenfranchised from schools, the "otherness" of centers has a certain cachet. For centers unable to afford their own space, school classrooms in after-school hours offer a home base for their offerings and easy access for students. The back and forth across school walls raises opportunities and concerns that have resulted in a range of creative solutions.4 But my interest here is not in the cross-wall meeting of services, but rather in the differences in arts learning on either side of school walls. In the pages that follow, I pose the question, What can schools learn from the arts education provided in the community?In addressing this question, I first mark the differences between arts learning in schools and in the community as a need for justification versus an opportunity for demonstration. I then describe the research from which my thinking and discussion draw and offer a brief overview of the history of community art centers as inspired by and illustrative of civic responsibility. With an eye to what educators and advocates can learn from these community-based efforts, I focus next on three common objections to prioritizing the arts in our schools: value, measurement, and autonomy. Each objection is introduced from a school-based perspective and then reconsidered in light of community-based attitudes and activities.5 In conclusion, I delineate the insights derived from a consideration of community arts education as stimulus for the redirection of educational objectives and advocacy rationales for arts learning in schools.Justification vs. DemonstrationIn its struggle for recognition and place in school settings, arts education has sought justification in terms of its potential to serve the broader educational scene. We ask of classes that provide mounting skills in visual arts, music, or theater, "Yes, but what else does arts learning do? Can it improve student skills in reading, mathematics, or any other subjects that are more traditionally valued?" Such demands may seem unfair. When has math ever been defended for its ability to improve arts performance? Beyond a sense of injustice, claims for arts learning's causal impact on measurable extraneous outcomes (such as improvements in test scores in nonarts academic subjects) are at best most difficult to prove.6In community centers where art is the chosen heart of the matter, students come specifically to study the arts and to benefit from their enhancement of more generalized experience... (shrink)

In this paper, an in-depth study of interactive visual communication of network topology through non-line-of-sight congestion control algorithms is conducted to address the real-time routing problem of adapting to dynamic topologies, and a delay-constrained stochastic routing algorithm is proposed to enable packets to reach GB within the delay threshold in the absence of end-to-end delay information while improving network throughput and reducing network resource consumption. The algorithm requires each sending node to select an available relay set based on the (...) location of its neighbor nodes and channel state and computes transfer probabilities for each node in the relay set combining the remaining delay of the packet with the distance from the relay node to GB. Based on the obtained transfer probability and local channel state, the sending node passes the packet to the relay node. The convergence of the algorithm is proved and its performance is verified by simulation. The first part of the algorithm is based on the greedy algorithm to deploy and locate the network flying platform nodes with the goal of efficient coverage of the network flying platform nodes, considering the ground base station services. As the delay on each link varies due to the change of channel state, the source and relay nodes asynchronously update the data generation rate and the pairwise parameters based on the received local information and use the obtained optimal values to pass the packets to GB. (shrink)

The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities promulgated standards for clinical ethics consultants and is currently developing a national Quality Attestation in Clinical Ethics Consultation to assist facilities in ensuring that those performing clinical ethics consultations meet minimum standards. As the field moves towards such professionalization, there is a need to provide access to qualified clinical ethicists at a broad range of medical facilities. Currently, however, there are insufficient numbers of trained clinical ethicists to staff all healthcare facilities, and many (...) facilities lack the necessary resources to hire staff clinical ethicists. In this review, we describe several models for providing expert clinical ethics support to remote facilities that lack access to qualified clinical ethicists. Based on this analysis, we recommend telemedicine as the optimal model providing expert support to local ethics committee members tasked with providing clinical ethics consultation services. (shrink)

This text aims to rethink educational activity inspired by the thought of the philosopher Ignacio Ellacuría, in what we have synthesised as a pedagogy of poverty. This should be understood as a pedagogy that, in the neoliberal context of Western societies, takes poverty as its motor—its efficient cause—and as its essence or fundamental structure—its formal cause –, in the duality of dimensions of its genitive. It is concretised in what is presented as Problem-Based Service-Learning (PB-SL). Through specific pedagogical guidelines (...) for implementing this methodology, this study indicates how the teaching action can show the learner what is immediate, what is not constructed, what consciousness does not establish but rather encounters: reality—weak, limited, imperfect, needy; in short, poor—as a problem and, in its deficiency and insufficiency, as a task towards which the subject has a responsibility. This reveals the fundamental anthropological structure to the learner: its intrinsic relational character—its reality as a being-in-a-suffering-world, who lives-with and lives-to save the needy who share its humanity. It is then possible to perceive the scale of the ultimate aim of PB-SL: the need to create the social conditions for a praxis that enables a dignification of reality. (shrink)

It would be a good thing to have at our disposal a general theory of location that is neutral with respect to the view that some objects have more than one exact location, the view that some objects are located without having an exact location, and the view that some objects are “spanners”—where a spanner is an object exactly located at a region that has proper parts but which has no proper part exactly located at a proper (...) part of the region. As far as I know, no theory of location that can be found in the literature has this feature. I put forward a new theory that does—or so I argue. The theory takes as its sole locational primitive the notion of being entirely located at. (shrink)

Recent studies show that returning global health trainees often report having felt inadequately prepared to deal with ethical dilemmas they encountered during outreach clinical work. While global health training guidelines emphasize the importance of developing ethical and cultural competencies before embarking on fieldwork, their practical implementation is often lacking and consists mainly of recommendations regarding professional behavior and discussions of case studies. Evidence suggests that one of the most effective ways to teach certain skills in global health, including ethical and (...) cultural competencies, is through service learning. This approach combines community service with experiential learning. Unfortunately, this approach to global health ethics training is often unattainable due to a lack of supervision and resources available at host locations. This often means that trainees enter global health initiatives unprepared to deal with ethical dilemmas, which has the potential for adverse consequences for patients and host institutions, thus contributing to growing concerns about exploitation and “medical tourism.” From an educational perspective, exposure alone to such ethical dilemmas does not contribute to learning, due to lack of proper guidance. We propose that the tension between the benefits of service learning on the one hand and the respect for patients’ rights and well-being on the other could be resolved by the application of a simulation-based approach to global health ethics education. (shrink)

The need for services in the world of telecommunications and the prosperity and rapid development of this sector around the world has led mobile phone companies to compete to provide the best services to customers. One of these devices used for communications is the mobile phone. The mobile phone is simply an electronic device that is mainly serving unwired telecommunications through a cellular network of particular base stations known as cell sites. There are many obstacles or problems in (...) the telecommunication field, and the relevant institutions and companies should find solutions to these obstacles and problems. One of these obstacles in telecommunications is the coverage holes. Coverage holes occur when the location of the mobile phone is set in midway between the two base transceiver stations (BTSs). This causes an abnormal interruption in communication until the user crosses the coverage holes area. This paper presents an intelligent algorithm as a set of technical steps that can be used to improve the communication services of the mobile phone network and to solve the communication problems via the reduction of the coverage holes between two BTSs. It suggests a method that could alleviate this problem using a strategy that reduces the coverage holes by developing an intelligent algorithm system to receive signal strength indicators and use AT command “+CREG” to disconnect and reconnect to available BTS within an acceptable energy level. As a result, the connection turned from marginal into good connection. (shrink)

a houseis a structure that provides shelter for humanity. Studies have shown that in most parts of the world, urban rents are determined by various factors. These factors include location, level of facilities and services, neighborhood characteristics, space etcetera. Among these factors, the most influencing factor of rent in Wa Municipality is the level of facilities and services provided for tenant use. The objectives of this research was to examine the cost of housing construction, to determine the (...) role played by government in housing provision, recommend policies for housing provision, determine the portion of household income spent on rent. The methodology of this research is base on interplay of deskwork and fieldwork and these took the form of data collection, presentation and data analysis of findings. In the course of this study, both qualitative and quantitative primary and secondary data were collected. A summary of the findings from the research indicates that: cost of building materials is the major contributory factor to the cost of construction aside land and labour cost, the existing rent control law as currently operated have little or no impact on rent charged in the Municipality, current rent levels in the municipality are deemed to be satisfactory, besides the already documented rent determinants, population, occupation, and prospective duration of lease were also identified. One other major finding was that landlords do not take into account the room v let but take into consideration the number of people occupying the room to charge their rent and as such tenants who cannot afford to pay the full recoverable rent has to search for tenants they don‟t know. The group recommends that, There should be given a high priority to local building materials, which could reduce the cost of building and the improvement of the supply chain of various building materials; there should be a mechanism that would ensure that the Rent Control Board, the house owners and tenants would be provided with a platform where consensus building can be done in order to ensure transparency in rent charge Finally, the government should also urge the exemption of value added taxes on building components sourced locally as well as import duties on imported goods. (shrink)

Users’ non-sustainable consumption behaviors are affecting the sustainability of access-based services, but ABS firms can utilize messaging strategies to persuade users to curtail their non-sustainable consumption behaviors. Through two online scenario-based experiments in China, this study determined that: Compared with rational appeal messaging, emotional appeal messaging is better able to persuade consumers to curtail non-sustainable consumption behaviors. Furthermore, loss-framed messages are more effective than gain-framed ones. Message appeal and message framing have an interactive persuasive effect on reducing (...) such consumer behaviors. Loss-framed rational appeal messages are more persuasive at reducing non-sustainable consumption behaviors than gain-framed rational appeal messages, and gain-framed emotional appeal messages persuade consumers to reduce non-sustainable consumption behaviors more than loss-framed ones. Consumers’ psychological ownership moderates the persuasive effect of messaging. Among consumers with a high level of psychological ownership of shared goods, only gain-framed emotional appeal messaging is effective at reducing non-sustainable consumption behaviors, whereas among consumers with low psychological ownership, the persuasive effect of loss-framed rational appeal messaging is more effective than gain-framed emotional appeal messaging. This study extends the research on non-sustainable consumption behavior management in ABSs and provides important inspiration for the management of ABSs consumer behavior. (shrink)

Background Families whose child has unexplained intellectual or developmental differences often hope that a genetic diagnosis will lower barriers to community-based therapeutic and support services. However, there is little known about efforts to mobilize genetic information outside the clinic or how socioeconomic disadvantage shapes and constrains outcomes.Methods We conducted an ethnographic study with predominantly socioeconomically disadvantaged families enrolled in a multi-year genomics research study, including clinic observations and in-depth interviews in English and Spanish at multiple time points. Coding (...) and thematic development were used to collaboratively interpret fieldnotes and transcripts.Results Thirty-two families participated. Themes included familial expectations that a genetic diagnosis could be translated into information, understanding, and assistance to improve the quality of a child’s day-to-day life. After sequencing, however, genetic information was not readily converted into improved access to services beyond the clinic, with families often struggling to use a genetic diagnosis to advocate for their child.Conclusion Families’ ability to use a genetic diagnosis as an effective advocacy tool beyond the clinic was limited by the knowledge and resources available to them, and by the eligibility criteria used by therapeutic service providers’ – which focused on clinical diagnosis and functional criteria more than etiologic information. All families undertaking genomic testing, particularly those who are disadvantaged, need additional support to understand the limits and potential benefits of genetic information beyond the clinic. (shrink)

In contrast to Constructivist Views, which construe perceptual cognition as an essentially reconstructive process, this article recommends the Deictic View, which grounds perception in perceptual-demonstrative reference and the use of deictic tracking strategies for acquiring and updating knowledge about individuals. The view raises the problem of how sensory-motor tracking connects to epistemic and integrated forms of tracking. To study the strategies used to solve this problem, we report a study of the ability to track distal individuals when only their directions (...) can be perceived and not their locations. We introduce a new experimental paradigm named the 'Modified Traveling Salesman Problem' (MTSP), which requires subjects to visit n invisible targets in a 2D display once each. Surprisingly, subjects are competent at this task for up to 10 targets. We consider two types of tracking strategies that subjects might use: 'location-based' strategies and 'deictic direction-based' strategies. A number of observations suggest that subjects used the latter, at least for larger numbers of targets. We hypothesize that subjects used perceptual-demonstrative reference and deictic strategies (i) to perform the sensory-motor tracking of directional segments, (ii) to bind the segments with their updated status in the task, and (iii) to perform the epistemic tracking of invisible targets by means of perception-based inferences. (shrink)

Research drawn from data contained in medical records is a common and immensely important means of scientific investigation in epidemiology and health services research. It provides valuable knowledge regarding risk factors for disease, the safety of pharmaceuticals and medical procedures, and the quality of medical care. Electronic information technology has greatly enhanced the capability of conducting research using medical records, but it has also generated increasing concern about invasions of privacy. Both practical and scientific considerations militate against soliciting consent (...) for population-based observational research. Retrospective review of existing medical records, especially with large samples, poses insuperable barriers to locating human subjects in order to obtain their informed consent. When efforts are made to obtain informed consent for prospective research drawn from disease and treatment registries, mounting evidence has accumulated that substantial selection biases are introduced into the data, as those who consent are not necessarily representative of the population of relevant patients. (shrink)

Purpose Students have direct access to academic ghost writers who are able to provide for their assessment needs without the student needing to do any of the work. These ghost writers are helping to fuel the international industry of contract cheating, raising ethical dilemmas, but not much is known about the writers, their business or how they operate. This paper aims to explore how the ghost writers market their services and operate, based on observable information. Design/methodology/approach This paper (...) reviews data from providers actively offering contract cheating services available to the public on Fiverr.com, a low-cost micro outsourcing site. The search term write essay is used to identify providers, finding 103 Gigs from 96 unique providers. Visible information, such as provider marketing, advertised services, pricing information and customer reviews, is analysed. Findings The results demonstrate that bespoke essays are readily available to students at a low cost. The majority of providers operate from Kenya. Revenue calculations indicate a price point of US$31.73 per 1,000 words, below the cost of traditional essay mills, but show that these 96 providers have generated around US$270,000 of essay writing business between them. Originality/value This study affords a look into a complex and established industry whose inner workings are normally kept private and for which little published information currently exists. The research adds to what is known about the extent, location and operation of the contract cheating industry. (shrink)

Qualitative studies on assisted reproductive technology commonly focus on the perspectives of participants living in major metropolises. In doing so, the experiences of those living outside major cities, and the unique way conditions of spatiality shape access to treatment, are elided. In this paper, we examine how location and regionality in Australia impact upon access and experience of reproductive services. We conducted twelve qualitative interviews with participants residing in regional areas across Australia. We asked participants to discuss their (...) experience with assisted reproduction services and the impacts of location on access, service choice, and experience of care, and analysed the data using reflexive thematic analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006, 2019). Participants in this study reported that their location impacted the services available to them, required considerable time in travel, and reduced continuity of care. We draw on these responses to examine the ethical implications of uneven distribution of reproductive services in commercial healthcare settings which rely on market-based mechanisms. (shrink)

One day soon it may be possible to replace a failing heart, liver, or kidney with a long-lasting mechanical replacement or perhaps even with a 3-D printed version based on the patient's own tissue. Such artificial organs could make transplant waiting lists and immunosuppression a thing of the past. Supposing that this happens, what will the ongoing care of people with these implants involve? In particular, how will the need to maintain the functioning of artificial organs over an extended (...) period affect patients and their doctors and the responsibilities of those who manufacture such devices? Drawing on lessons from the history of the cardiac pacemaker, this article offers an initial survey of the ethical issues posed by the need to maintain and service artificial organs. We briefly outline the nature and history of cardiac pacemakers, with a particular focus on the need for technical support, maintenance, and replacement of these devices. Drawing on the existing medical literature and on our conversations and correspondence with cardiologists, regulators, and manufacturers, we describe five sources of ethical issues associated with pacemaker maintenance: the location of the devices inside the human body, such that maintenance generates surgical risks; the complexity of the devices, which increases the risk of harms to patients as well as introducing potential injustices in access to treatment; the role of software—particularly software that can be remotely accessed—in the functioning of the devices, which generates privacy and security issues; the impact of continual development and improvement of the device; and the influence of commercial interests in the context of a medical device market in which there are several competing products. Finally, we offer some initial suggestions as to how these questions should be answered. (shrink)

Background: Since 2006, the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and the National Research Foundation of Korea have taken the lead in developing an institutional guideline for research ethics. Objectives: The purpose was to identify the effectiveness of the Good Research Practice program, developed on a fund granted by the National Research Foundation of Korea, for nurses and nursing students whose knowledge and perception of research ethics were compared before and after the implementation of the Good Research Practice program. (...) Research design: This study was conducted to compare the levels of knowledge and perception of research ethics in the participants before and after the program was implemented. Participant and research context: The participants included 45 nurses and 69 nursing students from hospitals, colleges of nursing, and the Korean Nurses Association, located in Seoul, Korea. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Institutional Research Board in Korea. Findings: Based on the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation model, the Good Research Practice program was made up of a total of 30 h of the blended learning both online and off-line. The results of this study showed that there were statistically significant differences in both knowledge and perception of research ethics in nursing students and nurses before and after the program had been implemented. Discussion: The concepts of professional nursing ethics, moral issues, and bioethics were often confused with one another and not clearly defined. Therefore, the concept and scope of bioethics, moral judgment, and overall nursing ethics should be well defined and conceptualized in the future. Conclusions: This study suggested integrating research ethics education in the nursing curriculum as a required course of study for nursing students and as part of the in-service training program for nurses in order to improve research ethics in nursing research in Korea. (shrink)

Since the use of systems of satellite positioning such as the global positioning system, applications have tried to locate vehicles on maps representing the environment with their attributes. For one decade, this has led to both localization and navigation services for users. Recently, new researches have begun in order to extend the functionalities of the existing systems and thus to develop new applications using these technologies in the design of driver assistance systems. These new systems will indeed allow us (...) to anticipate road departures or prevent overspeed turn approaches. Nevertheless, to deploy such new functionalities, it is imperative to ensure the association of vehicle position with one of the roadmap segments. In this article, we propose a new approach based on the belief theory taking into account the imperfections of available data in order to ensure the positioning and tracking of a vehicle on a roadmap and to manage conflicts and ambiguities using a multi-hypotheses decision. (shrink)

Modern consumers face a dramatic rise in web-based technological advancements and have trouble making rational and proper decisions when they shop online. When they try to make decisions about products and services, they also feel pressured against time when sorting among all of the unnecessary items in the flood of information available on the web. In this sense, they need to use consumer decision-making creativity to make rational decisions. However, unexplored research questions on this subject remain. First, in (...) what ways do task difficulty and time constraints affect visual attention on exploitative and exploratory activities differently? Second, how does the location of the reference influence the level of visual attention to exploitative and exploratory activities depending on affordance theory? Third, how do exploratory and exploitative activities affect CDMC? Eye-tracking experiments were conducted with 70 participants to obtain relevant metrics such as total fixation duration, fixation count, and visit count to answer these research questions. Our findings suggest that task difficulty influences exploitative activity, whereas time constraint is related to the exploratory activity. The result of the location of hints aligns with the affordance theory for the exploitative activity. Besides, exploratory activity positively affected CDMC, but exploitative activity did not show any effect. (shrink)

This article considers what the implications of decertification would be for single-sex services such as domestic and sexual violence support. Some reform options attached to decertification could (re)allocate authority away from the state to organisations or individuals to determine gender criteria. What would the consequences of such re-allocation be in determining eligibility to receive or access services or excluding people on the basis of a characteristic protected under equality law? Engaging with this in the context of domestic and (...) sexual violence support service provision raises a number of questions. Firstly, does the existence of gender-based violence and/or of the effects it produces require a stable category in order to address them? What benefits may emerge from providing single-sex spaces that could not be replicated in other settings? And finally, what criteria of exclusion and inclusion are currently used to determine access to spaces beyond legal gender status? (shrink)

Background Ethical nurse leaders play a pivotal role in helping their nurse employees deliver high-quality healthcare services. However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the mediating and moderating mechanisms by which ethical leadership improves job performance. Purpose This study aims to investigate: (1) whether ethical leadership would enhance nurses’ job performance; (2) whether learning goal orientation acts as a mediator; and (3) whether co-worker support operates as a moderator. Participants and research context We collected two-wave data from 218 (...) nurses working in hospitals located in Jiangsu, China. Research design A time-lagged study based on an online survey design was utilized for data collection between September 2022 and January 2023. PROCESS Model 5 was employed to test the research hypotheses. Ethical considerations We obtained ethics approval from the University Ethics Committee. The nursing participants were assured that their survey responses were completely anonymous. Results and discussion Ethical leadership is not significantly correlated with job performance. However, ethical leadership has an indirect impact on nurses’ job performance through the mediator (learning goal orientation). Moreover, co-worker support moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and job performance. Conclusion The conceptual model provides us with a fine-grained understanding of the relationship between ethical leadership and nurses’ job performance. We highlight the mediating role of learning goal orientation and the moderating role of co-worker support. We suggest that healthcare organizations should devote more efforts to promoting ethical leadership, co-worker support, and learning goal orientation. (shrink)

The commercialization of microfinance brings formal financial institutions into the microfinance landscape, yet little is known about the forces that lead to this phenomenon. This paper is the first dedicated to this topic using a hand-collected dataset of 112 institutions from 34 countries covering the period from 2008 to 2012. Based on institutional theory and resource-based argument, we empirically assess the effects of institutional environment factors, including regulative, normative, and cognitive elements, as well as resource-based factors, including (...) practice model and multinational diversity, on the intensity of engagements. To do so, we define the roles as capital-related, product-related, and service delivery, and calculate engagement intensity using a scoring method which reflects an organization’s extent of presence in the microfinance value chain. The analysis takes the engaging location and engaging model into account. We find that the two logics together can explain such involvement. Legal compliance is identified as most relevant for domestic players, while resource-based factors are more relevant for overseas players. In addition to regression analysis, many cases are identified to support the arguments. (shrink)