Access Framework Research Articles

Empirical analysis of cycling distances in three of Europe’s most bicycle-friendly regions within an accessibility framework

In this paper, we study observed cycling distances within an accessibility framework, using data from the Netherlands, the Copenhagen Metropolitan Area and the Freiburg Region. As a scope, we look at outbound trips in home-based tours which include a single destination. We relate these observed cycling distances to a rich set of explanatory variables using both quantile and ordinary least square regression models. The results provide evidence that cycling distances are similarly distributed in all three regions. Most cycling distances are rather short, with a median of only two and a mean of three kilometers. These values vary depending on the type of activity at the destination, gender and age of the traveler and the type of bicycle that has been used. Moreover, a few remarkable differences have been found between the three regions, such as substantially different effects of age and e-bike use on observed cycling distances. Noteworthy is the missing effect of urban density. The findings of this research provide urban planners with differentiated information about how far people cycle to daily-life destinations. As shown for the example of the “15 minutes city,” the outcomes can also be used to refine existing concepts of bicycle accessibility. Finally, this research offers valuable insights into three of Europe’s most developed bicycle cultures.

On the Performance of the Unified NOMA Framework for Satellite-Terrestrial Networks with Hardware Impairments

A unified nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) framework for satellite-terrestrial network is investigated over Shadowed-Rician fading channels, which can be applied to both power domain NOMA (PD-NOMA) and code domain NOMA (CD-NOMA). Under the realistic assumption of hardware impairments (HIs) and imperfect successive interference cancellation (SIC), the achievable outage probability of the paired users is analyzed first, and the closed-form expressions of exact and asymptotic outage probability are derived. Next, the ergodic sum rate is investigated in different levels of HIs and residual interference. In addition, the energy efficiency in the delay-tolerant transmission mode is studied to characterize the performance of the satellite-terrestrial network. Finally, the Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate the accuracy of theoretical derivation and showcase the effects of a wide range of satellite channel parameters and the realistic assumption on outage probability, ergodic rate, and energy efficiency.

Starting with us: Imagining relational, co-designed policy approaches to improve healthcare access for rural people with disability.

Access to healthcare for rural Australians is a wicked problem, particularly for rural people with disability. Contemporary healthcare access frameworks in Australia tend to overlook geography, use a 'one-size-fits-all approach', and disregard the valuable relationships between key rural healthcare stakeholders, including rural people with disability, rural health services and health professionals. The United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires the Australian Government to engage people with disability in the design of policies that will shape their day-to-day lives, including their access to healthcare. However, the nature and extent to which rural people with disability, rural health professionals and other key rural stakeholders are involved in the design of Australian policies impacting the health of rural people with disability are unknown. This paper examines approaches taken to engage rural people with disability and health professionals in the design of Australian disability policy impacting healthcare access, and reimagines future processes which can improve healthcare access for rural people with disability. Co-design and ethics of care lenses are applied to policy design approaches in this paper. We approach this work as rural disability and health academics, rural health professionals, and as rural people with disability, neurodivergence and family members of people with disability. We argue future co-designed policy approaches could focus on driving change towards equity in healthcare access for rural people with disability by harnessing the relational nature of rural healthcare.

Enhancing the Trajectories of Cancer Health Disparities Research: Improving Clinical Applications of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility.

In order to accurately detect and prevent racial disparities, self-reported race (SRR) and ethnicity remain valuable tools; however, inaccurate capture of patient identity and broad aggregation of minoritized race groups present challenges for data interpretation. Also, although SRR is a proxy for shared social/cultural experience, it is not an accurate representation of shared endogenous factors. Biological investigations into cancer disparities, particularly those involving genetic features, should be framed in the context of genetic background or ancestry, as these are heritable aspects of population health. In reality, both genetics and environment work in concert to influence cancer risk and clinical outcomes. The best opportunity to define actionable means for reducing health disparities is in rigorous and comprehensive generation of rich data sets that characterize environmental, biological, and genetic components of disparate disease burden. To translate this pivotal disparities research into clinical tools and improved policies, we describe a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) framework, which will increase participation from diverse backgrounds, reexamine previous research with a rigorous evaluation of appropriate SRR groupings, and engage community leaders to ensure that future research addresses the needs of communities at increased risk. On this path forward, we may finally end cancer disparities.

Experiences and Perceived Outcomes of a Grocery Gift Card Program for Low-Income Households at Risk of Food Insecurity

ObjectivesHousehold food insecurity negatively affects children’s diet quality, physical and mental health, and academic performance. I Can for Kids’ (IC4K) grocery gift card (GGC) program provides GGC to low-income households with school-aged children at risk of household food insecurity in Calgary, Canada. This study described program recipients’ and facilitators’ experiences and perceived outcomes of accessing or facilitating IC4K’s GGC program. MethodsThis study used qualitative descriptive methodology. Data generation and analysis were guided by Freedman et al’s theoretical framework of nutritious food access. Semi-structured interviews were conducted between August and November 2020 with 37 program recipients and 17 program facilitators who were purposively recruited. Directed content analysis was used to analyze the data using a deductive-inductive approach. Codes were combined into subthemes and themes that summarized program recipients’ and facilitators’ experiences and perceived outcomes of receiving or distributing GGC, and suggestions to improve IC4K’s GGC program. ResultsThree themes were generated from the data: 1) IC4K’s GGC program promoted a sense of autonomy and dignity among program recipients; 2) recipients used GGC to purchase foods that improved household dietary patterns and food skills, including foods that aligned with health-related food needs and cultural foodways and; 3) program logistical strengths and limitations, including the program’s impact on facilitators’ connection with clients and their workload, experiences of differential access to GGC among recipients, and the importance of increasing program awareness to reach more food insecure households. ConclusionsIC4K’s GGC program enhanced recipients’ access to nutritious foods, had positive impacts on household finances and diet quality, as well as recipients’ social health and emotional wellbeing. However, differential access to GGC among recipients was also identified. Study findings were used to inform three recommendations to improve IC4K’s GGC program: 1) increase the number of GGC that recipients can receive; 2) establish concrete guidelines governing GGC distribution and; 3) increase program awareness. Funding SourcesO’Brien Institute for Public Health.

Learning-Based Spectrum Sensing and Access in Cognitive Radios via Approximate POMDPs

A novel LEarning-based Spectrum Sensing and Access (LESSA) framework is proposed, wherein a cognitive radio (CR) learns a time-frequency correlation model underlying spectrum occupancy of licensed users (LUs) in a radio ecosystem; concurrently, it devises an approximately optimal spectrum sensing and access policy under sensing constraints. A Baum-Welch algorithm is proposed to learn a parametric Markov transition model of LUs’ spectrum occupancy based on noisy spectrum measurements. Spectrum sensing and access are cast as a Partially-Observable Markov Decision Process, approximately optimized via randomized point-based value iteration. Fragmentation, Hamming-distance state filters and Monte-Carlo methods are proposed to alleviate the inherent computational complexity, and a weighted reward metric to regulate the trade-off between CR’s throughput and interference to the LUs. Numerical evaluations demonstrate that LESSA performs within 5% of a genie-aided upper bound with foreknowledge of LUs’ spectrum occupancy, and outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms across the entire trade-off region: 71% over correlation-based clustering, 26% over Neyman-Pearson-based spectrum sensing, 6% over the Viterbi algorithm, and 9% over adaptive Deep Q-Network. LESSA is then extended to a distributed Multi-Agent setting (MA-LESSA), by proposing novel neighbor discovery and channel access rank allocation. MA-LESSA improves CRs’ throughputs by 43% over cooperative TD-SARSA, 84% over cooperative greedy distributed learning, and 3× over non-cooperative learning via g-statistics and ACKs. Finally, MA-LESSA is implemented on the DARPA SC2 platform, manifesting superior performance over competitors in a real-world TDWR-UNII WLAN emulation; its implementation feasibility is further validated on an ad-hoc distributed wireless testbed of ESP32 radios, exhibiting 96% success probability.

Barriers and Facilitators to Healthcare Access in Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disorders and Communication Difficulties: an Integrative Review.

This integrative review explores the barriers to and facilitators of healthcare access in adults with intellectual and developmental disorders (IDD) and communication difficulties (CD) using Levesque et al.’s conceptual framework of access to health. IDDs are a group of disorders that occur early in childhood and often involve language dysfunction. CDs are prevalent in adults with IDD. Several themes emerged as barriers to access for adults with IDDs and CDs including health literacy, understanding health information, and screening; fear and negative patient expectations; impaired autonomy; time; accommodation needs; insurance coverage and financial hardship; communication; coordination and continuity of care; and supporter presence and inclusion. Communication between providers, patients, and supporters is a significant barrier for adults with IDD and CD.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40489-022-00324-8.

A Review of Cybersecurity and Biometric Authentication in Cloud Network

Cloud computing uses few resources to give customers complete distant services via the internet. Data privacy, security, and reliability are major issues with cloud computing. Security is the biggest issue. This study discusses the biometrics framework and safe cloud computing identity management method. This paper discusses cloud computing security challenges and reviews cloud access framework approaches. It describes a novel fingerprint access-based authentication system to protect cloud services from DOS and DDoS attacks. This biometrics-based system can secure cloud services from illegal access. This study addresses cloud security and privacy via biometric face recognition. Cloud users' security and privacy are protected via biometrics recognition. This article discusses CPS and its applications, technologies, and standards. SIGNIFICANT DIFFICULTIES AND CHALLENGES ARE FOUND IN reviewing CPS security weaknesses, threats, and attacks. Presenting and analyzing current security measures and their key drawbacks. Finally, this extensive examination yields various recommendations.

Revisiting rural healthcare access through Held’s ethics of care

Access to healthcare and health seeking behaviours of rural people often hinge on the existing relationships between healthcare providers and (prospective) healthcare users. However, rich micro-level health professional-healthcare user relationships and the unique relational context of rural settings are largely missing from dominant rural healthcare access conceptual frameworks. We argue rural healthcare access conceptualisations require revisiting from a relational perspective to ensure future healthcare access policy accounts for the relational nature of healthcare in rural contexts. Ethics of care is a moral theory informed by feminism which rejects liberal individualist notions and emphasises interdependence. We used Held’s ethics of care characteristics to examine Russell and colleagues’ healthcare access framework and dimensions for rural and remote populations. This process revealed Held’s ethics of care characteristics are only somewhat evident across Russell et al.’s dimensions: most evident in the acceptability and accommodation dimensions, and most absent in the availability and affordability dimensions. Future rural healthcare access frameworks need to pay further attention to the relational aspects of rural healthcare, particularly around the availability and affordability of healthcare, to bolster future efforts to improve healthcare access for rural people.

A secure visual framework for multi-index protection evaluation in networks

Mining the core value of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data safely and reducing the risk of malicious attacks are the inherent requirements of industrial data visualization. Visualization technology has become the main tool for data aggregation, mining and analysis of IIoT data through graphical representation. However, visualization technology still has two shortcomings in big data calculation and analysis scenarios. On the one hand, visual results will lead to the disclosure of sensitive privacy. On the other hand, most visualization tools can't provide an interactive framework for users to select the suitable solutions. To address these problems, we present an open accessible Visual framework based on Differential Privacy theory (VisDP), which provides Multi-index Quantitative comprehensive Evaluation technology (MQE) for data mining results. Considering the advantages of interactive mechanism, VisDP provides rich optional schemes, including the operating web, calling API and the downloading SDK. Finally, we verify the availability and privacy of MQE through mathematical proofs, analyze the hospital medical waste detection system that actually applies the framework, and the experimental results have showed the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed platform.

Research on the Applications of Blockchain Technology Within Tourism Industry Ii Vietnam: Proposed Model in Phu Quoc Island

In recent years, blockchain technology has garnered interest from a diverse range of industries and areas, mostly due to its enormous possibilities for transforming the way data is stored and utilized, enhancing security and transparency, and facilitating transactions. In light of the rapid advancement of blockchain technology and the trend toward increasing the awareness of its benefits in the tourism sector, the Vietnamese government, particularly Ministry of Culture- Sports and Tourism, has made significant efforts and played a pivotal role in trying to establish an ecosystem, facilitating blockchain technology to gradually integrate into tourism activities. This contemporary study was conducted to ascertain the level of government interest in fostering an environment conducive to the adoption of blockchain technology in Vietnam. To begin, the author collected secondary data on the number of seminars held and sanctioned by local governments in Vietnam about the use of blockchain technology in tourism since 2018. Second, fifteen tourism specialists who work in resorts, travel agencies, and tourism-related enterprises on Phu Quoc Island were chosen to collect primary data using a mix of open- and closed-ended questionnaires. The Delphi technique was used to evaluate the data collected in order to estimate the outcome of a future scenario involving the establishment of a blockchain system on Phu Quoc Island. The findings indicate that local governments are likely to be interested in expanding the legal framework for access to blockchain technology, and tourism organizations are willing to incorporate blockchain technology into their current operations if the legal framework allows for this new technology. According to the findings, there are two distinct views on which business scope should be prioritized first. For example, hotel and resort representatives prefer to integrate booking and luggage checking first, while travel agencies prefer automatic commission allocation for travel parties involved in the entire tourism procedure.

Toward Democratizing Access to Facilities Data: A Framework for Intelligent Data Discovery and Delivery

Data collected by large-scale instruments, observatories, and sensor networks (i.e., science facilities) are key enablers of scientific discoveries in many disciplines. However, ensuring that these data can be accessed, integrated, and analyzed in a democratized and timely manner remains a challenge. In this article, we explore how state-of-the-art techniques for data discovery and access can be adapted to facilitate data and develop a conceptual framework for intelligent data access and discovery.

AACF—Accessible Application-Centric Framework for the Internet of Things Backhauled Smart City Applications

The existing Internet of Things (IoT) architectures are employed for different real-time smart city applications adaptively. The architecture's adaptability to the application depends on the robust quality of experience (QoE) granted to the end-users. This article introduces an Accessible Application-Centric Framework (AACF) for application-specific IoT architectures by considering the robust requirements of end-user applications. The framework aims to provide flexible application-service disseminations for end-user requests. The state of the application and its longevity are taken into account for satisfying the in-time need of the requests. The service requiring scalable dissemination is performed based on state learning decisions to improve the success rate and enduring responses. In this learning process, the balance between response and service dissemination is retained to pursue robust user-specific performance. The proposed AACF is assessed using the metrics response ratio, response delay, and backlogs.

AAIM Recommendations to Promote Equity in the Clerkship Clinical Learning Environment

AAIM Recommendations to Promote Equity in the Clerkship Clinical Learning Environment

Addressing homelessness with the “human ecology economics” framework: the role of the business community in California

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a human ecology economics (HEE) framework for understanding and addressing homelessness, especially as it exists in California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The role of business and private “stakeholders of the homeless” is emphasized.Design/methodology/approachThe HEE approach relies on evolutionary and complex systems processes, and it incorporates interdisciplinary material from the humanities. Within HEE, an early-stage exploratory research method is used. In-depth interviews with 16 long-term residents who are also managers in various organizations help to identify private-sector perceptions including how businesses can engage with and support the homeless.FindingsIn the current balance between needed supplies of “production capital,” which includes affordable housing, shelter beds, food, clothing, medical supplies and so on and “transaction capital,” which is an interacting mix of social capital, informational capital and financial capital, the authors find that the business community needs to pay greater attention to deficits in “transaction capital.”Research limitations/implicationsIt is beyond the scope of this paper, and beyond the current ability of complex system modeling, to prioritize the best interventions across various types of homeless communities. However, for early-stage research, the authors have provided a useful ontology of the human ecology of homelessness that might inform further research and policy initiatives. Follow-on research might then investigate, with more rigorous methods, the narrower causalities between subcomponents of one’s ontology.Originality/valueScholars, policymakers and business community activists might appreciate the more comprehensive and accessible interdisciplinary framework for understanding the causes and possible responses to homelessness.

'Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act' of India: An Analysis of Substantive Access to Rights of a Transgender Community.

The amendments to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of India in 2019 address non-binary persons' constitutional rights, recognition of their gender identity, and non-discrimination laws across institutional spaces (for example, family, workplace, education, and healthcare). The Act discusses legal rights in isolation of praxis, structural support and, more importantly, lacks guidelines needed to substantively access rights. Such a disconnection relegates human rights to merely legal changes with limited practice. In this article, we discuss the achievements and failures of the act from the perspective of a transgender community in India, and the impact it has had on their lives from its formulation in 2014. Although non-binary communities are recognized, they face severe abuse and discrimination. We analyse accounts of 15 transgender persons' lived experiences and challenges they faced in claiming their rights in Kolkata, a metropolis in eastern India. We used the framework of substantive access to rights, that is, the actual ability to practice and access documented rights, to critically discuss our findings across family, work, education, and healthcare spaces, often showing the gaps between achieved legal status, and the practical realities on the ground. We provide several recommendations to bridge these gaps-improving educational equity for non-binary people, including transgender specific training for healthcare providers and, more importantly, increasing the adequate representation of non-binary people in the positions of negotiation. The road to claiming social and economic rights following legal rights for non-binary gender communities cannot be achieved without overcoming their erasure within families and hypervisibility in public spaces.

Competition for fluctuating resources reproduces statistics of species abundance over time across wide-ranging microbiotas.

Across diverse microbiotas, species abundances vary in time with distinctive statistical behaviors that appear to generalize across hosts, but the origins and implications of these patterns remain unclear. Here, we show that many of these macroecological patterns can be quantitatively recapitulated by a simple class of consumer-resource models, in which the metabolic capabilities of different species are randomly drawn from a common statistical distribution. Our model parametrizes the consumer-resource properties of a community using only a small number of global parameters, including the total number of resources, typical resource fluctuations over time, and the average overlap in resource-consumption profiles across species. We show that variation in these macroscopic parameters strongly affects the time series statistics generated by the model, and we identify specific sets of global parameters that can recapitulate macroecological patterns across wide-ranging microbiotas, including the human gut, saliva, and vagina, as well as mouse gut and rice, without needing to specify microscopic details of resource consumption. These findings suggest that resource competition may be a dominant driver of community dynamics. Our work unifies numerous time series patterns under a simple model, and provides an accessible framework to infer macroscopic parameters of effective resource competition from longitudinal studies of microbial communities.

Access to health care for people with stroke in South Africa: a qualitative study of community perspectives

BackgroundIncidence of stroke is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa. People who survive stroke experience disability and require long-term care. Health systems in South Africa (SA) are experiencing important challenges, and services in the public health system for people with stroke (PWS) are fragmented. We aimed to explore the perspectives and experiences of PWS related to stroke care services to inform health system strengthening measures.MethodsIn-depth interviews with 16 PWS in urban and rural areas in the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces of SA were conducted between August and October 2020. PWS were recruited through existing research networks, non-government organisations and organisations of persons with disabilities by snowball sampling. Interviews were transcribed, coded, and thematically analysed. We used the conceptual framework of access to health care as proposed by Levesque et al. to map and inform barriers to accessing health care from the user perspective.ResultsPWS recognised the need for health care when they experienced signs of acute stroke. Health literacy on determinants of stroke was low. Challenges to accessing stroke care include complex pathways to care, physical mobility related to stroke, long travel distances and limited transport options, waiting times and out of pocket expenses. The perceived quality of services was influenced by cultural beliefs, attitudinal barriers, and information challenges. Some PWS experienced excellent care and others particularly poor care. Positive staff attitude, perceived competence and trustworthiness went in hand with many technical and interpersonal deficits, such as long waiting times and poor staff attitude that resulted in poor satisfaction and reportedly poor outcomes for PWS.ConclusionsStrategic leadership, governance and better resources at multiple levels are required to address the unmet demands and needs for health care of PWS. Stroke care could be strengthened by service providers routinely providing information about prevention and symptoms of stroke, treatment, and services to patients and their social support network. The role of family members in continuity of care could be strengthened by raising awareness of existing resources and referral pathways, and facilitating connections within services.

A conceptual Blockchain backed framework for Healthcare Data access – Extended abstract series

A conceptual Blockchain backed framework for Healthcare Data access – Extended abstract series

Equity in Access to Deceased Donor Transplant for Candidates on the Heart Waitlist

<h3>Purpose</h3> Transplantation is often the preferred therapy for individuals with organ failure, but a limited supply of organs prevents all patients from accessing this treatment. The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OTPN) equity in access to transplantation methodology was developed to better understand equity in access to deceased donor (DD) transplant among waitlisted candidates. In 2020, the OPTN launched a publicly accessible dashboard which monitors equity in access to transplantation for lung, liver, and kidney candidates. Most recently, heart was incorporated into the dashboard. <h3>Methods</h3> OPTN data was analyzed using Poisson rate regression modeling to calculate an access to transplant score (ATS) which summarizes a heart candidate's relative likelihood of receiving a DD transplant, controlling for intentional policy-driven differences. The model was built on rolling 6-month cohorts of active heart registrations that waited at least one day between 1/1/2010 and 6/30/2021. The standard deviation (SD) in ATS was presented where smaller SDs reflect a more equitable system. <h3>Results</h3> The overall SD in ATS has remained stable over time. After controlling for medical urgency status, donation service area (DSA), blood type, height and weight were the four factors most associated with inequity in the recent 6-month period. Blood type AB had the highest transplant rates and blood type O the lowest. In addition, taller, less-heavy and younger candidates had better access. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Overall, equity in access to DD heart transplant has remained relatively stable over the past decade despite major policy changes in 2018 (6 tiers) and 2020 (removal of DSA). The equity in access framework provides the heart community with an additional tool for policy development, monitoring and research into equity in access including further investigating disparities associated with DSA which appear to have declined since 2018.