Helping Hand Research Articles

The Spiritual Influence in Microfinance: A Case of Esaar-Microfinance Program of Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD)

The Spiritual Influence in Microfinance: A Case of Esaar-Microfinance Program of Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD)

Behavioural Finance: Providing a Helping Hand in Understanding Individuals Financial Behavioural

Behavioural economics currently addresses the human insights that are missing from classic economic theory such as: heuristics, framing and market inefficiencies. As people are prone to economic decision-making errors it is imperative to pay attention and to examine cognitive, emotional and subjective factors that can influence the decision-making process. An area related to behavioural economics is that of behavioural finance which attempts to explain the set of psychological aspects and biases that affects financial decisions. The current research explores the influence context effects have on the economic decision making process in two different situations: crisis and no-crisis. A context effect is an aspect of cognitive psychology that describes the influence of environmental factors on one's perception of a stimulus and can have an important impact on our decisions. The paper finds that once the crisis has occurred, Romanians were influenced by the negative economic context, so a context effect could be observed. The financial decisions as regard to loans and deposits were also influenced by the interest rate level and earnings

Examining the effects of illicit drug use on tobacco cessation outcomes in the Helping HAND 2 randomized controlled trial

BackgroundIndividuals with substance use disorders (SUD) smoke at higher rates and have higher tobacco-related mortality than the general population. Despite having an interest in smoking cessation, smokers with SUDs may have greater difficulty quitting. MethodsAnalysis of data from a RCT testing a post-discharge smoking cessation intervention for hospitalized cigarette smokers interested in quitting. Past 7day tobacco abstinence was self-reported at 1, 3, and 6 months and biochemically confirmed at 6 months post-discharge. Other drug use was assessed at baseline by self-report or a past-year discharge diagnosis of SUD. Multiple logistic regression compared tobacco cessation outcomes among participants with no recreational drug use (NDU; n=942) vs. marijuana only (MU; n=284) vs. other illicit drugs (IDU; n=131). ResultsGroups differed at baseline on age, gender, race, education, other household smokers, alcohol use, and anxiety/depression (all p<0.05). Confirmed 6-month tobacco abstinence was lower among IDU than NDU participants (9% vs 18%, p=0.01; AOR=0.43, CI: 0.22–0.84) after adjustment for study arm, smoking characteristics, demographics, quality of life, alcohol use and MU. Confirmed 6-month abstinence did not differ significantly between MU vs. NDU participants (14% vs 18%, p>0.05; AOR=0.77, CI:0.51–1.14). Counseling and medication use did not differ significantly among groups at any follow-up. ConclusionsHospitalized smokers who planned to stop smoking after discharge and used cessation assistance were less successful if they had used illicit drugs in the past year, but not if they had only used marijuana. More intensive or tailored interventions may be required to address smoking in this population.

Induction and Natural Necessities

Some philosophers who believe that there are necessary connections in nature take it that an advantage of their commitment is that the problem of induction is solved. This paper aims to offer a comprehensive refutation of the arguments necessitarians use to show that if natural necessities are posited, then there is no problem of induction. In section 2, two models of natural necessity are presented. The “Contingent Natural Necessity” section examines David Armstrong’s explanationist ‘solution’ to the problem of induction. The “Natural Necessity and IBE” section looks in detail into the claim that natural necessity is the best explanation of observed regularity. The “Dispositional Essentialism to the Rescue?” section moves on to Brian Ellis’s dispositional essentialist ‘solution’. The “Sankey’s Helping Hand” section examines Howard Sankey’s attempt to blend dispositional essentialism and explanationism.

Early Gesture Provides a Helping Hand to Spoken Vocabulary Development for Children with Autism, Down Syndrome, and Typical Development

ABSTRACTTypically developing (TD) children refer to objects uniquely in gesture (e.g., point at a cat) before they produce verbal labels for these objects (“cat”). The onset of such gestures predicts the onset of similar spoken words, showing a strong positive relation between early gestures and early words. We asked whether gesture plays the same door-opening role in word learning for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Down syndrome (DS), who show delayed vocabulary development and who differ in the strength of gesture production. To answer this question, we observed 23 18-month-old TD children, 23 30-month-old children with ASD, and 23 30-month-old children with DS 5 times over a year during parent–child interactions. Children in all 3 groups initially expressed a greater proportion of referents uniquely in gesture than in speech. Many of these unique gestures subsequently entered children’s spoken vocabularies within a year—a pattern that was slightly less robust for children with DS, whose word production was the most markedly delayed. These results indicate that gesture is as fundamental to vocabulary development for children with developmental disorders as it is for TD children.

The Proposed Affiliation of Arbor Vitae and Helping Hand

This case examines the merger of two nonprofit organizations from the point of view of the board of directors and senior staff leaders.The case is designed to teach students about the complex issues in nonprofit mergers and to stimulate thinking about the role of the board of directors in mergers.

An extra care community's perceived priorities for 'whole system' relationships: a Q-methodological study.

Health and social care settings worldwide need to sustainably improve the quality of relationships across communities or 'whole systems'. This research informs the development of a relational framework based on stakeholder perspectives. It is grounded in an action research project with practitioners, and draws on a previous literature review, to present the underpinning elements of quality relationships as statements, organised under the headings of integrity, respect, fairness, compassion and trust. Using Q methodology, 27 participants, comprising a range of stakeholders (staff, residents, family and service providers), rank-ordered 48 statements based on perceptions of the importance of differing aspects of relationships. By-person factor analysis was used to create five factors or viewpoints by comparing and contrasting using the composite rankings alongside interview data collected for each participant. The first view 'Altogether now' prioritises compassionate engagement. Second, 'Respect is a two-way street' emphasises the need for reciprocal respect and recognition of history. The factor labelled 'Free spirits' posits the dominant view of freedom. The fourth view 'Families…strengths and challenges' focuses on the necessary and complex involvement of families and finally, 'Helping hands' emphasises the role of relationships in increasing previously low expectations of social integration for previously isolated residents. The different views that exist on the composition of quality relationships can be used to help extra care communities to understand and utilise relationships as a powerful and effective resource.

Helping Hands: Using Augmented Reality to Provide Remote Guidance to Health Professionals.

Access to expert practitioners or geographic distance can compound the capacity for appropriate supervision of health professionals in the workplace. Guidance and support of clinicians and students to undertake new or infrequent procedures can be resource intensive. The Helping Hands remote augmented reality system is an innovation to support the development of, and oversee the acquisition of procedural skills through remote learning and teaching supervision while in clinical practice. Helping Hands is a wearable, portable, hands-free, low cost system comprised of two networked laptops, a head-mounted display worn by the recipient and a display screen used remotely by the instructor. Hand hygiene was used as the test procedure as it is a foundation skill learned by all health profession students. The technology supports unmediated remote gesture guidance by augmenting the object with the Helping Hands of a health professional. A laboratory-based study and field trial tested usability and feasibility of the remote guidance system. The study found the Helping Hands system did not compromise learning outcomes. This innovation has the potential to transform remote learning and teaching supervision by enabling health professionals and students opportunities to develop and improve their procedural performance at the workplace.

Lending a Helping Hand at Work: A Multilevel Investigation of Prosocial Motivation, Inclusive Climate and Inclusive Behavior

Purpose People with disabilities often encounter difficulties at the workplace such as exclusion or unfair treatment. Researchers have therefore pointed to the need to focus on behavior that fosters inclusion as well as variables that are antecedents of such ‘inclusive behavior’. Therefore the purpose of this study was to research the relationship between prosocial motivation, team inclusive climate and employee inclusive behavior. Method A survey was conducted among a sample of 282 paired employees and colleagues, which were nested in 84 teams. Employees self-rated prosocial motivation and team inclusive climate, their inclusive behavior was assessed by colleagues. Hypotheses were tested using multilevel random coefficient modeling. Results Employees who are prosocially motivated will display more inclusive behavior towards people with disabilities, and this relationship is moderated by team inclusive climate in such a way that the relationship is stronger when the inclusive climate is high. Conclusion This study shows that inclusive organizations, which value a diverse workforce, need to be aware of not only individual employee characteristics, but also team level climate to ensure the smooth integrations of people with disabilities into regular work teams.

Scouts offer hand of help to tackle four social problems

Scouts offer hand of help to tackle four social problems

Reliability and Validity of a Novel Internet-Based Battery to Assess Mood andCognitive Function in the Elderly.

Dementia is a chronic condition in the elderly and depression is often a concurrent symptom. As populations continue to age, accessible and useful tools to screen for cognitive function and its associated symptoms in elderly populations are needed. The aim of this study was to test the reliability and validity of a new internet-based assessment battery for screening mood and cognitive function in an elderly population. Specifically, the Helping Hand Technology (HHT) assessments for depression (HHT-D) and global cognitive function (HHT-G) were evaluated in a sample of 57 elderly participants (22 male, 35 female) aged 59-85 years. The study sample was categorized into three groups: 1) dementia (n = 8; Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) score 10-24), 2) mild cognitive impairment (n = 24; MMSE score 25-28), and 3) control (n = 25; MMSE score 29-30). Test-retest reliability (Pearson correlation coefficient, r) and internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha, α) of the HHT-D and HHT-G were assessed. Validity of the HHT-D and HHT-G was tested via comparison (Pearson r) to commonly used pencil-and-paper based assessments: HHT-D versus the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and HHT-G versus the MMSE. Good test-retest (r = 0.80; p < 0.0001) and acceptable internal consistency reliability (α= 0.73) of the HHT-D were established. Moderate support for the validity of the HHT-D was obtained (r = 0.60 between the HHT-D and GDS; p < 0.0001). Results indicated good test-retest (r = 0.87; p < 0.0001) and acceptable internal consistency reliability (α= 0.70) of the HHT-G. Validity of the HHT-G was supported (r = 0.71 between the HHT-G and MMSE; p < 0.0001). In summary, the HHT-D and HHT-G were found to be reliable and valid computerized assessments to screen for depression and cognitive status, respectively, in an elderly sample.

Copay Assistance for Expensive Drugs: A Helping Hand That Raises Costs.

By reducing patients' out-of-pocket costs for expensive drugs, pharmaceutical companies' copay assistance programs may seem helpful. But the authors of this commentary argue that there are importan...

A Helping Hand to Overcome Solubility Challenges in Chemical Protein Synthesis.

Although native chemical ligation (NCL) and related chemoselective ligation approaches provide an elegant method to stitch together unprotected peptides, the handling and purification of insoluble and aggregation-prone peptides and assembly intermediates create a bottleneck to routinely preparing large proteins by completely synthetic means. In this work, we introduce a new general tool, Fmoc-Ddae-OH, N-Fmoc-1-(4,4-dimethyl-2,6-dioxocyclo-hexylidene)-3-[2-(2-aminoethoxy)ethoxy]-propan-1-ol, a heterobifunctional traceless linker for temporarily attaching highly solubilizing peptide sequences ("helping hands") onto insoluble peptides. This tool is implemented in three simple and nearly quantitative steps: (i) on-resin incorporation of the linker at a Lys residue ε-amine, (ii) Fmoc-SPPS elongation of a desired solubilizing sequence, and (iii) in-solution removal of the solubilizing sequence using mild aqueous hydrazine to cleave the Ddae linker after NCL-based assembly. Successful introduction and removal of a Lys6 helping hand is first demonstrated in two model systems (Ebola virus C20 peptide and the 70-residue ribosomal protein L31). It is then applied to the challenging chemical synthesis of the 97-residue co-chaperonin GroES, which contains a highly insoluble C-terminal segment that is rescued by a helping hand. Importantly, the Ddae linker can be cleaved in one pot following NCL or desulfurization. The purity, structure, and chaperone activity of synthetic l-GroES were validated with respect to a recombinant control. Additionally, the helping hand enabled synthesis of d-GroES, which was inactive in a heterochiral mixture with recombinant GroEL, providing additional insight into chaperone specificity. Ultimately, this simple, robust, and easy-to-use tool is expected to be broadly applicable for the synthesis of challenging peptides and proteins.

A Helping Hand: Soft Orthosis with Integrated Optical Strain Sensors and EMG Control

Human fingers and hands are frequently injured because they are delicate, complex, and used constantly. More than 3 million people in the United States suffer from hand or forearm disabilities [1], and, worldwide, hand injuries account for one-third of all work injuries [2]. Due to the importance of hands and the prevalence of hand issues, there is an increasing effort toward developing hand orthotics. These efforts have resulted in active hand orthoses that have been used for rehabilitation training and restoring partial hand function [3]. To ensure safety and to reduce control complexity, some orthoses use mechanical compliances [4], [5] such as underactuated linkages [6] or low-stiffness materials and structures (e.g., rubbers and flexible wires) [7], [8]-[11]. The orthoses made of elastomeric materials tend to be more comfortable, perhaps because their low elastic modulus (10 kPa l G' l 1 MPa) [12] is similar to that of human skin (~100 kPa) [13].

Helping hands: Organizations, institutions work to assist and mentor early career investigators.

Helping hands: Organizations, institutions work to assist and mentor early career investigators.

The Value of a Helping Hand: Do Help-Seekers Accurately Predict Help Quality?

Whether people seek help depends on their expectations of the likelihood and the value of receiving it. While research has examined how accurately help-seekers predict whether their help requests w...

The Price of a Helping Hand: Modeling the Outcomes and Costs of Bystander CPR: Bouland AJ, Risko N, Lawner BJ, et al. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2015;19:524-534.

The Price of a Helping Hand: Modeling the Outcomes and Costs of Bystander CPR: Bouland AJ, Risko N, Lawner BJ, et al. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2015;19:524-534.

Promotora assisted depression care among predominately Hispanic patients with concurrent chronic illness: Public care system clinical trial design

Depression frequently negatively affects patient overall self-care and social stress management within United States safety net care systems. Rates of major depression are significantly high among low-income predominantly Hispanic/Latino with chronic illness, such as diabetes and heart disease. The study design of the A Helping Hand to Activate Patient-Centered Depression Care among Low-income Patients (AHH) randomized clinical trial aims to enhance patient depression care receipt and overall bio-psychosocial self-care management.The AHH trial is conducted in collaboration with three Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) safety net clinics that provide Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) care. The study compares AHH intervention (AHH) in which community-based bilingual promotoras provide in-person or telephone patient engagement and intervention aimed to reduce the burden and strain on patients, families, and care providers by assessing, enhancing, and facilitating patient depression and co-morbid illness self-care management skill, and activating patient communication with clinic medical providers versus DHS PCMH team usual care (PCMHUC). AHH independent bilingual recruiters screened 1957 and enrolled 348 predominantly Hispanic/Latino patients, of whom 296 (85%) had diabetes, 14 (4%) with heart disease, and 38 (11%) with both diseases. Recruiters identified depressed patients by baseline Patient Health Questionnaire-9 scores of 10 or more, completed baseline assessments, and randomized patients to either AHH or PCMHUC study group. The comprehensive assessments will be repeated at 6 and 12months by an independent bilingual follow-up interviewer. Baseline and outcome data include mental health assessment and treatment receipt, co-morbid illness self-care, social relationships, and environmental stressor assessments.

Project Helping Hands Brings Grandmother Power to Uganda

Project Helping Hands Brings Grandmother Power to Uganda

Gestures for Manually Controlling a Helping Hand Robot

Helping hand robots have been the focus of a number of studies and have high potential in modern manufacturing processes and for use in daily living. As helping hand robots interact closely with users, it is important to find natural and intuitive user interfaces for interacting with the robots in various situations. This study describes a set of gestures for interacting with and controlling helping hand robots in situations in which users need to manually control the robot but both hands are not available, for example, when users are holding tools or objects in their hands. The gestures are derived from an experimental study that asked participants for gestures suitable for controlling primitive robot motions. The selected gestures can be used to control translation and orientation of an end effector of a helping hand robot when one or both hands are engaged with tasks. As an example for validating the proposed gestures, we implemented a helping hand robot system to perform a soldering task.