Friend's Home Research Articles

Political affiliation and risk taking behaviors among adults with elevated chance of severe complications from COVID–19

This study determines whether COVID-related risk-taking behavior was different among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, in adults with elevated chance of severe complications from COVID–19. Using US national survey data collected September 30–October 27, 2020 (N = 6095), behaviors in the prior week examined were: 7 potentially risky activities, mask wearing anywhere, and mask wearing while undertaking each activity. Differences among political affiliations were estimated for adults with 0 and with ≥1 medical risk factors for severe complications, adjusting for sociodemographic factors. Among adults with medical risk factors, the adjusted number of potentially risky activities was higher among Republicans (3.83) but not Independents (3.17) relative to Democrats (2.98). The adjusted percentage of adults with medical risk factors who wore a mask anywhere in the past week was lower for Republicans (87%) and Independents (91%) than for Democrats (97%). While undertaking each specific activity, the adjusted percentage of at-risk adults never wearing a mask was higher for Republicans than Democrats: 24% vs 8% at bar/club; 6% vs 0% at grocery/pharmacy; 63% vs 30% visiting at friend's home; 68% vs 41% hosting visitors; 30% vs 5% at gathering of ≥10 people; 25% vs 11% while within 6 ft of someone they do not live with. Rates of mask wearing among political Independents were between rates among Democrats and Republicans. Efforts to reduce COVID-related risky behavior should recognize that although Republicans take more risks, rates of mask wearing at common activities are low across political affiliations, even for populations vulnerable to severe complications.

Halal Consumption as Ethical Practice: Negotiating Halal Certification in South Africa

Abstract In recent decades, the halal certification logo has emerged as a global phenomenon. Halal certification is an attempt to produce a new discursive and material basis for the practice of halal. Halal is extended into new places and products. In South Africa Muslim consumers now query the halal status of tomato sauce, bottled water and even food consumed at the homes of friends and family. Certification is a technology of halal whereby consumers self-regulate practice in new ways. However, the transformations of halal certification have not been complete. Documentary inspection and molecular investigation linked to new kinds of information and new technology have not necessarily eclipsed the importance of intra-Muslim trade, niyya (orientation/intention) and trust for the practice of halal. This paper considers the narratives and practices of middle-class Muslims in South Africa towards an understanding of the complex ways in which halal is practiced and transformed.

Fetishizing the Foot: Mobility and Meaning in Indian Ocean Sandals

Fetishizing the Foot: Mobility and Meaning in Indian Ocean Sandals

Application and Development Trend of Smart Home in Residential Interior Design

Smart home is the product of artificial intelligence, which can provide people with a safe, comfortable and environmentally friendly home environment, as well asmeets people’s living needs in residences in an all-round and personalized way and has a good development prospect. This paper expounded the development, classification and application of smart home in residential interior design. Taking Bill Gates’ “Future Home” as an example, it analyzed that the introduction of smart home can organically combine residences, users, environment and plants to provide a better living environment for human beings.

Способность прощать и домашняя среда как аспекты межличностного взаимодействия

Objectives. Investigate the individual’s ability to forgive concerning the characteristics of a friendly home environment. Background. The article continues the series of works devoted to the role of the home environment in the interpersonal interaction. Everyday communication involves the distribution of different resources; this process requires personal qualities that ensure a tolerant attitude to violations of justice. Study design. At the first stage of the study, psychometric examination of the Russian-language Heartland Forgiveness Scale was carried out; at the second stage, a correlation study established the relationship between the qualities of a friendly home and the ability of the inhabitants to forgive. Participants. Five hundred ninety students (M=18,7, SD=1,1, 477 females, and 113 males). Measurements. Multi-scale questionnaires: Home Environment Functionality, Home Environment Relevance, and Home Attachment. Results. The Russian version of Heartland Forgiveness Scale includes two sub-scales Readiness to forgive and Lack of ruminations and has good reliability. The results of the main study were gender-sensitive. In females, the characteristics of a friendly home are positively related to the ability to forgive, while in males, they are negatively related. The highest number of connections is formed by functionality of home; in males — also by the home attachment. Conclusions. Against males, home implements amplifying function, and concerning girls — is ennobling; to develop the ability to forgive the young men need separation from home. The contribution of the home environment to the development of the ability to forgive is determined by the context of human development: both forgiveness and non-forgiveness are adaptive phenomena that are important for solving social problems, the content of which is set by the respondents’ gender.

Reading relationships, worlds and reality: a multimodal analysis of Lego City and Lego Friends home pages

Existing literature highlights the gendered worlds of children’s toys, Lego City and Friends included, which target boys and girls respectively. The current article critically examines City and Friends home pages, since these act as a concise introduction to their online and offline spheres. I am particularly interested in how the two home pages differently summarise the sets and represent ‘reality’ for users; by this, I refer to the toys’ relationship with users’ real-life existences, both regarding the modality of their represented worlds and how users are encouraged to interact with the toy. Analysis indicates that, although both explicitly position themselves as toys to be used in viewers’ worlds, Friends and City present disparate realities and relationships with users. Friends promotes both real-life and imaginary friendship for consumers through interacting with its girl friendship group, whereas City emphasises action-oriented relationships where users are elevated to a heroic status in the imaginary city. I show how these relationships are realised through different semiotic resources, including visual modalities, linguistic choices and website format. I consider the intricacies of their semiotic choices and conclude by discussing the potential implications of these choices for shaping how children interact with and emotionally engage with the toys.

DO WHAT I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO? CHALLENGING CONTEMPORARY WISDOM ABOUT RESIDENCE IN OLD AGE

An environmental gerontologist teaching about “aging and environment” for 30 years, I had it all figured out. Downsize and divest, stair free environment, universal design, environmental centralization, location close to services. At 60, I was consulting with an architect to design an age friendly home and searching for a level plot. But then, serendipitously, we found our current home, a residence defying all of these principles. An irresponsible denial of aging and pending frailty? Thirteen years later, I’m not so sure. In this presentation, I explain why, focusing on processes of “making and remaking home” and “being in place” that have been central themes in my research career. I explore ways in which as my wife and I grow older, harnessing modern technologies, newly emergent living arrangements and contemporary communication, we anticipate being able to age in place far longer than has been possible for previous generations.

Assessment of Pediatric Residents' Attitudes toward Anticipatory Counseling on Gun Safety.

Introduction: Guns remain a major cause of injury and death among children. We determined pediatric residents’ familiarity with gun safety campaigns and their gun safety counseling practices. We determined pediatric residents’ comfort with the Asking Saves Kids (ASK) campaign, which recommends that parents ask about gun safety and storage where their children play. Methods: Cross-sectional 27-item electronic survey was distributed to three pediatric residency programs in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Residents were asked to respond to statements using a seven-point Likert scale on familiarity with three gun safety campaigns and their attitudes toward gun safety counseling. Results: 82% of respondents were not familiar with gun safety programs. 23% reported not counseling. 87% believed it is a good idea to ask about guns in a home but only 64% were comfortable recommending their patients’ parents to ask about guns. 59% were personally comfortable asking about guns in the home. 15% believed their patients’ parents would be comfortable asking about guns in the homes of friends and families. Conclusions: The residents in this survey supported the idea of gun safety anticipatory guidance but discussing firearms can be problematic. Educational programs and strategies are needed to support physicians’ counselling on gun safety.

Screening Value of Social Frailty and Its Association with Physical Frailty and Disability in Community-Dwelling Older Koreans: Aging Study of PyeongChang Rural Area.

Population aging is a challenge, therefore efficient frailty screening has been increasingly emphasized for mass older populations. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of social frailty and its association with physical frailty, geriatric syndromes and activity of daily living (ADL) disability in community-dwelling older adults. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 408 older adults (mean age, 75 years; 58% female) in the Aging Study of PyeongChang Rural Area. A five-item social frailty index was administered (range: 0–5); (1) going out less frequently; (2) rarely visiting the homes of friends; (3) feeling unhelpful to friends and family; (4) being alone; and (5) not talking with someone every day. Social frailty was defined as ≥2 positive responses. Physical frailty was assessed according to the Cardiovascular Health Study frailty phenotype criteria. We used logistic regression to examine whether social frailty can identify older adults with common geriatric syndromes including ADL disability, independently of age, gender, and physical frailty. Social frailty was present in 20.5% (14.5% in male and 25.0% in female) and 11.5% was not overlapped with physical frailty. Social frailty increased risk of ADL disability (odds ratio, 2.53; 95% confidence interval, 1.26–5.09) and depressed mood (odds ratio, 4.01; 95% confidence interval, 1.30–12.39) independently of age, gender, and physical frailty. The predictive power for disability was maximized by using both frailty indices (C statistic 0.73) compared with either frailty index alone (C statistic: 0.71 for social frailty and 0.68 for physical frailty). Social frailty screening is important as it can identify frail older adults who are not captured by demographic characteristics and physical frailty. Moreover, assessment of both social frailty and physical frailty can better detect disability and geriatric syndromes.

Life style activities and feeling state responses in community sample of diabetic patients in Eastern Providence Saudi Arabia.

The aim of the present study was to surveyed life style activity levels within diabetic patients attending the King Fahd teaching hospital of the University, Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, and studied their feeling towards performing different physical activity. For this purpose, thirty Diabetic patients were randomly recruited, physically tested and handed a questionnaire to fill in. The result showed that the levels of physical activity are low and found an excessive use of cars by patients to go to public services and homes of friends and neighbors. Such unhealthy lifestyle habits encouraged patients to follow unhealthy habits such as disordered working patterns and infrequent social activity. While for those who follow healthy lifestyle pattern have better feeling while doing certain activities. For instance, patients who exercise running or jogging activities have better feeling while they rum. Moreover, patient who have healthier relaxing lifestyle pattern, have better feeling of what they do while they relax. The use of exercise physiologists or physiotherapists and psychologists, education system is highly needed to explaining about the health benefits of physical activity. Physical activities should be promoted within the real context of the built environment in the eastern province, KSA.

Effect of gluten-free diet and compliance on quality of life in pediatric celiac disease patients.

BackgroundQuality of life (QOL) in children with celiac disease (CD) has been sparsely studied.AimsWe aimed to study QOL in pediatric CD and the effect of a gluten‐free diet (GFD) in a North Indian population.MethodsQOL was assessed at baseline and 6 months after GFD using a pediatric symptom checklist (PSC) score. The effect of GFD was assessed using a CD‐specific questionnaire on domains such as dietary compliance, parental behavior and perceptions, children's feeling, and difficulty identifying gluten‐free foods.ResultsA total of 60 CD children (age 6.03 ± 0. 42 years, range: 2–12 years, M:F 2:1) were prospectively enrolled. The median PSC score at baseline was 11.5 (2–35), which showed a statistically significant improvement after GFD to 2.5 (0–34) (P < 0.001). Significant concerns regarding specific domains emerged: difficulty in maintaining GFD 26.2%, at school 14.3%, at parties 43.2%, poor taste 11.4%, special diet a burden 28.5%, felt left out at school or friend's home 40.9%, felt different from other kids 40.9%, felt embarrassed to bring GFD to parties 54.6%, felt angry about following a special diet 56.8%, felt not invited out for meals because of CD 13.6%, and difficulty determining if food available was gluten free in 75%.ConclusionGFD has a significant impact on emotional, behavioral, and psychosocial domains in children with CD. Proper labeling of commercially available food items, counseling, and patient support groups are the need of the hour.

Examining the Social and Built Environment Factors Influencing Children’s Independent Use of Their Neighborhoods and the Experience of Local Settings as Child-Friendly

Neighborhoods have traditionally served as important settings for children’s independent activities, but use has declined dramatically. Global positioning system (GPS) monitors, activity diaries, annotated maps, and Google Earth–enabled interviews captured the neighborhood perceptions, usage, and independent activity ranges of twenty-three children (nine to twelve years) from London, Canada. While few participants used neighborhood settings on a habitual basis, local parks and homes of nearby friends were important independent destinations. Usage was strongly influenced by positive and negative social conditions, but local environments did not generally cater well to the shifting interests of resident children. Embedding child-friendly affordances through neighborhood planning may improve children’s experience and independent use of local settings.

Does social housing reduce homelessness? A multistate analysis of housing and homelessness pathways

This article presents a multistate demographic approach for analyzing the longitudinal dynamics of housing and homelessness. The approach is applied to a sample of highly disadvantaged individuals in Australia to assess whether private housing markets and interpersonal support networks provide stable housing trajectories vis-à-vis public and community (social) housing. Discrete-time competing risk survival models are specified to estimate the probabilities of exiting housing to six housing and homeless states. Model outputs are applied to a microsimulation model to estimate the duration of episodes and the cumulative incidence of subsequent episodes of housing and homelessness. The results suggest that private housing markets carry an increased risk of housing exit relative to social housing. The homes of family and friends are the most common destination, though this type of support is usually time limited and often precipitates episodes of homelessness. These findings warrant policy consideration as to how housing markets can provide better affordability and security for low income households.

A study to assess the causes, sources, and effects of selected psychoactive substance use among a selected rehabilitation center in Hyderabad with a view to develop an informational booklet

Background: Psychoactive substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is a patterned use of drug in which the user consumes the substance in amounts or with methods which are harmful to themselves or others and is a form of substance-related disorder. Objectives: The aim of the study was to assess the causes, sources, and effects of psychoactive substance use. Methodology: The present study is done by nonexperimental descriptive method, and the sampling technique used was purposive sampling technique. The study was conducted on a group of 60 inmates in Asha Jyothi Rehabilitation Center using a structured questionnaire.In regards to the effects of substance abuse reveal that majority (58.3%) of the clients were moderately affected and the remaining (41.6%) were severely affected.There were no addicts with mild effects. With regard to causes, 30 (60%) samples took substances to feel energetic and 24 (40%) of them take to feel high on taking just once. Major cause of psychoactive substance use identified was peer pressure found in 28 (46.3%) inmates. Regarding the sources of procurement, the majority, i.e., 36 (60%), of subjects consumed alcohol. The main source of procurement was friends (35, 58.3%) and the preferred place was in friend's home (27, 45%) with friends (44, 73.3%). The study can be useful in educating youth and addicts about substance abuse and its prevention.

College Student Beliefs and Behavior Regarding Sharing When Smoking Hookahs.

Objectives: We examined college students' beliefs and behavior regarding sharing when smoking a hookah, a practice that may involve substantial risk of disease transmission. Methods: We carried out a cross-sectional Web-based survey of undergraduate ever users of hookah (N = 970) at a US university in 2007. Results: Hookah sharing started at initiation of hookah use. The first-time participants smoked hookah, 96.9% shared it, and 97.5% were with friends either in a hookah lounge (59.5%) or at a friend's home (30%). Participants shared a hookah when they first smoked it because sharing was acceptable with friends, family, or trusted others, normative etiquette, not problematic/harmful, cheaper, or the only smoking option. Participants did not use a mouth tip when they first smoked a hookah because it is not necessary with friends/family, there was no tip available, they were unaware of tips, or did not want to use one. Conclusions: Overwhelmingly, hookah sharing started at smoking initiation. Efforts are needed to create an environment in which sharing hookah practices are less acceptable such as increasing awareness of potential health risks of sharing, particularly among youth, and providing disposable hoses, disposable mouth tips, and proper hookah device cleaning practices in private and public hookah venues settings.

Drivers of consumer attention to mandatory energy-efficiency labels affixed to home appliances: An emerging market perspective

The implementation of mandatory energy-efficiency on electronic products is one of the strategies used by governments to mitigate the environmental impact of consumption. Yet, studies on mandatory energy-efficiency labels and the pivotal role of consumers' attention to such labels remain limited. Thus, this study examines the key drivers of consumers’ attention to energy-efficiency labels that must by law be affixed to all home appliances sold in South Africa. Based on the signalling theory and the attitude-to-behaviour theory, an integrated model was designed to explore these drivers. Using the data from a survey involving 440 South African home appliance users, the model was tested through the structural equation modelling (SEM) approach. The empirical results indicated that consumers pay attention to energy-efficiency labels when they trust the energy-efficiency credentials of products, and when they intend to purchase energy-efficient appliances. Perceived product price was established as an important marketing signal for improving consumer trust in energy-efficiency labels, while social norms and attitude were confirmed as the most important antecedents of the consumer purchase intention of energy-efficient appliances. The findings provide important insights useful for the development of policy interventions aimed at promoting the use of more environmentally friendly home appliances.

Hierarchical Cooperative Discovery of Personal Places from Location Traces

It is becoming increasingly important to accurately detect a user's presence at certain locations during certain times of the day, e.g., to study the user's patterns with respect to mobility, behavior, or social interactions and to enable the delivery of targeted services. However, instead of geographic locations, it is often more important to determine a locale that is relevant to the user, e.g., the place of work, home, homes of family and friends, social gathering places, etc. These significant personal places can be determined through analysis, e.g., via segmentation of location traces into a discrete sequence of places. However, segmentation of traces with many gaps (e.g., due to loss of network connectivity or GPS signal) results in a large number of small segments, where many of these segments actually belong together. This work proposes a novel segmentation approach that opportunistically fills gaps in a user's location trace by borrowing location data from other co-located users utilizing the power of mobile crowd sensing and computing (MCSC) paradigm. Through our analysis of four separate large-scale crowd sensing study datasets, we show that our approach yields more and larger segments than the state-of-the-art, where each segment accurately represents the presence of a user at a significant personal place.

Applicability of ‘Aging in Place’ in redeveloped public rental housing estates in Hong Kong

Rapidly aging society is a global phenomenon with serious societal impact. With the rapid growth in the aging population in Hong Kong, it is foreseeable that every flat unit will accommodate one senior citizen. To address this looming problem, the Hong Kong Government has introduced several aged friendly home design elements and care facilities to redeveloped public rental housing estates. This study aimed to investigate the implementation of the “aging in place” philosophy, through evaluating the applicability and effectiveness of those facilities. A redevelopment project, the Un Chau Estate in Hong Kong was selected as a case study. Ecological theory is applied to evaluate the case study at micro, meso and macro scales. The methodological approaches include (a) a questionnaire survey, (b) face-to-face group discussions and (c) in-depth interviews. Results reveal that senior satisfaction levels with the new elements investigated were below the levels of perceived importance. In particular, the seniors emphasized the lack of a sense of home and privacy in their residences. They were, however, moderately satisfied with the independence and dignity and comfort and health elements. The results also reveal that the provision of common facilities is not up to standard in meeting the needs of the elderly. The majority of the elderly consistently opined that aging in place is their priority. To some extent, the extreme case of Hong Kong as a showcase of a dense populated aged Asian city, sheds light on how public housing (re)development can be designed to facilitate aging in place. A more comprehensive and refined approach at micro, meso, and macro scales is necessary to guarantee the satisfactory implementation of aging in place.

Creating “therapeutic landscapes” at home: The experiences of families of children with autism

This study explores the challenges faced within the home environment by North American families of children with autism. The study also examines the diversity and extent of physical modifications introduced by the families to alleviate these challenges. The concept of therapeutic landscapes is employed as a framework to examine how physical modifications transform the home environment into a place of healing for both the children with autism and their family members. Finally, the study offers a general design framework that can ultimately guide home designers and policymakers in developing friendly home environments for children with autism and their families.

Psychiatrists Go Beyond Call of Duty to Respond to Harvey’s Victims

Psychiatrists Go Beyond Call of Duty to Respond to Harvey’s Victims