Issue In Thailand Research Articles

Assessing Effectiveness of Aggression Replacement Training at a Technical College in Thailand

Youth violence is a significant public health issue in Thailand where most people who are injured are vocational college students. There is a need to identify methods whereby such violence can be prevented. We trialed a group program in a technical college in Thailand with 23 students who received a modified version of aggression replacement training. We then compared their results with those of 24 students who did not receive any intervention or preintervention at 1 and 3 month followups. Although we found little evidence supporting the effectiveness of the intervention, participants in the intervention group suggested in the followup in-depth interviews that they felt more able to avoid or ignore provocation, and that they thought more about the consequences of aggressive behavior than they did prior to the intervention.

Energy, emissions and environmental impact analysis of wind turbine using life cycle assessment technique

Wind turbine used for electricity generation is known as clean and renewable energy technology. The worldwide increasing trend of wind turbine installation present and future projection addressing the issue of energy required for manufacture and environmental impact due to energy consumption. The life cycle energy and environmental impact of wind turbine has been studied in many literature, but some studies are based on average data, the life cycle stages are incomplete of some study, most of the literature are horizontal axis type and the literature for Asian developing countries are rare. In addition, the life cycle study of vertical axis wind turbine is unusual. Since, the life cycle assessment (LCA) study varied from location to location due to industrial performance, countries energy mix and related issues, a life cycle embodied energy, emissions and environmental impacts analysis were undertaken for two grid connected rooftop wind turbines (vertical axis and horizontal axis) considering the industrial performance, applications and related issues in Thailand. The life cycle assessment was done using SimaPro 7.3.3 software from cradle to grave for base case and for alternative cases. The result showed that, wind turbine installation in Thailand at Chiangmai is reliable to deliver wind energy over the year compared to Phuket and Surat Thani Island. The vertical axis wind turbine is energy and emission intensive per kWh/year energy delivered compared to horizontal axis wind turbine for base case system. The embodied energy and environmental impact could be possible to reduce by more than 60% and 50% respectively using reuse of materials strategy. The embodied energy of vertical axis wind turbine could be possible to reduce by 36% with thermoplastic and 40% with fiberglass plastic turbine instead of aluminum turbine, while the environmental impact reduction more than 15% has been observed. The energy intensity, CO2 emission intensity and energy payback time found to be lower when compared with literature.

A Study on the Present Situation of Community Development Activities by Urban Middle-income Communities and the Institutional Issues in Thailand

A Study on the Present Situation of Community Development Activities by Urban Middle-income Communities and the Institutional Issues in Thailand

Contemporary Water Management Issues in Thailand in Comparative Perspective

Water management is a complex and multifarious issue that joins together a wide range of different problems and approaches. Since water is essential to human life, governments must make efforts to ensure that everyone receives the water necessary but, at the same time, they have to wrestle with the fact that water is a scarce resource that must be priced for consumption under conditions of constantly increasing demand from cities, industry, agriculture and tourism. Examination of three case studies, Australia, Singapore and Japan, indicates that contemporary water management issue may be considered in a number of categories and analysis has taken place on four such categories. These are global climate change, disaster mitigation, political and legal modernization and allocation of water resources. The case studies inform the discussion of water management practices and prospects for Thailand and it is shown that the country is progressing towards the examples represented by the more developed and advanced countries insofar as it is ever possible to import a water management solution into the very specific geographical, hydrological, social, political and cultural conditions in effect in a specific location.

Prevalence and Psychosocial Correlates of Illicit Drug Use among School-going Adolescents in Thailand

AbstractIllicit drug use is a relevant public health issue in Thailand. The assessment of the prevalence of illicit drug use among adolescents may guide policies and programmes aimed at reducing il...

A 6-year experience of CPR outcomes in an emergency department in Thailand

PurposeSudden cardiac arrest is a common emergency condition found in the emergency department of the hospital. The survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients is 2.0%–10.0% and 7.4%–27.0% percent for in-hospital cardiac arrest patients. The factors for survival outcome are divided into three main groups: patient characteristics, pre-hospital factors, and resuscitated information. The objective of this study was to evaluate the related factors, outcome, and survival rate in patients with cardiac arrest who received cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) at Ramathibodi Emergency Medicine Department. There are limited data for this issue in Thailand and other Asian countries.MethodsThis retrospective study included all patients who were older than 15 years with sudden cardiac arrest and who were resuscitated in the emergency room between January 2005 and December 2010. Descriptive analytic statistics and logistic regressions were used to analyze factors that related to the sustained return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) and survival at discharge.ResultsThere were 181 patients enrolled. The overall sustained ROSC rate was 34.8% and the survival rate at discharge was 11.1%. There were 145 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest patients, in whom the survival rate was 52.4% and the survival to discharge rate was 7.6%. For inhospital cardiac arrest, there were 36 patients with a survival rate of 86.1% and the survival to discharge rate was 25.0%. Statistically significant factors related to sustained ROSC were good and moderate cerebral performance, in-hospital cardiac arrest, beginning of CPR in less than 30 minutes, and cardiopulmonary cause of arrest. The factors influencing survival to discharge were cardiopulmonary causes of cardiac arrest.ConclusionFactors associated with sustained ROSC were functional status before cardiac arrest, location of cardiac arrest, duration of CPR, and cause of cardiac arrest. Survival rate was related to the cause of cardiac arrest.

Temporal and Spatial Variations in Ambient Air Quality during 1996-2009 in Bangkok, Thailand

The severe air pollution in Bangkok (BKK) is an important issue in Thailand. The Bangkok air quality and meteorological data used in this study were collected by the Pollution Control Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Thailand, during 1996–2009. Measurements of hourly air quality and meteorological data were derived from 10 residential and seven roadside sites. Pearson’s chi-square cross tabulation statistics show that the 24-hour mean PM10 concentrations at both roadside and residential sites were to be significantly higher than the Thai National ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. The daily 1-hour maximum O3 (O3-1hr) concentration was higher than the Thai NAAQS at both sites. However, the concentrations of 8-hour time-weighting average of CO (CO8hr) were lower than the Thai NAAQS at both sites. The 24-hour average SO2 concentration and the daily 1-hour mean concentration of NO2 were higher than the WHO guidelines, but complied with the Thai NAAQS at both sites. A stepwise multiple linear regression model was used to analyze the significant factors affecting PM10, CO8hr, O3-1hr, NO2, and SO2 levels at both sites, and the results showed a decreased association with meteorological parameters and an increased association with the area studied and seasons. In contrast, O3-1hr levels exhibited a decreased association with the area studied. This study found that traffic emissions are the major factor causing the spatial variation in air pollutants in BKK, Thailand, while the meteorological parameters might be the main factors that affect the temporal variations. Our findings show the heterogeneously spatiotemporal characteristics of air pollution in BKK, and can be used to help mitigate this problem.

Alcohol Use and Associated Factors among Adolescent Students in Thailand

Alcohol misuse is a relevant public health issue in Thailand. The assessment of the prevalence of alcohol use among adolescents may guide policies and programmes aimed at reducing alcohol use among this age group. Using data from the Thailand Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) 2008, we assessed the prevalence of alcohol use and the associated factors among adolescents (n = 2758). Overall, the prevalence of current alcohol use was 14.8% (21.2% males and 9.3% females). Variables positively associated with the outcome in multivariable analysis among boys were older age, other substance use (smoking and illicit drug use), sex in the past 12 months, physical fighting, injury in the past 12 months; and among girls, poverty, smoking, physical fighting and lack of parental or guardian connectedness. Efforts to prevent and control alcohol misuse may need to address a cluster of risk behaviours including cigarette smoking.

Management of Cross-border Migration: Thailand as a Case of Net Immigration

Abstract The increase of migrant workers into the Kingdom of Thailand began in the mid-1980s and early 1990s when Thailand was in transition from a low-end labour-intensive economy, to a capital-intensive one. The role of migrant workers became even more evident when Thailand encountered the economic crisis of the mid-1990s. Current statistics indicate that Thailand receives more than a million migrant workers from neighbouring countries, including Myanmar, Lao PDR and Cambodia. This paper traces the five stages of the Royal Thai Government’s (RTG) policies to managing cross-border migration and migrant worker issues in Thailand. It argues that despite the introduction of policies of management of the issue, migrant workers are vulnerable to human trafficking. Furthermore, as more often than not migrant workers are irregular migrants, they are treated as a risk to national security. As such they are vulnerable to labour exploitation. This paper analyses the problems in policy and legal enforcement between countries of origin and the RTG, suggesting ways in which these problems can be overcome to ensure compliance with international norms, and thus the responsibility of the RTG to its ‘foreign workers’.

A Safety Assessment Approach Using Safety Enablers and Results

Industrial safety is an important issue in Thailand, and attempts have been made to improve safety performance and accident records. This paper examines key criteria influencing safety improvement. Exploratory factor analysis confirms 9 safety criteria, including 5 “enablers” and 4 “results”, with a total of 47 associated attributes. A safety assessment approach is developed, using those 9 key criteria, to measure an organization’s current safety maturity level. Organizations can use the assessment approach to plan its safety improvement, and progress through to higher maturity levels by focusing on the weakest criteria shown in the assessment results with the lowest scores.

Reasons Why Thai Employees Want to Join Labor Unions: Evidence in Private Companies and State Enterprises

This study provides an empirical analysis of reasons why Thai employees want to join labor unions in order todeepen our understanding of unionization-related issues in Thailand. The presidents, leaders and members oflabor unions for nine private companies and two state enterprises participated in this survey. Based on 1841 validresponses from a total population of 44573 persons, our findings demonstrated that there are three main reasonswhy Thai employees want to join labor unions: compensation, safeguard against dismissal, and legalconsultation (in descending order).

Disability rehabilitation policy in Thailand: explaining why it has come under fire

This article critically reviews the disability and rehabilitation issues in Thailand. Obviously, the disability rehabilitation policy has predominantly been under a medical model. The article argues that as the government agencies only view people with disabilities as ones who want to be cared for, the voices of disabled people are persistently ignored in policy making and implementation. It therefore concludes that the Thai government fails to grasp the magnitude of disabled people's rights in disability and rehabilitation issues.

Ethical and Effective Ethnographic Research Methods: A Case Study with Afghan Refugees in California

SCHOLARLY STUDIES OF REFUGEES and other vulnerable populations carry special ethical concerns. In this invited case study of Afghan refugees in Fremont, California, I provide illustrations and recommendations of ethical research methods with refugees. I also compare and contrast some ethical issues in the U.S. with issues in Thailand. The qualitative, ethnographic methods I report here demonstrate how to conduct culturally sensitive investigations by ethically approaching gatekeepers and other community members to preserve autonomy, ensure confidentiality, build trust, and improve the accuracy of interpretations and results. Six groups at risk for being marginalized in multiple ways within refugee populations are described. Ten best practices are recommended for ethically acquiring an in-depth understanding of the refugees, their community, and appropriate research methods.

Digital initiatives and metadata use in Thailand

PurposeThis paper aims to provide information about various digital initiatives in libraries in Thailand and especially use of Dublin Core metadata in cataloguing digitized objects in academic and government digital databases. Design/methodology/approach – The author began researching metadata use in Thailand in 2003 and 2004 while on sabbatical from the University of Vermont. A small number of government libraries were in the process of building up their digital databases. These were identified from a survey conducted by the author at that time. The author continues to monitor the development of digital initiatives and has identified several new digital initiatives created by academic institutions since then. The digital initiatives operated by Thai government agencies and academic institutions that existed in 2007 are presented, along with one example of a metadata record randomly selected from each of these projects. These examples illustrate Dublin Core metadata use and cataloguing practice employed in these digital databases. The author's current research on the development of digital initiatives is included. Findings – This paper presents what the author feels are some significant technical and legal issues facing Thai digital initiatives. A major copyright issue in Thailand, the ineffective enforcement of intellectual property laws relating to access rights, is presented. Also discussed is the significant obstacle to record retrieval created by the structure and complexity of the Thai language. Originality/value – This paper identifies important issues and problems related to Thai digital initiatives and offers suggestions and comments aimed at enhancing the development and progress of digital initiatives both in the Thai library community and internationally.

Consumer Attitudes Towards and Willingness to Pay for Pesticide Residue Limit Compliant “Safe” Vegetables in Northeast Thailand

Pesticide residue in vegetables is a major food safety issue in Thailand. A range of vegetable products (organic/pesticide-free/ hydroponic) has emerged in Thai markets that guarantee compliance with maximum residue limits. The Government of Thailand is eager to extend the benefits of this suite of alternative vegetables to the entire population, particularly the semi-urban/rural segments that are often bypassed by such speciality products. However, little information is available to guide such an effort, particularly with regard to up-country consumer attitudes, shopping and consumption habits and willingness to pay premiums for such produce. This research aims to fill this gap in knowledge. It reports the results of a survey of vegetable consumption and shopping habits and attitudes of 608 consumers in northeast Thailand. Willingness to pay premiums for pesticide residue limit compliant vegetables is also assessed by using a contingent valuation method, and determinants of willingness to pay are examined using an ordered probit empirical model. Results indicate that, given adequate awareness of relative risks, even up-country consumers are willing to pay market premium levels for these products, and that inadequate availability, rather than lack of demand is the constraining factor. Willingness to pay is found to increase with income, age and supermarket sourcing of vegetables. We also discuss the challenge of improving availability at mainstream outlets.

Attitudes to the development and implementation of social and environmental accounting in Thailand

Motivated and shaped by a concern to realise the potentiality of accounting communication in relation to social and environmental issues in Thailand, this paper evaluates perceptions of current accounting as well as attitudes to social and environmental accounting among Thai accounting professionals. Making use of empirical data generated by questionnaire study and interviews, this paper aims to shed more light on the development and implementation of social and environmental accounting in Thailand. It argues that any change of accounting in future is likely to involve a change in the nature of the Thai accounting profession itself. The paper suggests ways in which the future development of social and environmental accounting practice might be given further impetus in the Thai context.

Key Issues in Information Systems Management: A Comparative Study of Academics and Practitioners in Thailand

This study was designed to examine the information systems (IS) key issues in Thailand by comparing IS academics and practitioners within the country, and by comparing Thailand as a whole with other developed and developing countries. The economic development based on GDP per capita was used to classlfj, the developed and developing countries. The Q-Sort method, a ranking technique, was used to rank the IS key issues. The data were collected through an Internet survey website. The findings show that the issue of building information technology (Ig infrastructure was projected to be the top issue over the next three to five years in Thailand. The importance ranking of IS key issues in Thailand was similar to the studies from developed countries but dlflerent than the studies from developing countries. There was a signljkant dlflerence in the importance rankings of IS key issues between academics and practitioners in Thailand. However, they were in agreement on the first and second ranking IS key issues, which were building IT infrastructure and IS strategic planning, respectively.

The impact of good governance on organization performance after the Asian crisis in Thailand

After the Asian crisis and resulting insolvency in the banking and corporate sectors, the quest for improvement of corporate governance, as a pre-requisite for better performance, has become an increasingly important issue in Thailand. Previous studies investigating the relationship between corporate governance and performance have largely ignored the impact of this critical factor on the functional level and its effect on the overall performance of organizations. Based on a cross- industry survey of 112 Thai listed companies, it was found that good corporate governance practices have a positive impact on performance improvement at the functional level of organizations and ultimately contribute to organizational performance.

Revisiting Publics: A Critical Archaeology of Publics in the Thai HIV/AIDS Issue

This essay revisits the concept of publics. It explores the notion of a public as a political site in which an economy of power plays out. More specifically, a public is conceived as a locus in which material resources and discourses are appropriated and exchanged among participants to effect social and political transformation or to maintain the status quo. Foucault's archaeology and Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory were used to analyze 3 data sets: 136 news articles, 20 United Nations AIDS reports, and 14 in-depth interviews with various organizations related to the HIV/AIDS issue in Thailand. Based on the analysis, 3 historical conditions--resource dependency, discursive connectivity, and legitimacy--were used to frame a typology of four publics: circumscribed, co-opted, critical, and circumventing publics.

'The land of smiles': people issues in Thailand

'The land of smiles': people issues in Thailand