Multidimensional Assessment Framework Research Articles

A study of the mediating effect of decreased intrinsic capacity between symptoms and activities of daily living in elderly patients with heart failure

ObjectiveTo investigate the mediating effect of decreased Intrinsic capacity(IC) between symptoms and ability to perform activities of daily living(ADL) in elderly patients with Heart failure(HF). MethodsUsing a convenience sampling method, 237 elderly patients with HF in the cardiology department of a Grade A Tertiary Hospital in Suzhou, China were selected from January 2022 to November 2022, and the General Information Questionnaire, Symptom Status Questionnaire-Heart Failure (SSQ-HF), Barthel Index Scale (BI), and IC Assessment Tool were applied to investigate the mediating effect of IC between HF symptoms and ADL using structural equation modeling. ResultsHF symptoms and decreased IC were associated with patients' ability to perform ADL (P=0.005, P<0.001), and decreased IC partially mediated the effect between HF symptoms and ADL, indirectly negatively predicting ADL with a mediating effect of -0.412, accounting for 59.11% of the total effect. ConclusionDecreased IC in elderly patients with HF is a mediating variable between HF symptoms and ADL. Healthcare professionals can use the multidimensional assessment framework of IC to identify early the risk of impaired ADL in elderly HF patients and to provide targeted rehabilitation interventions for this group of patients.

A Study on the Spatio-Temporal Evolution Characteristics of Social Development Levels in China

With the increase in regional economic development disparities, a regional coordinated development strategy is put forward that prioritizes human welfare and holistic social progress over a purely materialistic growth model. To address the challenges of balanced regional development, this paper has developed a multidimensional assessment framework of social development encompassing education, healthcare, culture, and social security. Using the entropy weight TOPSIS method, this study measures the social development level across 296 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 1990 to 2020. It explores the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of China’s social development level through the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method and exploratory spatial data analysis. The results indicate that (1) the level of social development in China exhibits a fluctuating upward trend over the time series, showing a phase-wise pattern of decline–rise–rise; (2) there is a clear heterogeneity in the level of social development, with a general hierarchy of Eastern, Northeastern, Western, and Central regions in terms of social development; (3) spatially, China’s social development level has evolved from a patchy distribution in 1990 to a clustered distribution around urban agglomerations by 2020, with pronounced characteristics of spatial imbalance; (4) the level of social development in China displays varying degrees of spatial clustering, with this trend intensifying over time; and (5) over the period 1990–2020, the overall disparity in China’s social development level presents a fluctuating trend, with a notable reduction after an initial increase, and regional disparities following the order of Central, Western, Eastern, and Northeastern regions. This research offers valuable insights for policymakers and scholars seeking to understand and enhance China’s social development landscape.

Mapping sustainability-oriented China’s cropland use stability

Shifting to more sustainable use can curb cropland resource degradation and improve production resilience. However, most cropland use assessments are unilaterally focused on biophysical levels and productivity, ignoring the multi-dimensional aspects of degraded cropland. This study attempts to describe cropland use stability in China by proposing a multi-dimensional assessment framework (including quantity, quality, management, service, and risk) to provide a reference for designing land degradation-neutral strategies. Results show that multi-dimensional cropland use characteristics present significant spatial heterogeneity. Western regions are reserve resource agglomerations that can replenish cropland quantity. In contrast, main grain-producing areas cover most current resources with preferably cultivation quality, management efficiency, and ecosystem services, while risk resistance is weak (especially in Middle-lower Yangtze Plain). Generally, the stability of cropland use in Northeast Plain is the highest and in Loess Plateau the lowest. Besides, urbanization will occupy about 9.31% of the high-stability cropland in 2030, of which 70.29% will occur in Northeast Plain and Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. The total potential productivity loss in Huang-Huai-Hai Plain alone will reach 100.1 kt, equivalent to supplying the food demand of 199,200 people annually. Therefore, a sustainable-oriented refined cropland management strategy should be designed according to the hierarchical nested spatial layout of comprehensive planning-stability map-multi-dimensional utilization characteristics to ensure the loss-replenishment balance and stable production.

Participatory ex-ante impact assessment for interactive research and development in agriculture and food systems

ABSTRACT Drawing upon literature from both impact assessment of development projects and agricultural research, the aim of this article is to analyse the pilot testing of a new multi-dimensional assessment framework for defining and evaluating the societal impact of agricultural research and corresponding education. The research approach involves an action research effort of pilot testing in three case studies from three different countries. The framework assumes a systems view, understands impact as socially embedded, and adopts the concepts of contribution and productive interactions rather than cause-and-effect attribution. The emerging experiences include developing both project-specific and universal indicators; gauging impacts at different levels and sustainability dimensions; handling the issues of attribution and time frame; and the role of stakeholder involvement. The results have the potential to support the development of a new role for impact assessment, by enabling principal actors in research and higher education institutions to take responsibility for contributing to concrete and demonstrable sustainability changes in society.

A Comprehensive Review on Role of Agricultural Extension Services in the Sustainable Development of Global Agriculture

In an era where agriculture is facing unprecedented challenges, from climate change to increasing food demands, this paper aims to critically re-evaluate the current paradigms governing agricultural extension services. These services are instrumental in bridging the gap between agricultural research and practical farming, serving as a catalyst for the dissemination of knowledge, technology, and best practices among farmers. Recognizing their pivotal role in agricultural transformation, this paper offers a comprehensive evaluation of the role and effectiveness of agricultural extension services, advocating for a multidimensional assessment framework that incorporates environmental, social, and economic indicators. Traditionally, the success of agricultural extension services has been measured primarily through yield improvements or technological adoptions. This study argues that such unidimensional assessments are inadequate for capturing the complex, interrelated challenges and opportunities in contemporary agriculture. On the environmental front, factors like soil health, water quality, and biodiversity are shown to be foundational for sustainable agricultural practices and have immediate consequences for crop yield and quality. Social considerations, including farmers' well-being, community cohesion, and equitable access to resources, are equally crucial. These extend the scope of agricultural extension services beyond the mere dissemination of technical knowledge to encompass broader social objectives, such as community development and social equity. Economically, the study underscores the importance of indicators like profitability, yield per hectare, and value-added products, emphasizing that these are both immediate and long-term measures of the success of agricultural practices. By combining these diverse but interrelated metrics, the paper presents a more holistic view of the effectiveness of agricultural extension services. The research concludes by recommending policy adjustments and methodological shifts to incorporate this integrated assessment framework, aiming to guide the transition toward a more sustainable, equitable, and economically viable agricultural landscape.

Multidimensional assessment of regional inequality toward sustainable development

AbstractConsidering various challenges and complexity in sustainable development, there is a need to enhance our understanding of the multidimensionality of spatial inequality (SI). This study proposed a multidimensional equality development index and empirically examined this using a case study of China. The dominant mode of SI has gradually changed from coastal–inland inequality to core–marginal inequality. The five dimensions of SI—economic vitality, innovation capacity, green growth capacity, social amenities, and inclusion and natural amenity—are correlated, and inequality in innovation capacity and economic vitality are major contributors to overall SI in China. A catching‐up effect in development exists across cities. The multidimensional inequalities are rooted in a geographical context and related to size, leading to differentiated evolutionary paths and trends. The proposed multidimensional assessment framework can be applied to other countries to reveal the complexity of inequality and enable the identification and management of barriers.

Developing a multidimensional assessment framework for clean technology transfer potential and its application on the Belt and Road Initiative countries

The transfer of industrial clean technology can contribute to the transformation of industry sustainable development to address the dual challenges of climate change and environmental pollution. Although its importance is widely acknowledged, there is still a lack of scientific and quantitative assessment framework to precisely and effectively identify high-potential cooperation targets in the context of countries with diverse backgrounds. To fill this gap, this study proposed a multidimensional assessment framework for industrial clean technology transfer potential with application in 58 BRI developing countries. This study reviewed existing literature on the main barriers and drivers of clean technology transfer and extracted four assessment dimensions as primary indicators, namely the recipient country's macro environment, industry development, clean technology demand, and clean technology transfer guarantee, with 13 secondary indicators, 52 tertiary indicators based on the open-source database and common assessment index. The established framework was then used to assess the potential for China's industrial clean technology transfer to 58 developing countries under the Belt and Road Initiative, with the weights of indicators at all levels determined by the analytic hierarchy process method based on expert questionnaires and equal weighting method. The findings demonstrate that there are significant differences in clean technology transfer potential among studied countries. Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Malaysia are the best options for China, while Bolivia, Cameroon, and Algeria have the lowest technology transfer potential. Our work can not only assist technology providers with overall country selection in industrial cleaner technology transfer cooperation and strengthen their risk prevention capacity, but also help countries with low cooperation potential or obvious weaknesses to identify deficiencies and make targeted improvements, as well as serve as a reference for other international technology cooperation assessments.

Multidimensional assessment of soil conservation ecosystem services and multiscale analysis of influencing mechanisms

Soil conservation ecosystem services (SCESs) are related to food production, safety of residents, water quality, and public health. However, the traditional assessment framework only focuses on a single dimension of SCESs, and the efficiency and development trends are often overlooked. A multidimensional assessment framework was established to assess SCESs in terms of the total output, efficiency, development trend temporally and spatially. Additionally, the traditional perspective of influencing mechanism analysis was expanded to include spatial heterogeneity. The influencing strength and distance were quantitatively revealed at pixel resolution. The results indicate that (1) the SCESs in Minnesota were generally improved from 1998 to 2018. (2) 70% and 78% of the counties experienced low-output and low-efficiency problems, respectively. (3) The Twin Cities constituted the degradation cores of SCESs in Minnesota. (4) The cropland and forestland proportions and rainfall were the top three influencing factors, causing SCES changes of 0.9959%, 0.4937%, and 0.1536%, respectively, for every 1% change in these factors. (5) According to the influence scopes, the soil organic carbon (SOC) content, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and soil silt content were classified as long-distance factors, the soil sand content, slope and soil clay content were categorized as moderate-distance factors, and the remaining variables were identified as short-distance factors. (6) The influencing factors imposed both positive and negative influences on the SCESs, and attenuation or alteration of the adverse influences on SCESs through specific human interventions is a very promising approach.

Recommendations for developing a lifecycle, multidimensional assessment framework for mobile medical apps.

Digital health and mobile medical apps (MMAs) have shown great promise in transforming health care, but their adoption in clinical care has been unsatisfactory, and regulatory guidance and coverage decisions have been lacking or incomplete. A multidimensional assessment framework for regulatory, policymaking, health technology assessment, and coverage purposes based on the MMA lifecycle is needed. A targeted review of relevant policy documents from international sources was conducted to map current MMA assessment frameworks, to formulate 10 recommendations, subsequently shared amongst an expert panel of key stakeholders. Recommendations go beyond economic dimensions such as cost and economic evaluation and also include MMA development and update, classification and evidentiary requirements, performance and maintenance monitoring, usability testing, clinical evidence requirements, safety and security, equity considerations, organizational assessment, and additional outcome domains (patient empowerment and environmental impact). The COVID‐19 pandemic greatly expanded the use of MMAs, but temporary policies governing their use and oversight need consolidation through well‐developed frameworks to support decision‐makers, producers and introduction into clinical care processes, especially in light of the strong international, cross‐border character of MMAs, the new EU medical device and health technology assessment regulations, and the Next Generation EU funding earmarked for health digitalization.

Multidimensional Assessment of Lake Water Ecosystem Services Using Remote Sensing

Freshwater is becoming scarce worldwide with the rapidly growing population, developing industries, burgeoning agriculture, and increasing consumption. Assessment of ecosystem services has been regarded as a promising way to reconcile the increasing demand and depleting natural resources. In this paper, we proposed a multidimensional assessment framework for evaluating water provisioning ecosystem services by integrating multi-source remote sensing products. We applied the multidimensional framework to assess lake water ecosystem services in the state of Minnesota, US. We found that: (1) the water provisioning ecosystem services degraded during 1998–2018 from three assessment perspectives; (2) the output, efficiency, and trend indices have stable distribution and various spatial clustering patterns from 1998 to 2018; (3) high-level efficiency depends on high-level output, and low-level output relates to low-level efficiency; (4) Western Minnesota, including Northwest, West Central, and Southwest, degraded more severely than other zones in water provisioning services; (5) human activities impact water provisioning services in Minnesota more than climate changes. These findings can benefit policymakers by identifying the priorities for better protection, conservation, and restoration of lake ecosystems. Our multidimensional assessment framework can be adapted to evaluate ecosystem services in other regions.

Applying User-Perceived Value to Determine Motivators of Electricity Use in a Solar Photovoltaic Implementation in a Philippine Island

The most practical solution for over 70% of the world’s unelectrified population is decentralized electrification, usually with renewable energy integration. The sustainability of these systems has been a central issue with studies looking at its multidimensional nature. However, perhaps the most overlooked aspect is the ability of the consumers to proactively use electricity. This paper addresses this urgent need to understand not just the sustainability from exogenous factors but, more importantly, from the factors that motivate the end-users to consume electricity. Applying the concept of user-perceived value (UPV) in electrification, a proposed multidimensional assessment framework, consisting of 12 motivators, was grouped according to UPV categories. Using a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire, 29 beneficiaries in Gilutongan Island, Cordova, Cebu, Philippines, were asked to evaluate their motivation to consume electricity, six months after they were provided with increased electricity access through a 7.92 kWp solar photovoltaic installation. Analysis showed that the households regarded 9 of the 12 factors as moderate to strong motivators, with better social standing compared to other households without electricity and the ability to engage in productive uses of electricity emerging as the strongest influencers. The proposed framework is deemed beneficial to policy-makers to pragmatically understand what drives rural households to proactively consume electricity and implement developments and policies to stimulate an increase in demand.

Multidimensional Assessment of Food Provisioning Ecosystem Services Using Remote Sensing and Agricultural Statistics

With the increasing global population, human demands for natural resources continue to grow. There is a critical need for the sustainable use and development of natural resources. In this context, ecosystem services have attracted more and more attention, and ecosystem services assessment has proven to be useful for guiding research, policy formulation, and management implementation. In this paper, we attempted to assess ecosystem services more comprehensively from various perspectives. We used food provisioning ecosystem services in Minnesota as a case study and proposed two new concepts for assessing ecosystem services: efficiency and trend. We designed a multidimensional assessment framework, analyzed the total output, efficiency, and trend temporally based on both area and space with Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA). We also identified major influencing factors based on remote sensing images in Google Earth Engine and explored the quantitative influence on each assessment dimension. We found that: (1) Food provisioning ecosystem service in Minnesota has generally been improving from 1998 to 2018. (2) We identified food provisioning ecosystem services in Minnesota as superior zones, mixed zones, and inferior zones with a ‘sandwich geo-configuration’. (3) The total output tends to be stable while the efficiency is disturbed by some natural disasters. Simultaneously, the trend index has been improving with slight fluctuations. (4) Agricultural disaster financial support has a stronger impact on stabilizing the total output of food provisioning than the other two dimensions. (5) Soil moisture, diurnal temperature difference, and crop growth are the three main influencing aspects of food provisioning ecosystem services, and the order of the influential density is: the Perpendicular Drought Index (PDI), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Rainfall (RF), Daytime Temperature (DT), and Diurnal Temperature Difference (DIF).

Community level indicators of long term disaster recovery

The experience of individuals, families and communities affected by a major disaster is indicative of the nature of the diverse effects of the disaster and how various interventions, both state and non-state, help or do not help affected communities to recover from the adverse effects of the disaster. An important step in understanding disaster recovery is to define and measure it. However, no such wide-ranging, inclusive and well accepted method of measuring recovery at the community scale currently exists. This paper reports on field work carried out as part of a longer-term study aimed at developing a more integrated, holistic assessment of the disaster recovery process. Using qualitative data from a sample of communities in Sri Lanka affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the study refines and validates a multidimensional assessment framework for monitoring and evaluating recovery processes after a disaster. An earlier study focused on ten communities in Galle, Batticaloa and Ampara districts. This study adopts the same multidimensional assessment framework and indicators, but focuses on ten different communities across Matara, Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts. After examining the recovery process in a significant number of communities over a long period of time, and across twenty communities during two major field studies, the results suggest that the assessment framework has captured the ten most important dimensions of recovery. Since post disaster recovery usually involves a process of resettlement of affected families and individuals, more attention needs to be paid to more vulnerable groups such as children and women, as well important aspects of well- being such as livelihoods, housing, social infrastructure and long-term maintenance of infrastructure. The framework indicators capture these aspects but also the determinants of the nature and level of recovery, indicating the possible precautionary measures to avoid significant shortfalls in recovery in the long term.

Evaluating the usefulness of the structural accessibility layer for planning practice – Planning practitioners’ perception

There has been a growing attention on accessibility concepts from both planning practice and research recognising their relevance in understanding the evolution of urban areas. However, despite the large number of accessibility measures available in the literature, they are not widely used to support urban planning practices. Much has been said about the implementation gap of Planning Support Systems with a significant attention paid to usability and more recently to the usefulness of Accessibility Instruments.The paper aims to assess the usefulness of a specific accessibility instrument – the Structural Accessibility Layer (SAL) – and by doing so exploring the strengths of accessibility instruments holding similar characteristics. To this end, we follow a multidimensional assessment framework under development in the Planning Support System literature. This paper explores the main findings of a workshop bringing together local planning practitioners and the developers of the SAL in an experiment using the SAL.The assessment of usefulness of SAL identified the instrument’s strengths with regard to insight into participants’ assumptions, communication, commitment and development of shared language. Regardless, the low fit between planning concerns of participants (in this case study context) and of the SAL seemed to limit its potential use in practice and as such undermines the strengths identified in the usefulness assessment. The assessment developed here only partially confirmed objectives and purposes defined for the SAL. Results confirm the usefulness of the SAL as diagnosis tool, however, the ability of the SAL to contribute to a joint thinking of land use and transport constraints on mobility was not confirmed. Finally, this research raises questions on the role of PSS in changing strategic thinking in planning and how this might conflict with the current PSS research concern in improving usefulness of tools.

An integrated social response to disasters: the case of the Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka

PurposeThe impact of disasters caused by natural hazards on people in affected communities is mediated by a whole range of circumstances such as the intensity of the disaster, type and nature of the community affected and the nature of loss and displacement. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need to adopt a holistic or integrated approach to assessment of the process of disaster recovery, and to develop a multidimensional assessment framework.Design/methodology/approachThe study is designed as a novel qualitative assessment of the recovery process using qualitative data collection techniques from a sample of communities affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami in Eastern and Southern Sri Lanka.FindingsThe outcomes of the interventions have varied widely depending on such factors as the nature of the community, the nature of the intervention and the mode of delivery for donor support. The surveyed communities are ranked in terms of the nature and extent of recovery.Practical implicationsThe indices of recovery developed constitute a convenient tool of measurement of effectiveness and limitations of external interventions. The assessment used is multidimensional and socially inclusive.Originality/valueThe approach adopted is new to post-disaster recovery assessments and is useful for monitoring and evaluation of recovery processes. It also fits into the social accountability model as the assessment is based on community experience with the recovery process.

A multidimensional framework for assessing the acceptability of recreational all-terrain vehicle access on community trails and local public highways

ABSTRACTOver the last three decades there has been a tremendous growth of recreational all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use in Canada and the United States. This has led to rapidly increasing pressure on local authorities and provincial/state governments to either sanction increased access to ATVs or restrict their use on community trails and local roadways. Given this increased pressure, there is a growing need for a policy development tool to assist decision-makers in making prudent policy decisions that carefully balance special interest lobbying with the broader public interest whether that be at the local or community level, or in the broader context of provincial or state legislative policy. This study presents a decision support framework that guides policy decision-makers to consider a broad range of health and safety factors along with environmental, social and economic considerations. It is envisioned that by using this multi-dimensional assessment framework in an open and transparent way, policy actors will be encouraged to rely on defensible scientific evidence and best practices rather than react to the vociferous advocacy of policy champions.

A multi-dimensional assessment framework for sustainable supply chains

Many organizations are realizing the growing importance of sustainability in today’s business environment and the need to incorporate a supply chain approach, since the implementation of sustainability extends beyond organizational boundaries and involves multiple parties and various considerations. Based on a review of the literature of sustainable supply chain management and the integration of concepts from four organizational theories (using the resource based, institutional, stakeholder and social network perspectives), we illustrate the key drivers and enablers that influence sustainability initiatives at the supply chain level and thereafter propose a multi-dimensional assessment framework, which incorporates economic, environmental and social performance measures that can be used as a tool for the development and management of sustainable supply chains. This paper provides significant theoretical contribution and implications for supply chain management.

Problem analysis: Examining the selection and evaluation of data during problem‐solving consultation

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to analyze how school psychologists engaged in problem analysis during problem‐solving consultation. Five aspects of the problem analysis process were examined: 1) the types of questions participants asked during problem identification, 2) the types of data participants requested, 3) the frequency of requests for each type of data, 4) the use of multiple methods and sources of data across multiple domains, and 5) the criteria used to interpret the data. Four school psychologists were recruited to each complete three fictional consultation cases within a computer‐simulated environment. A qualitative case study method was used. The results of this study revealed how school psychologists used theory, a multidimensional assessment framework, and self‐referent data to analyze a problem. Implications for future research are discussed. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Differentiating Youth Who Sexually Abuse: Applying a Multidimensional Framework When Assessing and Treating Subtypes

SUMMARY Recent empirical research has shown that children with sexual behavior problems and adolescents who offend sexually are diverse populations consisting of several subtypes (Hall, Mathews, & Pearce, 2002; Pithers, Gray, Busconi, & Houchens, 1998; Worling, 2001). This article reviews the descriptive and empirical research related to identifying subtypes of children with sexual behavior problems and adolescents who offend sexually. Examples of clinically and empirically derived typologies are presented. The author discusses how data from the empirically derived typologies can be incorporated within a multidimensional assessment framework based on the Trauma Outcome Process model (Burton, Rasmussen, Bradshaw, Christopherson, & Huke, 1998; Rasmussen, Burton, & Christopherson, 1992; Rasmussen, 1999, 2001, 2002). The application of this framework in assessing and treating children with sexual behavior problems and adolescents who offend sexually is described.

Critical Thinking Assessment of College Students

This paper presents a framework for the assessment of critical thinking in college students. Unfortunately, due to the complex nature of critical thinking and the lack of a consensus definition, no single assessment instrument completely captures critical thinking ability. As a result, we propose a multi-method approach focused on the assessment of three major components of critical thinking—knowledge, thinking skills, and attitudes. Each of these components is a fundamental ingredient of critical thinking, and each requires its own assessment. Knowledge is discipline specific and will require a customized assessment tool However, our experience with three assessment tools shows the Reflective Thinking Appraisal (Wood, 1994) is useful for assessing thinking skills, and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory ([CCTDI] Facione, Facione, & Sanchez, 1994) is useful for assessing attitudes. We also examined the Learning Environment Preferences Survey (Moore, 1988), but it does not seem to be as robust as the CCTDI in assessing attitudes. This multidimensional assessment framework is a viable solution to the problem of using a single instrument to assess critical thinking in college students.