Life Of People Research Articles

The detrimental effect of socio-economic factors on cotton productivity in the tribal region of Odisha

Cotton is a crucial cash crop in the tribal belt of Odisha. It has a significant effect on the livelihood of the tribal people. The volatile socio-economic background of the tribal farmers is a major hindrance to the proper development of the agriculture sector. In this regard, it is important to study the possible factors affecting cotton productivity in the tribal region to boost the policy effectiveness for the development of this cash crop in the area. More precisely, how is their socio-economic condition reflected in their crop productivity? So, the development of the tribal farmers can develop this crop in the region. This study analyses the detrimental effect of socio-economic factors on cotton productivity in the tribal area of Odisha. The data are collected using a structured questionnaire and a multiple-sampling technique. To understand the effect of socioeconomic factors on productivity, the ordinary least square (OLS) method has been employed in this paper. The result shows that most of the farmers are illiterate for which productivity is degrading. The age and gender of the head of the household are significant contributors to the cotton productivity of the study area. Male-headed households are more productive than female-headed households. Per capita monthly income and proportion of irrigated land are also important factors to affect cotton productivity positively. However, the social group of the family has no significant effect on the cotton productivity in the study area. Policymakers and agriculturists should emphasize farmer literacy, farmer income and land irrigation facilities to boost the productivity of this crop in the studied region.

Development of a Smart Home Modification Program: A Delphi Survey of Multidisciplinary Health Care Experts.

There is a critical gap between the potential of smart home technologies to enhance the lives of people with physical disabilities (PwPD) and their limited use because of complex interfaces, high costs, technical issues, and insufficient institutional support. To bridge this gap and ensure that PwPD can fully benefit from smart home advancements to improve their daily living and quality of life by developing a smart home modification program. A Delphi survey involving three rounds was conducted with experts in disability and smart home technologies. Online survey. Thirty multidisciplinary health care experts. Experts rated the level of relevance in smart home modification with each survey. Consensus was set at ≥75%, content validity (CVR) was ≥.33, and convergence was ≤.5. The first Delphi result selected 26 items, and the second included 59 items after adjusting for values that fell below a CVR of .33. In the third Delphi survey, 59 items were selected. The final Delphi study had an average CVR of .96 and a coefficient of variation of .10. The last survey's consensus point was .92, indicating a high level of agreement among participants. On the basis of expert consensus, the study provides a validated framework for smart home modifications to aid PwPD. Plain-Language Summary: This research highlights the role of smart home adaptations to promote responsible, independent living for people with physical disabilities. There is a critical gap between the potential of smart home technologies to improve the lives of people with physical disabilities and their limited use because of complex interfaces, high costs, technical issues, and insufficient institutional support. The study authors developed a smart home modification program with the goal of closing this gap and to ensure that people with physical disabilities can fully benefit from smart home advancements to improve their daily living and quality of life. Based on expert ratings, the study findings provide a validated framework that occupational therapists can use to recommend smart home modifications to help people with physical disabilities. The framework can also be used by occupational therapists to identify people who may need more extensive environmental modifications and interventions.

Factors influencing recommendation intentions for autonomous vehicles: A path analysis in a pilot study

Over the past decade, the rapid development of artificial intelligence has propelled the transition of autonomous vehicles from laboratories to real-world applications. However, autonomous vehicles are a long way from fully integrating into most people's lives. Previous studies indicate that the word-of-mouth effect is often used by consumers to determine the quality of innovative technologies. Word-of-mouth recommendation can not only increase the income of enterprises by attracting new customers, but also greatly reduce the promotion and publicity expenses of enterprises. Through the word-of-mouth effect, the intention to recommend can contribute to the growth of the autonomous driving market. Therefore, current research explores the mechanisms among the perceived risk of privacy safety, perceived defect, perceived behavioral control, intention to use, and intention to recommend through path analysis. Our findings, based on 433 online questionnaires, indicate that the perceived risk of privacy safety, perceived defects, and perceived behavioral control influence the intention to recommend. Notably, perceived risk of privacy safety and perceived defect directly affects the intention to recommend and also correlates with perceived behavioral control. These findings provide some empirical evidence for the recommendation of autonomous vehicles and the expansion of consumer groups.

Rancang Bangun Remainder Kegiatan Pegawai di Kantor PPAT Notari Mangtas Nasution S.H Berbasis Android

The development of technology today plays a very important role in people's lives. Technology that has developed from time to time is expected to be a supporting tool to help manage and solve problems in the Mangtas Notary office. In this office, when analyzing and collecting data, a problem was found, namely that the employee activity system in the Mangatas Notary office still uses a manual system that has not been digitized. Therefore, the Android-based employee activity reminder app in Mangatas Notary Office is designed to help make it easier to convey information faster and more accurately. This study uses a data collection method through interviews and literature studies, while the system development method uses the Waterfall Method. The purpose of this application is to provide information about every activity that employees will do. This application was created to influence the progress at the Mangatas Notary Office in Technology Development

People, places, systems and society:A qualitative exploration of socio-cultural factors in head and neck cancer survivorship

PurposePeople living with head and neck cancer (HNC) often endure permanent and life changing adverse effects of treatment and reduced health-related quality of life. Study of post-traumatic growth (PTG), is gaining traction to understand why some people living with cancer have better psychosocial outcomes than others. Current theoretical models on PTG point to the importance of ‘socio-cultural influences’ but do not provide insight into how such socio-cultural factors influence survivorship outcomes. This research aimed to illuminate pathways to PTG following HNC by exploring socio-cultural factors in experiences of living with, and moving on from, HNC. MethodSemi-structured interviews with people living with HNC (up to 5 years post-treatment) on experiences of diagnosis, treatment and recovery. Qualitative framework analysis using the environmental factors codes from the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) HNC core set. Results20 people living with HNC were interviewed (11 male, 9 female; aged 46–83 years). Four inter-related themes described socio-cultural factors that influence (positively and/or negatively) the experience of living with HNC: (1) people and places; (2) healthcare systems and support services; (3) societal attitudes to cancer; (4) work and finances. ConclusionSupport from family, friends and healthcare professionals, as well as societal attitudes, financial and work security and personal experiences all appear to contribute to an individuals’ ability to navigate the HNC experience. These findings could inform development of interventions targeting the socio-cultural factors in the lives of people living with HNC, particularly for those at risk for poorer psycho-social outcomes.

Corrosion Image Classification Method Based on EfficientNetV2

Corrosion is one of the key factors leading to material failure, which can occur in facilities and equipment closely related to people's lives, causing structural damage and thus affecting the safety of people's lives and property. To identify corrosion more effectively across multiple facilities and equipment, this paper utilizes a corrosion binary classification dataset containing various materials to develop a CNN classification model for better detection and distinction of material corrosion, using a methodological paradigm of transfer learning and fine-tuning. The proposed model implementation initially uses data augmentation to enhance the dataset and employs different sizes of EfficientNetV2 for training, evaluated using Confusion Matrix, ROC curve, and the values of Precision, Recall, and F1-score. To further enhance the testing results, this paper focuses on the impact of using the Global Average Pooling layer versus the Global Max Pooling layer, as well as the number of fine-tuning layers. The results show that the Global Average Pooling layer performs better, and EfficientNetV2B0 with a fine-tuning rate of 20%, and EfficientNetV2S with a fine-tuning rate of 15%, achieve the highest testing accuracy of 0.9176, an ROC-AUC value of 0.97, and Precision, Recall, and F1-Score values exceeding 0.9. These findings can be served as a reference for other corrosion classification models which uses EfficientNetV2.

Estimating the Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic Restrictions on Self-reported Antiretroviral Therapy Use and Late Refill Visits Among People Living With HIV in Rural South Africa.

People living with HIV require reliable access to and adequate supply of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for viral suppression. The Deliver Health Study, a randomized trial conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, found that home-delivered ART significantly increased viral suppression compared with clinic-based care. The effect of changing COVID-19 alert levels on self-reported ART use has not been quantified. KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Adults living with HIV were followed in the Deliver Health Study during October 2019-December 2020. We used difference-in-differences (DiD) to estimate the effect of changing COVID-19 alert levels during 3 distinct periods on self-reported missed ART doses (missed 0 vs. ≥1 doses in past week) for participants receiving home-delivered vs. clinic-based refills. We additionally estimated the effect of changing COVID-19 alert levels on late clinic ART refill visits (late vs. on-time). We used relative risk regression for both binary outcomes. Of 155 participants, 46% were women and the median age was 36 years. The mean number of missed weekly doses was 0.11, 0, and 0.12 in the home-delivery group and 0.09, 0.08, and 0.18 in the clinic group during periods 1, 2, and 3, respectively. There were no differences in relative risk of self-reported daily ART use between refill groups when comparing across periods [DiDperiod 2 vs. 1 = 1.05; 95% confidence interval: 0.97, 1.13 and DiDperiod 3 vs. 2 = 0.99; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.91, 1.08]. In the clinic group, the risk of late refill visits was significantly higher during COVID-19 restrictions (vs. before alert level 5 implementation) and even after the COVID-19 alert level was downgraded to level 1 (RRperiod 2 vs. 1 = 1.83, 95% CI: 1.34, 2.51 and RRperiod 3 vs. 2 = 1.71; 95% CI: 1.43, 2.04). The COVID-19 pandemic did not differentially impact self-reported ART adherence by the method of ART refills, but the risk of late clinic refill visits was significantly higher during COVID-19 restrictions and sustained after restrictions were loosened.

Infection prevention and control in cystic fibrosis: An update of a systematic review of interventions

Preventing transmissible infection is a priority in cystic fibrosis (CF) care. This is an update of a systematic review of the evidence for infection prevention and control interventions in CF.Our full protocol can be found on PROSPERO (CRD42018109999). We searched for studies and guidelines which included interventions for infection prevention and control in CF.We included 39 studies and 7 guidelines. Strategies included: cohort or individual segregation, hand hygiene, facemasks, equipment, enhanced adherence or a combination of these. Many studies showed a reduction in transmission with segregation. However, the certainty of evidence (using GRADE) was low or very low. Most guideline recommendations have little evidence to support them, with no updates since our original review.Undertaking RCTs in this area is ethically difficult. Large-scale registry-based studies may be the best pragmatic approach. Benefits of infection control must be balanced against the intrusion in the lives of people with CF.

"Being Queer, It Was Really Isolating": Stigma and Mental Health Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Young People During COVID-19.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ+) youth and young adults (YYAs) have poorer mental health outcomes than their cisgender, heterosexual peers in large part due to multilevel stigmatization and minority stress. This was exacerbated by psychological stressors stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic; these experiences intersected with YYA unique developmental stage. Here we explored LGBTQ+ YYA's pandemic-related experiences, focusing on intersections between stigma and belonging, developmental processes, and their relationship to mental health. We conducted qualitative interviews from August to November 2021 with 34 LGBTQ+ YYA ages 14 to 24; interviews were nested within a quantitative study on YYA experiences during COVID-19. Interviews were transcribed and coded using thematic analysis. YYA described how pandemic impacts like quarantine and isolation directly impacted their mental health; these coalesced around four types of thematic shifts: shifts in (1) time, (2) living situations, (3) community supports, and (4) social and political climate. Multilevel stigmatization also created new mechanisms of norm enforcement for LGBTQ+ YYA. Interviews demonstrated how the pandemic also impacted key developmental processes including identity formation and autonomy seeking. The potential consequences of these pandemic-related shifts largely depended on YYA's experiences of stigma and/or belonging throughout the pandemic. Findings suggested that isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with existing socio-ecological structures in LGBTQ+ young people's lives. Efforts to investigate longitudinal impacts of the pandemic, as well as to intervene to reduce the stigmatization experienced by LGBTQ+ YYA, remain urgent.

A Collective Fantasia of the Financial Age in Early 1990s China: Erotic-Speculative Sensation, Neoliberal Labor Heroine, and Presentist Worldly Wisdom

Abstract When the notion of “finance” reentered ordinary Chinese people's lives since the “Reform and Opening Up,” how were “finance and economics” (caijing) perceived and felt? This essay focuses on the mainland critics’ reviews of the “finance-themed” novels by the Hong Kong entrepreneur-cum-writer Leung Fung Yee (b. 1949) and discusses how “Leung fever” (1992 – 93) provided a medium for a collective imagination of the financial age. Leung's fiction introduced “sensuous and lively” financial knowledge particularly attractive to a financially uneducated mainland readership who nonetheless desired to engage in adventurous economic activities. This essay is situated in the intersection of finance and literary practice and highlights the ways these critics’ interpretations of Leung's novels helped instruct readers in how to feel, experience, and survive the financial age and legitimize the new economic behaviors in everyday life. This new age was first and foremost experienced as an “erotic-speculative sensation” in which an erotic adventure was experienced similar to the financial behavior of speculation. The mainland critics envisioned the figure of “the neoliberal labor heroine,” one who creatively utilizes the intervals to maximize productive value and who performs “presentist worldly wisdom” to strategically navigate life and achieve optimal outputs and success in a disorienting world.

An Explainable Multichannel Model for COVID-19 Time Series Prediction

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country and changed people's lives. Accurate prediction of COVID-19 trends can help prevent the further spread of the outbreak. However, the changing environment affects the COVID-19 prediction performance, and previous models are limited in practical applications. Methods: An explainable multichannel deep learning model with spatial, temporal and environmental channels for time series prediction, STE-COVIDNet, was proposed. The time series data of COVID-19 infection, weather, in-state population mobility, and vaccination were collected from May, 2020, to October, 2021, in the USA. In the environmental channel of STE-COVIDNet, an attention mechanism was applied to extract significant environmental factors related to the spread of COVID-19. In addition, the attention weights of these factors were analyzed with the actual situation. Results: STE-COVIDNet was found to be superior to other advanced prediction models of COVID-19 infection cases. The analysis results of attention weight were reported to be consistent with existing studies and reports. It was found that the same environmental factors that influence the spread of COVID-19 can vary across time and region, which explains why findings of previous studies on the relationship between the environment and COVID-19 vary by region and time. Conclusion: STE-COVIDNet is an explainable model that can adapt to environmental changes and thus improve predictive performance.

Electrothermal-Assisted Photothermal Lubrication Surfaces for Continuous Anti-Icing/Deicing in Multiple Low-Temperature Environments.

Solving the problem of ice accumulation on solid surfaces is of great significance to the economic development of the country and the safety of people's lives. In this work, a coating with multifunctional photothermal/electrothermal solid-state lubrication (PEL) for anti-icing/deicing was prepared in layers based on the intrinsic properties of silicone oil and paraffin wax in combination with conductive graphite and multiwalled carbon nanotubes. Silicone oils and paraffins are used as lubricating media giving the coating excellent lubricity, which results in a water sliding angle (SA) of only 12° on the PEL surface. Meanwhile, PEL shows favorable static and dynamic ice resistance at low temperatures; at -10 °C, the freezing time of water droplets on the PEL surface is extended by at least 4 times compared to the bare substrate. Furthermore, PEL also offers highly efficient photothermal and electrothermal deicing performance, which can effectively remove the accumulated ice at a light intensity of 0.6 kW/m2 or an EPD of 0.1 W/cm2. Meanwhile, the synergistic deicing mechanism of photothermal and electrothermal was verified at -20 °C. Interestingly, the coating shows heat-assisted healing ability due to the phase change characteristic of paraffin wax, which allows the coating to regain lubricating properties after mechanical abrasion. Therefore, this work provides a reliable way for the design of stable all-weather anti-icing/deicing strategies at low temperatures.

TrajPredRNN+: A New Approach for Precipitation Nowcasting with Weather Radar Echo Images Based on Deep Learning

：Short-term rainfall prediction is a crucial and practical research area, with the accuracy of rainfall prediction, particularly for heavy rainfall, significantly impacting people's lives, property, and even their safety. Existing models, such as ConvLSTM, TrajGRU, and PredRNN, exhibit limitations in capturing fine-grained appearances due to insufficient memory units or addressing positional misalignment issues, thereby compromising the accuracy of model predictions. In this study, we propose trajPredRNN+, an innovative approach that integrates the trajectory segmentation model and the PredRNN deep learning model to address both limitations in nowcasting precipitation using weather radar echo images. By incorporating attention mechanisms, the model demonstrates an enhanced focus on short-term and imminent heavy rainfall events. To ensure improved stability during training, a residual network is introduced. Lastly, a more rational and effective training loss function is proposed, encompassing weight mechanism, SSIM index, and GAN loss. To validate the proposed model, we conducted a comparative experiment and an ablation experiment using the radar echo map dataset obtained from the Shenzhen Meteorological Bureau. The results of these experiments demonstrate that our model has achieved significant improvements across multiple key performance indicators.

Did COVID-19 discriminate in the global South? Revealing heterogeneity of urban households’ livelihood resilience based on evidence from Bangladesh, China, India and Philippines

“Lives or livelihoods” is a hard trade-off when confronting COVID-19, especially for cities in the Global South. Countermeasures to protect people's lives may exert negative impacts on urban households and test their livelihood resilience. Did COVID-19 discriminate? Did livelihood resilience vary among different urban households within and across different countries and cities? Established studies focused on rural households' livelihood resilience under climate change or natural hazard based on single country context. Little is known about the variety of urban households' livelihood resilience under COVID-19 across countries and cities. This study aims to fill this gap by revealing heterogeneity of livelihood resilience at both individual urban household level and country level. First-hand questionnaire survey data (N ​= ​4374) were collected from seven cities from Bangladesh, China, India, and Philippines. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analytical methods, it's found that: COVID-19 did discriminate. Urban households with larger household size, no home ownership, no financial assets, and household heads with low education level, informal employed and no flexibility to transfer to work from home, were vulnerable groups. COVID-19 also discriminated across cities. Cities with a high ratio of informal workers, no effective economic relief policies and long stringent mobility restriction measures performed worse.

Promoting the Inclusion of Care Partners of People Living With Dementia in Hospital Care Through Workflow Redesign

Abstract Date Presented 03/23/24 This qualitative study outlines the redesign of hospital workflows that can be used to guide OTPs in including care partners of hospitalized people living with dementia. Primary Author and Speaker: Catherine Still Contributing Authors: Andrea Strayer, Nicole Werner, Beth Fields

Policy Targets to Improve Diagnosis and Treatment of Hyperlipidemia Identified by People Living With Hyperlipidemia: Results from a Patient-Led Study

Policy Targets to Improve Diagnosis and Treatment of Hyperlipidemia Identified by People Living With Hyperlipidemia: Results from a Patient-Led Study

Living well with chronic pain: a 12-month randomized controlled trial revealing impact from the digital pain self-management program EPIO.

Chronic pain affects a wide range of physical and psychological aspects of life for those impacted. Psychosocial treatment approaches may be of support, but outreach is still limited. To evaluate the efficacy of EPIO, an evidence-informed, user-centered digital self-management intervention for people with chronic pain, in a 12-month randomized controlled trial. People living with chronic pain (N = 266) were randomized to the EPIO intervention (n = 132) or a usual-care control group (n = 134). The intervention was delivered in a simple blended care model, and outcome measures collected at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Generalized linear models for repeated measures were fitted to compare groups over time. Participants were primarily female (81%), median age 49 years (range 22-78), with heterogeneous pain conditions, and had lived with pain >5 years (77.6%). A mixed linear model with all timepoints included revealed no statistically significant group differences for the primary outcome of pain interference. Significant psychological benefits in favor of the intervention group were however detected for depression (P = 0.022), self-regulatory fatigue (P = 0.024), vitality (P = 0.016), and mental health (P = 0.047). Baseline to 12-month changes showed additional favorable effects for anxiety (between-group mean differences [MDs] = 0.79, P = 0.047), depression (MD = 1.08, P = 0.004), self-regulatory fatigue (MD = 2.42, P = 0.021), pain catastrophizing (MD = 2.62, P = 0.009), and health-related quality of life. The EPIO program aims to improve outreach of evidence-based pain self-management interventions. Findings demonstrate how using EPIO can lead to sustainable psychological change, enhancing mental health and health-related quality of life for people suffering from pain, providing a chance to live well with the pain.

Relation between work hours, work control, work stress, and quality of life in persons with spinal cord injury

BackgroundWork participation is related to a better quality of life (QoL) for people with spinal cord injury (SCI), however, the specific work characteristics that are related to QoL in people with SCI are largely unknown. ObjectivesTo investigate which work characteristics are related to QoL in people with SCI. MethodsCross-sectional survey of people with SCI in the Netherlands. The survey consisted of demographic, SCI-related, and work-related items. Work control was measured with the short Job Content Questionnaire and work stress with the effort-reward imbalance (ERI). People of working age with at least 1 h of paid work per week were included. Hierarchical regression analysis was performed to examine the contribution of work characteristics to QoL while controlling for potential clinical and demographic confounders. ResultsThe study included 169 persons with SCI (74.6 % male, 47.8 ± 9.3 years, time since injury 18.9 ± 11.1 years). The final hierarchical regression model explained 31 % of the variance in QoL. The number of SCI-related health complications contributed the strongest to QoL (ß = −.36), followed by work hours (β = .24), and work stress (β = .24). However, work control did not contribute significantly to QoL in our final model. ConclusionWork hours and work stress contributed to QoL in people with SCI, but the number of SCI-related health complications was the strongest contributor. Future research and vocational rehabilitation should be directed to both medical and work-related variables to enhance the QoL of working people with SCI.

The influence of the residential environment on well-being and personal projects: Perspectives of young people living in public housing

Public housing provides low-income households with affordable housing. The few studies of young public housing residents have focused on the negative aspects of these residential environments, such as the presence of economic hardship or substance abuse. Few studies have looked at the possible positive influence of public housing on the lives of the young people who live there. This qualitative study explores the influence of housing and neighborhood on the well-being and personal projects of young people living in public housing. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 young people aged 14 to 20 living in public housing in a large city in Quebec, Canada. A thematic analysis led to the identification of five themes that describe the components of the residential environment that influence young people's well-being and personal projects: 1) parks, playgrounds and nature, 2) services and activities, 3) privacy, 4) relations with the neighborhood; and 5) the quality of the built environment. Implications for environmental psychologists and for improving public policies and supporting the well-being of young people living in public housing are discussed.

Mussel-inspired adhesive drug-loaded hydrogels for oral ulcers treatment

Oral aphthous ulcers are common mucosal lesions that cause pain and discomfort. There are diverse biomaterials and drug treatments for oral ulcers used in both research and clinical settings. However, the complex oral environment often results in low adhesion and short drug retention times, which lead to poor drug availability and treatment outcomes. In this study, a mussel-inspired adhesive hydrogel was developed by grafting catechol onto hyaluronic acid (C-HA), and dopamine was added for oxidative pre-polymerization to form modified hyaluronic acid (M-HA), which remarkably increased the adhesion of the hydrogels. Then, M-HA was interpenetrated into the gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) network. Chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) was then incorporated into the hydrogel to enhance its availability and therapeutic effect through its sustained-release capability. The GelMA/M-HA hydrogel demonstrated strong adhesion to wet tissues, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and good biocompatibility. In both rat oral ulcers and infected rat back wounds, the adhesive hydrogel significantly accelerated the healing of the ulcer and infected wound. These results indicated that this adhesive hydrogel offers a promising new strategy for the treatment of oral ulcers in clinical practice. Statement of SignificanceOral ulcers are a common and high-incidence mucosal condition that seriously affect people's daily lives, often making it difficult for patients to chew and speak. However, a dynamic oral environment with various types of bacteria influences drug availability and treatment effects in clinical settings. To address this challenge, an adhesive, mussel-inspired, drug-loaded hydrogel was constructed using natural macromolecules (hyaluronic acid and gelatin) with good biocompatibility. Chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG), with its broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, has been incorporated to synergistically promote oral ulcer healing. The splendid adhesion, antibacterial, and therapeutic effects of this hydrogel demonstrated a new strategy for treating oral ulcers.