Provision Of Personal Services Research Articles

Motivation, responsibilities, and experiences of HIV/AIDS counselors in the Volta Region of Ghana: a descriptive phenomenological study

BackgroundThe provision of professional counseling services for persons living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) is crucial in the prevention and treatment continuum of the disease. However, for counselors of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) leading to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) to give their best, their motivations to become counselors and the challenges they face in their line of duty need to be contextually understood and addressed. We ascertained the roles, motivations, and experiences of HIV/AIDS counselors in the Volta Region of Ghana to inform HIV/AIDS counseling decision-making in the region and the country.MethodsA phenomenological study conducted among sixteen (16) HIV/AIDS counselors from five HIV/AIDS sentinel sites in the Volta region of Ghana, recruited through a purposive sampling approach and interviewed to ascertain their HIV/AIDS counseling-related experiences. The data were thematically analyzed using the Atlas. ti software, and sub-themes supported with verbatim quotes.ResultsFive motives for becoming an HIV/AIDS counselor were found. These include being randomly assigned to the unit, developing interest in the job, because of the status of a relative, witnessing bad attitudes of healthcare providers, and seeing HIV- clients lacking knowledge of the condition. The study found that these counselors performed six core roles: providing nutritional counseling, educating clients on HIV, treatment, and medication provision, conducting testing and comprehensive counseling of clients, providing social support to clients, and offering financial support to clients. The experiences these counselors had were boosting clients’ health status, counseling clients back to a normal mental state, cooperation from clients, participants gaining knowledge on HIV through counseling, counseling clients to accept their status, and when a client delivered an HIV-negative baby. Their negative experiences included clients denying their HIV status, clients defaulting on their treatment, uncooperative clients, death of clients due to fear of breach of confidentiality, self-stigmatization among clients, and the myths some people hold towards HIV/AIDS.ConclusionBy organizing capacity-building training programs for HIV/AIDS counselors in the Volta region and addressing the negative experiences they encounter, they could be empowered to provide effective counseling, curative, and social services to people living with HIV in the region, leading to improved health outcomes.

Lightweight Privacy-Preserving Distributed Recommender System Using Tag-Based Multikey Fully Homomorphic Data Encapsulation

Recommender systems facilitate personalized service provision through the statistical analysis and model training of user historical data (e.g. user profile based on keyword searches, browsing behavior, travel history, etc). To address the underpinning privacy implications associated with such systems, a number of privacy-preserving recommendation approaches have been presented in the literature. There are, however, limitations in many of these approaches. For example, approaches that apply public key (fully) homomorphic encryption (FHE) on different users' historical rating records under a unique public key (i.e. the public key of a predefined target user requesting recommendation) incur significant computational overheads on resource-constrained local users and may not be scalable. On the other hand, approaches without utilizing public key FHE can neither resist chosen ciphertext attack (CCA), nor be straightforwardly applied to the setting of distributed servers. In this paper, a lightweight privacy-preserving distributed recommender system is proposed. Specifically, we present a new cryptographic primitive (i.e. tag-based multikey fully homomorphic data encapsulation mechanism; TMFH-DEM) designed to achieve CCA security for both input privacy and result privacy. TMFH-DEM enables a set of distributed servers to collaboratively execute efficient privacy-preserving outsourced computation on multiple inputs encrypted under different secret keys from different data owners, without using public key FHE. The authorized receiver can successfully decrypt the plaintext of the function evaluation result. Building on TMFH-DEM, we propose a lightweight privacy-preserving distributed recommender system, which flexibly returns all the recommended items with certain predicted ratings for all target users. Formal security proof shows that our proposal achieves both user historical rating data privacy and recommendation result privacy. Findings from our evaluations demonstrate its practicability in terms of scalability, recommendation accuracy, computational and communication efficiency.

Ability in Intellectual Disability: The Culture of Inequality in Nigeria and Other Jurisdictions

This paper examines the disputable issue of the culture of inequality in providing legal protection for children living with intellectual disabilities. It argues the disparity in the provision of educational and health services for persons living with intellectual disabilities by the Nigerian Government and identifies the gaps in the provisions of Sections 20 and 21 of the Nigerian Discrimination Act. These deficiencies obscure the ability of children living with disabilities (Down syndrome and Autism), which culminates in a domino effect from delayed intervention. It draws a comparative analysis from the United Kingdom and the United States of America as a standard for innovative legal frameworks in Nigeria. It concludes that non-governmental organisations must collaborate with the government to ameliorate Nigeria's poor education and health care, with a differential detour that rights to free education and health care for those with intellectual disabilities be justiciable for the Act's practicability.

DIRECTIONS FOR CREATING EQUAL COMPETITIVE CONDITIONS AND REDUCING THE SHARE OF THE HIDDEN ECONOMY IN THE CONDUCT OF BUSINESS ACTIVITIES

This article describes large-scale reforms aimed at creating favorable conditions for doing business in the tax and financial sectors, improving the investment climate and further strengthening the confidence of business circles in our republic in recent еars. At the same time, such areas as underground trade and public catering, road transport, housing construction and repair, the provision of personal services were studied, scientific and practical conclusions and proposals were formed on foreign experience and its application in our country.

ANALYSIS OF THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF TAX EVASION AND ITS SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES

This article describes large-scale reforms aimed at creating favorable conditions for doing business in the tax and financial sectors, improving the investment climate and further strengthening the confidence of business circles in our republic in recent years. At the same time, such areas as underground trade and public catering, road transport, housing construction and repair, the provision of personal services were studied, scientific and practical conclusions and proposals were formed on foreign experience and its application in our country.

Practices and Challenges of Banking Services Inclusiveness to Persons with Special Needs in Selected Banks in Addis Ababa: Implications for Customer Satisfaction

In a country’s development, service sections play key roles. Services are expected to address diversity in interest, demographics, and exceptionalities such as persons with disabilities (PWDs). The main purpose of this study was to assess practices and challenges of banking services to persons with special needs (PWDs) in selected branches of banks in Addis Ababa. Different sources indicate that globally there are more than 15 million people who live with impairment. This segment of the population should be integrated and inclusive work is needed in the financial sectors, especially in Banking. The population of this study includes bank workers in different departments and customers with certain disabilities. Simple random sampling was used for recruiting 364 participants for the study. The research design was a concurrent triangulation mixed design. The Likert scale was constructed, validated, and used to gather quantitative data. The qualitative data was gathered by using semi-structured interviews. SPSS 25 was used for analyzing quantitative data (Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, One ANOVA, and Multiple Linear Regression were done). Thematic analysis was used for analyzing qualitative data. The finding revealed that the banking systems have gaps in addressing service provision for persons with special needs. Though there are efforts in making the physical environment modification such as using ramps, there are needs that are not yet addressed. Bank customers interviewed have indicated that the services did not yet meet customer satisfaction of PWDs. As per the findings, it is recommended that banks should create service packages for PWDs. Infrastructures and facilities should meet all utility aspects for people with special needs.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Persons With Disabilities: A Systematic Review of Literature

The first case of COVID-19 was reported in the United States in January 2020. To date, the U.S. reports more than 87 million confirmed cases and more than 1 million related deaths. In the U.S., published research suggests that COVID-19 transmission and prevention practices presented challenges for people with disabilities regarding job status and access to services. To explore the impact of COVID-19 on employment and service provision for persons with disabilities (PWD), the authors performed a systematic review of published quantitative and qualitative studies conducted in the U.S. from January 2020 through December 2021. From the 19 identified studies, findings were grouped into three themes: employment, quality of life, and coping. The impact of COVID-19 and other adverse events (e.g., global pandemic, supply chain issues, financial recession, hurricanes, flooding, wildfires) on the provision of vocational rehabilitation services and employment outcomes for persons with disabilities should be further explored. Based on review findings, the COVID-19 Lived Experiences Scale for Persons with Disabilities (CLES-PWD) was created to understand the experiences of PWD in terms of their employment, quality of life, and coping. The CLES-PWD can serve as a tool for vocational rehabilitation professionals when providing employment planning to enhance employment outcomes.

Пріоритети розвитку сфери страхування: корпоративна соціальна відповідальність

Abstract. Introduction. The development of the insurance sector is related to the social needs and challenges of society and the global world. The practice of recent years proves that the field of insurance is changing the format of activity due to the expansion of the provision of personal and medical insurance services, taking into account the challenges of the pandemic. Purpose. The purpose of the study is to assess the essence and priorities of the development of the insurance sector, taking into account the practice of effective interaction between participants, increasing the level of trust and the needs of individuals and society in the protection of interests. The main task of the research is to identify opportunities and priorities in the development of insurance activities on the basis of corporate social responsibility and focusing on the trust of insurance market participants. Results. The author has researched the essence and priorities of the development of the field of insurance in view of global processes and phenomena, individual needs of the individual and obligations, health protection and risk bias. The significance of the development of corporate social responsibility in the insurance sector has been proven. The priority directions of the development of the insurance sector have been determined, taking into account international and European practices of interaction. The relevance of spreading systemic approaches to corporate social responsibility in the field of insurance is determined. It is stipulated that increasing the level of trust in insurance activity will contribute to the dynamics of the insurance market development and the socio-economic development of the state, individual regions, spheres of activity, will expand the possibilities of attracting investors and the implementation of social projects. Conclusions. The author states the need to use best practices in the field of insurance to ensure effective interaction between participants and increase the level of trust in the services of insurance companies. The priority of the value-oriented approach in the conduct of insurance activity was determined, taking into account the international practices of interaction between participants and society. The author proved that the implementation of tasks in the field of insurance can be supplemented by effective interaction between participants, which will contribute to increasing the level of trust in view of the existing trends and the need for the socioeconomic development of the state

Contratación pública: los contratos de prestación de servicios y el principio de la primacía de la realidad

The purpose of this document is to expose the legal elements on which the contracting through the modality of the provision of personal services is based, and the effects that can be derived from the observance of the normative assumptions, contained in Article 32 of Law 80 of 1993, and in the Unification Ruling SUJ - 025 - CE - S2 - 2021 of September 9, 2021, issued by the Council of State.

Hotel room personalization via ontology and rule-based reasoning

Purpose The increasingly competitive hotel industry and emerging customer trends where guests are more discerning and want a personalized experience has led to the need of innovative applications. Personalization is much more important for hotels, especially now in the post-COVID lockdown era, as it challenges their business model. However, personalization is difficult to design and realize due to the variety of factors and requirements to be considered. Differences are both in the offer (hotels and their rooms) and demand (customers’ profiles and needs) in the accommodation domain. As for the implementation, critical issues are in hardware-dependent and vendor-specific Internet of Things devices which are difficult to program. Additionally, there is complexity in realizing applications that consider varying customer needs and context via existing personalization options. This paper aims to propose an ontological framework to enhance the capabilities of hotels in offering their accommodation and personalization options based on a guest’s characteristics, activities and needs. Design/methodology/approach A research approach combining both quantitative and qualitative methods was used to develop a hotel room personalization framework. The core of the framework is a hotel room ontology (HoROnt) that supports well-defined machine-readable descriptions of hotel rooms and guest profiles. Hotel guest profiles are modeled via logical rules into an inference engine exploiting reasoning functionalities used to recommend hotel room services and features. Findings Both the ontology and the inference engine module have been validated with promising results which demonstrate high accuracy. The framework leverages user characteristics, and dynamic contextual data to satisfy guests’ needs for personalized service provision. The semantic rules provide recommendations to both new and returning guests, thereby also addressing the cold start issue. Originality/value This paper extends HoROnt in two ways, to be able to add: instances of the concepts (room characteristics and services; guest profiles), i.e. to create a knowledge base, and logical rules into an inference engine, to model guests’ profiles and to be used to offer personalized hotel rooms. Thanks to the standards adopted to implement personalization, this framework can be integrated into existing reservation systems. It can also be adapted for any type of accommodation since it is broad-based and personalizes varying features and amenities in the rooms.

Perspectives of service providers on aftercare service provision for persons with substance use disorders at a Rural District in South Africa

BackgroundProvision of aftercare services for persons with substance use disorders (PWSUD) within a rural context is typically met with various intersecting challenges, including unclear policy implications and lack of resources. In the South African context, service providers are expected to provide aftercare services that should successfully reintegrate persons with PWSUD into society, the workforce, family and community life as mandated by Act No. 70 of 2008, despite population diversity. Little has been established on the provision of aftercare services in South Africa and specifically within a rural context. This article explores service providers’ perspectives in aftercare service provision for PWSUD in a rural district.MethodsA qualitative exploratory study design was conducted in a rural district in South Africa using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with forty-six service providers from governmental and non-governmental institutions, ranging from implementation to policy level of service provision. Data were analyzed thematically using a deductive approach. Codes were predetermined from the questions and the aims and objectives of the study used Beer’s Viable Systems Model as a theoretical framework. NVivo Pro 12 qualitative data analysis software guided the organization and further analysis of the data.ResultsFour themes emanated from the data sets. Theme 1 on reflections of the interactional state of aftercare services and program content identified the successes and inadequacies of aftercare interventions including relevant recommendations for aftercare services. Themes 2, 3, and 4 demonstrate reflections of service provision from implementation to policy level, namely, identifying existing barriers to aftercare service provision, situating systemic enablers to aftercare service provision, and associated aftercare system recommendations.ConclusionsThe intersecting systemic complexities of providing aftercare services in a rural context in South Africa was evident. There existed minimal enablers for service provision in this rural district. Service providers are confronted with numerous systemic barriers at all levels of service provision. To strengthen the aftercare system, policies with enforcement of aftercare services are required. Moreover, a model of aftercare that is integrated into the existing services, family centered, sensitive to the rural context and one that encourages the collaboration of stakeholders could also strengthen and sustain the aftercare system and service provision.

Cybertwin-Driven Federated Learning Based Personalized Service Provision for 6G-V2X

The rapid growth of Autonomous Vehicle (AV) technology and the integration of edge computing grasp new challenges along with the ever-increasing mobile internet traffic and services. Tackling such challenges through customized edge computing services is the critical research in 6G Vehicle-to-Everything (6G-V2X) communication. V2X contributes detailed information about the current navigation of vehicles, automatic payments for toll roads, parking fees and other services. With the countless, unique, and personalized service requirements of AVs over computation-intensive applications, exploring the edge resources for the excellent Quality of Service (QoS) provision is the greatest concern. This paper proposes a Federated Learning and edge Cache-assisted Cybertwin (FLCC) framework for personalized service provision in 6G-V2X. Integration of cybertwin in 6G enables the connectivity of the physical system to the digital realm, allowing for adequate instantaneous wireless access. The FLCC jointly considers the edge cooperation and optimizations through the proposed Federated Multi-agent Deep Reinforcement Learning based (FM-DRL) algorithm. The FM-DRL algorithm balances the FLCC’s learning accuracy. It minimizes the time and cost by taking the factors such as cybertwin association, training data batch size, and bandwidth. Finally, caching is performed using the Federated Reinforcement Learning-based Edge Caching (FREC) algorithm to obtain the desired datasets required that train the model for providing personalized 6G-V2X services for the AVs. Numerical studies and simulation results reveal that the proposed system outperforms the baseline learning approaches by 17.6%.

Corrigendum to “Use of Healthy Life Expectancy to Estimate Future Provision of Household and Personal Services” [Journal of Forensic Economics 29(1), 2020, 101-112

Corrigendum to “Use of Healthy Life Expectancy to Estimate Future Provision of Household and Personal Services” [<i>Journal of Forensic Economics</i> 29(1), 2020, 101-112

Rehabilitation Care at the Time of Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) Pandemic: A Scoping Review of Health System Recommendations.

Purpose: The coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 has imposed a significant burden on health care systems, economies, and social systems in many countries around the world. The provision of rehabilitation services for persons with active COVID-19 infection poses challenges to maintaining a safe environment for patients and treating providers.Materials and Methods: Established frameworks were used to guide the scoping review methodology. Medline, Embase, Pubmed, CINAHL databases from inception to August 1, 2020, and prominent rehabilitation organizations’ websites were searched.Study Selection: We included articles and reports if they were focused on rehabilitation related recommendations for COVID-19 patients, treating providers, or the general population.Data Extraction: Pairs of team members used a pre-tested data abstraction form to extract data from included full-text articles. The strength and the quality of the extracted recommendations were evaluated by two reviewers using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.Results: We retrieved 6,468 citations, of which 2,086 were eligible for review, after duplicates were removed. We excluded 1,980 citations based on title and abstract screening. Of the screened full-text articles, we included all 106 studies. A summary of recommendations is presented. We assessed the overall evidence to be strong and of fair quality.Conclusion: The rehabilitation setting, and processes, logistics, and patient and healthcare provider precaution recommendations identified aim to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection and ensure adequate and safe rehabilitation services, whether face-to-face or through teleservices. The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly changing. Further updates will be needed over time in order to incorporate emerging best evidence into rehabilitation guidelines.

The Effects of Unfulfilled Preferential Treatment and Review Dispersion on Airbnb Guests’ Attitudes and Behavior

In sharing accommodation business such as Airbnb, while the provision of personalized amenities and services may seem like good business, hosts should be aware of the potential unintended consequences when they are not able to deliver what they promise. The present research examines how expectation gaps created by guest reviews interact with different types of preferential services to subsequently affect consumer behavior in the peer-to-peer accommodation economy. Grounded in attribution theory, this study offers new insights on customer responses to unfulfilled preferential treatment. The results suggest that in the condition of utilitarian services (e.g., airport transportation), participants in the low dispersion condition exhibited more negative attitudes, a lower level of repurchase intention, and a decreased willingness to write an online review. Conversely, in the condition of hedonic services (e.g., perform a talent show), expectation discrepancy did not result in different consumer evaluations across the dispersion conditions.

One more has been killed: Implications for service provision for persons with intellectual disability in recent Hong Kong

A tragedy occurred recently in Hong Kong as the attack of COVID-19 rocked the whole society. This brief note intends to call for local and international discussions about difficult cases caused by the infection control measures. Current social distancing practice requires social work practitioners to detect high-risk cases not only for those living alone but also for those living together, and to assess the risks to care. In addition, social workers should join forces with stakeholders’ associations to advocate suitable and sufficient service provision in order to enhance well-being of families of children with intellectual disabilities.

Chronicity of Challenging Behaviors in Persons with Severe/Profound Intellectual Disabilities Who Received Active Treatment During a 20‐Year Period

AbstractBackgroundEvidence of the chronicity of challenging behaviors in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) and autism spectrum disorder while receiving active treatment over long periods is limited. Analysis of the chronicity of these behaviors and the corresponding intensity of treatment has important implications for clinical practice and provision of services.Specific AimsThe aim was to examine chronicity of challenging behaviors in individuals with ID receiving residential treatment over a 20‐year period addressing the following questions: (1) What is the prevalence of challenging behaviors requiring a Behavior Support Plan (BSP) within the population of the facility during the study? (2) Is there a significant decline in frequency of challenging behaviors of these persons with ID over time? (3) Is there a significant decrease in intensity of intervention targeting challenging behaviors of these persons with ID over time?MethodsThe treatment records of 216 persons with ID were examined to identify individuals for whom challenging behaviors required a Behavior Support Plan. The chronicity of five categories of challenging behavior and associated treatment interventions over a 20‐year period was analyzed through repeated measures analyses.FindingsA significant decline was found for the frequency of Physical Aggression, and Physical Disruption over 20 years, but not for Self‐Injury, Verbal Disruption, and Program Refusal. There was a corresponding significant reduction of intervention intensity for Physical Aggression and Physical Disruption, however, the need for interventions persisted over time for all challenging behaviors.DiscussionResults demonstrate that rates of challenging behaviors are chronic, but remain relatively low in the repertoire of persons with ID. Parallel findings on interventions suggest that comprehensive treatment programs are needed to maintain low rates of these challenging behaviors with implications for provision of services for persons with ID, as well as planning and policy implications for managing challenging behaviors.

Adaptive Regulation

The provision of personal social services in Israel has recently changed, with many services now outsourced to non-governmental organizations. This shift requires the strengthening of regulatory mechanisms, yet the unique characteristics of personal social services make it difficult to create an efficient regulatory framework. By linking insights derived from the literature on regulation to the specific features of these services, this article presents a conceptual model for their regulation. The model incorporates aspects of innovation in the public sector, including a more comprehensive learning and collaborative process and a new rhetorical language. The proposed regulatory approach consists of three stages: mapping, the design of regulatory instruments, and implementation and evaluation. Applied to the Israeli experience here, this approach may also be relevant for other countries.

ВЛИЯНИЕ КОРОНАВИРУСА НА ГЛОБАЛЬНУЮ ЭКОНОМИКУ

The article analyzes the consequences of the spread of coronavirus infection on the world economy. The high degree of infection and the rapid spread of COVID-19 caused the quarantine of certain cities and regions of the world, and since March 2020, the borders between the countries have been completely closed. This situation, naturally, could not but affect the global economic activity. The crisis caused by the pandemic has led to the fact that the leaders of the countries were forced to first of all pay attention to health problems and seriously reduce funding in other sectors of the economy. The forced self-isolation regime of the population affected all spheres of life, without exception, large and medium, and, especially, small business suffered. The sectors of the economy most affected by the coronavirus pandemic include: air and road transportation, the leisure and entertainment industry, fitness and sports, tourism, hospitality, catering, the education system, the organization of conferences and exhibitions, the provision of personal services to the population, dentistry, retail trade in non-food products, the media and the production of printed materials, etc. Statistical data on the number of cases of new coronavirus infection by country (as well as those who recovered and died from it) are today not so much of a medical nature as evidence of a deepening global economic crisis. The decline in production volumes on a global scale entails a reduction in the global consumption of most types of industrial raw materials and energy carriers. According to analysts’ forecasts, the possibility of a quick return to the previous economic activity is not foreseen, negative processes may continue for the next several years. The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious test of the readiness of the world economy to effectively resolve global problems, overcome the negative consequences of the spread of the virus and focus on those positive opportunities, the development of which can lead to economic growth in the long term. One of these promising areas of economic development is the further digitalization of society, the development of new digital technologies.

Use of Healthy Life Expectancy to Estimate Future Provision of Household and Personal Use Services

Abstract Healthy life expectancy (HLE) combines a measure of morbidity with life expectancy to measure the average years of healthy life (YHL) projected for a cohort based on age, sex, and perhaps race or other characteristics, developed by public health officials to set goals and measure accomplishments in improving public health. Some forensic economists have adopted this data source to project how far into the future lost household or personal services should appropriately be claimed in case of death or injury. The measure of YHL adopted for the U.S. by the Department of Health and Human Services is not well suited to this forensic economic application; in the author's opinion, it is likely to overstate years of lost provision of household or personal services for an average member of the cohort; whether or not this opinion is correct, use of HLE invites vigorous cross-examination. The note concludes with suggested modification that would remove two objections to use of the measure for forensic economic application.