Underdeveloped Area Research Articles

The study on psychological resilience of tinnitus and associated influencing factors

The association between tinnitus and psychological resilience is an underdeveloped area of research. This cross-sectional study investigated such associations and factors potentially affecting resilience in 61 patients. Demographic and psychometric data were collected by questionnaires. The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire (MCMQ), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), Big Five Inventory (BFI) and Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS) were completed by participants. Data were analyzed using independent t-test and Pearson's correlation analysis and multiple linear regression modeling. The CD-RISC score was relatively low (66.97 ± 15.71), negatively correlated with tinnitus (r = −0.276, p < 0.001) and associated with age (r = 0.270，P＜0.001). As protective factors, SWLS (r = 0.486, p < 0.001), GSES (r = 0.555, p < 0.001), PSSS (r = 0.538, p < 0.001) and extraversion were positively correlated with CD-RISC and BFI scores (r = 0.287, p < 0.001). We also detected a negative correlation with neuroticism (r = −0.395, p < 0.001), which is a known risk factor for worse CD-RISC scores. Identifying protective and risk factors for psychological resilience can be used to predict treatment outcomes in tinnitus patients, which will help devise personalized solutions and improve patients' quality of life.

Enantioselective Synthesis of SpirothiazolonesviaCooperative Catalysis

AbstractCooperative amino‐ and palladium catalysis utilizing heterocyclic systems containing strongly coordinating and adsorptive sulfur atom remains an underdeveloped area. Herein, we describe an enantioselective cyclization of enals with thiazole derivatives catalyzed with the combination of achiral Pd(0) complexes and chiral secondary amines. Chiral spirocyclic thiazolones were produced in yields ranging from 41% to 98% with stereoselectivities (from 5:1 to 12:1 dr, and 95–99% ee). Moreover, the developed strategy allows access to highly substituted chiral cyclopentane derivatives by additional transformations of spirocyclic thiazolones.magnified image

Culture Insight Of New Age Technology For Underdeveloped Society Lidia Djuhardi Faculty of Communication Science

This study entitled “Culture Insight Of New Age Technologies For Underdeveloped Society “,is about underdeveloped society in Temajuk Village, Indonesia-Malaysia border area, where is still underdeveloped area. This study aimed to find out the insight of new age technologies from Temajuk villager through their experiences about new technology and their meanings. In addition, the approach of this study is using qualitative-descriptive with interpretive paradigm through fenomenologi studi. The subject of this study is the villager who lived in Temajuk Village, located in the end of Borneo Island that directly borders with Malaysia. The subject is selected purposively, based on the context and the need of research. The data collection was conducted through interview, observation, literary review and documentations. The result for the culture insight of Temajuk society about new technologies are,the experiences more dynamic and its meanings independence life for them. The insight conclusion is the are very anthusiasm for the new technolog , its influenced by the history and conditions that build a culture insight for society of Temajuk village.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Keywords: New Age Technology ; Smartphones; Culture Insight ;Temajuk Village; Underdeveloped Society

Highways to Hell? Paths Towards the Formal Financial Exclusion: Empirical Lessons of the Households from Northern Hungary

Whenever a household faces lack of banking payment services and access to funding, it often constraints their everyday activities and the chance to avail the financial services again. Our study explores the possible explanations of why a household becomes financially excluded in an underdeveloped area of Northern Hungary. By using a questionnaire (n = 502) in the spring of 2019, we conducted a covariance-based SEM analysis for detecting the key reasons. We find that the low level of income, high ratio of financial problems and high intensity of short-term borrowings equally and directly contribute to the financial exclusion of the households. Furthermore, we could not confirm any direct effects of the banking service availability, although bank services significantly influence an intermediary factor, which is the increasing repayment problem in the social environment. Our results verify the responsibility of the regulation in lending and debt collection to achieve a better social policy.

TOURISM IMPACT MODELS AS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PLANNING TOOLS FOR LOCAL AND REGIONAL AUTHORITIES

Tourism is considered by local inhabitants and businesses as an activity that could bring economic development to a very isolated and underdeveloped area such as the Danube Delta, UNESCO protected natural wetland. The aim of this study is to propose the Tourism Impact Model (TIM) as a tool that could be used by local and regional authorities in managing tourism in such fragile ecosystems so that to maximise its positive effects while the honeypot sites of the delta to attract tourists without provoking irreparable damage to the environment. The results of the TIM analysis applied for Sfântu Gheorghe commune evidence that the Danube Delta is under tourism pressure and at high risk of surpassing its human carrying capacity. The conclusions of the analysis show that TIM could be a very useful administrative and policy supporting tool in sustainable development governance if data collection improves in the future.

Fitmix: An R Package for Mixture Modeling of the Budding Yeast S. cerevisiae Replicative Lifespan (RLS) Distributions

Replicative lifespan (RLS) of the budding yeast is the number of mother cell divisions until senescence and is instrumental to understanding mechanisms of cellular aging. Recent research has shown that replicative aging is heterogeneous, which argues for mixture modeling. The mixture model is a statistical method to infer subpopulations of the heterogeneous population. Mixture modeling is a relatively underdeveloped area in the study of cellular aging. There is no open access software currently available that assists extensive comparison among mixture modeling methods. To address these needs, we developed an R package called fitmix that facilitates the computation of well-known distributions utilized for RLS data and other lifetime datasets. This package can generate a group of functions for the estimation of probability distributions and simulation of random observations from well-known finite mixture models including Gompertz, Log-logistic, Log-normal, and Weibull models. To estimate and compute the maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters, the Expectation–Maximization (EM) algorithm is employed.

Identification of rural regional poverty type based on spatial multi-criteria decision-making—taking Gansu Province, an underdeveloped area in China, as an example

Identification of rural regional poverty type based on spatial multi-criteria decision-making—taking Gansu Province, an underdeveloped area in China, as an example

The Welsh Eating Disorder Service Review 2018, Scottish Eating Disorder Service Review 2021 and recommendations of best practice in comorbid eating disorders and diabetes.

Diabetes and eating disorders are frequently comorbid. This particular comorbidity is not only often poorly recognised, but is difficult to treat and has a high mortality. In this article, we will briefly review the relationship between diabetes and eating disorders. We will review the current NICE and other guidance and reports concerning both diabetes and eating disorders in the United Kingdom. We will then describe the recommendations of the 2018 Welsh Government Eating Disorder Service Review and the 2021 the Scottish Government Eating Disorder Service Review regarding diabetes and eating disorders, which will lead to service change. We conclude that this is a relatively underdeveloped but important area where there needs to be further service development and more collaboration between diabetes and eating disorder services.

Is Bariatric Surgery Brain Surgery?

Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) reliably produces sustained weight losses, reduces circulating blood glucose, and lowers risk of type 2 diabetes (1). Accompanying these benefits, however, is symptomatic hypoglycemia, reported by up to one-third of post–bariatric surgery patients (2,3). In an estimated <1% of RYGB patients (4), postprandial hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia causes severe symptoms including neuroglycopenia with significant morbidity. New mechanistic insights and treatment options for these patients are needed. Potential contributors include rapid glucose delivery into the bloodstream, improved β-cell function, and gut adaptations, but the role of the central nervous system (CNS) is an important and underdeveloped area of research (3). In their article in this issue of Diabetes , Almby et al. (5) investigate whether RYGB alters the brain response to hypoglycemia in humans—a topic with further relevance to the CNS contribution to RYGB’s modification of overall glucose homeostasis. Human neuroimaging studies document RYGB-induced changes in brain function and suggest reversibility of obesity-associated findings (6–8). Studies of cerebral metabolism measuring [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose uptake by positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) show that brain glucose uptake is elevated in participants with obesity and partially reversed post-RYGB (6,7), but controlled studies of the cerebral metabolic response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia are lacking. Cerebral blood flow response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia assessed by arterial spin labeling (ASL) showed increased regional blood flow (vs. euglycemia) in the cortex, thalamus (9), and hypothalamus (10) in healthy adults. Almby et al. provide novel data on the effect of RYGB on brain response to hypoglycemia (5). Almby et al. included 11 participants that underwent, before and …

Decision making in urban development: The application of a hybrid evaluation method for a critical area in the city of Turin (Italy)

Smart cities and sustainable neighbourhoods are increasingly gaining more attention within policy decisions on urban transformations. In this context, Decision-Makers (DMs) need evaluation methodologies able to support the definition of policies and actions for the future of cities, that focus on a higher degree of life quality and new needs. In this paper, an integrated framework is proposed which combines the Stakeholder Analysis, the STEEP and SWOT analyses (STEEP + SWOT), the Scenario Building and the Multicriteria Decision Analysis approach (MCDA) which can be used to envision sustainable future scenarios for an underdeveloped area in Northern Italy. The adoption of integrated methodologies facilitates the analysis of each phase of the decision problem, from its early stage to the selection of the most suitable scenario according to the context and the stakeholders engaged. With this perspective, the present research is a guiding tool for DMs for the design of transformation/regeneration scenarios with a long-term perspective of sustainable cities and neighbourhoods. From the results obtained, it is possible to build new and unexpected scenarios by combining the main opportunities and strengths of most suitable alternatives.

Corporate Governance of Family Businesses in Croatia

The importance of family businesses in the Croatian economy is well known. In this respect, Croatia is part of the larger picture in which family businesses are considered of fundamental importance to the European Union’s economy. The most specific feature that sets Croatian family businesses apart is that they are all relatively young, as they were mostly established in the 1990s. This is due to the socio-economic development of Croatia as a country that was part of the former Yugoslavia. In this regard, although the traditions of certain crafts and products are significantly older, the modern legal vehicles through which such business is conducted, that is, Croatian companies, are only around thirty years old. This fact contributes to the hypothesis that governance issues related to family businesses are an underdeveloped legal area. However, the need to address the specific needs of Croatian businesses is on the rise, as a significant number of the founders are now retiring, and the issue of successful transfer of these businesses has never been more important. The goal of this article is to question whether available legal instruments for enhancing the governance of family businesses from comparative law and practice such as family constitutions and family councils can be applied in Croatian practice as well. To this end, this study analyses the most significant legal forms in which a family business can be established in Croatia: crafts, family farms, and all types of commercial companies (with an emphasis on limited liability and joint-stock companies). Analysis of the Croatian legal framework from the perspective of family businesses will contribute to the comparative discussion regarding the specific legal needs and challenges of such businesses.

Political integration and the career opportunities of immigrants in political parties: Experiences from Swedish party organisations

Abstract Political parties are an important part of the institutional framework for migrants’ political integration, but remain an underdeveloped area of research in the literature on political opportunity structures (POS) for migrants. Departing from the POS framework, this article addresses the question of what role the intra-party structure of candidate recruitment has for enabling the political career path of people with migrant background. It focuses on the case of Sweden, which has one of the most open POS in terms of formal political rights. Based on an interview study with party officials and political candidates with migrant background, we identify a number of party-internal factors in this POS. The empirical analysis combines two approaches in institutional theory in order to differentiate between ‘thresholds’ related to strategic considerations and short-term vote-maximisation, and ‘barriers’ embedded in roles, identities and organisational practices. In addition to making a contribution to research on the responsiveness of political systems in open-POS countries, the article discusses how the institutional approach can be useful for identifying possible solutions for supporting the political career of immigrants.

Statistical Challenges in Agent-Based Modeling

Agent-based models (ABMs) are popular in many research communities, but few statisticians have contributed to their theoretical development. They are models like any other models we study, but in general, we are still learning how to fit ABMs to data and how to make quantified statements of uncertainty about the outputs of an ABM. ABM validation is also an underdeveloped area that is ripe for new statistical developments. In what follows, we lay out the research space and encourage statisticians to address the many research issues in the ABM ambit.

‘I shouldn’t even be telling you that I shouldn’t be telling you the story’: Pseudonymous Bosch and the postmodern narrator in children’s literature

This article furthers the somewhat underdeveloped area of research regarding the consideration of complex theoretical concepts such as postmodernism and metafiction in relation to children’s literature by concentrating on a stunningly complex—although by no means rare—experimental text aimed at 8–12 year-olds. Using The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch as example, I examine how children’s literature can use such strategies to engage a child-reader and make them a tangible part of the construction of the novel. Drawing on elements of Text World Theory, diegetic narrative levels and the concept of the internal author, this study primarily explores the role of the interactive, visibly inventing, postmodern narrator, and, by extension, the dramatization of the reader as a part of the story. Framed against an academic background in which children’s literature was deemed unworthy of study or outright dismissed, this article illustrates why children’s literature is not only worthy of rigorous academic study in its own right but also that it often readily displays enough literary, linguistic, and narratological complexities to rival even the most sophisticated literature for adult readers.

Does it pay to be green? An exploratory analysis of wage differentials between green and non-green industries

PurposeThis paper investigates the potential wage impacts of a shift to more environmentally sustainable production patterns.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis is carried out using labour force survey data and interval regressions.FindingsEstimates at the individual level suggest that small wage differentials exist: individuals employed in green industries earn about seven per cent more than those working in non-green industries.Originality/valueTo date, very little is known about the characteristics of jobs in the green industry and by extension, the labour force effects that can emerge or change as a result of transitioning towards a greener economy. While exploratory in nature, this analysis seeks to shed light on an underdeveloped area of research, namely, wage inequalities associated with transitioning towards green growth.

Governance of artificial intelligence

ABSTRACT The rapid developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the intensification in the adoption of AI in domains such as autonomous vehicles, lethal weapon systems, robotics and alike pose serious challenges to governments as they must manage the scale and speed of socio-technical transitions occurring. While there is considerable literature emerging on various aspects of AI, governance of AI is a significantly underdeveloped area. The new applications of AI offer opportunities for increasing economic efficiency and quality of life, but they also generate unexpected and unintended consequences and pose new forms of risks that need to be addressed. To enhance the benefits from AI while minimising the adverse risks, governments worldwide need to understand better the scope and depth of the risks posed and develop regulatory and governance processes and structures to address these challenges. This introductory article unpacks AI and describes why the Governance of AI should be gaining far more attention given the myriad of challenges it presents. It then summarises the special issue articles and highlights their key contributions. This special issue introduces the multifaceted challenges of governance of AI, including emerging governance approaches to AI, policy capacity building, exploring legal and regulatory challenges of AI and Robotics, and outstanding issues and gaps that need attention. The special issue showcases the state-of-the-art in the governance of AI, aiming to enable researchers and practitioners to appreciate the challenges and complexities of AI governance and highlight future avenues for exploration.

How adherence to public health measures shapes epidemic spreading: A temporal network model.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions in the containment of airborne infectious diseases. Social distancing and mask-wearing have been found to contain COVID-19 spreading across a number of observational studies, but a precise understanding of their combined effectiveness is lacking. An underdeveloped area of research entails the quantification of the specific role of each of these measures when they are differentially adopted by the population. Pursuing this research allows for answering several pressing questions like: how many people should follow public health measures for them to be effective for everybody? Is it sufficient to practice social distancing only or just wear a mask? Here, we make a first step in this direction, by establishing a susceptible-exposed-infected-removed epidemic model on a temporal network, evolving according to the activity-driven paradigm. Through analytical and numerical efforts, we study epidemic spreading as a function of the proportion of the population following public health measures, the extent of social distancing, and the efficacy of masks in protecting the wearer and others. Our model demonstrates that social distancing and mask-wearing can be effective in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks if adherence to both measures involves a substantial fraction of the population.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous: Photovoice Study on Indonesian Youth’s Online Learning Experience

Since March 2020, the coronavirus disease has spread in Indonesia and affected many sectors of youth's life including education. Indonesia takes measures of distance learning to adapt to the pandemic, focusing on learning through digital media. Implementation of online learning in Indonesia has varying results, causing youth living in under-developed areas to be exposed to poor distance learning due to inadequate internet connection. This study examined how youth in the under-developed area of Indonesia experience online learning. 14 young people living in Kupang City, West Timor participated in photovoice and interview sessions. Thematic analysis identified three themes, which are the benefits and challenges of online learning, synchronous versus asynchronous learning, and the future of online learning. The use of photovoice managed to capture details of online learning implementation on youth and its implications are detailed further in this study.

Concurrent design of product and supply chain architectures for modularity and flexibility: process, methods, and application

Product design and supply chain design are two key determinants of company competitiveness. However, they follow different design objectives and thus require a systematic trade-off. Although methodologies for product design and supply chain design are well established within each domain in research and industry, an integrated methodology that bridges both design domains is still lacking. Based on a recently introduced concurrent product and supply chain design process, we contribute to this underdeveloped research area with a generic approach towards exploring design tradespace. We introduce a detailed operational process for the concurrent design of product and supply chain architectures. To apply this generic process to the specific trade-off between the product-related objective of modularity and the supply-chain-related objective of sourcing flexibility, we also develop new methods for key steps of the process. We demonstrate the application of the process and the developed methods using an industrial case study of a new product (electric-vehicle battery module). The case shows that our methodology was able to structure the concurrent design process. It hereby ensured an efficient trade-off and led to high-quality designs.

Non-local acute stretching effects on strength performance in healthy young adults.

Static stretching (SS) can impair performance and increase range of motion of a non-exercised or non-stretched muscle, respectively. An underdeveloped research area is the effect of unilateral stretching on non-local force output. The objective of this review was to describe the effects of unilateral SS on contralateral, non-stretched, muscle force and identify gaps in the literature. A systematic literature search following preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analyses Protocols guidelines was performed according to prescribed inclusion and exclusion criteria. Weighted means and ranges highlighted the non-local force output response to unilateral stretching. The physiotherapy evidence database scale was used to assess study risk of bias and methodological quality. Unilateral stretching protocols from six studies involved 6.3 ± 2 repetitions of 36.3 ± 7.4s with 19.3 ± 5.7s recovery between stretches. The mean stretch-induced force deficits exhibited small magnitude effect sizes for both the stretched (-6.7 ± 7.1%, d = -0.35: 0.01 to -1.8) and contralateral, non-stretched, muscles (-4.0 ± 4.9%, d = , 0.22: 0.08 to 1.1). Control measures exhibited trivial deficits. The limited literature examining non-local effects of prolonged SS revealed that both the stretched and contralateral, non-stretched, limbs of young adults demonstrate small magnitude force deficits. However, the frequency of studies with these effects were similar with three measures demonstrating deficits, and four measures showing trivial changes. These results highlight the possible global (non-local) effects of prolonged SS. Further research should investigate effects of lower intensity stretching, upper versus lower body stretching, different age groups, incorporate full warm-ups, and identify predominant mechanisms among others.