Unsatisfied Expectations Research Articles

Expectations of IBS patients concerning disease and healthcare providers: Results of a prospective survey among members of a French patients’ association

IBS patients have an impaired quality of life (QoL) and feel dissatisfaction with medical care. We aim to describe the expectations of members of the French Association of IBS patients (APSSII) concerning health care providers (HCPs) and a patients' organization. From January to June 2013, APSSII members were asked to answer questionnaires on their expectations and experiences concerning IBS and HCP. 222/330 (67%) responded (women: 68.5%, 46.5±17.7years, disease duration: 8.8±0.7years, IBS-D 33.6%, IBS-C 26.7%, IBS-M 38.2%. IBS-SSS>300 in 53% and HAD score>19 in 45%). QoL impairment was correlated with disease severity and HAD score (r=-0.707 and r=-0.484, P<0.001 respectively), but not with IBS subtype. Expectations for IBS were "improved health", "better information on causes and treatments" (94%) and "better disease recognition" (86%). A significant gap was observed between expectations and experiences with HCPs. Better information, less isolation, recognition of the disease and a decrease in medical expenses were the main expectations for joining a patients' organization. French IBS patients have a severe disease with a significant psychological impact and impaired QoL in half of the patients, certain unsatisfied expectations concerning HCP and high expectations in joining a patients' organization.

Conflicting values in the smart electricity grid a comprehensive overview

This paper aims to anticipate social acceptance issues related to the deployment of the smart electricity grid by identifying underlying value conflicts. The smart electricity grid is a key enabler of the energy transition. Its successful deployment is however jeopardized by social acceptance issues, such as concerns related to privacy and fairness. Social acceptance issues may be explained by value conflicts, i.e. the impossibility for a technological or regulatory design to simultaneously satisfy multiple societal expectations. Due to unsatisfied expectations concerning values, social discontent may arise. This paper identifies five groups of value conflicts in the smart electricity grid: consumer values versus competitiveness, IT enabled systems versus data protection, fair spatial distributions of energy systems versus system performance, market performance versus local trading, and individual access versus economies of scale. This is important for policy-makers and industry to increase the chances that the technology gains acceptance. As resolving value conflicts requires resources, this paper suggests three factors to prioritize their resolution: severity of resulting acceptance issues, resolvability of conflicts, and the level of resources required. The analysis shows that particularly the socio-economic disparities caused by the deployment of the smart electricity grid are alarming. Affordable policies are currently limited, but the impact in terms of social acceptance may be large.

English

The inability of processing enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa to supply products to meet consumer needs hampers the potential of agricultural value chains. This study analyzed the consumption of soybean cheese in Abomey-Calavi (Southern Benin), in order to identify opportunities of valorizing this commodity. A survey was conducted in November 2015 among 126 households in two main sub-districts. The data on socio-demographic characteristics, soybean cheese consumption motivations and patterns, and consumers&rsquo; expectations and perceptions were collected based on structured interviews. Data processing includes the assessment of consumers&rsquo; motivations based on Kendall&rsquo;s test of concordance, and unsatisfied expectations were identified by assessing the significance of the difference between expectations and the perception of the consumers. Competitive price was the most important purchasing motivation for the soybean cheese consumers. Consumers were not satisfied with the following attributes: soft texture, tenderness, attractive presentation, hygienic processing conditions, and long shelf life. The training of processors on hygiene rules, the promotion of the certification under a collective label, the improvement of soybean cheese marketing, and the settlement of an innovation platform to identify upgrading needs could boost the soybean cheese value chain in Southern Benin. Key words: Market access, women entrepreneurship, consumer expectations, soybean cheese, Benin.

«Wer ist Glossar?» – Fokusgruppen-Evaluation einer evidenzbasierten Verbraucherinformation zu Sturzgefährdung und -vorbeugung im Alter

Evidence-based patient and consumer health information (EBPI) implies unbiased presentation of the scientific evidence aimed at consumers' informed decision making. A number of consumer information brochures on fall prevention in the elderly have been developed. However, none of these fulfil the criteria of EBPI. It is almost unknown how elderly people respond to EBPI. We performed three focus-group interviews including 19 senior citizens to explore the comprehensibility and acceptance of an EBPI on risk of falling and fall prevention strategies. The analysis of the interviews revealed that the majority of participants did not understand the aim of the brochure, although it was explicitly stated. Most of them had expected concrete instructions on fall-risk management. The numerical and graphical figures and tables displaying fall-risk factors, fall and fracture incidence, and efficacy of the interventions were predominantly judged as confusing and unfamiliar. Beside negative emotional reactions, devaluation, and selective information seeking, a relevant number of participants also appreciated the objective and non-indoctrinating character of the EBPI. Our investigation confirms limited acceptance of EBPI which might predominately be caused by unsatisfied expectations and unfamiliarity with this kind of information.

How Did I Get This Way? How Bad Is the Damage? &lt;i&gt;and&lt;/i&gt; How Do I Fix It?

here is an old saying, ―Ignorance is bliss.‖ I never really knew what the elders meant by this statement until the last few years of teaching mathematics to high-SES students at a private school. You see it has been 3 years since I decided to take the red pill (like Neo in The Matrix) and this decision has led to numerous days of frustration, confusion, and unfulfilling results. Before doing so, I was in a state of ―ignorant bliss.‖ I stood in front of my students, poked my chest out, and indoctrinated them with knowledge relevant or irrelevant to their lives. In return, they wrote down word-for-word everything I said, never questioned my mathematics, and passed the assessments. Dialogue 1 was not present, numeracy was not present, and mathemacy 2 was nowhere in sight. Then the decision—the red pill—and I became conflicted and began to reflect differently on my teaching practices. I started to see the discourses that surround my students (and yes the wealthy too have discourses), discourses created by their teachers and their teachers‘ practices, and the discourses created by lofty and unsatisfied expectations of their parents. These practices and discourses work

Opportunities for Environmentally Degradable Polymers

Abstract Environmentally degradable polymers, including polymers that are biodegradable, photodegradable, oxidatively degradable, and hydrolytically degradable, have attracted a great deal of attention over the last 20 years or so, particularly as part of plastics waste-management. Undelivered promises, unsatisfied expectations, and unproved claims of degradation have raised serious questions as to the future of this class of polymers. Consequently, we are now at the stage where environmentally degradable polymers need to be carefully evaluated in order to assess what value or benefit, if any, they offer to the polymer industry and the consumer. This assessment must include clear and universally accepted definitions for terms that describe the various environmental degradation pathways, the definition of an acceptable environmentally biodegradable polymer, and methodologies that are able to quantify the degree of degradation. When all these are achieved, it should be possible to recognize and take advantage of the opportunities that are available for environmentally degradable polymers, provided that other requirements such as cost and properties are acceptable. In this article, the key issues of terminology and test methodology are addressed, and, based on the results, some personal prognoses are made on the selective opportunities that may be available for environmentally acceptable degradable polymers.

Knowledge compilation using constraint inheritance

AbstractDesign knowledge is continually refined and expanded through experience. This research is concerned with design knowledge expressed as constraints. A simple learning mechanism simulates an expert designer's ability to incrementally adjust her knowledge when presented with slightly new problems. In response to unsatisfied expectations during the design process the system will examine its general knowledge about the design artifact, discover some relevant constraining knowledge, and convert that knowledge into a design constraint for future use. This process, referred to as constraint inheritance, should automatically improve the problem-solving performance.

Les Témoins de Jéhovah dans le Nord de la France : implantation et expansion

The Watch Tower movement saw considerable expansion in northern France, especially in the mining basin where it essentially recruited Polish emigrant workers, but also French workers in lesser proportions. The author attempts to retrace the history of the spread of the movement in this region and examines the causes of its unique development in France. These causes could be linked to the social conditions of this population : social and cultural change, unsatisfied expecta tions, absence of political power, a crisis of confidence in the Catholic Church. They could also be subsumed under a more global hypothesis according to which the Watch Tower movement would have constituted a substitute home- land for the emigrant Polish workers. As for the French Jehovah's Witnesses, it was seen that they partially shared the Polish workers' fate, and individual particularities had to be taken into account.

Differential Associational Involvement of Successive Ethnic Immigrations: An Indicator of Ethno-Religious Factionalism and Alienation of Immigrants

In response to loss of prestige and awareness of limited opportunities for regaining higher social positions and prominence, status-discrepant immigrants are likely to engage intensively in voluntary association activities of a distinct status-group character. The negative status discrepancy resulting from pressure of forces outside the control of status-discrepant immigrants will most probably lead to political conservativism. While membership in status groups provides status-discrepant immigrants with identification and shields them from psychic reaction to the loss of prestige, it also represents alienation from their ethnic group as well as from the larger society. This report presents partial findings of a survey concerning factionalism in the Serbian ethnic group, which recently experienced a schism in its church which serves as the primary source of Serbian historical identification. The schism occurred over the question of whether the supreme body of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Yugoslavia had the right to suspend and to divest Bishop Dionysius and to divide the single Serbian Orthodox diocese in the United States and Canada into three dioceses. The supporters of the bishop insisted that the Mother Church functions under the pressure of the Yugoslav communist regime. The bishop argued in one of his Epistles (Dionysius, 1963) that the formation of three new dioceses demanded and desired by Tito's regime, which hinders the work of this diocese, and which desires to subjugate also this part of the free Serbs through bishops loyal to it. After the bishop's repudiation of the Mother Church, the Serbian religioethnic community began splitting into two hostile factions, with the majority of members in 20 out of 59 parishes in the United States declaring loyalty to Bishop Dionysius. For reasons of alleged conspiracy of the Yugoslav Communists against America, the schism came to the attention of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security (Congressional Record, Senate, 1963:24114-24115). The factional cleavage among Serbs in America occurred along certain lines of internal group differential. On the local level, the schism deeply affected the interpersonal relationships among American Serbs and broke many friendships. This study is based on the proposition that predominantly immigrant ethnic groups cannot be treated as undifferentiated social entities (Lewin, 1948:194). The differential behavior of various segments of an immigrant group may reflect their sociocultural and political differences including their differential motives for emigration. Therefore, any study of predominantly immigrant ethnic groups (Anastasi and Foley, 1956:704-705) should take into consideration background factors which have affected the immigrant's self-perception, expectations, aspirations, and the direction of his emotional reactions to his social position. The ethnic group is a social system through which its members satisfy many of their social needs and express frustration resulting from unsatisfied expectations and aspirations in the larger society. An immigrant must make two kinds of adjustment: (1) to his own ethnic group, and (2) to the larger society. An immi* This manuscript was presented at the annual meeting of the Ohio Valley Sociological SocietyRace and Ethnic Relations and the Minority Community Section-at Cleveland, April 1971.