FACTORS INFLUENCING THE NON-USE AND ABANDONMENT OF ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

ssistive technology is recognised as a necessary tool to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities. The use of assistive technology and the quality of related services varies from country to country. However, in most countries, there are some factors that influence the non-use or abandonment of assistive technology.This paper aim is to present the results of studies published in the period between 2015 and 2023 on the factors of non-use and/or abandonment of AT published in the articles cited in the Web of Science database. It also presents some results of three studies conducted in Croatia.The results show that difficulties in not using and abandonment AT appear in different social and cultural settings. Some of the most common factors identified were the health condition of the user, problems with use, inappropriate AT, lack of training of users and experts, lack of support, non-involvement of users in the AT design, etc.The non-use and abandonment of AT can harm the quality of life of people with disabilities. Many factors can influence AT abandonment. It is necessary to determine which factors influence the non-use and refusal to use assistive devices and which types of AT are most frequently not used. Understanding these factors is the first step in reducing the problem

Factors Influencing Utilization of Cervical Cancer Screening Services in Kenya: the Case of Nyeri County

Globally, cervical cancer continues to be a major cause of mortality and morbidity among women with developing countries accounting for more than 86% of the deaths from the disease. In Kenya, cervical cancer ranks as the second most frequent cancer among women: regrettably, with 80% of the cases presented during the late stages of the disease when the scope of successful treatment is limited. An opportunity to prevent occurrence of cervical cancer exists through cervical cancer screening for early detection and treatment of precancerous lesions before these develop to cancer. However, only a negligible proportion of women benefit from cervical cancer screening services in developing countries, including Kenya. The purpose of this descriptive survey study was to determine the factors influencing utilization of cervical cancer screening services; and focused on the women seeking maternal and family planning services at Central Provincial General Hospital, Kenya. The study established that, as in most developing countries, utilization of cervical cancer screening services was low, regardless of the women's education level, autonomy in decision making and even good family support. The low level of awareness on the need for screening services and the long waiting time at the clinic for those seeking the services were identified as the two key issues that negatively influenced the utilization of the screening services, It is therefore recommended that the Ministry of Health and other agencies, including individuals of good will, collaborate in designing and implementing awareness campaigns through the media and other appropriate avenues, including one-to-one encounters, targeting both men and women in the communities. It is also recommended that the male partners support their women in accessing this vital life-saving service

Factors Influencing Perceptual Distance

Previous research shows that social biases, such as pro-White racial bias, can influence a person\u27s decisions and behaviors (Correll et al. 2007; Mekawi & Bresin, 2015). Studies also suggest that social biases may influence basic functions like visual perception (Cesario & Navarrete, 2014); however, few studies have examined the relationship between visual perceptions and threat (Cesario, Placks, Hagiwara, Navarrete, & Higgins, 2010; Todd, Thiem, & Neel, 2016). The current research aims to investigate whether implicit pro-White preference can influence basic functions like visual perception. A secondary aim of this study is to examine the role of threat in this relationship. To test, White male and female participants (N= 29) were asked to complete distance estimates to either a Black or White male experimenter. It was hypothesized that participants would judge the distance to the Black confederate as closer compared to those who estimate the distance to a White confederate. The results marginally supported the idea that participants’ distance judgements were influenced by the experimenter’s race, such that the Black experimenter was viewed as closer when compared to the White experimenter. However, results showed that implicit racial attitudes did not influence distance estimations, but explicit bias did. Fully powered follow-up studies will be conducted to further examine these hypotheses and investigate whether a type one error was present

Factors Influencing Customer\u27s Acceptance of Islamic Banking Products and Services

The emergence of Islamic banking system has had a huge impact on the financial industry. This research attempts to identify the influential factors that are associated with Islamic banking adoption between the Muslim and non-Muslim populations in Sarawak, Malaysia. With the “adoption of Islamic banking” as the dependent variable, this study studies its relationship with seven independent variables. They are, four attributes of innovation, namely; 1) relative advantage, 2) compatibility, 3) observability and 4) complexity, and three additional variables namely; 5) perceived risk, 6) perceived trust and 7) customer innovativeness. A convenient sampling method is used whereby a questionnaire is administered to 436 respondents in Sarawak, Malaysia. Using the logistic regression method, three factors; 1) compatibility, 2) relative advantage/observability and 3) complexity are found to have significant relationship with customers\u27 adoption of Islamic banking products and services

Factors Influencing Cities' Publishing Efficiency

Recently, a vast number of scientific publications have been produced in cities in emerging countries. It has long been observed that the publication output of Beijing has exceeded that of any other city in the world, including such leading centres of science as Boston, New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo. Researchers have suggested that, instead of focusing on cities' total publication output, the quality of the output in terms of the number of highly cited papers should be examined. However, in the period from 2014 to 2016, Beijing produced as many highly cited papers as Boston, London, or New York. In this paper, I propose another method to measure cities' publishing performance; I focus on cities' publishing efficiency (i.e., the ratio of highly cited articles to all articles produced in that city). First, I rank 554 cities based on their publishing efficiency, then I reveal some general factors influencing cities' publishing efficiency. The general factors examined in this paper are as follows: the linguistic environment, cities' economic development level, the location of excellent organisations, cities' international collaboration patterns, and the productivity of scientific disciplines

FACTORS INFLUENCING FARMERS’ DECISION TO INCREASE BEEF CATTLE BUSINESS SCALE IN CENTRAL JAVA PROVINCE

The purpose of this research was to analyze factors influencing farmers decision to increase beef cattle business scale through improved technology. The research was conducted by using a survey method. Five districts were purposively selected in three base areas and two non-base areas of beef cattle in Central Java Province, Indonesia. Twenty beef cattle groups were selected based on the largest cattle population managed and their performance, while 196 respondents were randomly selected. Farmers decision to increase beef cattle business scale was determined using a probit model. Result of the research indicated that the number of family labor and expectation to increase income had a significantly positive influence on the farmers’ decision to increase beef cattle business scale. It meant that if the total number of family labor increased, so did the farmers’ decision to increase the beef cattle business scale. Also, if the expectation to revenue increased, so did the farmers’ decision to increase the beef cattle business scale. On the contrary, education level and business risk had negative significant influence on the farmers decision to increase the beef cattle business scale with the significance levels of 1.1 and 0.84, respectively