75 research outputs found
An empirical evaluation of m-health service users’ behaviours: A case of Bangladesh
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.Mobile health (m-health) services are revolutionising healthcare in the developing world by improving accessibility, affordability, and availability. Although these services are revolutionising healthcare in various ways, there are growing concerns regarding users' service quality perceptions and overall influence on satisfaction and usage behaviours. In developing countries, access to healthcare and low healthcare costs are insufficient if users lack confidence in healthcare service quality.
Bangladesh's Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) provides the only government-sponsored m-health service available to the entire population. DGHS's m-health service, available since 2009, is yet to be evaluated in terms of users' perceptions of the quality of service and its impact on satisfaction and usage. Hence, this study developed a conceptual model for evaluating the associations between overall DGHS m-health service quality, satisfaction, and usage behaviours. This study operationalised overall m-health service quality as a higher-order construct with three dimensions- platform quality, information quality, and outcome quality, and nine corresponding subdimensions-privacy, systems availability, systems reliability, systems efficiency, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, emotional benefit, and functional benefit.
Moreover, researchers in various service domains, including- healthcare, marketing, environmental protection, and information systems, evaluated and confirmed the influence of social and personal norms on satisfaction and behavioural outcomes like- intention to use. Despite this, no research has been conducted to determine whether these normative components affect m-health users' service satisfaction and usage behaviours. As a result, this study included social and personal norms along with overall service quality into the conceptual model to assess the influence of these variables on users' satisfaction and m-health service usage behaviours. Data was collected from two districts in Bangladesh- Dhaka and Rajshahi, utilising the online survey approach. A total of 417 usable questionnaires were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling to investigate the relationships between the constructs in Warp PLS.
The study confirms that all three dimensions of service quality and their corresponding subdimensions influence users' overall perceptions of DGHS m-health service quality. Moreover, overall DGHS m-health service quality has a significant direct association with satisfaction and an indirect association with usage behaviours through satisfaction. While social norms do not influence satisfaction and usage behaviours within the DGHS m-health context, personal norms directly influence users' satisfaction and indirectly influence usage behaviours through satisfaction. Theoretically, the study contributes by framing the influence of users' overall m-health service quality perceptions, social and personal norms on their actual usage behaviours rather than the intention to use. It also extends the existing knowledge by assessing and comparing m-health users' continuous and discontinuous behaviours. Methodologically this study confirms the usefulness of partial least squares structural equational modelling to analyse a complex model including a higher order construct (i.e., overall perceived service quality). Practically, the study demonstrates the importance of users' satisfaction in addition to service quality, as service quality only affects usage behaviours through satisfaction in the current study context. Additionally, knowing that personal norms significantly influence service satisfaction motivates providers of m-health services to strive to enhance users' personal norms toward m-health service to enhance service satisfaction and usage. Overall, the study will help enhance patient outcomes and m-health service usage
LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volume
LIPIcs, Volume 261, ICALP 2023, Complete Volum
Molecular Basis of Apomixis in Plants
Apomixis is the consequence of a concerted mechanism that harnesses the sexual machinery and coordinates developmental steps in the ovule to produce an asexual (clonal) seed. Altered sexual developments involve widely characterized functional and anatomical changes in meiosis, gametogenesis, and embryo and endosperm formation. The ovules of apomictic plants skip meiosis and form unreduced female gametophytes whose egg cells develop into a parthenogenetic embryo, and the central cells may or may not fuse to a sperm to develop the seed endosperm. Thus, functional apomixis involves at least three components, apomeiosis, parthenogenesis, and endosperm development, modified from sexual reproduction that must be coordinated at the molecular level to progress through the developmental steps and form a clonal seed. Despite recent progress uncovering specific genes related to apomixis-like phenotypes and the formation of clonal seeds, the molecular basis and regulatorynetwork of apomixis is still unknown. This is a central problem underlying the current limitations of apomixis breeding. This book collates twelve publications addressing different topics around the molecular basis of apomixis, illustrating recent discoveries and advances toward understanding the genetic regulation of the trait, discussing the possible origins of apomixis and the remaining challenges for its commercial deployment in plants
Functional analysis of a truncating variant of RAD51B and two ultraconserved genomic elements in gametogenesis
[ES] La gametogénesis de mamíferos, cuyo objetivo final es generar gametos haploides a partir de células diploides, representa uno de los procesos de diferenciación más complejos en la biología del desarrollo y requiere una regulación precisa de la expresión génica. Si bien se ha generado un vasto conocimiento en este campo a lo largo de décadas, aún quedan por comprender a fondo varios aspectos en cuanto a su regulación.
En la presente tesis se ha llevado a cabo el análisis funcional de una familia con infertilidad hereditaria y dos elementos ultraconservados de mamíferos, HS205 y HS1442, potencialmente implicados en la gametogénesis.
La insuficiencia ovárica primaria (POI, por sus siglas en inglés) causa infertilidad femenina al anular la función ovárica normal. Aunque la etiología genética de este trastorno se ha investigado ampliamente, la mayoría de los casos de POI siguen sin explicación. RAD51B es un miembro de la familia de recombinasas RAD51. Los resultados de la secuenciación del exoma completo de una familia con POI identificaron una variante truncada homocigótica en RAD51B-(c.92delT) en dos hermanas afectadas. Los estudios in vitro revelaron que esta variante conduce al reinicio de la traducción en el codón 64 de AUG. Aquí mostramos que se trata de una variante hipomórfica patógena en un modelo de ratón. Los ratones Rad51bc.92delT/c.92delT exhibieron defectos de reparación del ADN meiótico debido a la acumulación de γH2AX, RAD51 y HSF2BP/BMRE1 en los ejes cromosómicos, lo que provocó una reducción en el número de entrecruzamientos. Curiosamente, la interacción de RAD51B-c.92delT con RAD51C y con sus interactores recientemente identificados RAD51 y HELQ fue anulada o disminuida. La reparación de las aberraciones cromosómicas inducidas por mitomicina-C se vio afectada in vitro en células somáticas humanas y de ratón RAD51B/Rad51b-c.92delT y en células de médula ósea de ratón explantadas. En consecuencia, la variante RAD51B-c.92delT redujo la eficiencia de reprogramación pluripotente de los fibroblastos embrionarios de ratón primarios. Finalmente, los ratones Rad51bc.92delT/c.92delT mostraron una mayor incidencia de hiperplasia de la glándula pituitaria. Estos resultados proporcionan nuevos conocimientos sobre el mecanismo del papel de RAD51B no solo en la meiosis sino también en el mantenimiento de la estabilidad del genoma somático.
Los elementos ultraconservados son secuencias genómicas que muestran niveles extremadamente altos de similitud entre especies distantes. Hasta la fecha, no se ha propuesto ninguna explicación funcional convincente que resulte en un nivel tan alto de conservación. Sin embargo, la distribución de estos elementos dentro y entre los genomas de vertebrados sugiere que podrían tener muchas funciones como elementos reguladores de la transcripción durante la diferenciación asociada con el desarrollo. Para explorar directamente un papel funcional de estos elementos ultraconservados en la regulación de la espermatogénesis, se han seleccionado dos elementos ultraconservados, HS205 y HS1442, potencialmente involucrados en la biología de las células germinales según su actividad potenciadora restringida durante el desarrollo del ratón hasta el tubérculo genital. Con el fin de analizar su papel, se ha caracterizado su actividad potenciadora tanto in vitro en diferentes tipos de células como in vivo mediante electroporación testicular. Además, se ha eliminado hs205 y hs1442 en el ratón utilizando el sistema CRISPR/Cas9 y analizado sus consecuencias durante la espermatogénesis. Los resultados proporcionan evidencia in vivo de que HS205 y HS1442 no son esenciales para la gametogénesis masculina y, por lo tanto, para la fertilidad en el ratón
Programming Languages and Systems
This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 31st European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2022, which was held during April 5-7, 2022, in Munich, Germany, as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2022. The 21 regular papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. They deal with fundamental issues in the specification, design, analysis, and implementation of programming languages and systems
Programming Languages and Systems
This open access book constitutes the proceedings of the 29th European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2020, which was planned to take place in Dublin, Ireland, in April 2020, as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2020. The actual ETAPS 2020 meeting was postponed due to the Corona pandemic. The papers deal with fundamental issues in the specification, design, analysis, and implementation of programming languages and systems
The (Coarse) Fine-Grained Structure of NP-Hard SAT and CSP Problems
We study the fine-grained complexity of NP-complete satisfiability (SAT) problems and constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) in the context of the strong exponential-time hypothesis (SETH), showing non-trivial lower and upper bounds on the running time. Here, by a non-trivial lower bound for a problem SAT(Gamma) (respectively CSP(Gamma)) with constraint language F, we mean a value c(0) &gt; 1 such that the problem cannot be solved in time O(c(n)) for any c &lt; c(0) unless SETH is false, while a non-trivial upper bound is simply an algorithm for the problem running in time O(c(n)) for some c &lt; 2. Such lower bounds have proven extremely elusive, and except for cases where c(0) = 2 effectively no such previous bound was known. We achieve this by employing an algebraic framework, studying constraint languages r in terms of their algebraic properties. We uncover a powerful algebraic framework where a mild restriction on the allowed constraints offers a concise algebraic characterization. On the relational side we restrict ourselves to Boolean languages closed under variable negation and partial assignment, called sign-symmetric languages. On the algebraic side this results in a description via partial operations arising from system of identities, with a close connection to operations resulting in tractable CSPs, such as near unanimity operations and edge operations. Using this connection we construct improved algorithms for several interesting classes of sign-symmetric languages, and prove explicit lower bounds under SETH. Thus, we find the first example of an NP-complete SAT problem with a non-trivial algorithm which also admits a non-trivial lower bound under SETH. This suggests a dichotomy conjecture with a close connection to the CSP dichotomy theorem: an NP-complete SAT problem admits an improved algorithm if and only if it admits a non-trivial partial invariant of the above form.Funding Agencies|Swedish resourch council (VR) [2019-03690]</p
Aneuploidy in Health and Disease
Aneuploidy means any karyotype that is not euploid, anything that stands outside the norm. Two particular characteristics make the research of aneuploidy challenging. First, it is often hard to distinguish what is a cause and what is a consequence. Secondly, aneuploidy is often associated with a persistent defect in maintenance of genome stability. Thus, working with aneuploid, unstable cells means analyzing an ever changing creature and capturing the features that persist. In the book Aneuploidy in Health and Disease we summarize the recent advances in understanding the causes and consequences of aneuploidy and its link to human pathologies
Meiosis
Meiosis, the process of forming gametes in preparation for sexual reproduction, has long been a focus of intense study. Meiosis has been studied at the cytological, genetic, molecular and cellular levels. Studies in model systems have revealed common underlying mechanisms while in parallel, studies in diverse organisms have revealed the incredible variation in meiotic mechanisms. This book brings together many of the diverse strands of investigation into this fascinating and challenging field of biology
Concepts, Frames and Cascades in Semantics, Cognition and Ontology
This open access book presents novel theoretical, empirical and experimental work exploring the nature of mental representations that support natural language production and understanding, and other manifestations of cognition. One fundamental question raised in the text is whether requisite knowledge structures can be adequately modeled by means of a uniform representational format, and if so, what exactly is its nature. Frames are a key topic covered which have had a strong impact on the exploration of knowledge representations in artificial intelligence, psychology and linguistics; cascades are a novel development in frame theory. Other key subject areas explored are: concepts and categorization, the experimental investigation of mental representation, as well as cognitive analysis in semantics. This book is of interest to students, researchers, and professionals working on cognition in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology
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