Speech function in persons with Parkinson\u27s disease: effects of environment, task and treatment

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a degenerative neurological disease affecting aspects of movement, including speech. Persons with PD are reported to have better speech functioning in the clinical setting than in the home setting, but this has not been quantified. New methodologies in ambulatory measures of speech are emerging that allow investigation of non-clinical settings. The following questions are addressed: Is speech different between environments in PD and in healthy controls? Can clinical tasks predict speech behaviors in the home? Is treatment proven effective by measures in the home? What can we glean from methods of measurement of speech function in the home? The experiment included 13 persons with PD and 12 healthy controls, studied in the clinical and home environments, and 7 of those 13 persons with PD participated in a treatment study. Major findings included: Spontaneous speech intelligibility, not intensity, was the differentiating factor between persons with PD and healthy controls. Intelligibility and intensity were not related. Both groups presented with higher sentence intensity in the home environment. Spontaneous speech intelligibility in the clinic was related to spontaneous speech intelligibility in the home. The Sentence Intelligibility Test emerged as the best predictor of spontaneous speech intelligibility in the home. Differences between pilot treatment groups measured in the home on intensity and intelligibility were not large enough to make a clinical trial feasible. Individual differences may account for many of these results, for example more severely impaired patients may have shown different data. Drawing conclusions regarding the home environment via measures outside the home should be carefully considered. Ambulatory measures of speech are a viable option for studying speech function in non-clinical settings, and technology is advancing. Further investigation is needed to develop methodologies and normative values for speech in the home

Kendala yang Dihadapi Guru dan Orang Tua dalam Pembelajaran Tahfidz Siswa Masa Pandemi Covid-19

This study aims to describe the obstacles faced by teachers and parents in assisting children to memorize the Qur'an. The research method used is a descriptive qualitative approach. The sample consists of 6 people consisting of 1 teacher and 5 guardians of students, taken using a random technique. Data obtained by means of observation, interviews, and documentation, analyzed by data reduction taking into account the validity of the data, methods and triangulation. The results of this study indicate that the obstacles experienced by teachers and parents in carrying out Tahfidz Al-Qur'an learning for grade IIIA students at SDIT Al-Yasiir Bengkulu City during the pandemic are the short duration of time studying at school so teachers must think about methods and media in learning children from home online, the use of technology related to Android cellphones, not all parents can operate the cellphone so that teachers find it difficult to provide information to students, parents who are busy working, and parents who cannot read the Qur'an. In conclusion, the obstacles faced by teachers and parents are communication tools, time and the ability of teachers and parents to provide direction and guidance to children in learning Tahfidz Al-Qur'an students at SDIT Al-Yasiir Bengkulu City.   Keywords: Teacher, parent, Pandemic Covid-1

Huomaamattomat mittausmenetelmät unen laadun tarkkailussa

Sleep is an important part of health and well-being. While sleep quantity is directly measurable, sleep quality has traditionally been assessed with subjective methods such as questionnaires. The study of sleep disorders has for a long time been confined to clinical environments, and patients have had to endure cumbersome procedures involving multiple electrodes placed on the body. Recent developments in sensor technology as well as data analysis methods have enabled continuous, unobtrusive sleep data recording in the home environment. This has opened new possibilities for studying various sleep parameters and their effect on the quality of sleep. This thesis consists of two parts. The first part is a literature review examining the field of sleep quality research with focus on the application of intelligent methods and signal processing. The second part is a descriptive data analysis look at sleep data obtained with non-invasive sensors.Uni on terveyden ja hyvinvoinnin keskeinen tekijä. Unen määrä on helposti mitattavissa, mutta unen laatua on perinteisesti seurattu kyselylomakkeiden kaltaisin subjektiivisin menetelmin. Unihäiriöiden tutkiminen on pitkään rajoittunut kliinisiin ympäristöihin, ja potilaiden on täytynyt sietää hankalia tutkimusmenetelmiä useine kehoon kiinnitettävine elektrodeineen. Anturiteknologian ja data-analyysimenetelmien kehittyminen on mahdollistanut unidatan jatkuvan ja huomaamattoman tallentamisen kotiympäristössä. Tämä on avannut uusia mahdollisuuksia sekä unen ominaisuuksien että niiden unen laatuun vaikuttavien tekijöiden tutkimiselle. Tämä tutkimus jakautuu kahteen osaan. Ensimmäinen osa on kirjallisuuskatsaus unen laadun tutkimukseen, painopisteenä älykkäiden menetelmien ja signaalinkäsittelyn soveltaminen. Toisessa osassa esitellään huomaamattomilla sensoreilla kerättävän unidatan tutkimista ja sen deskriptiivistä data-analyysiä, esimerkkinä ballistokardiografia

Understanding workflow in telehealth video visits: Observations from the IDEATel project

AbstractHome telemedicine is an emerging healthcare paradigm that has the potential to transform the treatment of chronic illness. The purpose of this paper is to: (1) develop a theoretical and methodological framework for studying workflow in telemediated clinician–patient encounters drawing on a distributed cognition approach and (2) employ the framework in an in-depth analysis of workflow in the IDEATel project, a telemedicine program for older adults with diabetes. The methods employed in this research included (a) videotaped observations of 27 nurse–patient encounters and (b) semi-structured interviews with participants. The analyses were used to provide a descriptive analysis of video visits, understand the mediating role of different technologies and to characterize the ways in which artifacts and representations are used to understand the state of the patient. The study revealed barriers to productive use of telehealth technology as well as adaptations that circumvented such limitations. This research has design implications for: (a) improving the coordination of communication and (b) developing tools that better integrate and display information. Although home telemedicine programs will differ in important respects, there are invariant properties across such systems. Explicating these properties can serve as a needs requirement analysis to develop more effective systems and implementation plans

Reading and company: embodiment and social space in silent reading practices

Reading, even when silent and individual, is a social phenomenon and has often been studied as such. Complementary to this view, research has begun to explore how reading is embodied beyond simply being ‘wired’ in the brain. This article brings the social and embodied perspectives together in a very literal sense. Reporting a qualitative study of reading practices across student focus groups from six European countries, it identifies an underexplored factor in reading behaviour and experience. This factor is the sheer physical presence, and concurrent activity, of other people in the environment where one engages in individual silent reading. The primary goal of the study was to explore the role and possible associations of a number of variables (text type, purpose, device) in selecting generic (e.g. indoors vs outdoors) as well as specific (e.g. home vs library) reading environments. Across all six samples included in the study, participants spontaneously attested to varied, and partly surprising, forms of sensitivity to company and social space in their daily efforts to align body with mind for reading. The article reports these emergent trends and discusses their potential implications for research and practice

CYBER SECURITY @ HOME: The Effect of Home User Perceptions of Personal Security Performance on Household IoT Security Intentions

This study explored potential human factors predictors of home user security intentions through the lens of past performance, perceived self-efficacy, and locus of control. While perceived self-efficacy and locus of control are elements in several organizational and individual security models, past performance has been less frequently studied. The variable, past performance, which has been referred to in other studies as prior experience, knowledge, and information security awareness, is usually a single question self-assessment of familiarity or comfort with technology. This study explores user technical prowess in further depth, using formal technical education, informal technical education, employment in an IT/CS field, and self-reported email and internet security measures as a measurement of technical ability. Security intentions were determined by best practices in hardware security, network security, and IoT device protection. Studying IoT security in home users is important because there are 26.6 billion devices connected to the Internet already, with 127 devices are being added to the network every second, which creates a very large attack surface if left unsecured. Unlike organizations, with dedicated IT departments, home users must provide their own security within their network. Instead of building security around the user, this research attempts to determine what human factors variables effect intentions to use existing security technologies. Through an online survey, home users provided information on their background, device usage, perceived ability to perform security behaviors, level of control over their environment, current security intentions, and future security intentions. Hierarchical linear regression, path modeling, and structural equation modeling determined that past performance was consistently the strongest predictor of security intentions for home users. Self-efficacy and locus of control had varying results among the disparate methods. Additionally, exposure to security concepts through the survey had an effect on user security intentions, as measured at the end of the survey. This research contributed an initial model for the effects of past performance, self-efficacy, and locus of control on security intentions. It provided verification for existing self-efficacy and locus of control measurements, as well as comprehensive, modular security intentions survey questions. Additionally, this study provided insight into the effect of demographics on security intentions

Factoring sustainability into the Higher Education product-service system

This paper summarises the findings of the first phase of a major study of the environmental impacts of an important service system - higher education (HE). The study assessed three methods of providing HE: conventional campus-based courses and distance/open learning courses using print-based and electronic delivery, with the following key findings. (1) On average, the distance taught Open University (OU) courses involved 90% less energy and CO2 emissions (per unit of study) than the campus based courses, mainly due to reductions in student travel and housing energy consumption, plus scale economies in campus site utilisation. (2) The OU e-learning course had over 20% higher environmental impacts than the print-based OU course, due to higher use of computing, paper consumption for printing web-based material, and extra home heating during Internet access. Programmes to reduce the environmental impacts of HE should be broadened beyond 'greening' the campus and the curriculum to include the impacts of student travel and housing. The study challenges claims that 'de-materialisation' and using ICT to provide services such as HE necessarily reduces environmental impacts. Service system environmental impacts depend mainly on its requirements for transport and a dedicated infrastructure of buildings and equipment. ICT will only benefit the environment if they reduce the service's requirements for these elements

Making Medical Homes Work: Moving From Concept to Practice

Explores practical considerations for implementing a medical home program of physician practices committed to coordinating and integrating care based on patient needs and priorities, such as how to qualify medical homes and how to match patients to them