MedSurv: a software application for creating, conducting and managing medical surveys and questionnaires

MedSurv is a system designed for the rapid creation and maintenance of research surveys and questionnaires that does not require programmer intervention. MedSurv is built with medical surveys in mind and utilizes a group-based permission control with additional security features to help ensure compliance with applicable healthcare regulations. MedSurv is designed as a module for DotNetNuke [1], an open source portal and content management system built with ASP.Net technology, and therefore can be deployed and managed as intranet, extranet, and web sites. At the same time, all data is stored at the researcher\u27s institution to guarantee the required data privacy. Thanks to its built-in support for user authentication and user roles, there is no need to create such functionality from scratch. However, a group-based permissions system is added to MedSurv to support sufficient granularity for access control. Although from the data access point of view data storage acts as a relational table, MedSurv uses a solution that we call virtual tables. The premise behind such a solution is that the structure of the tables is itself stored in a set of relational tables within the database, essentially creating a miniature database within the database. This additional layer is transparent to the user and removes the need for any programming or database knowledge. At the same time it gives the user the flexibility of changing the survey at runtime. Unlike a traditional structure that may require database developer\u27s involvement each time a survey is added or changed, with virtual tables there is very low developer and database administration need after launch. MedSurv allows for creating complex medical surveys and is, in particular, used to develop questionnaires for research driven data collection in the Department of Gastroenterology

HELIN Consortium LORI Grant Applicant Information

Completed grant application for HELIN\u27s successful Library of Rhode Island grant. Project Synopsis: The purpose of this project is to collaborate with Rhode Island library and information management professionals, community and business leaders, government and education professionals, and college and university scholars to gather information in preparation for writing a grant to create a statewide digital repository for Rhode Island

Influence of Exercise Environment on Stress and Affect in Sedentary Adults: A Comparison of Indoor and Natural Environments

The national need for increased physical activity, especially among sedentary populations, has been well documented. The need now is for fitness programs to be more effective at encouraging individuals to adopt and maintain a physically active lifestyle. This study investigated the relationship between exercise environment, stress, affect, and Nature Relatedness. Because stress reduction has been seen as a benefit of being exposed to nature, stress and affect were assessed in sedentary adults at the beginning and end of short walks in an outdoor and indoor environment in an effort to determine which environment had the greater ability to reduce stress. Stress and affect were measured using salivary cortisol concentration and alpha-amylase activity, as well as surveys and questionnaires. Additionally, the link between Nature Relatedness and environmental preference was assessed. Ultimately, our results indicated that this population expressed a preference for exercising in the outdoor environment over the indoor environment

Visual Layout of Print Questionnaires: Effect on Responses of Middle School Students

A three-page questionnaire was modified to a one-page format. Questionnaires were administered in classroom groups to 300 middle school students. Classrooms were randomly divided into two groups, with one group receiving the original three-page format and the other receiving a single-page version of the same questionnaire. The visual layout of the two versions was different, and included variations in font, placement of response options, and spacing. Item non-response was greater for the single-page format. No statistically significant differences were detected between response patterns or internal consistency of the two versions of the questionnaire. Implications for school counselors are discussed

HELIN Consortium LORI Grant Final Report HELIN

Final report to the RI Office of Library and Information Services on the work accomplished with the LORI grant received from that agency

UA56/3/2 Institutional Research Reports File External

External reports created by the department of Institutional Research. These also include information requests, surveys and questionnaires from outside institutions. Subjects of these reports include financial aid, student enrollment, higher education, faculty/staff. Institutions include Kentucky Council on Higher Education, American Association of Colleges & Teachers, American Association of Colleges & Schools, National Center for Educational Statistics, and American Council on Education

Query Expansion for Survey Question Retrieval in the Social Sciences

In recent years, the importance of research data and the need to archive and to share it in the scientific community have increased enormously. This introduces a whole new set of challenges for digital libraries. In the social sciences typical research data sets consist of surveys and questionnaires. In this paper we focus on the use case of social science survey question reuse and on mechanisms to support users in the query formulation for data sets. We describe and evaluate thesaurus- and co-occurrence-based approaches for query expansion to improve retrieval quality in digital libraries and research data archives. The challenge here is to translate the information need and the underlying sociological phenomena into proper queries. As we can show retrieval quality can be improved by adding related terms to the queries. In a direct comparison automatically expanded queries using extracted co-occurring terms can provide better results than queries manually reformulated by a domain expert and better results than a keyword-based BM25 baseline.Comment: to appear in Proceedings of 19th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries 2015 (TPDL 2015

Evidence-Based Programs & Measures Of Mental Health Literacy among Adolescents: A Narrative Research Review

Evidence-Based Programs & Measures Of Mental Health Literacy among Adolescents: A Narrative Research Review Roxana Naemi, Dept. of Psychology, Sabrina Hawa, & Chloe Walker, Dept. of Psychology Graduate Student, with Dr. Chelsea D. Williams, Dept. of Psychology This current narrative research review aims to provide a review of measures that assess the principles of mental health literacy among adolescents. Mental health literacy can be defined as the degree to which an individual processes and understands mental health information and is able to seek further treatment (Olsson & Kennedy, 2010) and varies based upon age (Farrera et al., 2008), sex differences and relationships with peers (Burns& Rupee 2006), and attitudes towards mental health (Olsson & Kennedy, 2010). Using PsycINFO to find research to date, findings of the review indicated that for evidence-based programs using mental health literacy, adolescents had a better understanding of mental health literacy post-program, whereas when they were first interviewed through surveys and questionnaires. Additionally, the review indicated that more studies assessing psychometrics of existing measures used to assess mental health literacy among adolescents are warranted. Discussion will center on programs and methodological approaches used to examine mental health literacy among adolescents and the need for implementing more programs promoting mental health literacy within schools.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1312/thumbnail.jp

Environmental Management Systems for Public Sector

International interests in improving environmental management practices in both the public and private sector have increased. Many surveys relating to environmental management systems (EMS) in particular have been conducted, but these have focused primarily on the private sector, especially in manufacturing. While the surveys and questionnaires explain the standard itself and how to implement EMS, no comparative analysis have been made that exceed specific economic region and/ or country. This paper focuses on the public sector. The objective is to assess the social meaning of EMS for the public sector. The information presented in this paper is comprised of an empirical survey in Japan as compare to the EU and United States. It includes environmental reports, government material and field survey information. Public sectors with EMS in these regions not only succeed in controlling environmental impact (including daily activity, public works and procurement), but may improve the sustainability of the production and consumption behavior of other economic sector by applying EMS in their policy. These activities may serve as a model for other regions.