Living alone but not lonely: a selection, optimisation, and compensation analysist

Free Paper Session IV: Long-Term CareINTRODUCTION: One observation of the ageing population in Hong Kong is the increasing percentage of older adults living alone over the past few decades. Although the image of older adults living alone is often associated with feelings of isolation and loneliness, not every older adult who lives alone feels lonely. This paper is intended to answer the following question: “How can older adults live alone and not feel lonely?” Specifically, the text examines the orchestrating process adopted by those in Hong Kong for living alone without generating feelings of loneliness; this examination is guided by a selection …published_or_final_versio

Conceptualising the spirituality of Chinese older adults: a Delphi study

Free Paper Session II : Mental Health / End-Of-Life CareINTRODUCTION: Service provision in geriatric health and social care is increasingly guided by holistic principles, in which many aspects, including physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects, are equally emphasized to enhance well-being and enrich life. However, little is known about the degree of consensus among multidisciplinary professionals in the Chinese context on the central components of spirituality that most promote spiritual well-being among Chinese older adults. This study is intended to identify the core components of ...published_or_final_versio

information strategies for Malaysia: geographical, organisational, political and technological implications for development

Malaysia has undergone radical social, economic and political development over the last four decades. The information systems put in place to provide informational support for managing development projects have also changed from manual systems in the 1960s and 1970s, to computerised systems based on batch and on-line processing and networking in the 1980s, and multimedia in the 1990s. Two large-scale information system programmes were studied in detail. The National Project Monitoring System (SETIA) and the National Land Information System (NALIS) involved co-ordination of individualised information systems and sharing of information by agencies at Federal, State (including District) and local authorities. Collection of information and the subsequent analysis of that information was guided by two theoretical frameworks: first the organisational perspectives framed by Web models which help in understanding the dynamics of computing in development; and second the subjective epistemological stance framed by structuration theory which helps to frame an understanding of the complexities of social relations surrounding information systems development. This research demonstrates how organisational behaviour, and a socio-political culture influenced by economic interests and personal ambition, can complicate large scale information systems development. Reluctance to share information; differences of appreciation and awareness and varying levels of understanding of the technology in use; inadequate and incompatible information; inadequate working strategies and standards; and imbalanced infrastructural support are among the major reasons for lack of success. However, in the implementation of information systems, problems related to human factors are not unique to Malaysia; rather they are common even among 'advanced' countries. But developing countries like Malaysia are often more sensitive to changes in economic and political environments. The concluding chapter of this thesis places the information strategy issues in the context of Malaysian and Southeast Asian political and economic events of 1998

The involvement of nurses and midwives in screening and brief interventions for hazardous and harmful use of alcohol and other psychoactive substances

This report provides details of a review of the literature on the involvement of nurses and midwives in screening and brief interventions for hazardous and harmful use of alcohol and other psychoactive substances

Evaluation of a Digital Game-Based Learning Program for Enhancing Youth Mental Health: A Structural Equation Modeling of the Program Effectiveness

published_or_final_versio

A Taste for Dim Sum: Analysing the Financial Diffusion in the New Offshore Renminbi Debt Securities

Periodically a major financial innovation creates a new product class that changes the financial landscape. Examples include junk bonds that enabled leveraged buyouts, securitization that stimulated off balance sheet growth in banks, and credit default swaps that offered pure trading in credit risk. Now new renminbi financial products are emerging as China opens its capital account, providing new opportunities for innovation in corporate finance that will promote financial stability and sustainable growth in China. This study illustrates the rapid growth in the use of these new products by Chinese and overseas firms. We use diffusion models to explore how participation in this market is influenced by greater depth and liquidity of the market, lower costs of issuance and greater expected appreciation of the renminbi against the US dollar. Understanding these offshore developments will help support smoother innovation in the onshore corporate bond market

Lingnan College Hong Kong : President\u27s report 1993-1994

https://commons.ln.edu.hk/lingnan_annualreport/1013/thumbnail.jp

Exploring Determinants of Firms’ Participation in the New Offshore Renminbi Debt Securities Market

Once in a while a major financial innovation creates a new product that changes the landscape for firms that adopt it. For example, junk bonds enabled leveraged buyouts, securitization stimulated off balance sheet growth in banks, and CDS offered pure trading in credit risk. New RMB financial products emerging as China opens its capital account provide a similar change to the landscape for firms and investors engaged with China or those using RMB as a vehicle currency. Uptake of the new products has been rapid, and in this paper we use the data from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority for offshore RMB bonds to explore that process. We are mostly interested in what determines firms’ participation decision in this market. We allow for changes in regulation, market depth, parallel market developments and changes in the advantages of participation using interest differentials to explain what influences firms’ and investors’ choices to enter the market and find that they all have an influence on the decision to participate in this new financial market

Responsible research and innovation in science education: insights from evaluating the impact of using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research

Information technologies for pain management

Millions of people around the world suffer from pain, acute or chronic and this raises the importance of its screening, assessment and treatment. The importance of pain is attested by the fact that it is considered the fifth vital sign for indicating basic bodily functions, health and quality of life, together with the four other vital signs: blood pressure, body temperature, pulse rate and respiratory rate. However, while these four signals represent an objective physical parameter, the occurrence of pain expresses an emotional status that happens inside the mind of each individual and therefore, is highly subjective that makes difficult its management and evaluation. For this reason, the self-report of pain is considered the most accurate pain assessment method wherein patients should be asked to periodically rate their pain severity and related symptoms. Thus, in the last years computerised systems based on mobile and web technologies are becoming increasingly used to enable patients to report their pain which lead to the development of electronic pain diaries (ED). This approach may provide to health care professionals (HCP) and patients the ability to interact with the system anywhere and at anytime thoroughly changes the coordinates of time and place and offers invaluable opportunities to the healthcare delivery. However, most of these systems were designed to interact directly to patients without presence of a healthcare professional or without evidence of reliability and accuracy. In fact, the observation of the existing systems revealed lack of integration with mobile devices, limited use of web-based interfaces and reduced interaction with patients in terms of obtaining and viewing information. In addition, the reliability and accuracy of computerised systems for pain management are rarely proved or their effects on HCP and patients outcomes remain understudied. This thesis is focused on technology for pain management and aims to propose a monitoring system which includes ubiquitous interfaces specifically oriented to either patients or HCP using mobile devices and Internet so as to allow decisions based on the knowledge obtained from the analysis of the collected data. With the interoperability and cloud computing technologies in mind this system uses web services (WS) to manage data which are stored in a Personal Health Record (PHR). A Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) was implemented so as to determine the effectiveness of the proposed computerised monitoring system. The six weeks RCT evidenced the advantages provided by the ubiquitous access to HCP and patients so as to they were able to interact with the system anywhere and at anytime using WS to send and receive data. In addition, the collected data were stored in a PHR which offers integrity and security as well as permanent on line accessibility to both patients and HCP. The study evidenced not only that the majority of participants recommend the system, but also that they recognize it suitability for pain management without the requirement of advanced skills or experienced users. Furthermore, the system enabled the definition and management of patient-oriented treatments with reduced therapist time. The study also revealed that the guidance of HCP at the beginning of the monitoring is crucial to patients' satisfaction and experience stemming from the usage of the system as evidenced by the high correlation between the recommendation of the application, and it suitability to improve pain management and to provide medical information. There were no significant differences regarding to improvements in the quality of pain treatment between intervention group and control group. Based on the data collected during the RCT a clinical decision support system (CDSS) was developed so as to offer capabilities of tailored alarms, reports, and clinical guidance. This CDSS, called Patient Oriented Method of Pain Evaluation System (POMPES), is based on the combination of several statistical models (one-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis and Tukey-Kramer) with an imputation model based on linear regression. This system resulted in fully accuracy related to decisions suggested by the system compared with the medical diagnosis, and therefore, revealed it suitability to manage the pain. At last, based on the aerospace systems capability to deal with different complex data sources with varied complexities and accuracies, an innovative model was proposed. This model is characterized by a qualitative analysis stemming from the data fusion method combined with a quantitative model based on the comparison of the standard deviation together with the values of mathematical expectations. This model aimed to compare the effects of technological and pen-and-paper systems when applied to different dimension of pain, such as: pain intensity, anxiety, catastrophizing, depression, disability and interference. It was observed that pen-and-paper and technology produced equivalent effects in anxiety, depression, interference and pain intensity. On the contrary, technology evidenced favourable effects in terms of catastrophizing and disability. The proposed method revealed to be suitable, intelligible, easy to implement and low time and resources consuming. Further work is needed to evaluate the proposed system to follow up participants for longer periods of time which includes a complementary RCT encompassing patients with chronic pain symptoms. Finally, additional studies should be addressed to determine the economic effects not only to patients but also to the healthcare system