SOCIAL NETWORK SITES USAGE AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

The explosion of technology in this era provides an easy access to the internet through mobile smartphones and other devices. About 92% of teenagers, aged 13-17 claimed to be actively engaged online on a daily basis (Lenhart, 2015). This study determined the relationship between high school students’ usage of social network sites  (SNS) and academic performance. Using a quantitative correlational approach and cross-sectional survey, in the pilot stage of the study the researcher purposively sampled 30 participants guided by two criteria: able to understand English well, and a social network site user. A self-constructed and validated survey instrument with 29 items was administered  to the respondents in a selected Adventist secondary school in Sarawak, Malaysia. Results show that there was a negative correlation between the number of hours spent on SNS and academic performance. A few were found to have garnered excellent midterm grade average despite the long hours spent on SNS. The majority of the participants who spent longer hours on SNS had poor midterm grade average. It could be that those who spent long hours on SNS but got excellent average managed  their time wisely. Further, findings also revealed that majority of the participants had common preferences as to the type of SNS actively used. Predominant access was through mobile phones. It was found that, on a daily basis, participants spent longer hours on SNS than on school work

Low use of statins and other coronary secondary prevention therapies in primary and secondary care in India.

ObjectiveTo determine the frequency of use of pharmacotherapy with aspirin, beta blocker, statin, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor in patients with stable coronary heart disease (CHD) among physicians at different levels of health care in Rajasthan state, India.MethodsPhysicians practicing at tertiary hospitals and clinics at tertiary, secondary and primary levels were contacted. Prescriptions of CHD patients were audited and descriptive statistics reported.ResultsWe evaluated 2,993 prescriptions (tertiary hospital discharge 711, tertiary 688, secondary 1,306, and primary 288). Use of aspirin was in 2,713 (91%) of prescriptions, beta blockers 2,057 (69%), ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) 2,471 (82%), and statins 2,059 (69%). Any one of these drugs was prescribed in 2,991 (100%), any two in 2,880 (96%), any three in 1,740 (58%), and all four in 1,062 (35.5%) (P < 0.001). As compared to tertiary hospital, prescriptions at tertiary, secondary, and primary levels were lower: aspirin (96% vs 95%, 91%, 67%), beta blockers (80% vs 62%, 66%, 70%), statins (87% vs 82%, 62%, 21%): two drugs (98% vs 96%, 98%, 85%), three drugs (75% vs 58%, 55%, 28%), or four drugs (54% vs 44%, 28%, 7%) (P < 0.01). Use of ACE inhibitors/ARBs was similar while nitrates (43% vs 23%, 43%, 70%), dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers (12% vs 15%, 30%, 47%), and multivitamins (6% vs 26%, 37%, 47%) use was more in secondary and primary care.ConclusionsThere is suboptimal use of various evidence-based drugs (aspirin, beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, and statins) for secondary prevention of CHD in India

Desirability–doability group judgment framework for the collaborative multicriteria evaluation of public policies

Desirability–doability framework (2 × D) is a novel framework for the collaborative evaluation of public policies. Fundamental objectives and performance indicators are agreed upon in workshops, policies are characterised, and barriers to implementation identified. MACBETH interactive protocols are then applied in decision conferences to elicit qualitative judgments about the desirability of policies, within and across objectives; and about their doability under the expected graveness of barriers on contrasting scenarios. Elicited judgments allow, respectively, to construct a shared multicriteria model measuring the overall desirability of policies; and, to measure their doability. Desirability–doability graphs enable visual interactive classification of policies, with sensitivity/robustness analyses of uncertainties. 2 × D was successfully tested in a real-world urban-health policymaking case to evaluate spatial policies. The main novelty of 2 × D is that it bridges the socio-technical gap, present in OR, between the support required by a complex social decision-making process, and that usually offered by analytic techniques – while keeping modeling theoretically sound and simple

Modelling multicriteria value interactions with Reasoning Maps

Idiographic causal maps are extensively employed in Operational Research to support problem structuring and complex decision making processes. They model means-end or causal discourses as a network of concepts connected by links denoting influence, thus enabling the representation of chains of arguments made by decision-makers. There have been proposals to employ such structures to support the structuring of multicriteria evaluation models, within an additive value measurement framework. However, a drawback of this multi-methodological modelling is the loss of richness of interactions along the means-end chains when evaluating options. This has led to the development of methods that make use of the structure of the map itself to evaluate options, such as the Reasoning Maps method, which employs ordinal scales and ordinal operators for such evaluation. However, despite their potential, Reasoning Maps cannot model explicitly value interactions nor perform a quantitative ranking of options, limiting their applicability and usefulness. In this article we propose extending the Reasoning Maps approach through a multilinear evaluation model structure, built with the MACBETH multicriteria method. The model explicitly captures the value interactions between concepts along the map and employs the MACBETH protocol of questioning to assess the strength of influence for each means-end link. The feasibility of the proposed approach to evaluate options and to deal with multicriteria interactions is tested in a real-world application to support the construction of a population health index

The impact of providing rapid diagnostic malaria tests on fever management in the private retail sector in Ghana: a cluster randomized trial

Objective: To examine the impact of providing rapid diagnostic tests for malaria on fever management in private drug retail shops where most poor rural people with fever present, with the aim of reducing current massive overdiagnosis and overtreatment of malaria. Design: Cluster randomized trial of 24 clusters of shops. Setting: Dangme West, a poor rural district of Ghana. Participants: Shops and their clients, both adults and children. Interventions: Providing rapid diagnostic tests with realistic training. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome was the proportion of clients testing negative for malaria by a double-read research blood slide who received an artemisinin combination therapy or other antimalarial. Secondary outcomes were use of antibiotics and antipyretics, and safety. Results: Of 4603 clients, 3424 (74.4%) tested negative by double-read research slides. The proportion of slide-negative clients who received any antimalarial was 590/1854 (32%) in the intervention arm and 1378/1570 (88%) in the control arm (adjusted risk ratio 0.41 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.58), P<0.0001). Treatment was in high agreement with rapid diagnostic test result. Of those who were slide-positive, 690/787 (87.8%) in the intervention arm and 347/392 (88.5%) in the control arm received an artemisinin combination therapy (adjusted risk ratio 0.96 (0.84 to 1.09)). There was no evidence of antibiotics being substituted for antimalarials. Overall, 1954/2641 (74%) clients in the intervention arm and 539/1962 (27%) in the control arm received appropriate treatment (adjusted risk ratio 2.39 (1.69 to 3.39), P<0.0001). No safety concerns were identified. Conclusions: Most patients with fever in Africa present to the private sector. In this trial, providing rapid diagnostic tests for malaria in the private drug retail sector significantly reduced dispensing of antimalarials to patients without malaria, did not reduce prescribing of antimalarials to true malaria cases, and appeared safe. Rapid diagnostic tests should be considered for the informal private drug retail sector

Pairwise comparison matrices and the error-free property of the decision maker

Pairwise comparison is a popular assessment method either for deriving criteria-weights or for evaluating alternatives according to a given criterion. In real-world applications consistency of the comparisons rarely happens: intransitivity can occur. The aim of the paper is to discuss the relationship between the consistency of the decision maker—described with the error-free property—and the consistency of the pairwise comparison matrix (PCM). The concept of error-free matrix is used to demonstrate that consistency of the PCM is not a sufficient condition of the error-free property of the decision maker. Informed and uninformed decision makers are defined. In the first stage of an assessment method a consistent or near-consistent matrix should be achieved: detecting, measuring and improving consistency are part of any procedure with both types of decision makers. In the second stage additional information are needed to reveal the decision maker’s real preferences. Interactive questioning procedures are recommended to reach that goal

Empowering Students’ Learning Achievement Through Project-Based Learning As Perceived By Electrical Instructors And Students

Purposes of this research were to find out factors empowering electrical students‘ learning achievement through Project-Based Learning (PBL) as perceived by instructors‘ and students‘ opinions. The sample chosen for this study were 247 electrical power instructors at vocational education institutes and 161 electrical students in the 3 rd and 4th year who were studying in the 1st semester of academic year 2006 at Electrical Education Department, Faculty of Industrial Education and Technology, King Mongkut‘s University of Technology Thonburi by using simple random sampling. The instrument used for data collection was 7 rating scales questionnaire. The reliability of the instrument calculated by Cronbach Alpha Coefficient was 0.8185 and 0.9839, respectively. The data were analysed by using mean ( ), Standard Deviation (S.D.) and Analysis of Factors by Principal Component Analysis technique: PCA, orthogonal rotation axis by Varimax Method. The results of the study on factors empowering electrical students‘ learning achievement through Project-Based Learning (PBL) were as follows: both instructors and students agreed on Interesting/Attention(0.799 and 0.885, respectively) while other factors such as Planning(0.722), Sharing Ideas(0.582), Thinking(0.576), Facilitating (0.547), Constructionism (0.540), Scientific Process (0.525), Multiple Intelligence (0.479), and Goal Setting(0.453) were perceived by instructors, and students‘ opinions were on Advising/Guiding(0.863), Thinking(0.661), Goal Setting (0.634), Multiple Intelligence(0.553), Scientific Process(0.528), Assisting(0.524), and Sharing Ideas (0.492), if not more so

Early health technology assessment during nonalcoholic steatohepatitis drug development: a two-round, cross-country, multicriteria decision analysis

Background. The assessment of value along the clinical development of new biopharmaceutical compounds is a challenging task. Complex and uncertain evidence has to be analyzed, considering a multitude of value preferences from different stakeholders. Objective. To investigate the use of multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) to support decision making during drug development while considering payer and health technology assessment (HTA) value concerns, by applying the Advance Value Framework in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and testing for the consistency of the results. Design. A multiattribute value theory methodology was applied and 2 rounds of decision conferences (DCs) were organized in 3 countries (England, France, and Germany), with the participation of national key experts and stakeholders using the MACBETH questioning protocol and algorithm. A total of 51 health care professionals, patient advocates, and methodologists, including (ex-) committee members or assessors from national HTA bodies, participated in 6 DCs in the study countries. Target Population. NASH patients in fibrosis stages F2 to 3 were considered. Interventions. The value of a hypothetical product profile was assessed against 3 compounds under development using their phase 2 results. Outcome Measures. DC participants’ value preferences were elicited involving criteria selection, options scoring, and criteria weighting. Results. Highly consistent valuation rankings were observed in all DCs, always favoring the same compound. Highly consistent rankings of criteria clusters were observed, favoring therapeutic benefit criteria, followed by safety profile and innovation level criteria. Limitations. There was a lack of comparative treatment effects, early evidence on surrogate endpoints was used, and stakeholder representativeness was limited in some DCs. Conclusions. The use of MCDA is promising in supporting early HTA, illustrating high consistency in results across countries and between study rounds