Cross-Cultural Differences in Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Understandings of Forgiveness

Most theorizing about forgiveness conceptualize forgiveness as an intrapersonal process in which negative feelings are transformed into positive ones, with the goal of inner peace for the forgiver. Forgiveness viewed as an interpersonal process, in contrast, focuses on behaviors, such as reconciliation, that lead to the restoration of social harmony. Several studies have demonstrated that the understanding and practice of forgiveness differs across cultures. We examined the hypothesis that North Americans understand forgiveness as more of an intrapersonal phenomenon and less of an interpersonal phenomenon relative to Asians. A sample of 153 participants recruited through Facebook completed an online survey. Findings generally support the hypothesis: North Americans endorsed intrapersonal over interpersonal understandings of forgiveness, Southeast Asians endorsed interpersonal over intrapersonal understandings, and South Asians were closely split between the two definitions. The current findings suggest that collectivistic forgiveness is not a unitary construct, and that the application of theory and therapy models based on Western conceptions of forgiveness to Asian populations may be inaccurate and even harmful. Future research should examine forgiveness across collectivistic cultures. Additionally, cross-cultural research on forgiveness should use specific affective, cognitive, and behavioral terms when assessing a participant’s level of forgiveness; broad questions assessing a participant’s general forgiveness may be difficult to interpret and compare cross-culturally

Herd behaviour in Southeast Asian stock markets — An empirical investigation

This study examines herd behaviour in four Southeast Asian stock markets, namely Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Empirical results indicate that except for the Philippines, herding exists in the other three markets. Stronger evidence of herding has been detected in these markets when the market is up. When the market is down, it is only the Malaysian market that exhibits significant herding. The study further investigates herding by dividing the entire sample period into two sub-periods: pre-crisis and during economic crisis. We find strong evidence of the existence of herding in Indonesia and Malaysia in both sub-periods. However, the findings are mixed when we additionally examine herding in up and down market scenarios during the two sub-periods by using modified models

Delays in the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis patients in Vietnam: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Treatment delay is an important indicator of access to tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment. Analyses of patient delay (i.e. time interval between onset of symptoms and first consultation of a health care provider) and health care delay (i.e. time interval between first consultation and start of treatment) can inform policies to improve access. This study assesses the patient, health care provider and total delay in diagnosis and treatment of new smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients, and the risk factors for long delay, in Vietnam.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross-sectional survey of new patients treated by the National Tuberculosis Control Programme was conducted in 70 randomly selected districts in Vietnam. All consecutively registered patients in one quarter of 2002 were interviewed using a pre-coded structured questionnaire.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Median (range) delay was 4 weeks (1–48) for total, 3 (1–48) weeks for patient and 1 (0–25) week for health care delay. Patients with long total delay (≥ 12 weeks, 15%) accounted for 49% of the cumulative number of delay-weeks. Independent risk factors (p < 0.05) for long total delay were female sex, middle age, remote setting, residence in the northern or central area, and initial visit to the private sector. For long patient delay (≥ 6 weeks) this was female sex, belonging to an ethnic minority, and living at > 5 km distance from a health facility or in the northern area. For long health care delay (≥ 6 weeks) this was urban setting, residence in the central area and initial visit to a communal health post, TB hospital or the private sector.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Analyses of patient and treatment delays can indicate target groups and areas for health education and strengthening of the referral system, in particular between the private sector and the NTP.</p

Molecular epidemiology of Japanese encephalitis in northern Vietnam, 1964?2011: genotype replacement

Background: Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is an arthropod-borne virus causing serious public health issues in Asia. JEV consists of five genotypes and recent studies have shown the emergence of JEV genotype I (GI) and its replacement of genotype III (GIII). Using an archival JEV collection, we investigated the molecular evolution of JEV in Vietnam over the last 48 years (1964-2012) in humans, mosquitoes, and pigs, within the global context. Methods: The nine JEV isolates from humans, pigs, and mosquitoes sequenced in this study and 29 sequences available in GenBank were used to analyze the envelope (E) protein of the Vietnamese JEVs. A collection of 225 cerebrospinal fluid specimens from patients with suspected Japanese encephalitis (JE) was also tested and genotyped with real-time RT-PCR. Results: The 38 E genes identified with sequencing and nine Vietnamese JEV strains genotyped with real-time RT-PCR, belonging to two lineages, evolved in accordance with those in the rest of the world. The first GIII strain was detected in humans in Vietnam in 1964, and in mosquitoes in 1979, whereas GI strains were first detected in humans and mosquitoes in 1990 and 1994, respectively. After 2004, GI was the only genotype detected in Vietnam, demonstrating that the GIIII strains had been displaced by GI strains. Five haplotypes were identified in the Vietnamese JEVs, with SKSS predominant. The S123N and S123R substitutions in the E protein were already present in the Vietnamese JEVs. Conclusion: This study describes the long evolutionary history of JEV in Vietnam over 34 years, which correlates well with the global evolution of JEV. The Vietnamese GIII strains have been replaced by GI strains in mosquitoes, pigs, and humans. The predominant haplotypes of the Vietnamese strains support this genotype displacement in Vietnam. Further surveillance is required to confirm the disappearance of the GIII strains in nature and the emergence of new pathogens causing encephalitis in Vietnam, after the long-term use of JEV vaccines in that country

Multi-swarm optimization for extracting multiple-choice tests from question banks

In this study, a novel method for generating multiple-choice tests is presented, which extracts the required number of tests of the same levels of difficulty in a single attempt and approximates the difficulty level requirement given by users. We propose an approach using parallelism and Pareto optimization for multi-swarm migration in a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Multi-PSO is proposed for shortening the computing time. The proposed migration of PSOs increases the diversity of tests and controls the overlap of extracted tests. The experimental results show that the proposed method can generate many tests from question banks satisfying predefined levels of difficulty. Additionally, the developed method is shown to be effective in terms of many criteria when compared with other methods such as manually extracted tests, a simulated annealing algorithm (SA), random methods and PSO-based approaches in terms of the number of successful solutions, accuracy, standard deviation, search speed, and the number of questions overlapping between the exam questions, as well as for changing the search space, changing the number of individuals, changing the number of swarms, and changing the difficulty requirements.Web of Science9321483213

Effect of dietary sources of calcium and protein on hip fractures and falls in older adults in residential care: cluster randomised controlled trial.

To assess the antifracture efficacy and safety of a nutritional intervention in institutionalised older adults replete in vitamin D but with mean intakes of 600 mg/day calcium and <1 g/kg body weight protein/day. Two year cluster randomised controlled trial. 60 accredited residential aged care facilities in Australia housing predominantly ambulant residents. 7195 permanent residents (4920 (68%) female; mean age 86.0 (SD 8.2) years). Facilities were stratified by location and organisation, with 30 facilities randomised to provide residents with additional milk, yoghurt, and cheese that contained 562 (166) mg/day calcium and 12 (6) g/day protein achieving a total intake of 1142 (353) mg calcium/day and 69 (15) g/day protein (1.1 g/kg body weight). The 30 control facilities maintained their usual menus, with residents consuming 700 (247) mg/day calcium and 58 (14) g/day protein (0.9 g/kg body weight). Group differences in incidence of fractures, falls, and all cause mortality. Data from 27 intervention facilities and 29 control facilities were analysed. A total of 324 fractures (135 hip fractures), 4302 falls, and 1974 deaths were observed. The intervention was associated with risk reductions of 33% for all fractures (121 v 203; hazard ratio 0.67, 95% confidence interval 0.48 to 0.93; P=0.02), 46% for hip fractures (42 v 93; 0.54, 0.35 to 0.83; P=0.005), and 11% for falls (1879 v 2423; 0.89, 0.78 to 0.98; P=0.04). The risk reduction for hip fractures and falls achieved significance at five months (P=0.02) and three months (P=0.004), respectively. Mortality was unchanged (900 v 1074; hazard ratio 1.01, 0.43 to 3.08). Improving calcium and protein intakes by using dairy foods is a readily accessible intervention that reduces the risk of falls and fractures commonly occurring in aged care residents. Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12613000228785

Molecular and morphological variation of Paragonimus westermani in Vietnam with records of new second intermediate crab hosts and a new locality in a northern province

Paragonimus westermani is one of the most medically important lung flukes and is widely distributed in Asia. It exhibits considerable variation in morphological, genetic and biological features. In central provinces of Vietnam, a high prevalence of metacercariae of this species has been reported from the crab intermediate host, Vietopotamon aluoiense. In this study, we detected P. westermani metacercariae in two additional crab hosts, Donopotamon haii in Quang Tri Province, central Vietnam and Indochinamon tannanti in Yen Bai Province in the north. The latter is a new locality for P. westermani in a northern region of Vietnam where P. heterotremus is the only species currently known to cause human paragonimiasis. Paragonimus westermani metacercariae found in Vietnam showed considerable morphological variation but slight genetic variation based on DNA sequences from the nuclear ribosomal ITS2 region and the mitochondrial 16S gene. Co-infection of the same individual crabs with P. westermani and P. heterotremus and/or some other Paragonimus species was found frequently, suggesting potential for co-infection in humans. The findings of the present study emphasize the need for highly specific molecular and immunodiagnostic methods to differentially diagnose between P. westermani and P. heterotremus infections