Фактори, що стимулюють та обмежують волонтерський рух в Тиролі, та вплив пандемії

Purpose: The insurmountable tensions and turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in welfare systems worldwide demand governmental as well as non-governmental support, especially from the volunteer sector, which can be a powerful resource for mitigating the pandemic’s impacts. To identify ways of mobilising the enormous human resources of the baby boomer generation in particular, whose members are currently on the brink of entering retirement, the factors that have enabled and restricted volunteer management during the pandemic in Tyrol, Austria are examined. Design/Method/Approach: Following a qualitative approach, the authors performed 27 problem-centred interviews with representative senior citizens, retirees and individuals about to retire and companies in Tyrol. The authors evaluated the data in qualitative content analysis. Findings: Self-determination, time flexibility, acceptance of volunteer work in one’s social network and previous personal experience with volunteering are key determinants of sustainable volunteer work amongst retirees. Companies and a well-established acquisition management strategy also play a significant role in promoting volunteer work. Practical Implications and Originality/Value: The study involves a holistic analysis of volunteer work at the individual and organisational levels. By capturing the potential of e-volunteering and how it improves the capacities of classic face-to-face volunteer work, it can support the development of more resilient infrastructures for supporting volunteer work. Research Limitations/Future Research: The interpretation of visual and non-verbal signals was difficult due to the use of phone and online interviews, and the results should not be generalised. Even so, our findings pave the way for future studies on mechanisms determining virtual volunteering and volunteer management. Paper type: EmpiricalЦель работы: Непреодолимая напряженность и беспорядки, вызванные пандемией COVID-19 в системах социального обеспечения по всему миру, требуют как государственной, так и неправительственной поддержки, особенно со стороны волонтерского сектора, что может стать мощным ресурсом для смягчения последствий пандемии. Чтобы определить способы мобилизации огромных человеческих ресурсов, в частности, поколения бэби-бумеров, которое в настоящее время планирует выход на пенсию, исследуются факторы, стимулирующие и ограничивающие волонтерское управление во время пандемии в Тироле, Австрия. Дизайн/метод/подход исследования: Следуя качественному подходу, авторы провели 27 проблемно-ориентированных интервью с пожилыми людьми, пенсионерами и людьми, которые собираются выйти на пенсию, и компаниями в Тироле. Авторы оценили данные с помощью качественного контент-анализа. Результаты исследования: Самоопределение, гибкость во времени, принятие волонтерской работы в социальной сети и предыдущий личный опыт волонтерской деятельности являются ключевыми факторами, определяющими устойчивую волонтерскую работу среди пенсионеров. Компании и хорошо зарекомендовавшая себя стратегия управления приобретениями также играют важную роль в продвижении волонтерской работы. Практическое значение и оригинальность/ценность исследования: Исследование включает целостный анализ волонтерской работы на индивидуальном и организационном уровнях. Учитывая потенциал е-волонтерства и то, как оно улучшает возможности классической личной волонтерской работы, оно может поддержать развитие более устойчивых инфраструктур для поддержки волонтерской работы. Ограничения исследования/будущие исследования: Интерпретация визуальных и невербальных сигналов была сложной из-за использования телефонных и онлайн-интервью, и результаты не следует обобщать. Тем не менее, наши результаты открывают путь для будущих исследований механизмов, определяющих виртуальное волонтерство и управление волонтерством. Тип статьи: Эмпирический.Мета роботи: Непереборна напруженість і заворушення, викликані пандемією COVID-19 в системах соціального забезпечення по всьому світу, вимагають як державної, так і неурядової підтримки, особливо з боку волонтерського сектора, що може стати потужним ресурсом для пом'якшення наслідків пандемії. Щоб визначити способи мобілізації величезних людських ресурсів, зокрема, покоління бебі-бумерів, яке в даний час планує вихід на пенсію, досліджуються фактори, що стимулюють і обмежують волонтерське управління під час пандемії в Тіролі, Австрія. Дизайн/метод/підхід дослідження: Дотримуючись якісного підходу, автори провели 27 проблемно-орієнтованих інтерв'ю з літніми людьми, пенсіонерами та людьми, які збираються вийти на пенсію, та компаніями в Тіролі. Автори оцінили дані за допомогою якісного контент-аналізу. Результати дослідження: Самовизначення, гнучкість у часі, прийняття волонтерської роботи в соціальній мережі і попередній особистий досвід волонтерської діяльності є ключовими факторами, що визначають стійку волонтерську роботу серед пенсіонерів. Компанії і стратегія управління волонтерством, яка вже добре себе зарекомендувала, також відіграють важливу роль в просуванні волонтерської роботи. Практичне значення і оригінальність/цінність дослідження: Дослідження включає цілісний аналіз волонтерської роботи на індивідуальному та організаційному рівнях. З огляду на потенціал е-волонтерства і то, як воно покращує можливості класичної особистої волонтерської роботи, воно може підтримати розвиток більш стійких інфраструктур для підтримки волонтерської роботи. Обмеження дослідження/майбутні дослідження: Інтерпретація візуальних і невербальних сигналів була складною через використання телефонних і онлайн-інтерв'ю, і результати не слід узагальнювати. Проте, результати відкривають шлях для майбутніх досліджень механізмів, що визначають віртуальне волонтерство та управління волонтерством. Тип статті: Емпіричний

Family, friends, and feelings: the role of relationships to parents and peers and alexithymia in adolescents with anorexia nervosa

Background Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with impairments in socio-emotional functioning, including difficulties in interpersonal relationships as well as alexithymia (difficulties identifying and describing one’s emotions). Although the onset of the disorder is mostly in adolescence, a developmental period in which interpersonal relationships to parents as well as peers undergo major changes, only few studies have investigated the quality of interpersonal relationships in adolescent AN patients. Furthermore, the mechanisms linking poor relationship quality to eating disorder psychopathology are not yet clarified, albeit some research suggests that alexithymia might play a pivotal role. The aims of the present study were investigating the quality of interpersonal relationships to parents and peers in adolescents with AN compared to healthy adolescents as well as exploring the mediating role of alexithymia in the association between relationship quality and eating disorder symptoms. Methods Self-report questionnaires were used to assess relationship quality (Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment) and alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale) in 12–18 year old female adolescents with AN (n = 35) in comparison to healthy adolescents (n = 40). Results Adolescents with AN reported lower relationship quality to both of their parents and to peers compared to healthy controls. Relationship quality scores were negatively correlated to alexithymia as well as eating disorder symptoms. Alexithymia fully meditated the association between eating disorder symptoms and relationship quality to parents and partially mediated the association between eating disorder symptoms and relationship quality to peers. Conclusion The results indicate difficulties in interpersonal relationships among adolescents with AN and emphasize the role of peer relationships for adolescents’ eating disorder psychopathology. Alexithymia seems to play an important role in explaining the link between quality of relationships and eating disorder psychopathology. Results suggest that treatment should not only focus on family relationships but also address relationships to peers as well as adolescents’ competence in identifying and dealing with their emotions

Textile based dye-sensitized solar cells with natural dyes

Natural dyes extracted from hibiscus petals, elderberries and mallow flowers were investigated in dye-sensitized solar cells. Two approaches were followed: 1. Hybrid glass/fabric cells with titanium dioxide on glass as working electrode and a textile counter electrode; 2. hybrid fabric/glass cells with zinc oxide as working electrode on textile and a glass counter electrode. The zinc oxide layer on cotton was prepared by electroless deposition whereas the titanium dioxide coated glass electrodes were obtained directly from the manufacturer. In both cases the redox couple consisted of iodine / triiodide and the counter electrode was based on an electrically conductive fabric

Trust-Building in Peer-to-Peer Carsharing: Design Case Study for Algorithm-Based Reputation Systems

Peer-to-peer sharing platforms become increasingly important in the platform economy. From an HCI-perspective, this development is of high interest, as those platforms mediate between different users. Such mediation entails dealing with various social issues, e.g., building trust between peers online without any physical presence. Peer ratings have proven to be an important mechanism in this regard. At the same time, scoring via car telematics become more common for risk assessment by car insurances. Since user ratings face crucial problems such as fake or biased ratings, we conducted a design case study to determine whether algorithm-based scoring has the potential to improve trust-building in P2P-carsharing. We started with 16 problem-centered interviews to examine how people understand algorithm-based scoring, we co-designed an app with scored profiles, and finally evaluated it with 12 participants. Our findings show that scoring systems can support trust-building in P2P-carsharing and give insights how they should be designed

litsift: Automated Text Categorization in Bibliographic Search

In bioinformatics there exist research topics that cannot be uniquely characterized by a set of key words because relevant key words are (i) also heavily used in other contexts and (ii) often omitted in relevant documents because the context is clear to the target audience. Information retrieval interfaces such as entrez/Pubmed produce either low precision or low recall in this case. To yield a high recall at a reasonable precision, the results of a broad information retrieval search have to be filtered to remove irrelevant documents. We use automated text categorization for this purpose. In this study we use the topic of conserved secondary RNA structures in viral genomes as running example. Pubmed result sets for two virus groups, Picornaviridae and Flaviviridae, have been manually labeled by human experts. We evaluated various classifiers from the Weka toolkit together with different feature selection methods to assess whether classifiers trained on documents dedicated to one virus group can be successfully applied to filter literature on other virus groups. Our results indicate that in this domain a bibliographic search tool trained on a reference corpus may significantly reduce the amount of time needed for extensive literature recherches

RNA chaperone activity and RNA-binding properties of the E. coli protein StpA

The E. coli protein StpA has RNA annealing and strand displacement activities and it promotes folding of RNAs by loosening their structures. To understand the mode of action of StpA, we analysed the relationship of its RNA chaperone activity to its RNA-binding properties. For acceleration of annealing of two short RNAs, StpA binds both molecules simultaneously, showing that annealing is promoted by crowding. StpA binds weakly to RNA with a preference for unstructured molecules. Binding of StpA to RNA is strongly dependent on the ionic strength, suggesting that the interactions are mainly electrostatic. A mutant variant of the protein, with a glycine to valine change in the nucleic-acid-binding domain, displays weaker RNA binding but higher RNA chaperone activity. This suggests that the RNA chaperone activity of StpA results from weak and transient interactions rather than from tight binding to RNA. We further discuss the role that structural disorder in proteins may play in chaperoning RNA folding, using bioinformatic sequence analysis tools, and provide evidence for the importance of conformational disorder and local structural preformation of chaperone nucleic-acid-binding sites

FRI -- Feature Relevance Intervals for Interpretable and Interactive Data Exploration

Most existing feature selection methods are insufficient for analytic purposes as soon as high dimensional data or redundant sensor signals are dealt with since features can be selected due to spurious effects or correlations rather than causal effects. To support the finding of causal features in biomedical experiments, we hereby present FRI, an open source Python library that can be used to identify all-relevant variables in linear classification and (ordinal) regression problems. Using the recently proposed feature relevance method, FRI is able to provide the base for further general experimentation or in specific can facilitate the search for alternative biomarkers. It can be used in an interactive context, by providing model manipulation and visualization methods, or in a batch process as a filter method.Comment: Addition of IEEE copyright notice. Accepted for CIBCB 2019 (https://cibcb2019.icas.xyz/

Using the Three-Step Test Interview to understand how patients perceive the St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire for COPD patients (SGRQ-C)

Purpose The aim of this study was to assess the experiences of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) while they were completing the St. George’s Respiratory Questionnaire for COPD patients (SGRQ-C), using qualitative research methods. Methods Twenty Dutch COPD patients were recruited through pulmonary physicians [13 women; mean age = 63.3 years (SD = 11.4)]. A trained interviewer applied the Three-Step Test Interview which allowed the interviewer to follow the thought process of the patient filling out the SGRQ-C. The official Dutch translation of the SGRQ-C was used. Results Patients missed a recall period for the Symptoms subscale; were uncertain how to interpret specific words and phrases like “good days”, “games”, and “housework”; were confused by long-item stems that included a list of activities; and were frustrated by the dichotomous format used for the majority of SGRQ-C items (true/false). Conclusions Overall, patients were satisfied with the SGRQ-C. Nevertheless, making minor adjustments could further increase its quality. This includes reintroducing a recall period in the first set of items such as used in the previous version and splitting up items consisting of multiple activities. Furthermore, we recommend using the same response format (4 or 5 response categories) for all items

Eras of Digital Entrepreneurship

While recent research continues to emphasize the importance of digital entrepreneurship, the historical terminology of this field is often overlooked. Digital entrepreneurship tends to be considered a new phenomenon despite emerging in the early 1990s. Building on a scoping literature review, this study analyzes 1354 publications that use nine different terms interchangeably to describe the phenomenon of digital entrepreneurship. Based on the number of publications per year, three eras in the historical development of digital entrepreneurship research are outlined. Digital technologies are identified as external enablers, and certain practical events are considered to be influencing factors. The results show that recent research has not adequately recognized the contributions of previous publications and that the understanding of digital entrepreneurship is quite similar with regard to the terms used and over time. This study shows how emerging digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and big data analytics, might shape the future of digital entrepreneurship research. The study occupies the intersection between entrepreneurship and information systems literature and its main contribution is to provide new insights into the eras of digital entrepreneurship from the past to the present and into the future