The development of advanced practice nursing in Thailand : passage and process

This thesis examined the development of advanced practice nursing in Thailand. The research focused on the perceptions of advanced practice nursing among Thai health care professionals and the factors affecting Thai nurses who are in the process of preparing to become advanced practice nurses (APNs).Although a large amount of literature about APN has been published, only one study has reported on the situation of the APN in Thailand. Other papers have been conducted with developing countries which employed different health services and nursing service systems. Various issues arose and were reported since the concept of APN was implemented in those countries, e.g. definition, qualifications, examination, registration, boundaries, incentive schemes and scope of practice. It was argued that nurses had encountered various obstacles during the preparation and transformation in becoming APN. Nevertheless, Thailand was only at the beginning of adopting this concept into the health service system. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate the development of APN in Thailand, which has never been explored. The study concentrated on the development of APN in nurses who are working in intensive care units (ICUs) because the model and the role of APN in this clinical area lack clarity in the published literature.Triangulation of two research methods was employed to address the research questions. The sample included staff nurses, head nurses, doctors and master degree students in an APN preparation programme. In the quantitative study, 226 questionnaires developed by the author were posted to 23 hospitals and 28 master degree students, yielding 156 usable responses. Qualitative data were collected from five focus group interviews with 28 master degree students using a semistructured interview schedule developed and piloted by the author.Factor analysis of quantitative data revealed five expected roles of the APN in ICU: extended roles, ensuring standards, patient management, nursing roles and academic roles. Regression analysis explained that there were significant relationships between being a head nurse and ensuring standards (P<O.5), age and nursing roles (P<O.5) and being a doctor and patient management (P<O.5). Being a head nurse, age and being a doctor appeared to be strong predictors of ensuring standards, nursing roles and patient management respectively.Qualitative data were analysed following Miles and Huberman and Strauss and Corbin's guidelines. Two central categories emerged: passage and process of the development of APN. Finally, a paradigm model was constructed, explaining the development of APN. Some concepts in the paradigm model were consistent with published literature, e.g. the readiness to change, transition and role theory. Other concepts were reflections of the unique Thai context, e.g. preparations for the development and anticipation of the role of APN. Thus, the development of APN in Thailand is a combed model. The thesis concludes with suggestions for the future research

Extended Pseudo Invariant Calibration Site-Based Trend-To-Trend Cross-Calibration of Optical Satellite Sensors

Satellite sensors have been extremely useful and are in massive demand in the understanding of the Earth’s surface and monitoring of changes. For quantitative analysis and acquiring consistent measurements, absolute radiometric calibration is necessary. The most common vicarious approach of radiometric calibration is cross-calibration, which helps to tie all the sensors to a common radiometric scale for consistent measurement. One of the traditional methods of cross-calibration is performed using temporally and spectrally stable pseudo-invariant calibration sites (PICS). This technique is limited by adequate cloud-free acquisitions for cross-calibration which would require a longer time to study the differences in sensor measurements. To address the limitation of traditional PICS-based approaches and to increase the cross-calibration opportunity for quickly achieving highquality results, the approach is based on using extended pseudo invariant calibration sites (EPICS) over North Africa. With the EPICS-based approach, the area of extent of the cross-calibration site covers a large portion of the North African continent. With targets this large, any sensor should overpass some portion of PICS near-daily, allowing for evaluation of sensor-to-sensor performance with much greater frequency. By using these near-daily measurements, trends of the sensor’s performance are then used to evaluate sensor-to-sensor daily cross-calibration. With the use of the proposed methodology, the dataset for cross-calibration is increased by an order of magnitude compared to traditional approaches, resulting in the differences between any two sensors being detected within a much shorter time. Using this new trend in trend cross-calibration approaches, gains were evaluated for Landsat 7/8 and Sentinel 2A/B, with the results showing that the sensors are calibrated within 2.5% (within less than 8% uncertainty) or better for all sensor pairs, which is consistent with what the traditional PICS-based approach detects. The proposed crosscalibration technique is useful to cross-calibrate any two sensors without the requirement of any coincident or near-coincident scene pairs, while still achieving results similar to traditional approaches in a short time

An Exploration of the Use of Online Technology to Improve the Recruitment and Selection Process at a TVET College

Sourcing talent in a competitive labour market with a short supply of skilled labour is a difficult task for the human resource team and senior managers at the TVET College in this study. The purpose of this study is to explore the use of online technology to improve the recruitment and selection process at the College.  The current approach to recruitment and selection was identified and the effectiveness of the recruitment sources used by the College in relation to its cost and reach was analysed. A comparative analysis of the current approach to recruitment and selection and the current trends in e-recruitment in terms of technological advancement was undertaken. The study also makes recommendations regarding the integration of e-recruitment tools to enhance the process. A phenomenological, qualitative research paradigm was adopted.  The findings revealed the deficiencies and negative perceptions of the participants with regards to the current approach to recruitment and selection.  Current trends revealed that the Internet eliminates the deficiencies identified in the traditional approach and is becoming the preferred way to attract candidates with scarce skills and has several benefits (speed, reduced administrative burden, reduced costs and global reach). Findings also revealed that potential applicants may have limited or no access to the Internet, or that some applicants may not be as technology savvy to be able to complete online applications. Thus, the traditional methods of recruitment and selection cannot be totally replaced; hence the recommendations to adopt a hybrid approach to source a wider pool of candidates

An Analysis of Elementary School Students’ Difficulties in Mathematical Problem Solving

AbstractThe main purpose of mathematics teaching is to enable students to solve problems in daily life. Unfortunately, according to the latest national test results, most students lack mathematical problem solving skills. This proves to be one of the reasons why overall achievement in mathematics is considered quite low. It also reflects that students have difficulties in comprehending mathematical problems affecting the process of problem-solving. Therefore, in order to allow teachers to establish a proper teaching plan suitable for students’ learning process, this research aims to analyze the difficulties in mathematical problem solving among elementary school students. Samples are divided into two groups, elementary school students and mathematics teachers. Data collection was conducted by structured interview, documentary analysis, and survey tests. Data analysis was conducted by descriptive statistics, and content analysis. The results suggest that there are several difficulties in problem solving, namely 1) Students have difficulties in understanding the keywords appearing in problems, thus cannot interpret them in mathematical sentences. 2) Students are unable to figure out what to assume and what information from the problem is necessary to solving it, 3) Whenever students do not understand the problem, they tend to guess the answer without any thinking process, 4) Students are impatient and do not like to read mathematical problems, and 5) Students do not like to read long problems. Therefore, the results found in this research will lead to the creation and the development of mathematical problem solving diagnostic tests for teachers, in order to improve students’ mathematical problem solving skills

Deep Learning-based Copy-Move and Spliced Image Forgery Detection

This paper proposes a Deep Learning (DL) based pre-trained AlexNet model for detecting and localizing copy-move and spliced forgery in photos. To localise forgeries in a photo, a binary mask is constructed using sobel operators. Further feature vectors are extracted patch wise from the input pictures. The Spatial Rich Model (SRM) is employed to address the generalisation issues in the DL model. There are three datasets used: Columbia Uncompressed Image Splicing Detection Evaluation (CUISDE), CASIA 1, and CASIA 2. The overall performance of the model has a 98.59 percent total accuracy as against 98.176% reported in the existing literature

Clinicopathologic evaluation of Pro- and antiapoptotic marker expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND : Apopotosis is determined by the balance between the pro- and anti- apoptotic regulators in a cell. Bcl2 is the principal anti apoptotic regulator and bax is the principal pro- apoptotic factor that heterodimerizes with bcl2 and counteracts its function. The ratio of bcl2/bax is known to influence the prognosis of OSCC and it differs between the histological differentiation types of OSCC. AIM : Is to determine whether the ratio of bax and bcl2 expression have any significance with regard to clinicopathological parameters. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY ; To evaluate the immunohistochemical expression of Bcl 2 and Bax genes in oral squamous cell carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS : This is a prospective study involving 60 cases of histologically proven OSCC, collected between January 2012 and June 2012. The paraffin tissue blocks were prepared, cut and were stained immunohistochemically for bcl2 and bax. Their immunopositivity were then semiquantitatively analysed by giving scores to the percentage of cells stained. The bcl2/bax is then mathematically calculated. This ratio is then statistically analyzed for any significance in relation to age, sex, site, habit and clinical stage of the patient. RESULTS : The bcl2/bax ratios for tongue cases were significantly higher than that of the other sites. Also within the tongue cases, the ratios for cases which had trauma as the etiological factor had significantly higher values. CONCLUSION : OSCC of tongue is known to have poor prognosis than the other subsites of oral cavity as proved by other studies. Higher Bcl2/bax ratio than the rest of the subsites may be one of the reasons for this. Trauma causes a higher bcl2/bax ratio among the various etiologies causing tongue OSCC

The effectiveness of a male grooming solution to improve male shopper behaviour towards the purchase of personal care products.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The cosmetic industry over the years has proven to be one of the fastest growing and most profitable industries globally. In the male cosmetic industry, male grooming and metrosexual trends have rapidly expanded across global communities, and in recent years have become a leading trend amongst South African men who are looking after their health as well as their physical appearance. The advent of the metrosexual trend has captured enormous attention for men to be more alert and mindful of their self-image, how to enhance their external appearance and how to uphold their own handsomeness no matter what challenges they may be facing. These emerging trends subsequently shaped the way businesses and companies expanded product lines and developed strategies to influence the shopping behaviour of men. Therefore, this study - to influence and improve male shopper behaviour towards the purchase of personal care products, investigated the effectiveness of a male grooming solution. This was a quasiexperimental study conducted among male shoppers at the Pavillion Shopping Centre in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire between pre- and post-installation of the male grooming zone. Results indicated that pre installation of the male zone, shampoo, face care and body lotion were the highest consumed products while post installation results indicated that deodorant had the highest consumption rate followed by body lotion; while the face care and the perfume/cologne/aftershave segment were purchased at the same rate. It was also found that the intervention of the male grooming zone, post installation, had a perceived positive impact on self-image, self-esteem, lifestyle and celebrity association. The study revealed that emotional value, epistemic value and social value of the male shoppers were also perceived to have improved significantly post the installation of the male grooming zone. More than three quarters of male shoppers indicated that they preferred the new shopping environment. The outlook of male shoppers towards shopping for personal care products was also favourable and the amount of money spent on personal care products almost doubled. The study recommends that male grooming merchandise solutions be conceptualized and implemented for the improvement of male shopper behaviour towards the purchase of personal care products

Analisis Aliran Udara dan Kenyamanan Termal di Laboratorium Perpindahan Panas dan Massa menggunakan Metode Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Air circulation and thermal comfort are some of many factors that affects user’s behavior in indoor activity, particularly in learning activity. With appropriate air quality and thermal comfort, it is easier for students to focus on the learning process. In addition, better air circulation can also benefit to the health of the people inside the building, for instance, according to WHO (World Health Organization), appropriate airflow may reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 which lately has caused a COVID-19 pandemic. However, air circulation and distribution have not a concern yet due to existing room condition and advanced technology that is needed, in L 609 classroom and Heat &amp; Mass Transfer Laboratory, in this research. CFD method implementation for this case is used to show existing air circulation condition and necessary recommendations to get better air circulation. CFD simulation is done 3 dimensionally with 44344 nodes tetrahedral mesh on 2 configuration room condition, which are classified based on air input from AC, door gap, and with or without window opening. Based on CFD simulation results, the 2nd configuration with window opening indicate the best configuration with air velocity around 0,8 m/s dan room temperature 295,8 – 302,1 K. With window opening, the air flow condition met the ANSI/ASHRAE 55 and hoped to reduce COVID-19 spreading

Vivas Nos Queremos: An analysis of digital collectivities and the dichotomy of body-territories

Analyzing digital collectivities and dichotomy of body-territories with a focus on Latin America for movement Vivas Nos Queremo