Investigating mobile graphic-based reminders to support compliance of tuberculosis treatment

The phenomenon of rapid increment of the mobile phones can be utilized through supporting patients, such as those who have tuberculosis, for treatment adherence. This utilization will enable these patients to directly communicate their needs and requirements or receive health information such as reminder messages from healthcare facilities. However, the current mobile interventions, such as text messaging and speech reminder systems have limited use for people with low literacy levels. To overcome these challenges, this study proposed that the mobile graphic-based reminders be used to support tuberculosis patients to improve compliance with treatment regimens, especially for semi-literate and illiterate patients. A review of the literature and initial investigation study were carried out. The findings from the review were useful in understanding both the current practice of tuberculosis treatment regimens and the patients' needs and requirements. These findings, in addition, were referred in the choices of the components of the mobile graphic-based reminders to be implemented. A visual aid for communication theory was applied to the design and development of graphic-based reminder prototypes. An application prototype was implemented for the Android platform. Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of an application prototype in supporting tuberculosis treatment. To measure the effect, the recovery rate was measured based on the effect of: (1) the graphic-based reminder group versus the control group; and (2) the graphic-based reminder group versus the speech-based reminder group. Data was collected using application event logs, interviews, field notes and audio recordings. It was found that treatment adherence of patients in the graphic-based group was higher than in the speech-based or in the control groups. It was further noted that the number of reminder responses in the graphic-based group was higher than in the speech-based group. Additionally, it was observed that patients in the graphic-based group responded sooner after receiving reminder messages compared to those in the speech-based group. The qualitative feedback also indicated that most patients not only found graphic-based reminders more useful to supporting their treatment than speech-based reminders and traditional care but believed that the application met their needs. This study provides empirical evidence that graphic-based reminders, designed for and based on patients' needs and requirements, can support the treatment of tuberculosis for patients of all literacy levels

Stable transports between stationary random measures

We give an algorithm to construct a translation-invariant transport kernel between ergodic stationary random measures $\Phi$ and $\Psi$ on $\mathbb R^d$, given that they have equal intensities. As a result, this yields a construction of a shift-coupling of an ergodic stationary random measure and its Palm version. This algorithm constructs the transport kernel in a deterministic manner given realizations $\varphi$ and $\psi$ of the measures. The (non-constructive) existence of such a transport kernel was proved in [8]. Our algorithm is a generalization of the work of [3], in which a construction is provided for the Lebesgue measure and an ergodic simple point process. In the general case, we limit ourselves to what we call constrained densities and transport kernels. We give a definition of stability of constrained densities and introduce our construction algorithm inspired by the Gale-Shapley stable marriage algorithm. For stable constrained densities, we study existence, uniqueness, monotonicity w.r.t. the measures and boundedness.Comment: In the second version, we change the way of presentation of the main results in Section 4. The main results and their proofs are not changed significantly. We add Section 3 and Subsection 4.6. 25 pages and 2 figure

The effects of the interaction of technology, structure, and organizational climate on job satisgfaction

This study examines the effects of the interaction of technology, structure, and organizational climate on job satisfaction in power-generation plants. Correlation tests and series of hierarchical regression analyses were performed. The study reveals several significant correlations among these three organizational variables and with employee job satisfaction

Nitrogen and phosphorus analysis in field cultivation of Pak choi

This pilot study was implemented to reflect the delivery and the plant availability of nitrogen and phosphorus in response to different compositions of fertilisers approved for organic farming in Sweden. The experimental approach was to compare the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus in plant sap of Pak choi plants grown in soil treated with different organic waste such as aged cattle manure and a liquid retting digest derived from the biogas industry, with plants grown in soil treated with a blend of pelleted organic fertilisers derived from the Swedish slaughterhouse industry. The organic waste materials and fertilisers in this study were selected with respect to their nutritional properties: concentration of macro elements and the assumed nitrogen accessibility from the organic and inorganic proportion of nitrogen present in these materials. All plant tissues and soil samples were analysed for: the nutritional status in soil (all macro nutrients) prior to fertiliser application as well as the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus in soil postharvest; plant sap concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus on three occasions along six weeks of field cultivation and the concentration of young leaf tissue total nitrogen concentration on same occasions. In addition, three days prior to final harvest, the treatments were sampled to measure fresh and dry weight of leaves and roots followed by a subsequent analysis of total nitrogen accumulation in the same tissues. Plant sap concentration of inorganic nitrogen was highest in tissues sampled from Pak choi plants grown in soil treated with pelleted slaughterhouse waste in week four, the second occasion ofsampling. This concentration decreased to the lowest relative to the concentration of plants grown in control soil (no fertilisers) and plants grown in soil treated with aged cattle manure and retting digestate in week five, which was the last occasion of sampling. Soil remaining concentration of inorganic nitrogen postharvest was shown to be the highest in soil treated with pelleted fertilisers but the leaf tissue concentration of total nitrogen showed the lowest concentrations in plants sampled for dry weight grown in the pelleted fertiliser treatment. An opposite pattern was found in soil treated with aged cattle manure and retting digestate which is contradictive and further discussed. Plant sap concentration of phosphorus showed the highest values for control plants, surprisingly during all three occasions of sampling. This relationship indicated that the consumption of phosphorus can be limited by a relative low concentration of other macro elements, in planta, for the plants grown in the control soil. Moreover, postharvest soil remaining phosphorus indicated redundancy in soil treated with aged cattle manure and retting digestate, because the plant sap concentration of phosphorus (of plants grown in control soil) where similar to the plant sap concentrations of plants grown in soil treated with the pelleted fertilisers. The initial amount of added phosphorus were three times less in the soil treated with pelleted fertilisers, in comparison to the soil treated with aged cattle manure and retting digestate

How Planning Works in an Age of Reform: Land, Sustainability, and Housing Development Traditions in Zanzibar

This is a geographical study of urban planning focusing on the on-going neoliberal land reform practices introduced in Zanzibar since the end of the 1980s as a major effort to improve the land sector. Throughout the application of these reforms, the land and environmental management projects were unable to sustain their adopted sustainability agenda that was based on democratic, collaborative, and participatory principles. The government finds it difficult to simultaneously cope with the reform results characterized by multiple overlapping policy changes in the urban land development sector. Based on fieldwork, interviews, and critical archival analysis of government papers, my narrative explores how planning works in this reform era. In line with Habermas's (1984) theory of communicative action and its subsequent influence on collaborative and sustainability planning theories in works by Healey (2006), Forester (2009), and Myers (2010), among others, this dissertation also conceptualizes what is happening in formal and informal housing contexts during the last two decades. I am answering the question of whether the sustainability strategy, which lacks excitement among the targeted local people, has been able to break through state controlled planning practices. The culturally-inspired traditional patterns of the people's land and housing development operations keep on normalizing informal processes which risk repeating the limitations of previous strategies during the years before the reforms. Finally, I examine practical reasons for these identified limitations via case study examples. The case study findings have helped to understand the disjointed element of the sustainability model, based on theoretical, empirical, and local analyses, which can itself be a step forward for further research

Multi-Index Monte Carlo: When Sparsity Meets Sampling

We propose and analyze a novel Multi-Index Monte Carlo (MIMC) method for weak approximation of stochastic models that are described in terms of differential equations either driven by random measures or with random coefficients. The MIMC method is both a stochastic version of the combination technique introduced by Zenger, Griebel and collaborators and an extension of the Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) method first described by Heinrich and Giles. Inspired by Giles's seminal work, we use in MIMC high-order mixed differences instead of using first-order differences as in MLMC to reduce the variance of the hierarchical differences dramatically. This in turn yields new and improved complexity results, which are natural generalizations of Giles's MLMC analysis and which increase the domain of the problem parameters for which we achieve the optimal convergence, $\mathcal{O}(\text{TOL}^{-2}).$ Moreover, in MIMC, the rate of increase of required memory with respect to $\text{TOL}$ is independent of the number of directions up to a logarithmic term which allows far more accurate solutions to be calculated for higher dimensions than what is possible when using MLMC. We motivate the setting of MIMC by first focusing on a simple full tensor index set. We then propose a systematic construction of optimal sets of indices for MIMC based on properly defined profits that in turn depend on the average cost per sample and the corresponding weak error and variance. Under standard assumptions on the convergence rates of the weak error, variance and work per sample, the optimal index set turns out to be the total degree (TD) type. In some cases, using optimal index sets, MIMC achieves a better rate for the computational complexity than the corresponding rate when using full tensor index sets..

Characteristics and Genesis of Some Soils of the Upper Terraces of Lake Bonneville

The genesis and characteristics of the Timpanogos, Hillfield, and Sterling soils and an unnamed Mollisol (soil formed on north- slope) on the east part of Cache Valley were studied in order to determine (1) why the soil morphology is not chronologically related to the geomorphic surface and (2} why different soils have developed on these surfaces , even though the soil forming factors appear similar. The particle size distribution of the upper horizons of the Timpanogos, Hillfield , and unnamed Mollisol pedons are relatively similar . These soils developed from stratified deposits with granulimetric composition in which 75 to 90 percent of the grains are less than 100 micrometers in diameter , characteristic of wind-blown material. Development of an incipient argillic horizon in Timpanogos pedon indicates this soil did not develop under the moist conditions of the Pleistocene and the geomorphic surface was not stable after deposition. The material was reworked by the wind. The Sterling soil formed on an alluvial fan which was deposited during Holocene time and its development is chronologically related to geomorphic surface. The development of an incipient argillic horizon in the Timpanogos soil and a weak cambic horizon in the Hillfield soil and the unnamed Mollisol is due to topographic condition of the landscapes. The thick and dark mollie epipedon in the unnamed Mollisol (north-slope) compared to the Hillfield soil (south- s lope) which has an epipedon with color light to be mollie and a less thick A horizon is related to effect of microclimate

Population change in brunei darussalam

This study attempts to examine the principal aspects of demography which contribute to the growth and change of the population of Brunei Darussalam, The central consideration is the dramatic change which has taken place since the War, The study concentrates in analysing the demographic components, mortality, fertility and migration. In doing so, attempts are made to make the thesis explanatory rather than mere description and interpretion of data. However, this is difficult as relevant local information is very scanty. Mortality analyses include the trends, age differentials, life expectancy and causes of death. The investigation into fertility is more limited due to lack of pertinent data. However, important aspects such as the trends and fertility differentials are presented. Factors influencing mortality and fertility decline are also incorporated. The study of migration deals mainly with the trend of labour immigration, and the distribution, composition, and age-sex structure of immigrants, along with government resettlement schemes, the changes in mortality, fertility and immigration are reflected in the age-sex structure and composition of the population. Fairly detailed analyses of these characteristics are therefore made as well as the marital status, ethnic and religious compositions. The socio-economic characteristics, education and the working population are also analysed, including immigrant workers. In general these characteristics should serve as causal factors contributing to the decline of fertility and mortality. The final chapter summarizes the preceding six chapters; In addition attempts are made to apply the demographic experience of Brunei to the demographic transition model. Finally, brief comments on the desirability of a population policy are attempted, the thesis is mainly based on the 1971 and 1981 censuses, and throughout the study comparisons are made between Brunei demographic experience and characteristics with those of comparable countries in Southeast Asia as well as the oil-rich countries of the Gulf. Such comparative analyses should provide better understanding of the different demographic aspects of the population of Brunei Darussalam