Relationships between Connectedness, Performance Proficiency, Satisfaction, and Online Learning Continuance

Maintaining momentum is vital in terms of how soon students can complete a program, especially for those who are in the early stage of taking online courses. This study attempted to extend the existing literature by examining the influence of online students’ perceived sense of connectedness, performance proficiency, and satisfaction on their intentions to continue an online learning course. A quantitative survey approach was adopted to test our hypothesized structural model. Three hundred and sixty-nine students who had taken fewer than three fully online courses participated in this study. The results revealed that three out of four testing hypotheses were all supported at the 0.01 significance level, and one of the path coefficients indicated that online students’ confidence in their ability or competency to perform academic tasks did not directly influence their intention to take future online courses. Instead, the influence of performance proficiency on online learning continuance intention was mediated through the factor of satisfaction. In addition, satisfaction was found to have a significantly direct impact on online learning continuance intention, suggesting that when students taking online courses are satisfied with their online learning experience, the likelihood for them to continue taking other online courses is higher

Hospital treatment, mortality and healthcare costs in relation to socioeconomic status among people with bipolar affective disorder

BACKGROUND: Evidence regarding the relationships between the socioeconomic status and long-term outcomes of individuals with bipolar affective disorder (BPD) is lacking. AIMS: We aimed to estimate the effects of baseline socioeconomic status on longitudinal outcomes. METHOD: A national cohort of adult participants with newly diagnosed BPD was identified in 2008. The effects of personal and household socioeconomic status were explored on outcomes of hospital treatment, mortality and healthcare costs, over a 3-year follow-up period (2008–2011). RESULTS: A total of 7987 participants were recruited. The relative risks of hospital treatment and mortality were found elevated for the ones from low-income households who also had higher healthcare costs. Low premium levels did not correlate with future healthcare costs. CONCLUSIONS: Socioeconomic deprivation is associated with poorer outcome and higher healthcare costs in BPD patients. Special care should be given to those with lower socioeconomic status to improve outcomes with potential benefits of cost savings in the following years. DECLARATION OF INTEREST: None. COPYRIGHT AND USAGE: © 2016 The Royal College of Psychiatrists. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) licence

Functional decline and mortality in long-term care settings: Static and dynamic approach

AbstractBackground/PurposeFunctional impairment is known to be associated with higher mortality risk and adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about whether functional decline could predict mortality among the elderly in the long-term care setting.MethodsThis is a prospective cohort study in two veteran homes in northern Taiwan with active use of the minimum data set (MDS). Evaluation tools retrieved from the MDS, including MDS Resource Utilization Group-III for Activities of Daily Living (RUG-III ADL), MDS Cognitive Scale, MDS Social engagement, triggers for resident assessment protocol (RAP) and Pain scale, were utilized for the analysis.ResultsA total of 1125 male participants were included in this study. The mean age of the participants was 83.1 ± 5.1 years, and 65 (5.8%) developed physical functional decline within a 6-month period. Participants with functional decline [odds ratio (OR) 2.305, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.002–5.303], poor baseline functional status (OR 1.116, 95% CI 1.002–1.242), positive RAP triggers for dehydration (OR 13.857, 95% CI 3.07–62.543), and underlying chronic lung diseases (OR 2.279, 95% CI 1.149–4.522), depression (OR 2.994, 95% CI 1.161–7.721), and cancer (OR 3.23, 95% CI 1.078–9.682) were more likely to have an additional 12-month mortality. By contrast, Parkinsonism (OR 3.875, 95% CI 1.169–12.841), increase in sum of RAP triggers (OR 6.096, 95% CI 2.741–13.562), and positive RAP triggers for cognitive loss (OR 3.164, 95% CI 1.612–6.212) and mood (OR 2.894, 95% CI 1.466–5.71) are strong predictors for functional decline within 6 months.ConclusionPhysical function decline within 6 months predicted the subsequent 1-year mortality, whereas increased sum of RAP triggers and positive trigger for cognitive loss and mood were associated with functional decline

Assessment of median nerve mobility by ultrasound dynamic imaging in carpal tunnel syndrome diagnosis

2013 Joint UffC, EFTF and PFM SymposiumCarpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a common entrapment neuropathy. Nerve conduction studies (NCS) have been used as a standard for CTS diagnosis. Complementing NCS, ultrasound imaging provides anatomic information on pathologic changes of the median nerve, such as the reduced median nerve mobility. Motion of median nerve is dependent on mechanical characteristics, and body movements. The purpose of this study was therefore to measure transverse sliding patterns of the median nerve during fingers flexion and extension in ultrasound B-mode images for distinguishing healthy from CTS subjects, and to investigate any correlation between NCS severity and median nerve motion. Transverse ultrasound images were acquired from 19 normal, 15 mild, and 10 severe CTS subjects confirmed by NCS. In two-second acquisition, their fingers were initially in natural position; the median nerve was then moved toward the ulnar side and radius side in fingers flexion and extension, respectively. The displacements of the median nerve were calculated by the multilevel block-matching pyramid algorithm and averaged. All the average displacements at different acquisition times were then accumulated to obtain cumulative displacements, which were curve-fitted by polynomial function. To differentiate the normal from CTS cases, the R-squared, curvature, and amplitude of the fitted curves were computed, to evaluate the goodness, variation, and maximum value of the fit, respectively. Compared to the CTS patients, the normal subjects had higher R-square, curvature, and amplitude estimates. The three parameters were then inputted to a fuzzy c-means algorithm to classify normal cases and CTS ones. The diagnostic efficiency had an accuracy of 93.2%, a specificity of 100%, and a sensitivity of 88%. Further study includes measuring mechanical strain and stress at different neural sites to provide elasticity of the median nerve. © 2013 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

The effectiveness of different health education strategies in people with pre-diabetes: A randomized controlled trial

Background. People with pre-diabetes often lack knowledge of their risks of developing diabetes. In one of our previous study, Multi-Approach Health Education was shown evidence to be effective on health behavior of reducing risks of developing diabetes. However, which one approach is really effective and efficient need further investigation. Purpose. To examine the effects of different intervention strategies on diabetes prevention knowledge, exercise, dietary behavior, and physiological indicators for people with pre-diabetes. Methods. This was a randomly controlled trial. People who received health examination and were found fasting blood glucose higher than normal, between 100 - 125 mg/dl in 2011 were recruited. Three types of intervention were randomly assigned to 3 groups respectively. The control group (n=51) received a health education lecture. One experimental group (n=48) received the identical lecture plus telephone encouragement. The second experimental group (n=41) received the identical lecture plus a health reminder poster in their daily life. The outcomes were evaluated for the change in knowledge of diabetes prevention, exercise behavior, dietary behavior, and physiological outcomes at 6 and 12 weeks after the lecture of three groups, respectively. Results. Three intervention strategies were equally efficacious at inducing positive behavioral changes but overall the magnitudes of physiological changes were the same. In general, the maximum change in parameters was achieved after 6 weeks and maintained in the second 6 weeks of the study. Conclusions. Educating people with pre-diabetes about their condition can have a positive effect upon their health behaviors. However, education lecture coupled with a telephone follow up or plus educational posters were found no more effective than lecture alone. The lecture alone of health education may be enough for people with pre-diabetes, but the long term effect needs further investigation

An Assessment of Bedrock Bench Mark on Monitoring Land Subsidence in Tuku, Taiwan

Source: ICHE Conference Archive - https://mdi-de.baw.de/icheArchive

A novel randomly textured phosphor structure for highly efficient white light-emitting diodes

We have successfully demonstrated the enhanced luminous flux and lumen efficiency in white light-emitting diodes by the randomly textured phosphor structure. The textured phosphor structure was fabricated by a simple imprinting technique, which does not need an expensive dry-etching machine or a complex patterned definition. The textured phosphor structure increases luminous flux by 5.4% and 2.5% at a driving current of 120 mA, compared with the flat phosphor and half-spherical lens structures, respectively. The increment was due to the scattering of textured surface and also the phosphor particles, leading to the enhancement of utilization efficiency of blue light. Furthermore, the textured phosphor structure has a larger view angle at the full width at half maximum (87°) than the reference LEDs