bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Intestinal microbiota and vaccine efficacy in children from resource poor settings – potential impact for the usefulness of probiotics?
Authors: Hajela N. , Chattopadhyay S. , Nair G.B. , Ganguly N.K.
Published: July 2020

Developing countries continue to contribute significantly to the global burden of childhood mortality due to infectious diseases. Infections leading to diseases like diarrhoea, pneumonia and meningitis account for millions of deaths annually. Most of these diseases are preventable by vaccination and therefore global vaccination rates have risen substantially with clear benefits. But paradoxically, the vaccines have demonstrated lower immunogenicity in developing countries as compared to their industrialised counterparts. Malnutrition in resource poor settings along with repeated polymicrobial infections at early age are some of the reasons for the differences in vaccine efficacy in different settings. Recent studies indicate that the gastrointestinal microbiota possibly influences maturation of immune system as well as vaccine efficacy. In this review we discuss evidences fromin vitro, animal and human studies showing that probiotics can positively modulate gut microbiota composition and exert immunomodulatory effects on the host. We also discuss how they should be evaluated for their ability to improve vaccine performance especially in low resource settings.
Effects of a high-fat-diet supplemented with probiotics and ω3-fatty acids on appetite regulatory neuropeptides and neurotransmitters in a pig model
Authors: Valent D. , Arroyo L. , Fàbrega E. , Font-i-Furnols M. , Rodríguez-Palmero M. , Moreno-Muñoz J.A. , Tibau J. , Bassols A.
Published: July 2020

The pig is a valuable animal model to study obesity in humans due to the physiological similarity between humans and pigs in terms of digestive and associated metabolic processes. The dietary use of vegetal protein, probiotics and omega-3 fatty acids is recommended to control weight gain and to fight obesity-associated metabolic disorders. Likewise, there are recent reports on their beneficial effects on brain functions. The hypothalamus is the central part of the brain that regulates food intake by means of the production of food intake-regulatory hypothalamic neuropeptides, as neuropeptide Y (NPY), orexin A and pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC), and neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin. Other mesolimbic areas, such as the hippocampus, are also involved in the control of food intake. In this study, the effect of a high fat diet (HFD) alone or supplemented with these additives on brain neuropeptides and neurotransmitters was assessed in forty-three young pigs fed for 10 weeks with a control diet (T1), a high fat diet (HFD, T2), and HFD with vegetal protein supplemented with Bifidobacterium breve CECT8242 alone (T3) or in combination with omega-3 fatty acids (T4). A HFD provoked changes in regulatory neuropeptides and 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) in the hypothalamus and alterations mostly in the dopaminergic system in the ventral hippocampus. Supplementation of the HFD with B. breve CECT8242, especially in combination with omega-3 fatty acids, was able to partially reverse the effects of HFD. Correlations between productive and neurochemical parameters supported these findings. These results confirm that pigs are an appropriate animal model alternative to rodents for the study of the effects of HFD on weight gain and obesity. Furthermore, they indicate the potential benefits of probiotics and omega-3 fatty acids on brain function.
Improving LGBTQ Cultural Competence of RNs Through Education
Authors: Traister Tyler
Published: July 2020

Background:

The health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ) people is a national health priority. A barrier to culturally congruent LGBTQ care is the lack of knowledge about LGBTQ people. LGBTQ people face significant health disparities. This study established an understanding of the knowledge and attitudes of RNs about LGBTQ people and the impact of an educational intervention.

Method:

RNs received a 1-hour educational intervention. Pre- and posttests were administered to establish baseline knowledge and attitude, as well as effectiveness.

Results:

A statistically significant impact on the nurses' knowledge of LGBTQ health (
p
< .0001) happened after the intervention. Qualitative responses from nurses showed an overwhelming desire to have LGBTQ education for their nursing practice.

Conclusion:

Implications for practice include implementing LGBTQ cultural competence into initial and ongoing educational training for RNs within health care organizations and improved nursing care of LGBTQ people.

[
J Contin Educ Nurs
. 2020;51(8):359–366.]
Do You See What I See? The Role of Visual Arts in Health Care Education
Authors: Mitzova-Vladinov Greta , Torrents Hope
Published: July 2020

The universality of visual arts can be used to facilitate inventive and interdisciplinary approaches to open the lines of communication between learners, educators, and health care providers to improve patient outcomes. Arts-based training programs have been implemented successfully in higher education as part of a growing awareness of the need to develop interpersonal skills of health care professionals to be able to deliver respectful and compassionate patient care. Visual thinking strategies (VTS) is a student-centered methodology using facilitated art-based discussions to create inclusive discussions. VTS-based programs may be successfully developed for continuing multidisciplinary education of health care professionals with the goals of improving communication and team building.

[
J Contin Educ Nurs
. 2020;51(8):367–370.]
A work of art as an experimental exhibit. Broodthaers and the Eagle
Authors: König Susanne
Published: July 2020

Experimentation is integral to literature and art as well as to the natural sciences. The search for new artistic means of expression, the formation of a new canon and the use of new artistic materials are all based on findings obtained through experimentation. Experimentation was a key category for the modernists in particular. The difference of modern art with previous periods lies especially with its having given a new programmatic significance to experimental procedures in both the natural sciences and art. Modern artists are characterised by a stylistic pluralism as an expression of a constantly changing society, accompanied by a new understanding of art. In particular, art after 1945 gave rise to a new concept of art hardly anticipated in the traditional genres of painting and sculpture, for example. Thus “experimentation” nowadays refers to controlled, purposive action aiming at some specific goal: the invention of something new or the production of new knowledge. This quest for the new characterises modern art and in particular contemporary art in a variety of ways. While controlled artistic practices may at first glance seem to conflict with the artist’s claim to freedom, artists do indeed seek new practices that are repeatable and therefore controllable. Not everything that is contemporary is experimental. “Experimental” does not just refer to something new — experimental art rather comes from certain experimental methods. In his work Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles (1968-72) the Belgian artist and poet Marcel Broodthaers investigates a particular form of experimental art. Broodthaers’ fictional museum project provides a good basis for a study of the concept, as the artist has himself repeatedly referred to the experimental quality of his art. Indeed, our starting assumption in this essay is that this work by Broodthaers illustrates in a paradigmatic way central elements of experimentation in contemporary art of the 1960s and 70s. For example, on 16 May 1972 Broodthaers opened a section of a museum entitled The Eagle from the Oligocene to the Present in the Städtischer Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf, signing it with the following words: “Marcel Broodthaers shows an experimental exhibition of his Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, Section des Figures”. The first part of this essay examines the experiment in which a museum with altogether twelve sections is declared to be a work of art. The second part then explicates the experiment in which an exhibition is declared to be a work of art. Finally, the third part examines the role of the viewer within Broodthaers’ artistic experiment.
Three Tsunami Narratives
Authors: Ganapathy-Doré Geetha
Published: July 2020

The ancient Tamil epic Silappatikaram describes the flourishing portal city of Puhar and Manimekalai tells the story of how it was engulfed by the sea. The Sri Lankan chronicles Thupavamsa and Mahavamsa speak of another tsunami that was to have swallowed the kingdom of Kelani Tissa. The brave princess Vihara Mahadevi appeased the anger of nature that was intended for her father who had ill-treated a Buddhist monk by sacrificing herself. Surprisingly she survived. Almost two thousand years later, a daughter of the Island survives the tsunami of 2004 while tragically losing her parents, her husband and two sons in Wave (2013) by Sonali Deraniyagala. Deraniyagala’s story about coping with loss and grief and surviving shuttles between two Islands – England and Sri Lanka. The love of Sri Lanka surfaces in the humanitarian approach of Dr. Philippa Hawley, a British physician who had performed her internship in Sri Lanka and published There’s No Sea in Salford in 2013. The doctor-narrator Penny tries to re-establish contact with Kiri de Souza who was working as a nurse in the hospital where she did her internship in Sri Lanka and had married a Tamil doctor and settled in England. A story of liberation from cancer and domestic violence ensues that is enlarged and translated into a story of solidarity with the vulnerable in Sri Lanka. Minoli Salgado’s A Little Dust in the Eyes (2014) evokes the close relationship between Renu and Savi, two cousins separated by civil war. During the trip to Sri Lanka from England undertaken to come to grips with her childhood, Savi is not able to retrieve anything but is helplessly swept away in the fatal swell of the sea. The aim of this paper is to first identify the type of narratives that insiders and outsiders choose to write when addressing the tsunami, then analyze what these tsunami narratives tell us about gender, family, ethnic, and race relations in times of personal, political and natural catastrophes. This paper finally explores how a pathway to peace is found across the geography of pain in these intimations of mortality.
Politically Engaged Leisure: The Political Participation of Young People in Contemporary Britain beyond the Serious Leisure Model
Authors: Pickard Sarah
Published: July 2020

This article discusses leisure in contemporary Britain pertaining to the political participation of young people in relation to the concepts of ‘serious leisure’ and ‘politically engaged leisure.’ Leisure is a fundamental component of a young person’s individual and collective identities, and some young people discover an interest in politics during their transition to adulthood. Research on the sociological concept of Serious Leisure Perspective (SLP) (Stebbins, 1982) has been carried out regarding many different activities, but it has rarely been considered apropos young people or indeed political activities. This article examines whether the Serious Leisure Perspective can be applied to traditional and innovative forms of political participation carried out by British youth in the twenty-first century and to what extent politically engaged leisure might be a more fitting term. By adopting a cross-disciplinary approach, the article identifies gaps in the current body of work on leisure and aims to add to academic understanding of leisure by pushing the boundaries of the existing conceptualisations of it. The article illustrates that is it possible to conceptualise political participation as a leisure activity and that the Serious Leisure Perspective could be used to describe it. The article goes on to suggest a new concept politically engaged leisure could be a useful way to describe political participation of politically committed young people in contemporary Britain.
Meaningful Plots: Leisure, ‘Rational Recreation’ and the Politics of Gardening in British Allotments (Mid 19th -mid 20th Centuries)
Authors: Page Arnaud
Published: July 2020

Si le jardinage communautaire est resté jusqu' à récemment un aspect relativement peu étudié de l'histoire des loisirs, il est devenu, ces dernières années, l'objet d'une analyse beaucoup plus détaillée. Le propos du présent article est de présenter une synthèse de ce travail qui a considérablement enrichi notre compréhension de cette forme de loisirs. Non seulement l'histoire des jardins communautaire en Grande-Bretagne remet en question les dichotomies traditionnelles entre le travail et les loisirs, mais elle montre aussi comment le jardinage était ancré dans un réseau complexe de significations et de relations politiques. Alors que les jardins communautaires étaient autrefois décrits comme une forme de récréation plutôt dépolitisée et consensuelle, les récents travaux historiques montrent en effet que leurs effets étaient plutôt plus complexes et parfois habilitants qu'on ne le pensait.
J. Baird Callicott, Science, and the Unstable Foundation of Environmental Ethics
Authors: Collomb Jean-Daniel
Published: July 2020

This article analyzes the ideas of American philosopher J. Baird Callicott to shed light on ecological thinking and its inherent commitment to change and the adaptation of US environmental ethics. Callicott is one of the most prominent and longest-serving practitioners of environmental ethics; he is especially known for his support of land ethic, as defined by Aldo Leopold, and ecocentrism, an ethic predicated on the perception of ecosystems as communities. Callicott draws on the works of David Hume, Adam Smith and Charles Darwin to justify a Leopoldian ecocentrism. Extending Hume’s and Smith’s theory of moral sentiments to non-human life and ecosystems, Callicott claims to have continued Darwin’s ethical reflections in The Descent of Man (1871), also taken up by Aldo Leopold after his conversion to the ecological worldview. Callicott argues that the meaning of community can and must be protean, in order to ensure that environmental destruction will not continue unimpeded. Callicott thus calls for a major paradigm shift away from modernity, as defined by the scientific revolution of the 17th century, to a reconstructive postmodernity informed by Darwinism, ecology and the “new” physics spawned by quantum theory. According to Callicott, the only effective way to transcend Cartesian dualism is to bring about a major change in people’s worldview. Short of such a shift in paradigms, the dualities at the root of the environmental crisis will persist. Ironically, one of the main challenges to Callicott’s defense of the land ethic came from within ecology, from what Donald Worster calls the ecology of chaos. If Callicott rescues Leopold’s land ethic from ecological insignificance, this is because of the advent of disturbance ecology in the 1970s and 1980s along with the gradual replacement of the balance-of-nature paradigm by the nature-in-flux paradigm. How can ecosystems be considered communities if they are subject to stochastic and catastrophic change? Distinguishing the scale of non-human change and anthropogenic change, Callicott salvages an ethic whose ecological foundations are precarious and unstable. In doing so, he demonstrates that just as adaptation is part of a natural evolution, it is also the key to intellectual and philosophical evolution. Callicott’s response to disturbance ecology nevertheless highlights the precarious position of environmental philosophers who predicate their moral prescriptions on scientific knowledge, given that the science of ecology is always evolving.
Mutable Conditions, Immutable Governance: Instability in U.S. Democracy
Authors: Bastick Zach
Published: July 2020

The question of democracy is central to any study of the United States. Yet the shortcomings of the actual workings of the democratic process in the United States are becoming increasingly evident, as witnessed in a growing disenchantment with government, the evidence of the alienation and growing apathy of citizens, coupled with a distrust of politicians. While academics often focus on these apparent ailments of democracy, it is perhaps more constructive to view them as symptoms of a vulnerable political structure, rather than as problems in themselves. This paper proposes that a re-examination of the structure of democracy in the United States, starting out from a revision of its first principles, can provide greater opportunity for a fully-fledged enhancement of the procedures of democratisation than is possible by way of the currently dominant trend in the academic literature, which argues for the pursuit of incremental improvements in government processes. This article applies both class theory and elite theory to argue that the indirect democracy of the United States is inherently vulnerable to the distortion of the public will, and ultimately to the hegemony of political elites over ordinary citizens. It concludes that an assessment of the structure of democracy through 21st-century perspectives, informed by new technology (such as Internet Democracy), offers the potential to remedy the core vulnerabilities of modern democracy. The structural analysis that is presented here, based on the specific case of the United States, demonstrates that current approaches to democracy may be likened to the remedial patching of political systems that are fundamentally obsolete. It is argued here that the acknowledgement of this limitation provides an opportunity for the emergence of fundamentally new forms of societal governance.
Museums, the Exhibitionary Complex and State Stability in the Victorian Era
Authors: Doustaly Cécile
Published: July 2020

This paper focuses on the different agents, whether public, private or voluntary, who in the Victorian Age campaigned in favour of the opening of public museums, whether national, local or municipal, and who invoked an intrication of cultural, political, social and economic rationales to muster support. In particular, these agents foregrounded the supposed capacity of museums to educate, pacify and control sections of the population considered as a threat to state stability. How were these objects of concern, i.e. the working classes, presented in the different discourses and actions relating to museums, before and after their opening? The Victorian period was one of unstable, shifting social conditions in urban areas, characterised by an increased dynamic of urbanisation, coupled with neighbourhood segregation and related problems (criminality, betting, alcohol).These changes spurred the development of the rational recreation movement, whose support for the creation of public cultural institutions is examined here. The 1851 Exhibition is focused on, insofar as it provided a quite different exhibitionary complex and context, compared to that of museums. 1851 is identified as a turning point of the Victorian Era, involving as it did a shift away from the pacifying function, until then associated with museums. In conclusion, the article examines the factors which enabled these Victorian public museums to attract large number of visits from the working classes, in a context of enduring class distinction. The article draws on primary sources and also on established theories of social control, from that of Bailey (a leisure historian) and Bennett (who drew on Foucault’s approach to apprehend the function of museums), but also on Parrat, Taylor, Kriegel, and, more recently, Jennings, Quinn, Purbrick and Woodson Boulton. The periodization, categorisation of actors, and the typology of museums proposed in this paper allows us to highlight the specific relevance of the conflicting theories regarding the role of museums.
Reading, Writing and the “Straight White Male”: What Masculinity Studies Does to Literary Analysis
Authors: Pellerin Pierre-Antoine
Published: July 2020

This article aims at mapping out some of the ways in which masculinity studies has recently renewed the critical approach to certain literary texts. It argues that this fairly new disciplinary field has helped to de-territorialize literary inquiry and challenges deep-rooted assumptions about reading and writing. Essentialist notions like “masculine writing,” bodily analogies between the pen and the phallus, and psychoanalytical tools such as the Oedipus myth have tended to obfuscate the multitude of masculine identities at work in literature. Combined with the textual and performative approach developed by queer theorists, the work done by historians of masculinity enables, for instance, to shed light on the pressures that burdened authorial identity in a context of homophobia like the Cold War period in the United States, to delineate the ways in which the constitutive homosociality of poetic circles in the 1950s fashioned their aesthetic norms and practices, and to deconstruct the narrative codes and the fictions of masculinity which structured certain literary genres like the crime novel and the adventure novel.
The Brain Without the Body? Virtual Reality, Neuroscience and the Living Flesh
Authors: Roussel Marion
Published: July 2020

Since the early 1990s, the architect and artist Marcos Novak has been developing an experimental and transdisciplinary practice at a point of convergence between architecture, art, science, technology and philosophy, questioning the becoming of the digitally-enhanced body. With AlloBrain@AlloSphere, a virtual reality environment developed between 2005 and 2009 with the support of the Brain Mapping Center (University of California, Los Angeles), Novak proposes an immersive exploration of our brain spaces. AlloBrain is modelled from brain MRIs, extruded in the form of a three-dimensional volume. The experience offered is that of an immersion inside our heads. However, in this way of looking beyond the face, we find it hard to recognise ourselves. Projections or exteriorisations of a hidden interiority, the showing of these unknown territories of the body, of this anonymous and subterranean singularity, arouse an uncanny feeling in us. The explored interior is not that of the mind or of consciousness but, very strictly, that of the brain, more precisely that of a brain without a body, without flesh, a bare and digitally reconstructed enclosed space that yet appears empty of interiority. Are we dealing with a project that tries to explain the mind by mere brain matter, similar to the cognitive sciences or neurosciences? Still, the effect of uncanniness produced by the immersion in AlloBrain seems to result from the confrontation between this “naked brain” and our subjective experience, which seems unable to dispose of the physical body we inhabit and that inhabits us, too. Thus, what AlloBrain causes is a real return to the flesh, a lived-in and living flesh, highlighting a particularity that is nonetheless alien to us, because in reality something always resists. It not the thing that cannot be captured by digitisation the phenomenal “I” itself, the “I” by which we experience our body and the world? Such a hypothesis would give us ground to doubt that by avoiding the materiality of the body, by uploading our minds in the machine, we could remain the same.
The Body of Los Angeles, Between Commodity and Identity
Authors: Joseph Charles
Published: July 2020

Los Angeles has mostly been studied in geographical or urban terms for the past fifty years in order to try and decipher a cityscape that had never been encountered on American soil before. Stemming from these studies, the LA school led by Edward Soja and his Postmodern Geographies experimented on new theoretical tools for this unprecedented space to be made sense of, tools that propelled the inhabitants to the center. Soja structured his thought according to his “trialectics of being” which is composed equally of spatiality, historicality and sociality (Soja 71). In doing so, the cultural factor became inherent to the analysis of urban environment, a posture which is the starting point of this paper. Focusing on the body in Los Angeles is a bilateral task as the body influenced, if not built, Los Angeles, while, the city, once established, shaped the body of its inhabitants on a physical and representational level. Taking into account emblematic cultural productions or practices rooted in Los Angeles, this paper intends to explore and analyze the closed-circuit generated between the Southern Californian megalopolis and the body in urban, corporeal and representational terms.
John L. Brown’s Epistolary Wit
Authors: Ricaud Raphaël
Published: July 2020

John Lackey Brown was a literary correspondent in Paris in the aftermath of World War II. He was later posted as cultural attaché in Brussels, Rome and Mexico City during the first two decades of the Cold War. Those who knew him best say he was appreciated for his good humor, wit and love of culture. He is even said to have set the standard for the profession. Verba volant, scripta manent (spoken words fly away, written ones remain). Due to the ephemeral and private nature of asides, one can only speculate on this Cultural Affairs officer’s use of wit and its efficacy. However, there is a host of archival material at the Lauinger Library (Georgetown University) which can be mined for answers. Based on a sample of these letters, this paper sets out to classify and analyze the use of wit Brown made in his varied correspondence, and to study the extent to which it served a diplomatic purpose. In the end, I show wit was not an addition to Dr. Brown’s diplomatic endeavor; it was an integral part of it. Quips were tension relievers, strengthening trans-national bonds that united him to his peers. But they were also a way to word what could not otherwise be said. John Lackey Brown was not the epitome of the cultural attaché because he used wit and diplomacy. He stood out because he used wit as diplomacy.
“Language is worth a thousand pounds a word”
Authors: Lecercle Jean-Jacques
Published: July 2020

This paper studies the following axiom: ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ through a series of 11 theses and 16 propositions. It takes as proof an extract from Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956). The author suggests that if brevity is the source of wit thanks to a process of interpellation, this opens the way to a novel philosophy of language, one which centers on the linguistic agon, in which the primary function of language is not to communicate information but to exert a force that interpellates subjects in the respective positions in which they find themselves.
Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Photography from surgery to robotics
Authors: Ragazzini Jessica
Published: July 2020

Anthropomorphic robotics have become increasingly familiar in our daily lives. Photographer and surgeon Max Aguilera-Hellweg moved from projects focusing on human bodies undergoing surgery to photographs of androids and their inner architecture. Why did the photographer choose to give up the human body to turn to its simulacrum? What does the robot have that the human body doesn’t have? What is the point of photographing objects that resemble human beings? These are the questions that will guide our analysis of the work of Max Aguilera-Hellweg.
Langston Hughes’s Poetic Vision of the American Dream: A Complex and Creative Encoded Language
Authors: Dualé Christine
Published: July 2020

In his collection of poems entitled Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951) Langston Hughes observed and gave an original restitution of the historic evolution of African-American culture, a theme he reverted to again in 1961 with Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz. Both collections were, indeed, largely shaped by the impact of the transformation of black music as well as the hopes and dreams of African Americans. The theme of the American Dream and the possibilities for the black man to reach and accomplish this dream were recurrent in Hughes’s poetry, while the tension between the realities of the black experience and the unrealized dream provided the dynamic of his writing. By considering the poetic description of the living conditions of African Americans, my intent is to offer an analysis of the poet’s social lens to understand his vision of the American Dream for his people and how he addressed some of the most pressing social issues of his time. By analyzing Hughes’s poetic technique, I will also show how the poet rebuilt African-American history and led the reader to a process of “collective fiction”, typical of “minority writing”, as defined by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in Mille Plateaux (1980). Through his specific technique, we will see Hughes’s writing is constantly on the edge of musical and written forms; an hypotext which bonds his poems to minority writing and minor literature.
MSME Owner/Manager Perceptions Towards the Adoption of E-Marketing Activities in India
Authors: Singh Tejinderpal , Kalia Prateek
Published: July 2020

This chapter covers the MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprise) owners/managers' perceptions towards the adoption of e-marketing with respect to its importance and effectiveness for business success, implementation, barriers, future use, expenditure, and general awareness about the government e-marketing initiatives. Data was collected from 253 MSMEs located in states of Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh in India. The authors observed that MSMEs perceive e-marketing as an important element in the success of their businesses. They feel that display advertising, social media marketing, and mobile marketing add more effectiveness to their business. They perceive that display advertising is effective for brand awareness, search engine marketing for lead generation, affiliate marketing for customer acquisition and increasing ROI, mobile marketing for better CRM, and search engine optimisation for generating web traffic. MSMEs indicated an increase in future expenditure on digital marketing activities. However, a large section of MSMEs were unaware of the government's e-marketing initiatives.
What Makes Patients Adopt the Web-Based Personal Health Records (PHRs)?
Authors: Sohn Changsoo , Yeo Younsook
Published: July 2020

This study analyzed what makes patients adopt the web-based personal health records (PHRs). Patients may consider the perceived value of information, the perceived usefulness of searching, the perceived privacy, the perceived trust, and the perceived security when they adopt the web-based PHRs. By using HINTS (Health Information National Trends Survey), this study found that the perceived value of information is the most important determinant when patients adopt the web-based PHRs. The perceived privacy, the perceived trust, and the perceived security are also determinants to influence their decision to adopt the web-based PHRs. But, the perceived value of searching is not statistically significant to explain the adoption of the web-based PHRs. However, the perceived value of information is a strong antecedent of the perceived usefulness of searching. Based on this study, patients are more likely to adopt the web-based PHRs when they realize that the web-based PHRs provide valuable and reliable information with protecting their privacy and system security.
Enabling Digital Transformation in Education and Training
Authors: Gürbüz Tarkan
Published: July 2020

The rapid rise of innovation and digital transformation trends have already begun to cause disruptions to the way we live, work, and learn. Education and training are placed at the forefront of this transformation process because of the learning needs to develop the required competencies for enabling a successful transformation. As educators and training experts become more aware of the potential of open and distance learning, it is essential for their educational planning that the opportunities offered by new technologies like disruptive technologies or digital transformation enabling technologies to be realistically examined. It is evident that educational institutions that fail to embrace digital transformation will be left behind in the upcoming years. Therefore, this chapter aims to discuss the digital transformation process in the field of education and training through the innovative solutions for the development of next generation digital learning environments and spaces.
Library and Information Science Female Undergraduate Preference for Facebook as Information Sharing Tool
Authors: Tella Adeyinka , Durodolu Oluwole Olumide , Uwaifo Stephen Osahon
Published: July 2020

This study has examined the library and information science female undergraduates' preference for Facebook as an information-sharing tool. A survey approach was adopted using a questionnaire to collect data from 457 LIS female undergraduate students drawn from five library schools in Nigeria. The findings of the study have demonstrated that most significant factors that lead to the use of Facebook for information sharing among LIS female undergraduate students are user-friendly nature of the tool, personal gain, enjoyment, and self-efficacy while the least factors are social engagement and empathy. User-friendliness nature of Facebook has the highest correlation with the preference for Facebook as an information-sharing tool by female students followed by enjoyment while learning and empathy are the least correlated factors.
Electronic Voting Application Powered by Blockchain Technology
Authors: Rathee Geetanjali , Saini Hemraj
Published: July 2020

India is the largest democracy in the world, and in spite of that, it faces various challenges on a daily basis that hinder its growth like corruption and human rights violations. One of the ugliest phases of corruption and political mayhem is visible during the election process where no stone is kept unturned in order to gain power. However, it is the common citizen who suffers most in terms of clarity as well as security when it comes to his/her vote. Blockchain can play a very important role in ensuring that the voters registering their votes are legit and the counting of votes is not manipulated in any way. It is also needed in today's times where the world is available to people in their smart phones to also give them the opportunity to register their votes hassle free via their smart phones without having to worry about the system getting hacked. Therefore, in this chapter, the proposed layout will be based on a smart contract, using Ethereum software to create an e-voting app. In this chapter, the authors have proposed a secure e-voting framework through blockchain mechanism.
Artificial Intelligence and Reliability Metrics in Medical Image Analysis
Authors: G. Yamini , Ganapathy Gopinath
Published: July 2020

Artificial intelligence (AI) in medical imaging is one of the most innovative healthcare applications. The work is mainly concentrated on certain regions of the human body that include neuroradiology, cardiovascular, abdomen, lung/thorax, breast, musculoskeletal injuries, etc. A perspective skill could be obtained from the increased amount of data and a range of possible options could be obtained from the AI though they are difficult to detect with the human eye. Experts, who occupy as a spearhead in the field of medicine in the digital era, could gather the information of the AI into healthcare. But the field of radiology includes many considerations such as diagnostic communication, medical judgment, policymaking, quality assurance, considering patient desire and values, etc. Through AI, doctors could easily gain the multidisciplinary clinical platform with more efficiency and execute the value-added task.
Exploring Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence for Smart Healthcare Solutions
Authors: Yamini G.
Published: July 2020

Artificial intelligence integrated with the internet of things network could be used in the healthcare sector to improve patient care. The data obtained from the patient with the help of certain medical healthcare devices that include fitness trackers, mobile healthcare applications, and several wireless sensor networks integrated into the body of the patients promoted digital data that could be stored in the form of digital records. AI integrated with IoT could be able to predict diseases, monitor heartbeat rate, recommend preventive maintenance, measure temperature and body mass, and promote drug administration by having a review with the patient's medical history and detecting health defects. This chapter explores IoT and artificial intelligence for smart healthcare solutions.
The Pivotal Role of Edge Computing With Machine Learning and Its Impact on Healthcare
Authors: S. M. Muthukumari , Raj George Dharma Prakash E.
Published: July 2020

The global market for IoT medical devices is expected to hit a peak of 500 billion by the year 2025, which could signal a significant paradigm shift in healthcare technology. This is possible due to the on-premises data centers or the cloud. Cloud computing and the internet of things (IoT) are the two technologies that have an explicit impact on our day-to-day living. These two technologies combined together are referred to as CloudIoT, which deals with several sectors including healthcare, agriculture, surveillance systems, etc. Therefore, the emergence of edge computing was required, which could reduce the network latency by pushing the computation to the “edge of the network.” Several concerns such as power consumption, real-time responses, and bandwidth consumption cost could also be addressed by edge computing. In the present situation, patient health data could be regularly monitored by certain wearable devices known as the smart telehealth systems that send an enormous amount of data through the wireless sensor network (WSN).
Use of Eggshell as a Partial Replacement for Sand in Concrete Used in Biomedical Applications
Authors: S. Sebastin , S. M. Murali Ram Kumar
Published: July 2020

The recent researches show that cement mortar containing eggshell as a partial replacement of sand contained radiation absorption property. In these cement mortar samples, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% by mass of sand was replaced by crushed eggshells, and there was increase in radiation absorption. The result also showed that using eggshell as a partial replacement for sand leads to decrease in compressive strength of the cement mortar. Waste of any kind in the environment when its concentration is in excess can become a critical factor for humans, animals, and vegetation. The utilization of the waste is a priority today in order to achieve sustainable development. So, we have planned to increase that compressive strength by means of using seashell as a partial replacement for cement. The main objective of the project is to maintain radiation absorption by means of using eggshell along with seashell as a partial replacement for cement to increase the compressive strength.
Pedagogical Opportunities to Foster Interaction and Deep Understanding Between International and Domestic University Students
Authors: Clifford Samantha
Published: July 2020

Diverse friendships established in college can significantly impact students' lives and affect cognitive development, learning, retention, and college success. The encouragement of meaningful interaction through curriculum design and teaching practices as part of internationalization efforts can positively impact the campus and social structure of society. Opportunity exists within institutions of higher education to foster reflexivity and interaction in classrooms composed of individuals from around the world. The variety of experiences can provide a foundation for a trans-formative educational experience. This context may be a key component to reducing prejudice because perceptions and behavior result from enculturation. The author describes data collected over a five-year period from a 16-week undergraduate mixed nationality Anthropology course that attempts to hone skills in reflexivity and global awareness. The results exemplify teaching practices and curriculum design for internationalization within the classroom and outcomes indicate significant lifelong learning for students.
Move Over Medici!
Authors: Ficarra Julie M.
Published: July 2020

This chapter draws attention to the disconnect between the goal of global learning through mutual cross-cultural exchange with local hosts and the absence of efforts to assess the impact of study abroad students on host communities. When host community impact is considered, it is typically in the context of service-learning in the Global South and ignores more popular and densely saturated sites in Europe. In contribution to filling this gap, this chapter presents data from a study conducted in Florence, Italy that sought to better understand the experience of intentional hosts and gauge what they see as the economic, cultural, educational, and environmental impacts of hosting large numbers of US students. In-depth interviews with 31 local faculty, administrators, and host families provide important insights for how international educators can design programming that mitigates negative impacts on host communities while creating opportunities for equitable, ethical, cross-cultural engagement.
Decolonizing Global Learning and Internationalization
Authors: Graml Gundolf , Meyer-Lee Elaine , Peifer Janelle S.
Published: July 2020

The implications and challenges of critical, responsible internationalization are central to the global learning aspect of Agnes Scott College's SUMMIT initiative, a reinvention of the curriculum and co-curriculars. Partly due to the human-scale size of a small liberal arts college, it has been able to take an unusually bold and integrated approach to internationalization, which includes providing faculty-led global immersion to every student but from a unique angle. This chapter will outline an approach to global learning that centers a critical focus on colonialism/imperialism/diaspora in its curriculum, including in its required, first-year interdisciplinary Journeys course; co-curriculars on the local impacts of globalization and migration; and assessment and research. This approach also manifests in taking into account the intersectional effect of students' multiple identities on these issues. The authors will share sample learning outcomes, activities, assignments, and faculty development strategies, as well as lessons learned for decolonizing global learning.
Development and Evaluation of Cooperative Healthcare Bidirectional People-to-People Exchanges
Authors: Kovac Anthony , Hermanson Alec , Connelly Kimberly , Aidoo Alfred , Antwi-Kusi Akwasi , Cantuarias Delia , Urquizo Juan , Brouillette Mark
Published: July 2020

Bidirectional, interdisciplinary cultural exchanges result in increased understanding of cultural differences allowing for better international collaboration. The success and sustainability of cooperative agreements depend on regular continued communication with each partner institution, along with a key contact person “on the ground” in each participating country. International efforts represent an exciting beginning of people-to-people involvement in the global quest for improved access to safe surgical, anesthesia, and medical care in developing countries. Academic institutions are uniquely positioned to make a global impact helping others through the bidirectional exchange of education, research, and culture. International efforts can have a recognizable impact on partner locations. All individuals and institutions involved continue to learn from the knowledge and examples of others to further enhance their impact. Continued evaluation and reevaluation are important to improve the experience and achieve the needs and objectives for all involved participants.
Designing Study Abroad With Empathy and Engagement
Authors: Cooper Cathy , DelliCarpini Dominic , Fyfe David , Nguyen Annie
Published: July 2020

This chapter describes results from a student-driven partnership between York College of Pennsylvania and governmental/non-governmental health agencies in Liberia. Presented as two parallel case studies, and narrating research processes and outcomes of the project, it argues that by combining the empathy techniques of “human-centered design” (commonly known as Design Thinking) with principles of project-based learning, this people-centered method can produce richer global experiences for students. This method can also produce qualitative data that is useful for intercultural problem-solving, and therefore can inform ongoing and productive partnerships that employ a human-centered approach to interdisciplinary collaboration.
A Voice of Her Own
Authors: Yanıkkaya Berrin
Published: July 2020

This chapter provides a theoretical discussion on women's voice and agency by referring to the selected works from feminist theory and history. It highlights the importance of storytelling in women owning their own voice and exercising their agency through the multilayeredness of the experiences of women coming from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. Also, in this chapter, digital platforms and what they offer to women, such as digital storytelling, are discussed. And finally, it includes academic and activist works on individual and collective digital storytelling examples and practices of women from around the world.
Ruling the Country Without Losing the Self
Authors: Nairn Angelique Margarita
Published: July 2020

Despite the pursuit of gender equality emphasised by first, second, and third wave feminism, society continues to socially construct women as inferior to men, that their place should be in the home and that they pose a threat to masculine ideals if women do not act or conform to hegemonically feminine traits. So, what happens when a woman is elected to a role generally occupied by men? This is a question set to be addressed in this chapter on Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. Applying thematic analysis to a series of Facebook videos uploaded to Ardern's Page, this research found that Ardern tended to emphasise what mattered to her, personal information about herself and her work, and what it meant to be a career mum. The themes indicate that in some cases she could speak with her own voice, but that political and societal structures influenced her identity work.
Collective Voices Online
Authors: Bernardini Vittoria
Published: July 2020

The chapter investigates how women use the practice of speaking out in their activism to bring issues that are significant to them from the private sphere into the public sphere. Specifically, it focuses on analyzing how this was achieved in the case of the #MeToo movement, taken as the most prominent example of activism against sexual harassment in recent years. Using the conceptual tool of counter public sphere developed by Nancy Fraser, the chapter examines two relevant events from #MeToo: the sexual misconduct allegations against actor Aziz Ansari and the circulation of the so-called “Shitty Media Men” list.
Having “The Voice” and Gaining Agency
Authors: Yildirim Senem
Published: July 2020

This study delineates on the conceptual interplay between political empowerment, agency, and gendered interest by drawing the contextual limits of how empowerment, agency, and women's voice are intertwined within the experiences of women in local politics. Most of the studies on women's political empowerment employing a critical perspective focus on non-Western contexts. In these contexts, women are depicted as agents employing unconventional ways of becoming political through different strategies. The narratives of ‘neo-liberal Western subject' are not being read through this critical framework. So as to observe to what extent the binary of Western vs. non-Western is transgressed in distinct socio-political contexts, this study employs the conceptual framework created by the narratives and experiences of women in local politics in Turkey to read the experiences of women in local politics in the US.