On October 3rd, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau changed the presentation of information within mortgage disclosures such that monthly payments and upfront costs are more salient. Using proprietary bank account data, I document that after closing on the mortgage, treated consumers receiving the re-designed disclosures log in more into their liquid checking accounts, spend less on debit cards and cash, but spend more on credit cards. I argue that the more salient disclosures caused consumers to prioritize having funds to make monthly obligations. Accordingly, I find that liquidity constrained consumers reallocate more of their debit card and cash spending to credit card spending. Other channels related to underestimation of mortgage costs, financial advice, and regulatory enforcement cannot fully explain the results. The reform benefits consumers as they do not accumulate credit card charges despite making more timely mortgage payments. The results collectively demonstrate that modifying information presentation is a low-cost way to change consumers’ behaviors.

Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / The research project is based on the belief that Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) people have specific information needs and interests that public libraries should cater for. The philosophical literature of public libraries states that they have to cater for all sectors of their diverse communities without discrimination. The aim of the research study was to gauge if Cape Town’s library and information services (LIS) include gay and lesbian materials in their collection development policies and procedures. It also aimed at finding out if City of Cape Town Library and Information Services (COCTLIS) provide for the information needs of their gay and lesbian users in their provision of information services. The research problem and the review of literature led to the following research questions: • Do the gay and lesbian library user community constitute a special user group with particular information and reading needs? • If it is accepted that public libraries have a responsibility for the special information and reading needs of gay and lesbian library users, how do they cater for these needs? • How do South African public libraries, specifically the City of Cape Town Library and Information Services (COCTLIS), provide for these needs with their collections and their information services? • Are the public library staffs aware of the UNESCO principles in terms of LIS services for gay and lesbian library users? The first two research questions were answered by means of a review of the theoretical and professional literature. The last two questions were answered by analysis of COCTLIS collection development procedures and policy and a questionnaire survey of library staff. A survey was conducted among librarians in charge of collection development in the COCTLIS libraries early in 2009, collecting data by means of a structured questionnaire. The sample comprised 69 libraries of the total 100, with an even spread across the six city library districts and including a mix of “types” of library (regional and community). The findings of the research study echo the agreement found in the literature that the provision of library services to LGBT people is inadequate. City of Cape Town collection development policy does not have any explicit mention of the LGBT user group. The major finding of the survey is an evident gap between stated beliefs and actual practices. The majority of respondents agree that public library collections should cater for LGBT people but in fact they buy very few books or magazines oriented to gays and lesbians. And only 55% indicate that they do consciously consider the needs of gays and lesbians in their book selection. The information services to gays and lesbians appear to be rather thin. For example, less than 10% include gay and lesbian oriented information in their community information files and only 37% display gay and lesbian oriented information on their community notice boards. The study provides some evidence that practices might differ according to size and position of library. The research study hopes to make a difference in the provision of gays and lesbians in the City of Cape Libraries. It also hopes to remind librarians of the mandate they have to develop their collections to reflect diversity.

It is widely acknowledged that patients' emotional expressions and doctors' empathic responses play a key role in providing satisfactory healthcare services and improving doctor-patient relationships. While such affective aspect of medical consultation discourse has been studied in different fields of research with the focus of examining medical consultations that occur in face-to-face settings, this area is extremely under-researched in the field of linguistics, particularly in the non-western context and the online space. While online medical consultation (OMC) has ushered in the new era of e-communication around the beginning of this century, discourse-related research on OMC is still in its infancy and studies on the affective dimension of the OMC discourse in non-western sites are, to my best knowledge, apparently absent in the literature. As China has seen a significant increase in the use of OMC platforms, studying OMC discourse in the China context is not only important but vital. With the support of the Chinese government's "Internet Plus Healthcare" policy issued in 2018, the reliance on the online mode of medical consultation will be further strengthened and the future of OMC service in China will remain promising. In order to have a better understanding of the affective aspect of OMC discourse, this thesis explores the online interaction between doctors and e-patients (including patients' caregivers) from a poststructuralist discourse analysis perspective. The data for this study consists of 300 text-based one-to-one instant messaging OMC cases collected from three popular OMC websites used in China. Each OMC case contains e-patients' emotional expression and doctors' empathic response. The data are analysed by the approach of computer-mediated discourse analysis in terms of two dimensions: the textual dimension and the social practice dimension. At the textual level, the study identifies indirect negative emotional acts by e-patients and empathic acts by doctors (which constitute the affective practice); it also examines the interactional discursive features involved in the affective practice. At the social practice level, it explores the discursive positions of e-patients and doctors within the affective practice context and the power relations that are reflected in the identity positionings. This study finds that the text-based OMC affective practice is rich in various types of emotional expressions and different ways of manifesting empathy, some of which are not mentioned in studies on medial consultation discourse. The study also identifies positions that disrupt the traditional or stereotypical roles of doctor and patient. Besides, it presents dynamic power relations, which problematizes the idea that doctors are always the more powerful party and patients are always powerless in medical encounters. This study sheds light on the importance of examining the affective facet of medical consultation from a discourse analytic perspective, when it comes to identifying non-traditional positions and power relations in clinical communication. The study also provides the implication that e-healthcare platforms, especially those with an e-commercialised model for healthcare services, have potential to produce a type of neo-liberal discourse - the e-commercialised medical consultation discourse - in which patients and caregivers, who are acknowledged as the less powerful group in the traditional healthcare activities, are empowered and privileged

It is widely acknowledged that patients' emotional expressions and doctors' empathic responses play a key role in providing satisfactory healthcare services and improving doctor-patient relationships. While such affective aspect of medical consultation discourse has been studied in different fields of research with the focus of examining medical consultations that occur in face-to-face settings, this area is extremely under-researched in the field of linguistics, particularly in the non-western context and the online space. While online medical consultation (OMC) has ushered in the new era of e-communication around the beginning of this century, discourse-related research on OMC is still in its infancy and studies on the affective dimension of the OMC discourse in non-western sites are, to my best knowledge, apparently absent in the literature. As China has seen a significant increase in the use of OMC platforms, studying OMC discourse in the China context is not only important but vital. With the support of the Chinese government's "Internet Plus Healthcare" policy issued in 2018, the reliance on the online mode of medical consultation will be further strengthened and the future of OMC service in China will remain promising. In order to have a better understanding of the affective aspect of OMC discourse, this thesis explores the online interaction between doctors and e-patients (including patients' caregivers) from a poststructuralist discourse analysis perspective. The data for this study consists of 300 text-based one-to-one instant messaging OMC cases collected from three popular OMC websites used in China. Each OMC case contains e-patients' emotional expression and doctors' empathic response. The data are analysed by the approach of computer-mediated discourse analysis in terms of two dimensions: the textual dimension and the social practice dimension. At the textual level, the study identifies indirect negative emotional acts by e-patients and empathic acts by doctors (which constitute the affective practice); it also examines the interactional discursive features involved in the affective practice. At the social practice level, it explores the discursive positions of e-patients and doctors within the affective practice context and the power relations that are reflected in the identity positionings. This study finds that the text-based OMC affective practice is rich in various types of emotional expressions and different ways of manifesting empathy, some of which are not mentioned in studies on medial consultation discourse. The study also identifies positions that disrupt the traditional or stereotypical roles of doctor and patient. Besides, it presents dynamic power relations, which problematizes the idea that doctors are always the more powerful party and patients are always powerless in medical encounters. This study sheds light on the importance of examining the affective facet of medical consultation from a discourse analytic perspective, when it comes to identifying non-traditional positions and power relations in clinical communication. The study also provides the implication that e-healthcare platforms, especially those with an e-commercialised model for healthcare services, have potential to produce a type of neo-liberal discourse - the e-commercialised medical consultation discourse - in which patients and caregivers, who are acknowledged as the less powerful group in the traditional healthcare activities, are empowered and privileged

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Counselling Psychology) at the University of Zululand, 2006. / The problem of career development in disadvantaged communities in South Africa is a product of historical discriminatory practices that have resulted in large numbers of young people not having access to appropriate career guidance services. As a solution to mass career guidance needs, a non-profit, self-help career guidance program serves as a supplement to curriculum based school programs and provides people with the opportunity to access career guidance services in an empowering environment. This case study qualitatively describes the development and evaluation of a career guidance centre as a resource for large numbers of learners, educators and unemployed youth. Specifically, the role that the hands-on permanent career exhibition plays in a self-help career choice model is discussed, together with the subjective experience of the centre by a number of people who used the services provided by the Zululand Career Centre in Richards Bay, South Africa. A logic model provides a view of the resources, influencing factors, implementation activities and outputs that make up the development of the centre. The design of the career centre embodies several relevant psychological theories and is essentially a self-help exhibition-led process. Its development provided an opportunity for the innovative application of existing trait and type, life-span, constructivist, social learning, decision-making and socio-economic approaches within the South African context. The life-span and decision-making approaches provided the theoretical background for the problem-solving exploration processes used in the centre, while the trait and factor theories provided techniques for self-knowledge acquisition and career information classification. Social learning theory provided insight into the pivotal role the staff members of the centre would have to play in the learning processes, while the constructivist theories led to an understanding that users of the centre would be able to construct their knowledge of careers from their experiences with the centre displays and their own lived experiences. The importance of up-to-date, contextually relevant information was highlighted by the socio-economic approaches. The centre provided insights into how exhibition-led learning is able to assist a large number of people to access career and labour market information and actively participate in the career decision-making process. / National Research Foundation

Objective: To enable primarily public libraries and secondarily public health workers and rural hospital staff to be consumer health information providers with the goal of creating a program that could be copied nationally, enabling public library workers to become an important resource in reversing our national health information illiteracy. Setting: Three regions of the state regional public library system covering seventeen counties and two regions of the state public health department system. Participants: Public library staff, public health department staff, and rural hospital staff. Program: East Tennessee State University (ETSU) College of Medicine Library partnered with public libraries to improve the delivery of health information. Four free classes were taught multiple times: “Prescription for Success,” “An Apple a Day,” “PubMed for Public Librarians,” and “From Snake Oil to Penicillin.” Regional public library directors were used to convince their staff of its value and obtain the concurrence of their boards for release time for class attendance. Classes were also developed for the public health workforce and rural hospital staff. Existing classes (with all teaching materials on the National Network of Libraries of Medicine [NN/ LM] Website) were used with the existing public library system. Results: Five-hundred thirty-three students attended the classes. Fifty-two public library workers received MLA’s Consumer Health Information Specialist certification. Thirty-one public libraries have joined NN/LM. All ordered MedlinePlus marketing materials for their libraries from InformationRx.org. Conclusion: This project helped address the public health problem of health information illiteracy by filling the gap the average person has in finding quality health information. A strength of this project is its easy replication. The project used materials that were readily available and put them to use. Any library could replicate this project in its own service area saving time and cost to the library.

No description available.

The availability of drug information that is useful to clinicians is an important need for those responsible for medication use in patients. Physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and patients routinely require access to relevant information related to rational drug therapy. The need for rapid access to relevant information has become increasingly important as the science, technology, and specialization within health care expand. Because of this expansion the literature has increased not only in size but also in complexity. The term drug information (e.g., used in drug information service, drug information center or drug information specialist) is defined as "knowledge of facts or circumstances acquired through reading, study or practical experience concerning the chemical substance intended for use in diagnosis, prevention, treatment or cure of disease or otherwise to enhance the physical or mental well-being of men or animals" (1). This definition may be expanded to include the ability to provide information to the user in a special manner known as a drug information service. Drug information service is defined as "the activities involved with accumulating, organizing, and retrieving drug information and may include provision of documents and bibliographic compilations or other medical library functions" (1).

No description available.

No description available.