Objective: In order to evaluate the current situation of health information technology (HIT) in Guangzhou, to assess the different status of HIT between different classifications of public hospitals, and find out the influencing factors, to identify the core barriers affecting the development of HIT, I conducted a comprehensive survey, to analyze the framework of HIT from various aspects. Through this study, we would accurately grasp the development level of HIT in Guangzhou, and provide basic information for guideline making in the future. Methods: This is a cross-sectional & descriptive study design. I was responsible for organizing the survey, and monitoring the project cycle and work on a regular basis. I designed the questionnaire based on “The questionnaire of the development situation of national health information technology in 2009 in China”. Cluster sampling method was used, 415 public hospitals (based on the health statistics in Guangzhou in 2009) were selected for the analysis. I sent the questionnaires to all these public hospitals, and collected and entered the data with my colleague Miss LIU. I analyzed the data and wrote up the report solely by myself. At the other side, in order to evaluate the acceptance of HIT among different stakeholders, an interview was conducted by two interviewers among 20 public hospitals (using systematic sampling method, every 10th public hospital was selected). What’s more, in order to explore the characteristics of the development status of HIT in Guangzhou, diverse approaches like descriptive statistics, linear regression, t-test, and chi-square were used for the analysis. Outcome measures: Basic information of public hospitals includes the classifications of the public hospitals; the usage status of basic infrastructure, including the utilization rates of a variety of hardware, system software, new technologies and standards; the application situation of information system, including the utilization rates of a variety of information systems, such as HIS, LIS, PACS, EHR and RHIS; the status of input of funding. In addition, the information includes the core barriers affecting the development of HIT and the acceptance of HIT. Results: 205 of the public hospitals participated in this study, and the total response rate was 49.4%. Data showed that 91% of the public hospitals adopted at least one standard; 36.3% of them had established the Main Patient Index (MPI); 34.8%, 29.4.0%, 31.5% and 37.8% of the public hospitals implemented the Inpatient Doctor Workstation System, Inpatient Nurse Workstation System, Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and Laboratory Information System (LIS), respectively. Only12.1% of the public hospitals had participated in the development of region health information system (RHIS). Besides, “high speed Ethernet”, “bar code technology” and “data safety technology” were the top three information technologies in public hospitals, and the utilization rates were 91.2%, 44.1% and 29.4% respectively. In addition, the top three main barriers were “lack of funding”, “human resources which is not enough” and “on the part of device makers or software developers their lack of abilities to provide products and services”, these three accounted for 84.8%, 56.9% and 47.1% respectively. Data showed that the total investments were 235 million RMB, 270 million RMB and 320 million RMB in 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively. On average, the accumulative total investments had doubled digit growth in the past 3 years. [1, 2] Conclusion: In general, data displayed that public hospitals in Guangzhou had made significant progress in HIT development in the past few years, which has greatly contributed to hospital management and the delivery of healthcare services. In recent years, there were increasing investments, more and more public hospitals began to implement HIT, a large number of new technologies were used (such RFID, cloud computing), and certain core information systems, liking HIS, LIS, PACS, EMR and RHIS were implemented. At the other side, the development direction of HIT had shifted from hospital management stage to clinical information stage. Although the process of health information in Guangzhou was rapidly developing in the past few years, however, there still have many barriers and shortages in it, for instance, shortage of IT professional and lack of funding are still the main factors that affects the development of HIT; the overall utilization level of basic infrastructure is still not satisfied; the development of information systems is unbalanced, meanwhile the breadth and depth of the information systems are not well enough. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Learning engagement is essential for fruitful and meaningful learning outcomes. Although many researchers have collectively claimed that social networking technologies in the Web2.0 era possess great potential to foster learning engagement, the existing literature demonstrates the pedagogical significance of more empirical and systematical inquiries into their applications for effective teaching and learning in various educational contexts. A social networking environment (SNE) is an online environment established with these technologies in which various tools, people and resources are dynamically connected. This study aimed to investigate the roles of such an environment in supporting learning engagement in higher education, and to identify factors that affected how students engaged in learning activities in the SNE. Informed by the literature on knowledge construction, collaborative learning and intrinsic motivation, learning engagement was conceptualized as a multidimensional construct that incorporated cognitive, social and emotional components of the learning process. This study was a single case study. It spanned a period of six months with a class of 55 undergraduate students enrolling in an elective university course in mainland China. A SNE, which integrated blogs, wikis, social bookmarks and tagging, file repositories, group spaces, and social networking facilities, was implemented to support designed learning activities that emphasized reflections and social interactions for achieving course objectives. Data collection and analysis combined qualitative and quantitative methods. Multiple-source data was obtained from interviews, observation, questionnaires and student learning artifacts, and was analyzed through content analysis, social network analysis and descriptive statistical analysis. The analysis revealed a number of roles that the SNE could play in supporting learning engagement. In terms of social engagement, it could serve as a social medium for (a) facilitating self-presentation and self-expression, (b) supporting articulation and development of personal social networks, (c) encouraging various levels of participation in social interactions, and (d) enabling personalized feedback. In terms of cognitive engagement, it could afford a hybrid of individual and social learning by (a) supporting development of personal learning portfolios, (b) facilitating peer and teacher feedback, and (c) creating the transparency in a distributed learning environment which enabled students to access multiple perspectives, learn by observation, and utilize metacognitive skills for self-regulated learning. In terms of emotional engagement, it could be used as a vehicle for developing a socio-affective structure of the learning community by (a) inducing expression of emotions and feelings, (b) fostering socio-emotional interactions, and (c) contributing a sense of being connected to others. Factors in cultural, socio-contextual, technical, and individual dimensions were identified that affected learning engagement in the SNE and needed to be addressed in pedagogical interventions. This study has both theoretical and practical implications. By proposing a construct incorporating cognitive, social and emotional elements of engaged learning, it deepens our understanding of the relationship between learning engagement and educational use of social networking technologies in higher education. For practicing teachers, a set of pedagogical principles is suggested based on the findings of the study for facilitating learning engagement in the SNE. Implications for software designers and educational administrators are also discussed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Hong Kong is renowned for its name of shopping paradise in the past several decades. It not only has the attractive street markets, but also has the different styles, themes and levels of shopping malls. Indeed, the retail industry of Hong Kong serves both visitors and Hong Kong local people as well. From the figures of Hong Kong Retail Management Association, it recorded HK$494,456 million dollars overall retail sale in 2013 and 267,703 person were employed as the workforce under retail as at December 2013. In the past two decades, many large, trendy and featured shopping malls were built, and they were mostly developed and owned by the major developers as a long term investment for rental return. However, as Hong Kong is just a small city, thus this leads to keener competitions between the shopping malls in order to attract shoppers to increase the turnover of the shop tenants inside, thus the rental receivables to the developers in turn. In order to attract more shoppers, other than the asset enhancements, improvements and renovation projects carried out by the shopping malls within a short period of time to have a fresh feeling to the shoppers and improve the deficiencies of the malls, many new and innovative marketing activities were carried out by them as well, such as placing 100 number of full height Doraemom mascots (a famous Japanese cartoon character) outside the shopping mall, arranging a 20 meter height inflatable Holland designer rubber duck to be display on the sea outside the shopping mall, organizing overnight cheering up activities for the student at the eve of the announcement of public exam, providing overnight live broadcasting of World Cup, etc. Besides the above, many information technologies were incorporation in the shopping malls nowadays so as to provide a convenience, better feelings and involvement to the shoppers. Other than retail, telecommunications in Hong Kong is also the leading edge in the world. The mobile penetration rate is 238.6 percent by February 2014, that means every Hong Kong people has over two mobile phones; in which, around 72% is using 3G/4G, it means around two-third of mobile subscribers are using smartphones. For the marketing of the shopping malls, they also provide many information technology applications in order to attract the shoppers. For example, sophisticated webpage design, mobile apps, Facebook, Weibo, Twitter, Instagram, were made for their shopping mall. In this paper, we will evaluate of using such information technology applications in the retail marketing under the context of shopping malls in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

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An ever increasing body of legislation and regulation is transforming the UK’s energy system and its surrounding national energy framework. Depending on the mechanisms that result from this process, new forms of engagement with energy, particularly electricity, might emerge. The current trajectory of UK energy policy leans towards a centralised scenario with a portfolio of centralised renewable energy technologies (i.e. geographically concentrated such as offshore wind), nuclear power stations and gas fired power stations with the option of Carbon Capture and Storage technologies if it becomes a commercially viable option (CCC, 2011). Forecasts predict that a combination of these technologies could place the UK on the right path to reach its 2050 carbon reduction commitments (UKERC, 2008). However, this approach fails to take broader benefits of decentralisation and localisation into account and many official documents such as the Microgeneration Strategy (DECC, 2011a) and those surrounding Community Energy Online (DECC, 2011b) point to a need for greater public engagement in the generation of energy in order to ‘derive greater benefits locally’ (DECC, 2011a: 45). The question remains in how far these diverging objectives can be achieved within the current regulatory environment as there is a lack of coordinated incentives in place to facilitate the development of new scales and ownership structures capable of promoting new forms of engagement at scales below the point at which economies of scales apply. This thesis seeks to establish what barriers are preventing community energy with the capacity to increase acceptance of renewable energy technologies while also contributing towards climate change action, energy security and the strengthening of local economic cycles from becoming more widely embedded in the UK. The main focus is on how ‘niche creation’ policies such as the feed-in tariff might provide the basis for overcoming these barriers by diffusing new scales and ownership structures of renewable energy technologies. Accompanying social innovations could potentially include more meaningful engagement with energy in general and renewable energy in particular, while also enabling communities willing to invest in renewable energy technologies to build resilient local energy infrastructures with the capacity to reduce the impact of increasing energy insecurity, fossil-fuel depletion and climate change constraints. In order to appreciate the potential of community energy in the UK, parallels are drawn to the governance of national energy frameworks in other European countries, Germany and Denmark in particular, that have provided the basis for successful community energy engagement.

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