This research investigated the library end-users' perceptions of their training needs in relation to using the electronic information resources in selected public universities in Malaysia. It also investigated the training methods preferred by end-users in learning how to use electronic information resources. The subjects of the study were university students and academic staff from three selected public universities in Malaysia. They comprised 433 students and 223 academic staff. This study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. The main data was gathered through self-administered questionnaires, while the supplementary data was gathered through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Opinions from the librarians responsible for end-user training at the three university libraries were also sought through face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Comparisons were made between the two groups of end-users, namely, students and academic staff in areas related to the problems of the study. Appropriate non-parametric statistical techniques such as cross-tabulation, chisquare test, Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation test were applied in analysing the data measured at both nominal and ordinal scales. Among the major findings were: (1) a statistically significant differences were found between students and academic staff in terms of knowledge and ability in using electronic information resources. Many academic staff were more knowledgable and able to use electronic information resources than students. However, concerning knowledge in using certain IT facilities, many more students than academic staff knew how to use them; and (2) both students and academic staff preferred one-to-one training methods as their first choice. With regard to the second choice of training method, students preferred computerassisted instruction (CAI), while academic staff preferred library workshops with hands-on training. Recommendations based on the research findings were made.

This study contributes to our understanding of the innovation process by bringing attention to and investigating the process by which innovators outside of firms obtain innovation-related resources and assistance. This study is the first to explicitly examine how user-innovators gather the information and assistance they need to develop their ideas and how they share and diffuse the resulting innovations. Specifically, this exploratory study analyzes the context within which individuals who belong to voluntary special-interest communities develop sports-related consumer product innovations. We find that these individuals often prototype novel sports-related products and that they receive assistance in developing their innovations from fellow community members. We find that innovation-related information and assistance, as well as the innovations themselves, are freely shared within these communities. The nature of these voluntary communities, and the "institutional" structure supporting innovation and free sharing of innovations is likely to be of interest to innovation researchers and managers both within and beyond this product arena.(author's abstract)

Class of 2015 Abstract / Objectives: Evaluate prescriber knowledge on naloxone use for opioid overdose reversals in intravenous drug users. Interview prescribers on their perceptions about intravenous drug users, syringe access programs, and other related topics. Subjects: Prescribers and medical professionals in the State of Arizona. Methods: Medical facilities were contacted by email, fax, or telephone requesting for prescribers to complete the survey and return by email or fax, or call to schedule a face-to-face appointment. The respondents of the survey were kept anonymous and were permitted to answer the survey in free text. Surveys were sent to the 68 selected medical facilities at least twice during the study period. Results: All of the six respondents were male, of the respondents had at least 11 years experience, with two having >30 years. A majority practiced in rehab centers or worked with drug abuse patients, however the number of patients treated per week by respondent varies from 10-320. Also of note five of the six respondents had a family member or relative with an addiction to opioids. The respondents seem to be in support of a naloxone distribution program however it is difficult to draw any conclusions since the number of responses was low. Conclusions: It appears that prescribers have a favorable perception of naloxone use and support harm reduction strategies, however response rate was too low to make any definitive conclusions.

This paper is based on another paper I have written, what can we say about the users of crowdfunding platforms? This paper focuses on advantages and disadvantages with crowdfunding and the users of crowdfunding platforms. Previously researchers mean that there are both positive and negative things about crowdfunding and these will be analyzed and raised in this paper. There is not much information about the users of crowdfunding platforms. In a previous paper I did a survey to try to identify who the users of crowdfunding are. In this paper the result from that survey will be analyzed and hopefully succeed in identifying the characteristics of users of crowdfunding platforms.

In Namibia, mental health is considered as a low priority health concern hence resources are instead diverted to life threatening illnesses. Furthermore, it is estimated that about 15% of the Namibian population suffers from mental health, with schizophrenia being the most common mental disorder. Despite the limited resources, The Ministry of Health and Social Services seeks to promote the extension of health for the care of people living with mental disorders to the family and community at large; however, such services are not yet in existence. Consequently, the responsibility of caring for the mental health users is shifted to the family caregivers who tend to be negatively affected. Additionally, only a few mental health users receive adequate mental health services and this places even more burden on the caregivers (MoHSS, 2005:5; MoHSS, 2010:13). It is against this background that the present study was conducted. The goal of the study was to explore the experiences among the caregivers of mental health users with schizophrenia in the Nankudu District, Namibia. The study was explorative in nature hence the qualitative research approach was used. Furthermore, the study adopted the case study design to explore the lives of caregivers in a modern restricted system through interviews to gain in-depth data and to understand of their lives. One on one, semi structured interviews were used to collect data from ten caregivers of mental health users with schizophrenia in Nankudu district. The purposive sampling method was used to select the participants for the study. The findings revealed that the caregivers experience physical, psychological, emotional, social and financial burden as a result of their caregiving roles and responsibilities towards the mental health users. The psychotic episodes for instance were negative experiences for all the caregivers. The caregivers adopted various roles and responsibilities towards the care of persons with schizophrenia such as overall involvement in their treatment plan, seeking for alternative traditional medicine and daily functional support of the mental health users. Moreover, they also experienced stigma from the community members and it constituted to more social and psychological effects. The study further revealed the lack of community based mental health care services and social work services for the mental health users and caregivers. Subsequently, the caregivers rely on other family members, friends and neighbours and interestingly, police officers for support. The study also highlighted some positive experiences encountered by caregivers such as acceptance of their caregiving role, good support system and the mental health user’s adherence to medication and recovery. Due to the highlighted findings, it is recommended that the Ministry of Health and Social Services should establish and implement family psychoeducational programmes for the caregivers and mental health users with schizophrenia to ensure their active involvement in the treatment plan, improve the quality of care and their well-being. Moreover, the Ministry of Health and Social Services should expedite the implementation of community based mental health services to offer support to the mental health users and caregivers as highlighted in the National Mental Health policy. Lastly, health professionals such as Social Workers should provide continuous psychosocial support to the caregivers in order to help them to address their negative experiences. / Dissertation (MSW (Health care))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Social Work and Criminology / MSW (Health care) / Unrestricted

Radar sensors hold excellent capabilities to estimate distance and motion accu- rately, penetrate nonmetallic objects, and remain unaffected by weather conditions. These capabilities make these devices extremely flexible in their applications. Elec- tromagnetic waves centered at frequencies around 24 GHz offer high precision target measurements, compact antenna and circuitry design, and lower atmospheric absorp- tion than higher frequency-based systems. This thesis presents a case study for a 24 GHz frequency modulated continuous wave radar module. We start by addressing the theoretical background necessary for this work and describing the architecture of the module used. We present three classes’ classification accuracy, namely pedes- trians, cyclists, and cars. A set of features for the classification is designed based on theoretical models, and their effectiveness is validated through experiments. The features are extracted from the available geometrical and motion-related information and used to train different classification models to compare the results. Finally, a trade-off between feature number and accuracy is presented.

Paramedic services are developing a new model of service delivery known as community paramedicine (CP). This service delivery model seeks to build on existing paramedic skills, establish collaboration with non-traditional health care partners, and create alternative pathways for accessing care. Frequent users of paramedic services represent patients that are of particular interest to CP programs. Chapters 2 and 3 of this thesis address questions of effective delivery of these programs. The second chapter is a spatial-temporal analysis of frequent users in Hamilton, ON. Drawing on concepts of time-geography and dynamic ambulance deployment, this analysis identifies space-time patterns in paramedic service utilization by frequent users. Data were aggregated to represent daily demand in terms of space and time. Analysis employed generalized linear mixed models that included a random slope effect for time intervals for each geographic unit. Fixed effects included distance to emergency department, proportion of residential addresses, and proportion of older adult population. Locations and times that had greater or less than expected daily demand from frequent users were identified. The findings can be used to tailor deployment of community paramedics in dual-capacity roles to address the system demand of frequent users. The third chapter analyzes the geographic influence of CP service delivery in Renfrew County, ON. This research draws on concepts of spatial accessibility and geographic profiling to estimate spatially defined probabilities of paramedic service use by frequent users. Due to ongoing CP programs within the county, the resultant community health profiles serve as an evaluation of the benefit of these programs. The community health profiles can also be used to assess community level probabilities of patient needs for future interventions. This analysis can serve as a new way to assess spatial accessibility to health care services and identify locations with increased risk of frequent use of paramedic services. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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Information visualization tools provide visual representations of data (commonly known as visualizations), textual representations of data and interactive operations on both these representations. It is possible, in theory, to make use of only the textual representations in order to detect trends and patterns in data. However, it would be extremely laborious and ineffective and it defeats the purpose of a visualization tool. Novices have had the problem of relying on text and failing to successfully detect trends in data because it was too laborious. We want users to effectively use visual representations to detect trends in data. Information visualization tools have been shown to be successful with experts. But can novice users using a visualization tool for the first-time, adopt visualization-based strategies to finding trends and patterns in data? This thesis derives a framework of learnable elements in an interactive coordinated-view visualization tool. This framework provides an outline of prerequisites to be learned in order to effectively use visualizations. That is, the new aspects of visualization tools must be mastered so that novices can use the tool effectively. Three interface design principles are derived to make these elements learnable to novice users: • The data-first approach - Provide a prominent overview of all available data, as opposed to showing only visualizations. This helps understand the data structure - this may be essential knowledge in being able to navigate to required data attributes. • The "less visualization, more explanation" approach - Show more explanations of visualizations at the expense of being able to pack in more visualizations. Explanations help identify how data is mapped onto visual marks, a crucial step in understanding visualizations. • The "predetermined task-based coordinations" approach - Provide separate predetermined sets of coordinated visualizations that help achieve different tasks. This is different from techniques that simply present all visualization types and expect users to choose coordinations according to tasks. Two versions of Datamaps visualization tool for Census data were tested. Both were equivalent in functionality and the kinds of visualizations offered. But the new version was specifically designed based on the three design principles. A usability study showed that the version that was implemented according to the three design principles successfully led novices to effectively use visualization-based strategies to detect trends and patterns in data. / Master of Science