Thesis advisor: Philip G. Altbach / The purpose of this study is to examine the reasons why Japanese visiting scholars visited the United States, their activities and experiences during their visits, their challenges and support for their transition, and personal and contextual factors that affected their transition in different stages. Although short-term international scholar mobility has recently increased, there are few studies on the population of international visiting scholars. In addition, while there is an overall increase in the number of international scholars, the number of Japanese scholars is decreasing. This qualitative study explores the Japanese visiting scholars' experiences of transition by drawing upon Schlossberg's adult transition model (e.g., Anderson, Goodman, and Schlossberg, 2011). The findings show that the purpose of visit and activities during the visits varied by individuals, although most activities were individual and professional ones, such as conducting research, networking, and teaching. While the first-time visiting scholars engaged in English practice and observation of cultural differences, the scholars with family members reported social experiences through their children's schools. Several scholars worked on institutional relations during their visits. The challenges that the visiting scholars faced varied by the timing during their transition. Common challenges included finding opportunities at their home institutions, finding the host universities, setting up life in a new community, finding opportunities for interactions, and dealing with language and cultural issues. The expected challenges after their returning to home were mainly related to institutional arrangements and societal differences. The factors that influenced their transition included the arrangements at home and host institutions, academic fields, past American academic experiences, existing networks with Japanese and American colleagues, and their personalities. Recommendations are provided for American and Japanese universities, individual visiting scholars, and the Japanese government. As for implications from this study, since the Japanese visiting scholars mostly relied on their personal connections and previous experiences for transitions, in order to utilize international visiting scholars for short-term brain circulation, institutional and governmental support and policy arrangements need to be structured as a part of the initiative for the internationalization of higher education. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Introduction: Short-term medical missions (STMMs) are international service trips of short duration and typically involve teams traveling to provide medical service to low- and middle-income countries. The phenomenon of STMMs is neither well understood nor well defined in the literature. To date, the only published reviews of STMMs focus exclusively on the academic literature. However, these reviews do not capture the characteristics of medical missions conducted by visiting medical teams (VMTs) with no impetus to publish. YouTube, a video sharing platform which launched in 2005, is a novel information source for studying health-related issues. The goal of the present study is to understand the scope of STMMs. Specifically, we aim to characterize the STMMs described in publications listed in PubMed and videos posted to YouTube. We aim to subsequently compare findings from the literature and video review. Methods: We followed PRISMA guidelines to conduct a two pronged search of PubMed-indexed articles and videos posted to YouTube. We created a data extraction form to collect information about short-term medical mission characteristics, including sending and recipient country, sending organization, size of VMT, duration of medical mission, student involvement, and links to the local health system. Additional YouTube video-specific information was extracted including number of views, perspective, quality, operating location of the team, and distribution of medicines and vitamins. The free-text observations of the videos were thematically analyzed. Results: The majority of STMMs described in both PubMed (72%) and YouTube (93%) originate from the USA. The countries receiving the highest number of STMMs identified through literature publications were Haiti, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Peru; among videos, the countries with the highest number of STMMs were Philippines, Haiti, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. Analysis based on income grouping shows the majority of missions go to lower-middle income countries. Analysis of recipient country based on health workforce density shows that most STMMs go to countries with a health workforce shortage, but this relationship is not linear. The majority of STMMs described in the literature (46%) were organized by secular non-profit organizations whereas the majority of STMMs described in the videos (45%) were organized by faith-based organizations. Out of 49% of articles that specified size, the median was eight members. In comparison, out of 33% videos that specified size, the median was 19 members. Whereas the median size of STMM reported in the literature was 9.5 days, the median duration in videos was 7 days. Student involvement was mentioned in 39% of articles and 18% videos. The majority (87.3%) of articles described a link to the local health system, whereas only 49.8% of videos described any link to the local health system. The median number of views of the videos was 315. Almost all videos (98.6%) were taken from the perspective of the VMT, and 82.2% were of amateur quality (non-professional). Although patients’ faces were shown in 96.1% of videos, only 0.7% of these videos stated that patient consent was obtained. Among the videos that specified the operating location of the STMM, 52.2% took place in a local healthcare facility, 21.5% in a school classroom, and 20.5% in a church. Over half (59%) of the videos portrayed the distribution of medications or vitamins. Of the videos that specified the type of service provided, 80% described STMMs that delivered medical (non-surgical) services. The provision of dental (36%), surgical (29%), and optometric (18%) services was also commonly described. Themes that emerged from the videos included patient privacy issues and long wait times. Discussion/Conclusion: The identified recipient countries of STMMs, when analyzed by income grouping and health workforce density, suggest inadequate distribution of STMMs. Furthermore, the videos highlight aspects of STMMs that have not been clearly explored in the literature including patient privacy, long wait times, and the distribution of medications and vitamins. Additionally, we found considerable variation between STMMs described in the academic literature and in grey data sources, specifically with respect to recipient country, sending organization, size of VMT, duration of STMM, and student involvement. Thus, we recommend caution in using only the academic literature to characterize the scope of medical missions. Future programmatic and policy directions should include improved pre-departure VMT training, rigorous evaluation of STMMs and the creation of a global registry.

Burgeoning numbers of child abuse and neglect reports throughout the developed world has prompted calls for preventive and early intervention measures to support and prepare families for parenting. Nurse home visiting is one form of service delivery gaining acceptance as an appropriate strategy. Although home visiting is not a new concept in service delivery, enthusiasm for home-visitation programmes has re-emerged not only in Australia in recent years, but in many other developed countries with initiatives being launched or recommended at state, national and international levels. This thesis presents a review of the tenets of home visiting and examines a home visiting intervention programme targeting children born into families with child abuse or neglect risk factors. A randomised controlled trial using a cohort of 181 families was undertaken to evaluate the impact of this home visiting programme. Mothers were recruited in the immediate postnatal period and allocated either into the home visiting programme or into a comparison group. The research design required self-identification into the study by providing positive responses to a range of risk factors. This procedure was shown to have utility in the context of recruitment to a research trial, in that respondents were willing to disclose sensitive personal issues using this form of screening as the basis for targeted intervention. The home visiting programme examined by this study was also shown to have social validity, with mothers willing to accept this form of intervention from the immediate postnatal period. High retention and satisfaction rates strengthened this conclusion. The ability of this study to evaluate the effectiveness of the home visiting intervention programme may have been compromised by a range of contextual factors influencing programme outcomes detailed in this thesis. Nonetheless, the study found that, for a group of families reporting risk factors for child abuse and neglect potential, provision of an intensive home visiting intervention using nurses, social workers, and parent aides was not effective in producing more favourable adjustment to the parenting role over time compared with nonintervention or clinic based service provision. The intervention programme group participants gained knowledge of child development and child management skills during the early postnatal weeks while the comparison group participants developed knowledge and skills later in the first year of their infant's lift. Early adaptation to the parenting role, parenting knowledge, and skill acquisition bodes well for parent-infant attachment and the children's long-term health and developmental outcomes. However, a 12-month assessment of maternal, family, and child development variables did not demonstrate maintenance of a positive intervention impact on parenting stress, parenting competence, or quality of the home environment. Finally, predictive analysis of fictors measured in the immediate postnatal period revealed an absence of any predictive value to demographic characteristics, which secondary prevention efforts typically target. These results not only demonstrate that there is a relationship between maternal, family and enviromnental factors identified in the immediate postnatal period, and adjustment to the parenting role, but also challenge demographic targeting for child abuse and neglect risk. Findings are discussed and placed within the context of previous research and reference is made to implications for future child health practice, development, and research. Recommendations arising from this discussion relate to both future research and community child health practice.

This research examines socio-cultural change and resilience resulting from holiday tourism and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel. The unique cultural attributes of the Pacific region differentiates it from many other generic sea, sand and sun travel destinations worldwide, providing the region with a competitive edge. This research recognises these essential socio-cultural attributes using Samoa as a case study offering various levels of tourist and VFR interactions. The thesis investigated four communities, their culture and the impacts from holiday tourists and VFR travellers. The research methodologies guiding this research offer an innovative and credible mechanism to assess the resilience of the socio-cultural fabric of a Pacific Island nation with growing holiday tourism and a thriving VFR travel sector. A social and cultural capital approach was used to understand communities and their networks in a dynamic and comprehensive way. A combination of participatory action research techniques and critical ethnographic methodologies were used to interact with respondents. Analysis of data used both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Results of this research have significantly furthered discussion of the socio-cultural fabric of those communities studied in Samoa and how individual socio-cultural elements are influenced by holiday tourism and VFR travel. Based on the analysis of these holiday tourist and VFR traveller impacts, the results can guide planning and policy oriented benchmarks for improved socio-culturally sustainable tourism.

In recent years, many sexually attractive PR females can be seen at every exhibition. They are top models, stars, adult video actresses, poster girls, show girls, etc. A lot of literatures have mentioned that females are frequently objectified and commercialized in order to satisfy the desire of males in a patriarchal and capitalistic society. Due to the changing trends, saleswomen reveal different appearances in various frameworks of exhibition. Sexually attractive females have become the key persons in the exhibition; their mission is not only to soften the atmosphere permeated by cold hard products, but also to attract visitors, engage in customer relations, and achieve the expected turnover. The study subjects were visitors at the 2007 Kaohsiung Computer Multimedia and Audio Exhibition. By answering the questionnaires their ¡§visiting purpose¡¨ and ¡§purchase intention¡¨ as well as the ¡§demographic statistic variables¡¨ were all investigated. All data were analyzed via: descriptive statistics, reliability factors, correlation and single-factor variation (one way ANOVA). The correlation and study assumptions can therefore be verified. The research results showed that there is a correlation among ¡§visiting purpose¡¨, ¡§purchase intention¡¨ and ¡§demographic statistic variables.¡¨ It proved that the sexually attractive females did not necessarily attract consumers with pure intentions to purchase their desired products, but they did attract consumers who love to ogle scantily clad females or who just want to spend their free time at the exhibition. The demographic statistic variables presented that those sexually attractive females did attract many students under the age of 25, and they were willing to change their purchase intention. Companies can refer to this research in planning their sales strategies and determine special promotions where sexually attractive PR females can be used to help hawk their products, so that the best benefits can be achieved. Keywords: exhibition, feminism, sexually attractive females, visiting purpose, purchase intention

This research examines socio-cultural change and resilience resulting from holiday tourism and visiting friends and relatives (VFR) travel. The unique cultural attributes of the Pacific region differentiates it from many other generic sea, sand and sun travel destinations worldwide, providing the region with a competitive edge. This research recognises these essential socio-cultural attributes using Samoa as a case study offering various levels of tourist and VFR interactions. The thesis investigated four communities, their culture and the impacts from holiday tourists and VFR travellers. The research methodologies guiding this research offer an innovative and credible mechanism to assess the resilience of the socio-cultural fabric of a Pacific Island nation with growing holiday tourism and a thriving VFR travel sector. A social and cultural capital approach was used to understand communities and their networks in a dynamic and comprehensive way. A combination of participatory action research techniques and critical ethnographic methodologies were used to interact with respondents. Analysis of data used both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods. Results of this research have significantly furthered discussion of the socio-cultural fabric of those communities studied in Samoa and how individual socio-cultural elements are influenced by holiday tourism and VFR travel. Based on the analysis of these holiday tourist and VFR traveller impacts, the results can guide planning and policy oriented benchmarks for improved socio-culturally sustainable tourism.

Thesis (M.H.S.A.)--University of Michigan, 1982.

Thesis (M.H.S.A.)--University of Michigan, 1982.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-138).

Sometimes when a home visit is over, practitioners and families feel it was great and sometimes they feel it was not. This presentation explores strengthen-based strategies developed from a capacity-building model that deepens the families' home visit experiences so families with serious challenges feel they can help their children learn.