Traditionally, funeral homes have been family-owned small businesses which pride themselves on their personal, caring service. Many are located in historic houses worthy of preservation. In the past few decades, however, many family-owned funeral homes have been bought out by large, national corporations in search of big profits. The future of oldhouse funeral homes is uncertain. An inventory of funeral homes was conducted in a ninecounty area of east-central Indiana, including Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Hancock, Henry, Jay, Madison, Randolph, and Wayne Counties. Findings show that a majority (59%) of the funeral homes in the nine-county area of east-central Indiana inventoried are located in former residences built before 1950, with varying degree of modification. While some have had minimal or moderate alterations, a large percentage (54%) of these have been extensively altered over the years. Case studies of four pre-1950 funeral homes in the inventory area revealed that alterations, many of which reflect the needs of the funeral business, have affected not only their integrity but also their ratings in the Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. Recommendations include greater communication between the funeral industry and preservationists, and the establishment of guidelines for sensitive additions that are addressed specifically to the needs of the funeral industry. / Department of Architecture

Thesis (M.G.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Sociology and Gerontology, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-110).

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Smart home systems (SHS) have become an increasingly important technology in modern life. Apart from safety, security, convenience and entertainment, they offer significant potential benefits for the elderly, disabled and others who cannot live independently. Furthermore, smart homes are environmentally friendly. SHS functionality is based on perceiving residents’ needs and desires, then offering services accordingly. In order to be smart, homes have to be equipped with sensors, actuators and intelligent devices and appliances, as well as connectivity and control mechanisms. A typical SHS comprises heterogeneous services and appliances that are designed by many different developers and which may meet for the first time in the home network. The heterogeneous nature of the systems, in addition to the dynamic environment in which they are deployed, exposes them to undesirable interactions between services, known as Feature Interaction (FI). Another reason for FI is the divergence between the policies, needs and desires of different residents. Proposed approaches to FI detection and resolution should take these different types of interaction into account. Negotiation is an effective mechanism to address FI, as conflicting features can then negotiate with each other to reach a compromise agreement. The ultimate goal of this study is to develop an Agent-Based Negotiation Approach (ABNA) to detect and resolve feature interaction in a SHS. A smart home architecture incorporating the components of the ABNA has been proposed. The backbone of the proposed approach is a hierarchy in which features are organised according to their importance in terms of their functional contribution to the overall service. Thus, features are categorised according to their priority, those which are essential for the service to function having the highest priority. An agent model of the ABNA is proposed and comprehensive definitions of its components are presented. A computational model of the system also has been proposed which is used to explain the behaviour of different components when a proposal to perform a task is raised. To clarify the system requirements and also to aid the design and implementation of its properties, a formal specification of the ABNA is presented using the mathematical notations of Calculus of Context-aware Ambient (CCA), then in order to evaluate the approach a case study is reported, involving two services within the SHS: ventilation and air conditioning. For the purpose of evaluation, the execution environment of CCA is utilised to execute and analyse the ABNA.

No description available.

<p>The aim of the study was to understand limitations and possibilities to the discretion of managers in order to fulfill wishes of users. The study is based on six interviews, three with managers and three with staff in common homes for mentally disabled people. The study took place in a municipality in Sweden in the spring of 2010. We used an interview guide with specific themes and questions. The theoretical framework was based on organizational theories as well as theories about management and discretion. The result suggests that there are limitations to a certain degree such as the quantity of staff and economy. There are some possibilities to enable discretion including the use of the hierarchy within the organization. Another possibility is to make use of the knowledge of the staff about the demands and wishes of users. The conclusion of the study is that there are both limitations and possibilities that have an effect on the discretion of managers in a complex organization. These limitations and possibilities affect each other and the meaning of them depend on the unique situation.</p>

This research examines the sustainability and participatory objectives of the UK’s planning system in a geographical context. It aims to explore the relationships between communities and place, and the connections between national government, local governments and communities in planning processes and outcomes. It also considers the role of planning in shaping places and communities, and how planning endeavours to include communities in decision-making through encouraging participation in community activities. This thesis argues that there is a gap between planning policy and rhetoric and the implementation of policy within specific community contexts. The research is a piece of collaborative research conducted with the planning department at North Devon Council (NDC). Through developing an original empirical case study of data from parishes within North Devon, planning’s sustainability and participatory agendas are examined through the framework of second homes considered a distinct yet related form of tourism (Jaakson, 1986). The research unpicks popular understandings of second homes through quantitative and qualitative research and argues that there are nuanced existences and experiences of second home properties, compounding the difficulty of defining these properties that produce both non-permanent residents and semi- permanent tourists. Exploration of the socio-economic contributions of second homes within host communities suggests that second homes have potential to contribute unsustainable traits, particularly social impacts, to host communities while also having potential to bring positive, predominantly economic, contributions. The empirical research demonstrates that notions of community from resident and policy maker perspectives illustrate that place is not necessary to understanding or experiencing community but has a key role in framing both policy and North Devon residents’ perceptions of community. Through examining the most recent round of democratic renewal in the planning system, issues of power and responsibility within planning functions are reviewed. It argues that the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition neighbourhood planning obligations reveal a dichotomy between community desire for power and the realism of heightened responsibility.

No description available.

No description available.

The overall aim of the present thesis was to study factors related to transfers of older people between nursing homes, emergency department and hospital care. The thesis was based on four studies and used three methods: focus group discussions, structured review of electronic healthcare records, semi-structured interviews with registered nurses and general practitioners. Study I: nursing home nurses found it difficult to decide whether older residents should be referred to hospital from the nursing home. Hospital registered nurses reported often trying to stop premature discharges or having to carry out the discharge although it had not been fully prepared. Study II: transfer rate to ED was 594 over 9 months among a total of 431 residents (M 1.37 each). 25% were caused by falls and/or injuries, 63% resulted in hospitalization (M 7.12 days). The transfer rate was 0.00-1.03 transfers/bed; it was higher for private for-profit providers than for public/private non-profit providers. Study III: nursing homes with high transfer rates had fewer updated advance care plans than did nursing homes with lower transfer rates. More nurses from nursing homes with low transfer rates had a specialist education and training in dementia care and had worked longer in eldercare. Study IV: general practitioners perceived registered nurses’ continuity, competence and collaboration with family members as important to quality of care in nursing homes; inadequate staffing, lack of medical equipment and less-than-optimal IT systems for electronic healthcare records are impediments to patient safety. The findings indicate that organizational factors could explain differences in transfer rates between nursing homes. The studies highlight the importance of advance care planning together with residents and family members in facilitating future medical decisions. Registered nurses’ continuity and competence are perceived as crucial to quality of care. To meet increasing demands for more complex medical treatment at nursing homes and to provide high-quality palliative care several changes should be made: Nursing homes should be equipped with suitable medical equipment and registered nurse staff should be matched accordingly; importantly, registered nurses and general practitioners should be able to access each other’s healthcare record systems.