•Habits and practices towards the storage, repair and second-hand purchase of small ICT devices have been identified.•A survey conducted to a representative sample (95%confidence level and 5%margin ...of error)•73.9% of the respondents store disuse small ICT devices at home.•65.5% of the respondents have never taken to repair broken small ICT devices.•87.6% of the respondents have never purchased second-hand never bought second-hand small ICT devices.
This study analyses the current habits and practices towards the store, repair and second-hand purchase of small electrical and electronic devices belonging to the category of information and communication technology (ICT). To this end, a survey was designed and conducted with a representative sample size of 400 individuals through telephone interviews for the following categories: MP3/MP4, video camera, photo camera, mobile phone, tablet, e-book, laptop, hard disk drive, navigator-GPS, radio/radio alarm clock. According to the results obtained, there is a tendency to store disused small ICT devices at home. On average for all the small ICT categories analysed, 73.91% of the respondents store disused small ICT devices at home. Related to the habits towards the repair and second-hand purchase of small ICT devices, 65.5% and 87.6% of the respondents have never taken to repair and have never purchased second-hand, respectively, small ICT devices. This paper provides useful and hitherto unavailable information about the current habits of discarding and reusing ICT devices. It can be concluded that there is a need to implement awareness-raising campaigns to encourage these practices, which are necessary to reach the minimum goals established regarding preparation for reuse set out in the Directive 2012/19/EU for the category small electrical and electronic equipment.
The objective of this study is to investigate the clinical significance of a specific behavior of misplacing items in a refrigerator (i.e., placing extremely unusual things such as remote control ...and/or cellular phone in a refrigerator) as a symptom of cognitive dysfunction. Patients with memory complaints were asked whether they ever experienced misplacing items in a refrigerator, such as placing a remote control, a cellular phone, or other extremely unusual things inside a refrigerator (referred to as the 'fridge sign'). Among the 2172 individuals with memory complaints, 55 (2.5%) experienced symptoms of the 'fridge sign'. We investigated the cognitive profiles of 'fridge sign'-positive patients and performed follow-up evaluations with neuropsychological tests or telephone interviews. The 'fridge sign' was mostly found in individuals diagnosed as subjective cognitive decline (n = 33, 60%) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI, n = 20, 36.4%) with depressive mood and was relatively rare in dementia states (n = 2, 3.5%). Moreover, none of the 'fridge sign'-positive patients showed significant cognitive decline over the follow-up period. We compared the cognitive profiles and the clinical progression of 20 'fridge sign'-positive MCI patients and 40 'fridge sign'-negative MCI patients. 'Fridge sign'-positive MCI patients had worse scores on the Stroop test color reading and had higher scores on the geriatric depression scale than 'fridge sign'-negative MCI patients, which indicates that the 'fridge sign' could be indicative of selective attention deficit in patients with depression rather than indicative of cognitive decline related to dementia.
Diabetes mellitus in adults is a global health burden affecting 382 million people and costing over $612 billion worldwide. Remote patient monitoring is often considered to be a technological ...solution to the chal-lenges in healthcare delivery, yet many studies have shown mixed results or no effect on patient outcomes. A narrative review of literature was conducted to contribute to the field of technology-driven home healthcare delivery by analyzing the systems in context with the monitoring and intervention technologies. This review analyzed papers with home telemonitoring and intervention systems for adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Technologies used were differentiated into four categories: telephones, mobile devices, computers, and other Internet-connected devices. Our findings suggest no clear association between the type of technology used and the outcomes of the participants. Frequency of monitoring and intervention were distinguishable by diabetic outcome metrics.
In recent years, China has been in a period of social transition. Public emergency events have occurred frequently, and social media have developed rapidly. Social media users in China not only ...represent traditional audiences but also play an increasingly important role in crisis communication during public emergency events by expressing their views, discussing events with others and sharing information both online and offline. According to national telephone survey data from China, nearly two-thirds of the respondents engaged in communication behaviors during public emergency events, and more than forty percent of those users communicated by social media. Hundreds of millions of Chinese social media users are becoming the driving force of the public opinion field. To better understand social media users’ online information dissemination behaviors and influencing factors, we developed the hierarchical logistic regression model and observed that demographic variables (gender and age), social media use, people’s concerns regarding public emergencies and people’s need to monitor the government’s performance during public emergencies significantly influence online information dissemination behaviors. Our study has practical significance and academic value for understanding the online public opinion field and online political participation in China.
Associations between social relationships and well-being are widely documented across the lifespan, including in older age. Older adults increasingly use digital communication technologies. In the ...present study, we examine the role of social interactions for older adults’ daily well-being with a focus on three interaction modalities (face-to-face, telephone, and digital). Specifically, we examine (a) whether people who are more socially active than others report higher levels of well-being and (b) how day-to-day fluctuations in the number of social interactions are associated with day-to-day fluctuations of well-being, separately by interaction modality. We use data from 115 participants (age: M = 72 years, SD = 5, range = 65–94; 40% women), who documented their social interactions over 21 days and reported their well-being each evening (including positive affect, negative affect, and loneliness). Taken together, our findings show that frequency of face-to-face interactions is more consistently related to well-being than telephone or digital interactions. At the between-person level, those who report more face-to-face social interactions than others across 21 days report higher levels of positive affect than others. At the within-person level, on days where participants report more face-to-face social interactions than their own average, they report higher positive affect, lower negative affect, and lower loneliness than usual. In addition, a higher number of digital interactions is associated with lower negative affect at the between-person level. In summary, our findings suggest that face-to-face social interactions are uniquely relevant to older adults’ daily well-being. We discuss implications of these findings for future research.
The proliferation of Big Data & Analytics in recent years has compelled marketing practitioners to search for new methods when faced with assessing brand performance during brand equity appraisal. ...One of the challenges of current practices is that these methods rely heavily on traditional data collection and analysis methods such as questionnaires, and face to face or telephone interviews, which have a significant time lag. In this paper we introduce a computational model that combines topic and sentiment classification to elicit influential subjects from consumer perceptions in social media. Our model devises a novel genetic algorithm to improve clustering of tweets in semantically coherent groups, which act as an essential prerequisite when searching for prevailing topics and sentiment in big pools of data. To illustrate the validity of our model, we apply it to the Uber transportation network, from data collected through Twitter for the period between January and April 2015. The results obtained present consumer perceptions and produce insights for two fundamental brand equity dimensions: brand awareness and brand meaning. Simultaneously, they improve clustering results, in comparison to the k-means approach.
•We introduce a computational model that elicits influential subjects from consumer perceptions in social media.•We devise a novel Genetic Algorithm to improve clustering of data in semantically coherent groups.•Our model produces insights for two fundamental brand equity dimensions: brand awareness and brand meaning.•We empirically apply the model to guide the analysis of over 280.000 tweets related to the Uber transportation network.•Our experimental results reveal negative and positive consumer perceptions for specific subjects related to Uber.
Evidence on behavioural abnormalities in children exposed to secondhand smoke is limited. This study examined the relation between infant/ toddler cotinine concentration, a biomarker of secondhand ...smoke exposure, and behavioural problems in preschoolers who were unexposed to maternal smoking during gestation. A prospective cohort of 301 non-smoking mothers with their young children aged ≤18 months visiting postnatal primary care clinics in Hong Kong was enrolled in 2012 and followed by telephone survey 3 years afterwards. Saliva was collected at baseline for cotinine assay. Child behavioural health at 3-year follow-up was assessed by the parent-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). We conducted multivariable linear regressions to compute regression coefficients (b) of SDQ scores in relation to salivary cotinine level. Mean ± SD age of children at follow-up was 3.7 ± 0.5 years and 50.8% were boys. After adjusting for age, sex, birthweight, household income, housing type, maternal education and depressive symptoms, greater cotinine concentrations during early childhood were associated with greater conduct problems (b = 0.90, 95% CI 0.03-1.76) and hyperactivity/ inattention (b = 1.12, 95% CI 0.07-2.17) at preschool age. This study corroborates previous findings on the potential role of secondhand smoke in development of child behavioural problems.
This study analyses public expectations, attitudes, and preferences to support and purchase eco-friendly fuel vehicles. The study used a telephone survey of a sample of residents in Greater ...Stavanger, Norway. Two cluster analyses were conducted to group the individuals based on expectations and attitudes toward eco-friendly fuel vehicles. In addition, two multivariate analyses were performed to explore the determinants of support and willingness to purchase eco-friendly fuel vehicles. The study found three components of expectation to support eco-friendly fuel vehicles, namely cost, comfort, and safety. The analysis further found four components to explain attitudes to support eco-friendly fuel vehicles: personal norm, pro-technology, awareness of priority, and environmental degradation. Multivariate analyses confirmed that age, gender, and the number of cars in the household are likely to influence public preferences to support and purchase eco-friendly fuel vehicles. The results reveal that individuals tend to support the eco-friendly vehicles when the technologies meet their expectations towards cost and safety, but the cost expectation is the significant factor that results in the decision to purchase the eco-friendly vehicles. The study also found that the pro-technology attitude has influenced the propensity to support and purchase the eco-friendly fuel vehicles.
•This study analyses public expectations, attitudes, and preferences to support and purchase eco-friendly fuel vehicles.•Factors that influence the likelihood of supporting eco-friendly fuel vehicles are different with the case of purchasing eco-friendly fuel vehicles.•The expectation about cost and the attitude about pro-technology determine the likelihood to support and purchase eco-friendly fuel vehicles.
At a time when the population is ageing and most people choose to live in their own home for as long as possible, it is important to consider various aspects of supportive and comfortable ...environments for housing. This study, conducted in South Australia, aims to provide information about the links between the type of housing in which older people live, the weather and occupants’ heating and cooling behaviours as well as their health and well-being. The study used a Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system to survey 250 people aged 65 years and over who lived in their own home. The respondents were recruited from three regions representing the three climate zones in South Australia: semi-arid, warm temperate and temperate. The results show that while the majority of respondents reported being in good health, many lived in dwellings with minimal shading and no wall insulation and appeared to rely on the use of heaters and coolers to achieve thermally comfortable conditions. Concerns over the cost of heating and cooling were shared among the majority of respondents and particularly among people with low incomes. Findings from this study highlight the importance of providing information to older people, carers, designers and policy makers about the interrelationships between weather, housing design, heating and cooling behaviours, thermal comfort, energy use and health and well-being, in order to support older people to age in place independently and healthily.
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•98% of respondents reported using heating and cooling to improve comfort during cold and hot weather.•More than 70% of respondents had concerns over the running cost of air-conditioning.•A significant number of respondents had a combination of factors that made them vulnerable to weather-related illnesses.•More than half of the houses did not have wall insulation and half did not have external shading.•There is potential for existing dwellings to be improved to reduce heating and cooling use and improve well-being.
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