Global learning: Definition, assessment, and approaches

Global learning has become a fundamental aspect of international education. Yet, a clear understanding of global learning and how to develop it remain unclear. Using the dynamic systems approach, this paper analyzed the reasons, methods, and knowledge, skills, and attitudes(KSA) of global learning in higher education. Global learning is the higher education institutions’ critical response to globalization. It is the essential learning outcome of comprehensive internationalization of curriculum requiring students to develop KSA about the external world and their internal selves in their daily lives across local and global communities. With survey results from 142 undergraduate students in one U.S. university and a global learning rubric and publication, this paper demonstrated how global learning is interpreted and approached differently at various levels and further proposed pedagogical approaches to enhance global learning in higher education.

Protecting Privacy on Mobile Apps: A Principal–Agent Perspective

Although individuals increasingly use mobile applications (apps) in their daily lives, uncertainty exists regarding how the apps will use the information they request, and it is necessary to protect users from privacy-invasive apps. Recent literature has begun to pay much attention to the privacy issue in the context of mobile apps. However, little attention has been given to designing the permission request interface to reduce individuals’ perceived uncertainty and to support their informed decisions. Drawing on the principal–agent perspective, our study aims to understand the effects of permission justification, certification, and permission relevance on users’ perceived uncertainty, which in turn influences their permission authorization. Two studies were conducted with vignettes. Our results show that certification and permission relevance indeed reduce users’ perceived uncertainty. Moreover, permission relevance moderates the relationship between permission justification and perceived uncertainty. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

IoTranx: Transactions for Safer Smart Spaces

Smart spaces such as smart homes deliver digital services to optimize space use and enhance user experience. They are composed of an Internet of Things (IoT), people, and physical content. They differ from traditional computer systems in that their cyber-physical nature ties intimately with the users and the built environment. The impact of ill-programmed applications in such spaces goes beyond loss of data or a computer crash, risking potentially physical harm to the space and its users. Ensuring smart space safety is therefore critically important to successfully deliver intimate and convenient services surrounding our daily lives. By modeling smart space as a highly dynamic database, we present IoT Transactions, an analogy to database transactions, as an abstraction for programming and executing the services as the handling of the devices in smart space. Unlike traditional database management systems that take a “clear room approach,” smart spaces take a “dirty room approach” where imperfection and unattainability of full control and guarantees are the new normal. We identify Atomicity, Isolation, Integrity and Durability (AI 2 D) as the set of properties necessary to define the safe runtime behavior for IoT transactions for maintaining “permissible device settings” of execution and to avoid or detect and resolve “impermissible settings.” Furthermore, we introduce a lock protocol, utilizing variations of lock concepts, that enforces AI 2 D safety properties during transaction processing. We show a brief proof of the protocol correctness and a detailed analytical model to evaluate its performance.

Day-to-Day Decision Making by Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer

Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer must negotiate the transition between childhood and adulthood while dealing with a life-threatening illness. AYA involvement in decision making varies depending on the type of decision and when decisions occur during treatment, and evidence suggests that AYAs want to be involved in decision making. Objective: To explore involvement of AYAs with cancer in day-to-day decisions affected by their cancer and treatment. Methods: This qualitative study used interpretive focused ethnography within the sociologic tradition, informed by symbolic interactionism. Semi-structured interviews and informal participant observation took place at two quaternary pediatric oncology programs. Results: Thirty-one interviews were conducted with 16 AYAs ages 15 to 20 years. Major day to day decision-making categories identified included: (1) mental mindset, (2) self-care practices, (3) self-advocacy, and (4) negotiating relationships. Participants described how they came to grips with their illness early on and decided to fight their cancer. They described decisions they made to protect their health, how they advocated for themselves and decisions they made about relationships with family and friends. Conclusions: Through day-to-day decisions, participants managed the impact of cancer and its treatment on their daily lives. Research should focus on developing and implementing interventions to empower AYAs to participate in day-to-day decisions that will affect how they manage their cancer, its treatment and ultimately their outcomes. Implications for Practice: Healthcare providers can facilitate AYA's participation in day-to-day decision making through encouraging autonomy and self-efficacy by providing support and through effective communication.

Design of a University Pandemic Response Decision Support System

The global effort to combat the COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people conduct their daily lives. Institutions of higher education have been greatly impacted by these changes and must find ways to adapt to this new environment. Universities are a unique case because they must control disease spread, while maintaining the same or similar quality of education. The University Pandemic Response Decision Support System (UPRDSS) is a system designed to help universities pick the most suitable method for instruction delivery when faced with any pandemic. Using George Mason University as a case study, the goal was to design a system that allows university administrations to make an educated operations decision. The UPRDSS achieves this by simulating the spread of disease, analyzing learning outcome data, and using a multi-attribute utility function to determine the most appropriate method of instruction that enables positive learning and health outcomes.

COVID-19 PANDEMIC AWARENESS AND ITS IMPACT ON BANGLADESHI PEOPLE: A COMMUNITY BASED SURVEY

Background: The present study has been carried out to find out the people’s perception about the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of this pandemic on their daily lives. Methods: A Google form was used to create an online survey questionnaire distributed via personal relationships and social media. Data were collected using questionnaires consisting of socio-demographic status of participants, COVID-19 concepts and changes in the participants’ lifestyle. A total of 1088 respondents took part in the survey, and the results were evaluated using several statistical approaches. The results were presented in a variety of tables and graphs. Results: Males made up 53.3% of the participants, while females made up 46.7% who were from villages (29.87%), cities (53.77%), and semi-urban areas (16.36%). Most participants reported that they got information about the COVID-19 pandemic from social media, and they cited 'fever' as an indicator of the sickness. Although the amount of physical interactions with friends and family has not dropped much, working conditions and employment status have significantly altered. The majority of the participants claimed they have no concerns about the COVID-19. Conclusion: For up-to-date information regarding COVID-19, people in Bangladesh from all walks of life rely largely on social media. COVID-19 awareness isn't enough to inhibit the spreading of the virus from community to community. Employees' work schedules have also been drastically altered. To prevent transmission, we should all follow the safety rules strictly. Peer Review History: Received: 4 November 2021; Revised: 17 December; Accepted: 28 December, Available online: 15 January 2022 Academic Editor: Dr. Muhammad Zahid Iqbal, AIMST University, Malaysia, [email protected] UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 5.5/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10 Reviewers: Dr. Eyassu Mathewos, School of public health, college of health sciences and medicine, Wolaita Soddo university- P.O. Box 158, Wolaita Soddo, Ethiopia. Dr. Barkat Ali Khan, Kampala International University , Uganda, [email protected] Similar Articles: COVID-19: PHARMACOLOGICAL AND THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES COVID-19 IN MEXICO: PREPARING FOR FUTURE PANDEMICS

Attachment and grief in young adults after the loss of a close friend: a qualitative study

Background Although many lose a close friend each year, they are seldom the focus of grief research. However, these losses often cause severe and long-lasting reactions. Deaths among adolescents and young adults are also often caused by traumatic events, e.g. from accidents, suicides, and homicides, placing them at significant risk for complicated grief reactions. The focus of this paper is bereaved friends after the shootings at Utøya, Norway in 2011, which is among a few studies that focus on bereaved friends, exploring how attachment affects the grief process after the loss of a close friend. Methods This paper explores qualitative data from in-depth interviews with thirteen bereaved friends, conducted about 28 months after the loss. The interview sample consisted of eight females and five males, aged 18–31 years. The interviews were semi-structured, with a theme guide of 14 questions, and the method used for analyses was systematic text condensation. Results Two main themes were identified from the analyses of the interviews: Friendship and Grief, with the subordinate themes: The importance of the friendship, Longing and remembrance, How the loss has affected other relationships, How the loss has affected the friend’s daily lives, Processing of the grief and Not being family. For most of the bereaved friends the loss and the grief had a profound effect on them and their overall lives, from daily functioning in school or at work, to changes in attitudes, and the way they were met as bereaved. Conclusions The support, intimacy, and feelings of togetherness we share with our friends are of great importance and value for all people, but maybe especially for young people. When adolescents and young adults experience losses, their reactions are often intense and long-lasting, and especially complicated grief reactions can affect school performance and concentration, health, result in emotional problems; and disrupt development (e.g. identity formation and social skills). We don’t know much about the grief of bereaved friends and how their reactions can be explained. Thus, we hope that these findings could shed light on their grief reactions, and provide new knowledge on the short- and long-term psychological impact of losses of friends.

How Does Search for Meaning Lead to Presence of Meaning for Korean Army Soldiers? The Mediating Roles of Leisure Crafting and Gratitude

Many studies demonstrate that finding meaning in life reduces stress and promotes physical and psychological well-being. However, extant literature focuses on meaning in life among the general population (e.g., college students or office workers) in their daily lives. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the mechanisms of how individuals living in life-threatening and stressful situations obtain meaning in life, by investigating the mediating roles of leisure crafting and gratitude. A total of 465 Army soldiers from the Republic of Korea (ROK) participated in two-wave surveys with a 2-week interval. Structural equation modeling analyses indicated that the direct effects between the search for meaning, presence of meaning, leisure crafting, and gratitude were significant, except for the direct relationship between the search for meaning and the presence of meaning, and between leisure crafting and the presence of meaning. We tested indirect effects using a Monte Carlo approach and found that leisure crafting and gratitude sequentially mediated the relationship between the search for meaning and the presence of meaning. Our findings highlight the importance of the motivation behind searching for meaning, the proactive use of leisure time, and gratitude for individuals in stressful situations and controlled lifestyles. Finally, we discuss the implications and limitations of this research and future research directions.

Artificial Intelligence Advances in the World of Cardiovascular Imaging

The tremendous advances in digital information and communication technology have entered everything from our daily lives to the most intricate aspects of medical and surgical care. These advances are seen in electronic and mobile health and allow many new applications to further improve and make the diagnoses of patient diseases and conditions more precise. In the area of digital radiology with respect to diagnostics, the use of advanced imaging tools and techniques is now at the center of evaluation and treatment. Digital acquisition and analysis are central to diagnostic capabilities, especially in the field of cardiovascular imaging. Furthermore, the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into the world of digital cardiovascular imaging greatly broadens the capabilities of the field both with respect to advancement as well as with respect to complete and accurate diagnosis of cardiovascular conditions. The application of AI in recognition, diagnostics, protocol automation, and quality control for the analysis of cardiovascular imaging modalities such as echocardiography, nuclear cardiac imaging, cardiovascular computed tomography, cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, and other imaging, is a major advance that is improving rapidly and continuously. We document the innovations in the field of cardiovascular imaging that have been brought about by the acceptance and implementation of AI in relation to healthcare professionals and patients in the cardiovascular field.

An Evaluation of Arrogance Orientations of Academicians in Higher Education According to Student and Alumni Opinions

Arrogant individuals are individuals who tend to position themselves in the center, both in their daily lives and in organizational life, and their relationships with others. While they exaggerate their importance, they tend to take over success in any case. Arrogance, which has the potential to adversely affect the organizational climate, can turn into an obstacle to the state of collective engagement and have a devastating effect on the science discipline, for example, in the academic community. In this context, this study aims to examine the arrogance orientations of academicians working in universities, which are higher education organizations. For this purpose, phenomenology, which is a qualitative research design, was used, and thirteen participants consisting of undergraduate and graduate students and graduates were reached with the maximum variation sampling method. The data obtained through focus group interviews using semi-structured questions were analyzed in terms of content using the Maxquda qualitative data analysis program. Findings obtained as a result of the analyses reveal that the arrogance orientations of academicians were gathered under the dimensions of individuality, comparison, contempt, and discrediting. Based on these results, it is possible to indicate that it affects the academic organization climate negatively and feeds on individuality. In this context, it can contribute to reducing the potentially destructive effects of arrogance by encouraging collective work in academic organizations.