OPPNets and Rural Areas: An Opportunistic Solution for Remote Communications

Many rural areas along Spain do not have access to the Internet. Despite the huge spread of technology that has taken place during recent years, some rural districts and isolated villages have a lack of proper communication infrastructures. Moreover, these areas and the connected regions are notably experiencing a technological gap. As a consequence of this, the implementation of technological health solutions becomes impracticable in these zones where demographic conditions are especially particular. Thus, inhabitants over 65 suppose a large portion of such population, and many elderly people live alone at their homes. These circumstances also impact on local businesses which are widely related to the agricultural and livestock industry. Taking into account this situation, this paper proposes a solution based on an opportunistic network algorithm which enables the deployment of technological communication solutions for both elderly healthcare and livestock industrial activities in rural areas. This way, two applications are proposed: a presence detection platform for elderly people who live alone and an analytic performance measurement system for livestock. The algorithm is evaluated considering several simulations under multiple conditions, comparing the delivery probability, latency, and overhead outcomes with other well-known opportunistic routing algorithms. As a result, the proposed solution quadruples the delivery probability of Prophet, which presents the best results among the benchmark solutions and greatly reduces the overhead regarding other solutions such as Epidemic or Prophet. This way, the proposed approach provides a reliable mechanism for the data transmission in these scenarios.

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Spatial temporal distribution of COVID-19 risk during the early phase of the pandemic in Malawi

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.11003 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

pp. e11003

Author(s):

Alfred Ngwira ◽

Felix Kumwenda ◽

Eddons C.S. Munthali ◽

Duncan Nkolokosa

Keyword(s):

Elderly People ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Temporal Distribution ◽

Sociodemographic Factors ◽

Outcome Data ◽

Second World War ◽

Rural Districts ◽

Temporal Models ◽

Rich People ◽

Second World

Background COVID-19 has been one of the greatest challenges the world has faced since the second world war. This study aimed at investigating the distribution of COVID-19 in both space and time in Malawi. Methods The study used publicly available data of COVID-19 cases for the period from 2 April 2020 to 28 October 2020. Semiparametric spatial temporal models were fitted to the number of monthly confirmed cases as an outcome data, with time and district as independent variables, where district was the spatial unit, while accounting for sociodemographic factors. Results The study found significant effects of location and time, with the two interacting. The spatial distribution of COVID-19 risk showed major cities being at greater risk than rural areas. Over time, the COVID-19 risk was increasing then decreasing in most districts with the rural districts being consistently at lower risk. High proportion of elderly people was positively associated with COVID-19 risk (β = 1.272, 95% CI [0.171, 2.370]) than low proportion of elderly people. There was negative association between poverty incidence and COVID-19 risk (β = −0.100, 95% CI [−0.136, −0.065]). Conclusion Future or present strategies to limit the spread of COVID-19 should target major cities and the focus should be on time periods that had shown high risk. Furthermore, the focus should be on elderly and rich people.

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Differences between the Sexes in the Relationship between Chronic Pain, Fatigue, and QuickDASH among Community-Dwelling Elderly People in Japan

Healthcare ◽

10.3390/healthcare9060630 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 630

Author(s):

Satoshi Shimo ◽

Yuta Sakamoto ◽

Takashi Amari ◽

Masaaki Chino ◽

Rie Sakamoto ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Chronic Pain ◽

Elderly People ◽

Physical Disability ◽

The Elderly ◽

Daily Basis ◽

Community Dwelling ◽

Negative Effects ◽

The Relationship ◽

Elderly Healthcare ◽

Disability Research

Chronic pain and fatigue have negative effects on the health, ADL, work, and hobbies of the elderly. As the proportion of people 65 years of age and older in the population increases, chronic pain and disability research regarding this group is receiving more consideration. However, little empirical evidence of the association between chronic pain, fatigue, and physical disability between the sexes is available. This study investigated the association between chronic pain, fatigue, and instrumental activities of daily living among community-dwelling elderly people by sex in Japan. Concerning the presence of chronic pain, 61% of males and 78% of females reported chronic pain, indicating that many elderly people living in the community suffer from chronic pain and fatigue on a daily basis. The number of sites of chronic pain was higher in females than in males (p = 0.016), with more chronic pain in the knees (p < 0.001) and upper arms (p = 0.014). Regarding chronic pain, males showed a higher correlation with QuickDASH-DS (rs = 0.433, p = 0.017) and QuickDASH-SM (rs = 0.643, p = 0.018) than females. Furthermore, fatigue also showed a higher correlation with QuickDASH-W (rs = 0.531, p = 0.003) in males than in females. These results indicate that the association between chronic pain, fatigue, and QuickDASH differed between the sexes among community-dwelling elderly people in Japan. A better understanding of the risk factors for elderly chronic pain and fatigue among sexes will facilitate the development of elderly healthcare welfare and policies.

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Study of Accessibility to the Home of Dependent Elderly People in Rural Areas

Gerontechnology - Communications in Computer and Information Science ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-41494-8_26 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 259-265

Author(s):

Virginia Iglesias Moreno ◽

Pablo Sánchez-García ◽

Cristina Franco-Antonio ◽

Esperanza Santano-Mogena ◽

Yolanda Castaño-Blanco ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Elderly People ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Dependent Elderly

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Knowledge Provision Model Through Distance Learning Method for Promoting Quality of Life of the Elderly in Rural Areas of Thailand

Journal of Education and Learning ◽

10.5539/jel.v10n2p129 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 129

Author(s):

Sumalee Sungsri

Keyword(s):

Quality Of Life ◽

Elderly People ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Social Relationship ◽

Elderly Care ◽

The Elderly ◽

Community Leaders ◽

The World ◽

Quantitative And Qualitative Methods

Thailand is becoming an elderly society like many countries in the world. The number of elderly people is increasing continuously every year. In order to enable the elderly to live with good quality of life in the rapidly changing society, knowledge and information related to their health and living factors are considered to be necessary for them. Therefore, this study was carried out in order to develop a model of knowledge provision for promoting quality of life of the elderly in rural areas of the country. The samples were drawn from every region of the country which included 480 elderly people, 480 elderly caretakers, and 160 people representing the community leaders, community committee members and staff of local government agencies. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were employed for data collection. The study found that there were five areas of knowledge for promoting quality of life of the elderly: physical health, mental health, social relationship, economic, and learning. The model of knowledge provision to the elderly synthesized from the study could enable the elderly to gain necessary knowledge deemed useful for promoting their quality of life. The elderly, the elderly care caretakers and related people were found to be satisfied with the model.

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The Forgotten Many

10.4018/978-1-7998-8153-7.ch011 ◽

2022 ◽

pp. 150-170

Author(s):

Rachelle Kuehl ◽

Carolyn M. Callahan ◽

Amy Price Azano

Keyword(s):

Stereotype Threat ◽

Rural Schools ◽

Gifted Education ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Large Scale ◽

Rural Students ◽

Federally Funded ◽

Rural Districts ◽

Gifted Programming ◽

Language Arts Instruction

Limited economic resources and geographic challenges can lead rural schools in areas experiencing poverty to deprioritize gifted education. However, for the wellbeing of individual students and their communities, investing in quality rural gifted education is crucial. In this chapter, the authors discuss some of the challenges to providing equitable gifted programming to students in rural areas and present approaches to meeting those challenges (e.g., cluster grouping, mentoring). They then describe a large-scale federally-funded research project, Promoting PLACE in Rural Schools, which demonstrated methods districts can use to bolster gifted education programming. With 14 rural districts in high-poverty areas of the southeastern United States, researchers worked with teachers and school leaders to establish universal screening processes for identifying giftedness using local norms, to teach students the value of a growth mindset in reducing stereotype threat, and to train teachers on using a place-based curriculum to provide more impactful language arts instruction to gifted rural students.

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Does Money Matter More in the Country? Education Funding Reductions and Achievement in Kansas, 2010–2018

AERA Open ◽

10.1177/2332858420963685 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 233285842096368

Author(s):

Emily Rauscher

Keyword(s):

Low Income ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Economies Of Scale ◽

State Level ◽

Department Of Education ◽

Block Grant ◽

Short Term ◽

Rural Districts ◽

Before And After ◽

Funding Cuts

The U.S. Department of Education made recent technical changes reducing eligibility for the Rural and Low-Income School Program. Given smaller budgets and lower economies of scale, rural districts may be less able to absorb short-term funding cuts and experience stronger negative achievement effects. Kansas implemented a state-level finance change (block grant funding) after 2015, which froze district revenue regardless of enrollment and reduced funding in districts where enrollment increased. Difference-in-differences models compare achievement before and after block grant implementation to estimate effects of funding cuts separately in rural and nonrural districts. Between-state and within-state comparisons offer complementary identification strategies in which the strengths of one approach help address limitations of the other. Revenue/spending reductions are similar by geography but represent a larger fraction of rural district budgets. Results indicate that revenue reductions have larger implications for achievement in rural areas, where they represent a larger proportion of the total budget.

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Health service inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic among elderly people living in large urban and non-urban areas in Florida, USA

SAGE Open Medicine ◽

10.1177/2050312120974168 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 205031212097416

Author(s):

Xinhua Yu

Keyword(s):

Emergency Department ◽

Elderly People ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Metropolitan Areas ◽

Elderly Women ◽

Logistic Models ◽

Emergency Department Visits ◽

Hospitalization Rates ◽

Adjusted Incidence

Objective: Health inequalities were often exacerbated during the emerging epidemic. This study examined urban and non-urban inequalities in health services among COVID-19 patients aged 65 years or above in Florida, USA, from 2 March to 27 May 2020. Methods: A retrospective time series analysis was conducted using individual patient records. Multivariable Poisson’s and logistic models were used to calculate adjusted incidence of COVID-19 and the associated rates of emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Results: As of 27 May 2020, there were 13,659 elderly COVID-19 patients (people aged 65 years or above) in Florida and 14.9% of them died. Elderly people living in small metropolitan areas might be less likely to be confirmed with COVID-19 infection than those living in large metropolitan areas. The emergency department visit and hospitalization rates decreased significantly across metropolitan statuses for both men and women. Those patients living in small metropolitan or rural areas were less likely to be hospitalized than those living in large metropolitan areas (35% and 34% vs 41%). Elderly women aged 75 years or above living in rural areas had 113% higher adjusted incidence of COVID-19 than those living in large metropolitan areas, and the rates of hospitalizations were lower compared with those counterparts living in large metropolitan areas (29% vs 46%; odds ratio: 0.37 (0.25–0.54), p < 0.001). Conclusion: For elderly people living in Florida, USA, those living in small metropolitan or rural areas were less likely to receive adequate health care than those living in large or medium metropolitan areas during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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