Using social robot PLEO to enhance the well-being of hospitalised children

2020 ◽  
pp. 136749352094750
Author(s):  
Clara J Moerman ◽  
Rianne ML Jansens

Hospitalisation is stressful for children. Play material is often offered for distraction and comfort. We explored how contact with social robot PLEO could positively affect a child’s well-being. To this end, we performed a multiple case study on the paediatric ward of two hospitals. Child life specialists offered PLEO as a therapeutic activity to children in a personalised way for a well-being related purpose in three to five play like activity sessions during hospital visits/stay. Robot–child interaction was observed; care professionals, children and parents were interviewed. Applying direct content analysis revealed six categories of interest: interaction with PLEO, role of the adults, preferences for PLEO, PLEO as buddy, attainment of predetermined goal(s) and deployment of PLEO. Four girls and five boys, aged 4–13, had PLEO offered as a relief from stress or boredom or for physical stimulation. All but one started interacting with PLEO and showed behaviours like hugging, caring or technical exploration, promoting relaxation, activation and/or making contact. Interaction with PLEO contributed to achieving the well-being related purpose for six of them. PLEO was perceived as attractive to elicit play. Although data are limited, promising results emerge that the well-being of hospitalised children might be fostered by a personalised PLEO offer.

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pratiwi Pratiwi

<p>Intermediary actors in rural areas are expected to stimulate not only economic growth but also social inclusion. The studies of innovation intermediaries in rural areas are under-researched. This study investigates the role, capabilities, and the outcome of the engagement of local community associations as intermediaries in different sectors such as agriculture, food processing, and tourism product. This study describes the way innovation promotes rural development. This research employs a multiple case study method and analyzes data triangulation. The interviews have indicated that intermediaries in different sectors need to play different roles due to their sector drivers, stakeholders, and challenges. This study also describes the outcome of the engagement of the intermediaries in increasing well-being, trust among stakeholders, and local people capability to innovate. Further, the study draws policy recommendations for the governments to enhance the skills and impact of the intermediaries, including collaborations, proposal competition, annual awards, organizational learning, training, and benchmarking.</p>


2020 ◽  
pp. 875697282097722
Author(s):  
Denise Chenger ◽  
Jaana Woiceshyn

The front end of projects is strategically important; yet, how project concepts are identified, evaluated, and selected at the pre-project stage is poorly understood. This article reports on an inductive multiple-case study of how executives made such decisions in major upstream oil and gas projects. The findings show that in such a high-risk context, often an experienced executive makes these decisions alone and he creates value by facilitating growth. We identified three value-creating decision processes that varied by the executives’ risk approach and decision context. These processes depart from the formal project management prescriptions and the strategic decision-making literature.


Author(s):  
Oriol Ríos-González ◽  
Mimar Ramis-Salas ◽  
Juan Carlos Peña-Axt ◽  
Sandra Racionero-Plaza

Background: Men who develop behaviors connected with the model of hegemonic masculinity present several health problems. Previous research has shown the types of problems that men commonly suffer in this regard such as chronic diseases, dietary disorders, and traffic accidents. To combat and overcome this situation, several campaigns, policies and recommendations have been undertaken, and consequently, their influence has been analyzed. However, there have been few investigations into the role of men’s friendship in the reduction of these physical health problems. The findings presented in this article are focused on this issue, illustrating the impact of male friendship on the shaping of healthy behaviors. Methods: Drawing upon a qualitative-based methodology articulated in a case study of the Men in Dialogue association, located in Spain, the study has followed the premises of the communicative approach, a total of 15 structured online open-ended questionnaires have been performed and analyzed. The median age of the participants is 37.5 years. Results: The findings show how men involved in Men in Dialogue are promoting a kind of masculine friendship that is improving men’s emotional well-being and, consequently, their physical health.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Zwaagstra ◽  
Marije Verhoef ◽  
Linda Schippers ◽  
Marije Hendriks ◽  
Algonda de Reus ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabela Battistello Espindola ◽  
Maria Luisa Telarolli de Almeida Leite ◽  
Luis Paulo Batista da Silva

The global framework set forth by the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include water resources in their scope, which emphasizes how water assets and society well-being are closely intertwined and how crucial they are to achieving sustainable development. This paper explores the role of hydropolitics in that Post-2015 Development Agenda and uses Brazilian hydropolitics set to reach SDG6 as a case study.


Author(s):  
V Shinju ◽  
Aswathi Prasad

The natural resources are repository for the survival of all of us, so they must be used efficiently to meet the present needs while conserving them for future generations. An action to develop capacities from global to household levels for their sustainable management and regulation is required henceforth. Of these natural resources, water resources are most precious. If there is no water; there would be no life on earth. Since ‘water is the elixir of life’, water resource management has been considered as one of the most relevant areas of intervention. Understanding the gender dimensions of water resource management is a starting point for reversing the degradation of water resources. Women play an important role here since they have to access the water resources for almost all the activities on a daily basis. As the women are the strong social agents, effective and improved water preservation techniques could be achieved through their empowerment that may eventually lead to the well-being of the households in particular and of the community in general. Therefore, the major research question posed in this study is to analyze the role of women in the preservation and management of water, an inevitable, precious but diminishing natural resource. The study also intends to describe the relationship between the three ‘W's-Women, Water & Well-being. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches are essential here as it is a contingent issue in the present scenario. Psychological dimensions were also explored since the issue is affecting the routine life of the community. The case study of women belonging to the Kuttadampadam region was done to explain the role of women in preserving water resources in the areas affecting severe water scarcity.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Wichanat Tiwasing ◽  
Nopadon Sahachaisaeree

The present research uses toy packaging as an exploratory case study to test the research design. The case study is so selected since it involves merchandizes in conflict between the needs of children and the trust of guardians. It also engages the role of playing as a learning process promoting children’s imaginary and creativity thinking. Visual stimuli along with self-report questionnaires are used to test the perceptual response of both children and guardians on the aspects of attractiveness, safety, value and taste. The study found a number of contradictions on preferences between children and parents which demands design rethinking. Keywords: children’ visual perception, package design © 2017. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 810-854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan L. Cohen ◽  
Christopher B. Bingham ◽  
Benjamin L. Hallen

Using a nested multiple-case study of participating ventures, directors, and mentors of eight of the original U.S. accelerators, we explore how accelerators’ program designs influence new ventures’ ability to access, interpret, and process the external information needed to survive and grow. Through our inductive process, we illuminate the bounded-rationality challenges that may plague all ventures and entrepreneurs—not just those in accelerators—and identify the particular organizational designs that accelerators use to help address these challenges, which left unabated can result in suboptimal performance or even venture failure. Our analysis revealed three key design choices made by accelerators—(1) whether to space out or concentrate consultations with mentors and customers, (2) whether to foster privacy or transparency between peer ventures participating in the same program, and (3) whether to tailor or standardize the program for each venture—and suggests a particular set of choices is associated with improved venture development. Collectively, our findings provide evidence that bounded rationality challenges new ventures differently than it does established firms. We find that entrepreneurs appear to systematically satisfice prematurely across many decisions and thus broadly benefit from increasing the amount of external information searched, often by reigniting search for problems that they already view as solved. Our study also contributes to research on organizational sponsors by revealing practices that help or hinder new venture development and to emerging research on the lean start-up methodology by suggesting that startups benefit from engaging in deep consultative learning prior to experimentation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Manav ◽  
E. Kaymaz

In the last years, as a result of environmental concerns, changes in lifestyle during the COVID-19 crisis, the role of healthy buildings in addition to the main lighting design principles are highlighted. Therefore, today’s lighting design issues include social well-being, mental well-being, and physical well-being more than we discussed in the last century. Hence, we are familiar with occupant-centric and performance-based metrics for residential and non-domestic buildings. The study analyses the extended occupancy patterns, daylight availability, and annual lighting energy demand through a case study in Bursa, Turkey including the COVID-19 pandemic scenario.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document