scholarly journals Attitudes towards Biobank Donation Among University Community

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-181
Author(s):  
N.A. Antonova ◽  
K.Y. Eritsyan ◽  
L.A. Tsvetkova

Worldwide significant efforts are invested in building biobanks—specialized facilities for storing biological materials for research and medical purposes. The successful functioning of biobanks depends directly on people’s willingness to donate their biological materials. Fragmentary empirical studies of people’s attitudes toward donations to biobanks have been undertaken in Russia. The goal of this study was to measure at titudes toward biobank donation among Russians population and to evaluate potential sociopsychological factors that play a role in a person’s readiness to become a donor. Data from 542 students and 254 scientific staff at St. Petersburg State University were collected from group-administered paper-and-pencil and online surveys respectively. Both students (74%) and scientific staff (52%) indicated a relatively high level of readiness to become biobank donors. Regression analysis showed that refusal to be a biobahk donor was correlated significantly with being university scientific staff vs. students, no previous awareness about biobank, need for relative’s or friend’s opinion before decision making, presence of payment for donation and type of requested biological material.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin He

Politics has shaped the operation of the Chinese courts as well as their decision-making processes. This article surveys mostly empirical studies on the relationship between the courts and politics. It covers topics such as judicial independence, local protectionism, judicial mediation, judicial innovation, judicial reforms, and people’s attitudes toward the courts. It provides a clue to understand the trajectory of the Chinese courts, the legal system, and the relationship between law and society in general.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Economides ◽  
C.J. Hourdakis ◽  
C. Pafilis ◽  
G. Simantirakis ◽  
P. Tritakis ◽  
...  

This paper concerns an analysis regarding the performance of X-ray equipment as well as the radiological safety in veterinary facilities. Data were collected from 380 X-ray veterinary facilities countrywide during the on-site regulatory inspections carried out by the Greek Atomic Energy Commission. The analysis of the results shows that the majority of the veterinary radiographic systems perform within the acceptable limits; moreover, the design and shielding of X-ray rooms as well as the applied procedures ensure a high level of radiological safety for the practitioners, operators and the members of the public. An issue that requires specific attention in the optimization process for the proper implementation of veterinary radiology practices in terms of radiological safety is the continuous training of the personnel. The above findings and the regulatory experience gained were valuable decision-making elements regarding the type of the regulatory control of veterinary radiology practices in the new radiation protection framework.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Parul Gill ◽  
Poonam Malik ◽  
Pankaj Gill

The present study was undertaken to explore the decision making patterns of college girls in relation to clothing and their satisfaction level with these decision making patterns. Thirty under graduate college girls from Panipat city were approached to record their responses regarding decision making in relation to clothing and satisfaction level through a well structured questionnaire. It was found that most of the girls (56.66%) themselves made the decisions about the type of garment (Indian, western or both) they wear and majority of girls (70%) were highly satisfied with this decision making. Parents performed the role of buyers for their college going daughters' garments in most of the cases (63.33%) and the 73.33% girls had high level of satisfaction with this. In most of the cases (60%) the decision about the garment design was made by the girls themselves and they were highly satisfied with it. Keywords: clothing, college, girls, decision making.


2007 ◽  
pp. 106-107
Author(s):  
B. K. Gannibal

Leonid Efimovich Rodin (1907-1990) was a graduate of Leningrad state University. To him, the future is known geobotanica, happened to a course in Botanical geography is still at the N. A. Bush. His teachers were also A. P. Shennikov and A. A. Korchagin, who subsequently headed related Department of geobotany and Botanical geography of Leningrad state University. This was the first school scientist. And since the beginning of the 30s of XX century and until the end of life L. E. was an employee of the Department of geobotany of the Komarov Botanical Institute (RAS), where long time worked together with E. M. Lavrenko, V. B. Sochava, B. A. Tikhomirov, V. D. Alexandrova and many other high-level professionals, first continuing to learn and gain experience, then defining the direction of development of geobotany in the Institute and the country as a whole.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002224372199837
Author(s):  
Walter Herzog ◽  
Johannes D. Hattula ◽  
Darren W. Dahl

This research explores how marketing managers can avoid the so-called false consensus effect—the egocentric tendency to project personal preferences onto consumers. Two pilot studies were conducted to provide evidence for the managerial importance of this research question and to explore how marketing managers attempt to avoid false consensus effects in practice. The results suggest that the debiasing tactic most frequently used by marketers is to suppress their personal preferences when predicting consumer preferences. Four subsequent studies show that, ironically, this debiasing tactic can backfire and increase managers’ susceptibility to the false consensus effect. Specifically, the results suggest that these backfire effects are most likely to occur for managers with a low level of preference certainty. In contrast, the results imply that preference suppression does not backfire but instead decreases false consensus effects for managers with a high level of preference certainty. Finally, the studies explore the mechanism behind these results and show how managers can ultimately avoid false consensus effects—regardless of their level of preference certainty and without risking backfire effects.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 2617
Author(s):  
Catalin Dumitrescu ◽  
Petrica Ciotirnae ◽  
Constantin Vizitiu

When considering the concept of distributed intelligent control, three types of components can be defined: (i) fuzzy sensors which provide a representation of measurements as fuzzy subsets, (ii) fuzzy actuators which can operate in the real world based on the fuzzy subsets they receive, and, (iii) the fuzzy components of the inference. As a result, these elements generate new fuzzy subsets from the fuzzy elements that were previously used. The purpose of this article is to define the elements of an interoperable technology Fuzzy Applied Cell Control-soft computing language for the development of fuzzy components with distributed intelligence implemented on the DSP target. The cells in the network are configured using the operations of symbolic fusion, symbolic inference and fuzzy–real symbolic transformation, which are based on the concepts of fuzzy meaning and fuzzy description. The two applications presented in the article, Agent-based modeling and fuzzy logic for simulating pedestrian crowds in panic decision-making situations and Fuzzy controller for mobile robot, are both timely. The increasing occurrence of panic moments during mass events prompted the investigation of the impact of panic on crowd dynamics and the simulation of pedestrian flows in panic situations. Based on the research presented in the article, we propose a Fuzzy controller-based system for determining pedestrian flows and calculating the shortest evacuation distance in panic situations. Fuzzy logic, one of the representation techniques in artificial intelligence, is a well-known method in soft computing that allows the treatment of strong constraints caused by the inaccuracy of the data obtained from the robot’s sensors. Based on this motivation, the second application proposed in the article creates an intelligent control technique based on Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC), a feature of intelligent control systems that can be used as an alternative to traditional control techniques for mobile robots. This method allows you to simulate the experience of a human expert. The benefits of using a network of fuzzy components are not limited to those provided distributed systems. Fuzzy cells are simple to configure while also providing high-level functions such as mergers and decision-making processes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107385842110039
Author(s):  
Kristin F. Phillips ◽  
Harald Sontheimer

Once strictly the domain of medical and graduate education, neuroscience has made its way into the undergraduate curriculum with over 230 colleges and universities now offering a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. The disciplinary focus on the brain teaches students to apply science to the understanding of human behavior, human interactions, sensation, emotions, and decision making. In this article, we encourage new and existing undergraduate neuroscience programs to envision neuroscience as a broad discipline with the potential to develop competencies suitable for a variety of careers that reach well beyond research and medicine. This article describes our philosophy and illustrates a broad-based undergraduate degree in neuroscience implemented at a major state university, Virginia Tech. We highlight the fact that the research-centered Experimental Neuroscience major is least popular of our four distinct majors, which underscores our philosophy that undergraduate neuroscience can cater to a different audience than traditionally thought.


2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Aravind Balakrishnan ◽  
Jaeyoung Lee ◽  
Ashish Gaurav ◽  
Krzysztof Czarnecki ◽  
Sean Sedwards

Reinforcement learning (RL) is an attractive way to implement high-level decision-making policies for autonomous driving, but learning directly from a real vehicle or a high-fidelity simulator is variously infeasible. We therefore consider the problem of transfer reinforcement learning and study how a policy learned in a simple environment using WiseMove can be transferred to our high-fidelity simulator, W ise M ove . WiseMove is a framework to study safety and other aspects of RL for autonomous driving. W ise M ove accurately reproduces the dynamics and software stack of our real vehicle. We find that the accurately modelled perception errors in W ise M ove contribute the most to the transfer problem. These errors, when even naively modelled in WiseMove , provide an RL policy that performs better in W ise M ove than a hand-crafted rule-based policy. Applying domain randomization to the environment in WiseMove yields an even better policy. The final RL policy reduces the failures due to perception errors from 10% to 2.75%. We also observe that the RL policy has significantly less reliance on velocity compared to the rule-based policy, having learned that its measurement is unreliable.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Otieno ◽  
Fauzia A. Malik ◽  
Stacy W. Nganga ◽  
Winnie N. Wairimu ◽  
Dominic O. Ouma ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Maternal immunization is a key strategy for reducing morbidity and mortality associated with infectious diseases in mothers and their newborns. Recent developments in the science and safety of maternal vaccinations have made possible development of new maternal vaccines ready for introduction in low- and middle-income countries. Decisions at the policy level remain the entry point for maternal immunization programs. We describe the policy and decision-making process in Kenya for the introduction of new vaccines, with particular emphasis on maternal vaccines, and identify opportunities to improve vaccine policy formulation and implementation process. Methods We conducted 29 formal interviews with government officials and policy makers, including high-level officials at the Kenya National Immunization Technical Advisory Group, and Ministry of Health officials at national and county levels. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. We analyzed the qualitative data using NVivo 11.0 software. Results All key informants understood the vaccine policy formulation and implementation processes, although national officials appeared more informed compared to county officials. County officials reported feeling left out of policy development. The recent health system decentralization had both positive and negative impacts on the policy process; however, the negative impacts outweighed the positive impacts. Other factors outside vaccine policy environment such as rumours, sociocultural practices, and anti-vaccine campaigns influenced the policy development and implementation process. Conclusions Public policy development process is complex and multifaceted by its nature. As Kenya prepares for introduction of other maternal vaccines, it is important that the identified policy gaps and challenges are addressed.


Mathematics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Marcelo Loor ◽  
Ana Tapia-Rosero ◽  
Guy De Tré

A flexible attribute-set group decision-making (FAST-GDM) problem consists in finding the most suitable option(s) out of the options under consideration, with a general agreement among a heterogeneous group of experts who can focus on different attributes to evaluate those options. An open challenge in FAST-GDM problems is to design consensus reaching processes (CRPs) by which the participants can perform evaluations with a high level of consensus. To address this challenge, a novel algorithm for reaching consensus is proposed in this paper. By means of the algorithm, called FAST-CR-XMIS, a participant can reconsider his/her evaluations after studying the most influential samples that have been shared by others through contextualized evaluations. Since exchanging those samples may make participants’ understandings more like each other, an increase of the level of consensus is expected. A simulation of a CRP where contextualized evaluations of newswire stories are characterized as augmented intuitionistic fuzzy sets (AIFS) shows how FAST-CR-XMIS can increase the level of consensus among the participants during the CRP.


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