Public Services and the Missed Values of (Non)Communication

2019 ◽  
pp. 237-253
Author(s):  
Mirko Pečarič
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Google Trends ◽  
Public Value ◽  
Open Structures ◽  
Technical Collaboration

Citizens' interactions are at the center of open governments. When the latter use open structures and open processes to foster (technical) collaboration, citizens' wellbeing can be improved by observing what citizens (do not) publicly write about or search for. This chapter tries to compare the wellbeing and quality of life (the older terms are public value or solidarity) with public goods inside and outside of public services. This relationship can be achieved when people debate and governments listen to diverse alternatives. To test this relationship, the Google Trends application was used. Trends show that satisfied people do not write about effective, efficient, legal, and ethical things, so a temporary conclusion needed for further investigation is that the government's success in a certain field is present when people do not talk (on a large scale) about matters or topics in that field. Governments should, therefore, listen to or read what people (do not) say or write.

scholarly journals SECULAR STAGNATION: REAL PROBLEMS AND STATISTICAL ILLUSIONS

2021 ◽  
Vol 230 (4) ◽  
pp. 156-178
Author(s):  
J.K. GALBRAITH ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Price Change ◽  
National Income ◽  
Secular Stagnation ◽  
Manufacturing Employment

The changing economic structures, increased complexity and social requirements of advanced societies have rendered the statistical foundations of the National Income and Product Accounts highly problematic as a guide to policy-making. Discussions of “secular stagnation” and low productivity growth are predicated on these problematic measures, including the measures of price change that are used to distinguish “real” from “nominal” changes. This paper explores the consequences for measurement and for policy of the rise of the decline of manufacturing employment, the rise of services, and the rising need for public goods, public services, and investments aimed at sustainability and at the quality of life.

Assessment of quality of life in patients with the effects of transient ischemic stroke

2016 ◽  
pp. 37-39
Author(s):  
A. Babirad
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Ischemic Stroke ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Cerebrovascular Diseases ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Cerebrovascular Events ◽  
Sf 36 ◽  
Angioplasty And Stenting

Cerebrovascular diseases are a problem of the world today, and according to the forecast, the problem of the near future arises. The main risk factors for the development of ischemic disorders of the cerebral circulation include oblique and aging, arterial hypertension, smoking, diabetes mellitus and heart disease. An effective strategy for the prevention of cerebrovascular events is based on the implementation of large-scale risk control measures, including the use of antiagregant and anticoagulant therapy, invasive interventions such as atheromectomy, angioplasty and stenting. In this connection, the efforts of neurologists, cardiologists, angiosurgery, endocrinologists and other specialists are the basis for achieving an acceptable clinical outcome. A review of the SF-36 method for assessing the quality of life in patients with the effects of transient ischemic stroke is presented. The assessment of quality of life is recognized in world medical practice and research, an indicator that is also used to assess the quality of the health system and in general sociological research.

Translation and Validation of the Thai Version of the Wisconsin Quality of Life Questionnaire (TH WISQoL) for Kidney Stone Patients

2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (11) ◽  
pp. 1194-1199
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Kidney Stone ◽  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Short Form ◽  
Outcome Measurement ◽  
Life Questionnaire ◽  
Sf 36

Objective: To develop and validate a Thai version of the Wisconsin Quality of Life (TH WISQoL) Questionnaire. Materials and Methods: The authors developed the TH WISQoL Questionnaire based on a standard multi-step process. Subsequently, the authors recruited patients with kidney stone and requested them to complete the TH WISQoL and a validated Thai version of the 36-Item Short Form Survey (TH SF-36). The authors calculated the internal consistency and interdomain correlation of TH WISQoL and compared the convergent validity between the two instruments. Results: Thirty kidney stone patients completed the TH WISQoL and the TH SF-36. The TH WISQoL showed acceptable internal consistency for all domains (Cronbach’s alpha 0.768 to 0.909). Interdomain correlation was high for most domains (r=0.698 to 0.779), except for the correlation between Vitality and Disease domains, which showed a moderate correlation (r=0.575). For convergent validity, TH WISQoL demonstrated a good overall correlation to TH SF-36, (r=0.796, p<0.05). Conclusion: The TH WISQoL is valid and reliable for evaluating the quality of life of Thai patients with kidney stone. A further large-scale multi-center study is warranted to confirm its applicability in Thailand. Keywords: Quality of life, Kidney stone, Validation, Outcome measurement

Perceptions towards the quality of public services in Romania. Poor outcomes of public administration reforms?

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-285
Author(s):  
Claudia Petrescu ◽  
Flavis Mihalache
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Public Services ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Administration Reform

Public services represent an important dimension of quality of society, as they create the contextual conditions for people to further their quality of life. Romanian public administration reform has brought about a constant institutional transformation, which has influenced both the specific features and the quality of the services. This article aims to analyse trends regarding the perceived quality of public services in Romania, in European comparative perspective, using the data of the European Quality of Life Survey (2003–2016). The article aims to understand the low satisfaction with public services in Romania against the background of the public service reform measures taken by government in this period. The article describes the context of Romanian public administration and public service reform, the most important public policy measures adopted and the most important challenges. The lack of vision in the public service reform, the partial introduction of reform elements, the permanent and, sometimes, conflicting changes are issues that may have influenced the way in which the population perceives the quality of public services. The decentralisation process of public services and the insufficient allocation of public funds for delivering such services at local level might have an impact on their quality and quantity perceived by the population. Keywords: public services; public administration reform; citizens’ satisfaction; New Public Management; New Weberianism.

Deterioration of basic activities of daily living and their impact on quality of life across different cognitive stages of dementia: a European study

2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 1283-1293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa M. Giebel ◽  
Caroline Sutcliffe ◽  
Minna Stolt ◽  
Staffan Karlsson ◽  
Anna Renom-Guiteras ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Activities Of Daily Living ◽  
Daily Living ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Depressive Symptomatology ◽  
European Study ◽  
Severe Dementia ◽  
People With Dementia ◽  
Adl Performance

ABSTRACTBackground:Performing basic activities of daily living (ADLs) is one of the major difficulties encountered in dementia, which can have considerable negative impacts on the quality of life (QoL) of people with dementia (PwD). However, the extent to which basic ADL performance deteriorates across mild, moderate, and severe dementia is little examined and its impact, together with depression and neuropsychiatric behavior, upon QoL, is of considerable relevance across European countries.Methods:Data were drawn from people living in the community who were participants in a large-scale European study on transition from community living to care homes of PwD. PwD completed measures on cognitive functioning and QoL, and informal carers reported upon QoL, depressive symptomatology, psychopathology, and functional ability of the PwD.Results:ADL performance deteriorated differently for each activity. In particular, toileting, transfer, and feeding remained relatively intact throughout, whereas performance on bathing and dressing deteriorated to a greater extent from mild to severe dementia. It appears that continence was not affected by the stage of dementia with similar levels of impairment. Basic ADL performance impacted to different degrees on QoL across dementia stages and countries.Conclusions:Interventions aimed at maintaining independence or QoL need to target different ADLs across different dementia stages and perhaps also tailor interventions to the context of different countries. Findings contribute to the development of non-pharmaceutical interventions and governmental pledges to promote independence in dementia.

Blog Snippets Based Drug Effects Extraction System Using Lexical and Grammatical Restrictions

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiho Kitajima ◽  
Rafal Rzepka ◽  
Kenji Araki
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Medical Information ◽  
Drug Effects ◽  
Large Scale Data ◽  
Medical Documents ◽  
Baseline System ◽  
Scale Data

Obtaining medical information has a beneficial influence on patients' treatment and QOL (quality of life). The authors aim to make a system that helps patients to collect narrative information. Extracting information from data written by patients will allow the acquisition of information which is easy to understand and provides encouragement. Additionally, by using large-scale data, the system can be utilized for discovering unknown effects or patterns. As the first step, the purpose of this paper is to extract descriptions of the effects caused by taking drugs as a triplet of expressions from illness survival blogs' snippets. This paper proposes a method to extract the triplets using specific clue words and parsing the results in order to extract from blogs written in free natural language. Moreover, recall was improved by combining their proposed method and a baseline system, and precision was improved by filtering using dictionaries we created from existing medical documents.

Feasibility of olanzapine at reduced dose in highly emetogenic chemotherapy: A randomised controlled trial against aprepitant in triple therapy (FORESIGHT).

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 12087-12087
Author(s):  
Michelle Chen ◽  
Isabelle Baron ◽  
Stephanie Beaulieu ◽  
Annick Dufour ◽  
Nathalie Letarte ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Complete Response ◽  
Research Centre ◽  
Highly Emetogenic Chemotherapy ◽  
Patient Reported ◽  
Delayed Phase ◽  
Drug Prophylaxis

12087 Background: Olanzapine is used as an adjunct antiemetic in oncology as salvage therapy and in four-drug prophylaxis. Growing literature supports its effectiveness in initial three-drug prophylaxis in highly emetogenic chemotherapy (HEC). Methods: This prospective, multi-centre, open-label study evaluated the feasibility of a large-scale randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness and tolerability of 5 mg olanzapine once daily for four days (starting the night before chemotherapy) versus standard dose aprepitant (in tritherapy with standard ondansetron and dexamethasone) in treatment-naive patients receiving the first cycle of a HEC. Secondary outcomes included: complete response (no nausea, no emesis, no use of rescue medication), complete remission (no emesis, no rescue medication), intensity of patient-reported nausea and emesis on a visual analog scale, quality of life (scored with the Functional Living Index Emesis [FLIE]), and incidence of adverse events. Results: We randomized 30 patients in an intent-to-treat analysis. The large-scale trial was deemed not feasible without support from a research centre. Complete response rates were significantly higher in the olanzapine group in the delayed phase (24-120h post-chemotherapy) (86,7% v 21,4%, p < 0,001) and overall phase (0-120h post-chemotherapy) (60,0% v 21,4%, p = 0,04). Similar results were observed for complete remission. Intensity of patient-reported nausea was significantly lower in the olanzapine group in the delayed phase (p = 0,001). FLIE scores were significantly lower for the nausea domain (mean 62,3 v 60,9, p = 0,004) and overall score (124,3 v 108,8, p = 0,006). Depression on the ESAS-R was more common in the aprepitant group (0% v 38%, p = 0,01). Other adverse events were not significantly different. Conclusions: Support from a research centre must be ensured for study feasibility. Tritherapy olanzapine significantly improved complete response and remission in the delayed and overall phases post-chemotherapy among patients receiving HEC. It was also associated with higher quality of life and a reassuring safety profile. This feasibility trial, despite its small sample size, is one of the first prospective randomised trials to suggest similar efficacy of 5 mg olanzapine to aprepitant and to measure a difference in patient quality of life with this regimen. Clinical trial information: NCT04075955 .

Assessing residents’ perceptions of urban placemaking prior to hosting a major cultural event

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wise ◽  
Jelena Đurkin Badurina ◽  
Marko Perić
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Local Quality ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Level Of Agreement

PurposeMore research is needed to consider residents’ perceptions prior to hosting large-scale events. This paper contributes new insight on residents’ perceptions of placemaking analysed by considering awareness, enthusiasm and participation prior to hosting a large-scale event. Placemaking is becoming increasingly important and this insight can help planners understand how locals perceive change and event planning preparations.Design/methodology/approach454 residents of Rijeka, Croatia completed a survey (seven-point Likert scale) of 17 placemaking principles, asked in three ways: (1) how you feel; (2) how you believe people near you feel and (3) if you feel that planning/preparing for ECoC 2020 has made a difference. The data analysis considers socio-demographics and the significance of awareness, enthusiasm and participation as factors affecting residents’ perceptions of placemaking.FindingsThe study found respondents originally from Rijeka expressed statistically significant higher level of agreement. Where statistically significant differences exist, female respondents expressed statistically significant higher levels of agreement. For six statements, the distribution of results was not similar for all age groups. Awareness and enthusiasm seems to influence placemaking principles to a greater extent than participation in this study, but all have proven to have statistically significant positive impacts on the placemaking principles assessed.Practical implicationsPlanners need to focus on effective promotional activities aimed at awareness and enhance enthusiasm to help increase perceptions of placemaking and increase local quality of life.Originality/valueexplores perceptions of “self” and “how others feel” by assessing principles of placemaking associated with the case of Rijeka. This allows researchers to explore understandings of how people perceive the attitudes of their fellow residents.

Psoriatic Nail Disease: Quality of Life and Treatment

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (5_suppl) ◽  
pp. S102-S106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aditya K. Gupta ◽  
Elizabeth A. Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Psoriatic Arthritis ◽  
Plaque Psoriasis ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Severity Index ◽  
Biologic Therapies ◽  
Nail Psoriasis ◽  
Psoriatic Nail Disease

Nail psoriasis is common among patients with plaque psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis and has a detrimental effect on quality of life. However, there are currently no standardized therapeutic regimens for nail psoriasis. Traditional treatments for nail psoriasis, which include topical, intralesional, and oral therapies, may be time-consuming, painful, or unsafe when administered long term. Biologic therapies have demonstrated efficacy for plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis; these therapies may be particularly promising for the treatment of nail psoriasis as both groups of patients have an elevated incidence of nail dystrophy. The biologic therapies adalimumab, alefacept, efalizumab, etanercept, and infliximab have demonstrated clinically important nail psoriasis improvements using the Nail Psoriasis Severity Index, a helpful tool that, upon validation, will allow comparison across treatments and trials. Large-scale, long-term trials using standardized outcome measures are needed to further evaluate biologic therapies for the treatment of nail psoriasis.

Time Orientation: Past, Present, and Future Perceptions

1989 ◽  
Vol 64 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1199-1205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard A. Jason ◽  
Jennifer Schade ◽  
Louise Furo ◽  
Arne Reichler ◽  
Clifford Brickman
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Time Orientation ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Future Expectations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future Perceptions ◽  
Better Than

A survey was conducted to assess people's time orientation or where they spend most of their thinking time: past, present or future. 100 women were also asked about their expectations for the quality of life in 20 co 30 yr. and about the odds of a large-scale nuclear war within 30 yr. Respondents thought almost twice as much about the present and future as the past. They rated the quality of life in 20 to 30 yr. as being the same as or slightly better than now. A nuclear war within 30 yr. was considered possible; religious orientation had a strong effect. No significant relationship was found between time orientation and future expectations.

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