• Title/Summary/Keyword: Community-based lifelong learning

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Investigating Non-Laboratory Variables to Predict Diabetic and Prediabetic Patients from Electronic Medical Records Using Machine Learning

  • Mukhtar, Hamid;Al Azwari, Sana
    • International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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    • v.21 no.9
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    • pp.19-30
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    • 2021
  • Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is one of common chronic diseases leading to severe health complications that may cause death. The disease influences individuals, community, and the government due to the continuous monitoring, lifelong commitment, and the cost of treatment. The World Health Organization (WHO) considers Saudi Arabia as one of the top 10 countries in diabetes prevalence across the world. Since most of the medical services are provided by the government, the cost of the treatment in terms of hospitals and clinical visits and lab tests represents a real burden due to the large scale of the disease. The ability to predict the diabetic status of a patient without the laboratory tests by performing screening based on some personal features can lessen the health and economic burden caused by diabetes alone. The goal of this paper is to investigate the prediction of diabetic and prediabetic patients by considering factors other than the laboratory tests, as required by physicians in general. With the data obtained from local hospitals, medical records were processed to obtain a dataset that classified patients into three classes: diabetic, prediabetic, and non-diabetic. After applying three machine learning algorithms, we established good performance for accuracy, precision, and recall of the models on the dataset. Further analysis was performed on the data to identify important non-laboratory variables related to the patients for diabetes classification. The importance of five variables (gender, physical activity level, hypertension, BMI, and age) from the person's basic health data were investigated to find their contribution to the state of a patient being diabetic, prediabetic or normal. Our analysis presented great agreement with the risk factors of diabetes and prediabetes stated by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) and other health institutions worldwide. We conclude that by performing class-specific analysis of the disease, important factors specific to Saudi population can be identified, whose management can result in controlling the disease. We also provide some recommendations learnt from this research.

Competencies of Dental Hygienists for Oral Care Service for People with Disability

  • Lee, Jae-Young;Kim, Young-Jae;Jin, Bo-Hyoung
    • Journal of dental hygiene science
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    • v.20 no.1
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    • pp.16-24
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    • 2020
  • Background: Dental treatment has shifted to the center of the community, and the public policy of the country has expanded to support the vulnerable classes such as the disabled. The dental profession needs education regarding oral health services for persons with disabilities, and it is necessary to derive the competencies for this. Therefore, we conducted this study to derive the normative ability to understand the role of a dental hygienist in the oral health service for persons with disabilities and improvement plans for education. Methods: We conducted a qualitative analysis for deriving competencies by analyzing the data collected through in-depth interviews with experts in order to obtain abilities through practical experience. Based on the competency criterion, relevant competency in the interview response was derived using the priori method, and it was confirmed whether the derived ability matched the ability determined by the respondent. Results: The professional conduct competencies of dental hygienists, devised by the Korean Association of Dental Hygiene, consists of professional behavior, ethical decision-making, self-assessment skills, lifelong learning, and accumulated evidence. Also, core competencies of the American Dental Education Association competencies for dental hygienist classification such as ethics, responsibility for professional actions, and critical thinking skills were used as the criterion. The dental hygienist's abilities needed for oral health care for people with disabilities, especially in the detailed abilities to fulfill these social needs, were clarified. Conclusion: To activate oral health care for people with disabilities, it is necessary for dental hygienists to fulfill their appropriate roles, and for this purpose, competency-based curriculum restructuring is indispensable. A social safety net for improving the oral health of people with disabilities can be secured by improving the required skills-based education system of dental hygienists and strengthening the related infrastructure.

An Analysis of the Users' Demands of Public Library Services in Busan (부산지역 공공도서관 서비스에 대한 이용자 수요 분석)

  • Jung, Youngmi;Lee, Eun-Ju
    • Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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    • v.52 no.4
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    • pp.229-253
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    • 2021
  • The service strategy of the public library needs to be established based on the users who are the actual beneficiaries of the services, including the perspective of changes in the social environment. This study investigated and analyzed the users' perceptions of the library functions and services currently provided and the demand for future services, targeting public library users in the Busan area. The data were collected through a questionnaire, and the respondents were 733 public library users in Busan. The main result is that first, the role and function of the public library that Busan users consider most important was still in material collection and provision. Second, in the information service type, the demand for cultural/lifelong learning program service was the highest, and in the service program, the demand for new IT technology experience and education was the highest. Third, as a result of ISA analysis of information service type, material provision service and information literacy education service were types to be maintained, and reading related service was type to be managed intensively. Fourth, in the analysis of service demand by age, those aged 41 to 50 years old were the generation with the highest demand in all types except for the information literacy education service type, and the demand for information literacy education was the highest among the elderly generation over 61 years old. And the user group in the western part of Busan was higher than the user group in other regions in demand for almost all service types. The results of this study can be used as basic data when establishing strategies to optimize community public library services for users.

A Study on the Status and Gap Analysis of Public Library in Chungcheongnam-do (충청남도 공공도서관 현황 및 격차 분석 연구)

  • Oh, Seon-Kyung
    • Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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    • v.53 no.2
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    • pp.215-239
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    • 2022
  • All public libraries are local public goods and cultural infrastructures whose ideological pillars are publicly operated, free, and open to all. This identity is justified when the public library provides various knowledge information, various programs, and community space to local residents within the service area, and ultimately contributes to the cultural development of the nation and society. To this end, the country and local governments must expand the number of individuals that meet legal standards, deploy competent professionals, and provide facilities and spaces that are easy to access and use. However, if there is a gap in infrastructure and services between regional public libraries, it causes inequality in access and use of residents, which inevitably leads to information gap and cultural welfare gap. Therefore, this study was analyzed the relative gap using the location quotient, key infrastructure indicators and service indicators of public libraries of regional government in Korea and basic local government in the Chungnam region from the viewpoint that the balanced development and capacity building of public libraries must precede the establishment of a public library in Chungnam region as a life-friendly knowledge information service institution, culture enjoyment and lifelong learning space. Based on the results, a method to resolve the gap was suggested by dividing the elements of gaps in public libraries into accessibility, core infrastructure, and services, focusing on vulnerable cities and counties in the Chungnam region.