Social Effects of Hearing Loss on Patients in Jos, North Central Nigeria

Hearing loss has caused serious social effects among people living with it. Those who relate to patients with hearing loss (PHL) also share some part of the negative effects. Some specifics are communication disability, which impacts speech and language development, academic performance, and social or work life. In previous years, the problem was predicted to be aggravated as the expected life span of the population increased. The study was conducted among PHL and their family members in JUTH and Kazahyet Audiology Service in Jos. 150 PHL were purposively sampled. The study was guided by a Cross-sectional Survey Research Design, and the specific objectives were to (1) identify the social effects of hearing loss on the PHL, (2) determine the implication of social effects on PHL, and (3) determine the extent at which these social effects affect PHL. The outcome of the study shows that the social effects faced by PHL are poor relationships, no secrets, dependence on sign language, frustration, depression, and dependence on lip reading. Some stop schooling, and others feel laughed at and therefore choose the path of isolation. The implication is that hearing loss is expensive to manage. PHL always feel they are not contributing their quarter in life as usual;they feel stigmatized and are not easy to relate with. The study recommends that the government should come up with policies that will check man-made behaviors that exert negative social effects on PHL in our society, subsidize the cost of hearing aids and cochlear implants to be affordable for PHL, formulate a policy on mandatory newborn hearing screening before the infant is discharged from the hospital to help in the early identification of hearing loss. Finally, the early creation of awareness of the dangers or consequences of hearing loss will go a long way in preventing our society from involvement in high-risk behaviors that will cause hearing loss.

Multiple mediation effects of health locusof control and hope on the relationshipbetween stroke patients’ social supportand self-management

Objective:This study aimed to identify the mediation effects of health locus of control(HLC)and hope between stroke patients’social support and self-management.Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted.A total of 300 Chinese stroke patients were recruited by convenient sampling from the acupuncture department of two Chinese Traditional Medical Hospitals in Tianjin Province from June to September 2018.The self-report questionnaires include Social Support Assessment Scale,Herth Hope Index,Mental Health Locus of Control Scale,Stroke Self-management Behavior Scale,and personal information questionnaires.All the survey data were entered in Excel and analyzed using the SPSS 24.0 program.Mediation was tested with Bootstrapping in AMOS 23.0 program.Results:The result showed that internal health locus of control(IHLC),chance health locus of control(CHLC)and hope were the mediators between social support and self-management.The direct,indirect,and total effects of social support on self-management behavior were 0.306 (P<0.01),0.109(P<0.01),and 0.415(P<0.01),respectively.Conclusions:Social support can directly influence self-management,and it can also indirectly influence self-management through IHLC,CHLC,and hope.

Evaluation of Economic, Social Effects of Renewable Energy Technologies

What is sustainability? Does it only concern the environment or even socio-economic policies? It is only a question of ethics or a redefinition of industrial policy oriented towards the use of renewable energy, it can bring benefits both atmospheric and social employment. The need for the development of renewable sources can be in tune with the correct management of the territory in consideration of the fact that these sources involve the widespread implementation of small and medium-sized plants. A model of economic development based on renewable sources should respect the peculiarities and characteristics of the territories involved. It should also think of the territory as a “value” to be strengthened and used in a sustainable and integrated way and no longer as a passive platform on which to install plants. Solar thermal and photovoltaic, biomass, geothermal, hydrological, wind power are some of the sources the various countries must constantly invest. This publication is based on these concepts starting from an analysis of the employment data of the OECD “Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries”, comparing them successively with the results of renewable energy productivity. The analysis was performed by analyzing a sample of 22 countries over a period of 20 years, after which the regression curve for the variables with the OLS method was created. This econometric method has allowed us to analyze the impact that renewable technologies have on the parameters of social welfare and in particular on unemployment.

The Mediating Effect of Social Media on the Relationship Between Travel Preference and Tourist Behavior of Local Tourists in Davao City

This paper aims to determine the mediating effect of social media on the relationship between travel behavior and tourist preference.This paper utilized the mediation analysis design to determine whether social media significantly affects the independent and dependent variables.For the statistical tools,the proponents of the study utilized descriptive statistics,Sobel’s test,mean and standard deviation.Also,the proponents of the study utilized data from questionnaires gathered through an online google form.Most of the respondents are single females,college-level,and use Facebook most of the time.Therefore,this is the social media platform that the majority utilize.It has been revealed in the study the three sets of correlated variables:Travel behavior vs.tourist behavior,travel preference vs.social media,and social media vs.tourist behavior,have a strong positive linear relationship between the two quantitative variables.Thus,the study proponents concluded that there is an indirect effect between the travel preference and tourist behavior of local tourists in Davao City via social media.Lastly,the study’s findings reveal the fundamentals of how visitors make decisions,which are essential for enhancing the competitive advantages of cultural destinations.Significant findings from the study are beneficial to the growth of cultural tourism in Davao City.

Mediating role of social support in dysphoria,despondency,and quality of life in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis

BACKGROUND Dysphoria and despondency are prevalent psychological issues in patients undergoing Maintenance Hemodialysis(MHD)that significantly affect their quality of life(QOL).High levels of social support can significantly improve the physical and mental well-being of patients undergoing MHD.Currently,there is limited research on how social support mediates the relationship between dysphoria,despondency,and overall QOL in patients undergoing MHD.It is imperative to investigate this mediating effect to mitigate dysphoria and despondency in patients undergoing MHD,ultimately enhancing their overall QOL.AIM To investigate the mediating role of social support in relationships between dysphoria,despondency,and QOL among patients undergoing MHD.METHODS Participants comprised 289 patients undergoing MHD,who were selected using a random sampling approach.The Social Support Rating Scale,Self-Rating Anxiety Scale,Self-Rating Depression Scale,and QOL Scale were administered.Correlation analysis was performed to examine the associations between social support,dysphoria,despondency,and QOL in patients undergoing MHD.To assess the mediating impact of social support on dysphoria,despondency,and QOL in patients undergoing MHD,a bootstrap method was applied.RESULTS Significant correlations among social support,dysphoria,despondency,and quality in patients undergoing MHD were observed(all P<0.01).Dysphoria and despondency negatively correlated with social support and QOL(P<0.01).Dysphoria and despondency had negative predictive impacts on the QOL of patients undergoing MHD(P<0.05).The direct effect of dysphoria on QOL was statistically significant(P<0.05).Social support mediated the relationship between dysphoria and QOL,and this mediating effect was significant(P<0.05).Similarly,the direct effect of despondency on QOL was significant(P<0.05).Moreover,social support played a mediating role between despondency and QOL,with a significant mediating effect(P<0.05).CONCLUSION These findings suggest that social support plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between dysphoria,despondency,and QOL in patients undergoing MHD.

The Internet and its Psychological and Social Effects on the UAEs Youth

The subject of this research concentrate on indicating psychological and social effects for the Internet on students in Sharjah University/Communication College/in other words the researcher try to know students opinion and impressions regarding the use of Internet and effect of the same, as well as opinion of positive and negative benefits regarding Internet, especially for the university＇s students who use Internet repeatedly in their daily routine. This stage marked by facts and characteristics based on search for information, explore the students world, and their expectations for that science. This study is the first in its kind in United Arab Emirates that try to shed light on the social and psychological effects of the lnternet, therefore we pave the way in front of those who administer lnternet and indicate to them guidelines for that to allow decisions maker to be aware about the world around university＇s student, the world that enjoy less interest for use of Internet at university, and what is the social and psychological effects of the use of Internet. And the study allow providing information and data that several sectors in society need. It draws clear image for the use of Internet at university by the student and whatever social and psychological effects that happened as a result of that use, so it consider as a survey for whom desire to know such information in United Arab Emirates.

Media Effects on Children＇s Social and Moral Development： A Theological Moral Study in Africa

In this 21 st century, whether we like it or not, it is very clear that the Intemet, social media, and all ad of the related technology have come to stay. This new technological discovery has brought great and wonderful benefits to our family＇s lives and relationships. However as it is always the case with any new innovations, it has its own negative side. This paper aims at investigating what actually social media is and how it translates to children, especially African children, as it relates to family and social living. Actually Internet provide benefits in areas such as cognitive and social development, it also presents risks together with opportunities for children＇s growth and development. It is common today to see children spending great quality of their time using other social websites. It is also evidenced that Interact provide benefits in the area of emotional and intellectual development and at the same time present risk as well as opportunities to children＇s development in functional and societal challenges. Therefore social media gives the children of the present age the opportunity to enter into global entertainment and communication. As a result of this development, there is now Internet addiction of children. Hence, there is serious need for parents to be aware of the nature of social media sites, their children are using. This is because not all of them are healthy environments for children. Experts such as childhood educators and psychologist even Paediatricians are equipped and so are better hands to assist parents not only to know and understand these websites but to encourage proper use and make them to monitor for potential problems such as cyber-bullying, facebook depression, exposure to inappropriate content and sexting. This paper proffers some recommendation that certainly will assist parents to bring up their children up to be vibrant adult even in this technological era.

Reporting and understanding the safety and adverse effect profile of mobile apps for psychosocial interventions: An update

Recent years have seen a rapidly increasing trend towards the delivery of health technology through mobile devices. Smartphones and tablet devices are thus becoming increasingly popular for accessing information and a wide range of services, including health care services. Modern mobile apps can be used for a variety of reasons, ranging from education for the patients and assistance to clinicians to delivery of interventions. Mobile phone apps have also been established to benefit patients in a scope of interventions across numerous medical specialties and treatment modalities. Medical apps have their advantages and disadvantages. It is important that clinicians have access to knowledge to make decisions regarding the use of medical apps on the basis of risk-benefit ratio. Mobile apps that deliver psycho social interventions offer unique challenges and opportunities. A number of reviews have highlighted the potential use of such apps. There is a need to describe, report and study their side effects too. The adverse effects associated with these apps can broadly be divided into:(1) those resulting from the security and safety concerns;(2) those arising from the use of a particular psycho social intervention; and(3) those due to the interaction with digital technology. There is a need to refine and reconsider the safety and adverse effects in this area. The safety profile of a mobile PSI app should describe its safety profile in:(1) privacy and security;(2) adverse effects of psychotherapy; and(3) adverse effects unique to the use of apps and the internet. This is, however, a very new area and further research and reporting is required to inform clinical decision making.

Influence of social capital on farmer household income gap:total effect and structural effect

Based on the survey data of typical villages in Shaanxi Province,China,the effect of social capital on the income gap of farmers' households was analyzed using the Shapley value of the total amount of social capital and the social capital structure.The results show the following:first,social capital can expand the household income gap,and the effect of this index on the household income gap is 7.54%.Second,the indexes of the social capital dimension can expand the household income gap,and the structural effects of the household income gap on social networks,social trust,and social participation are 3.17%,3.64%,and 0.65%,respectively.Third,no dimension of the path is the same as the effect on the household income gap.

Study on Communication Effect of Food Safety Risk in Social Media:the Influence of Response Effort Level on Consumption Willingness Change

By constructing influence model for communication effect of food safety risk in social media environment,the influences of different response manners taken by relevant enterprises on consumers' cognition and purchasing intention are analyzed,and influence mechanisms of response effort level,interaction and content reliability on consumers' attitudes are revealed. Based on quasi-experimental study with three kinds of response effort levels,it is found that content reliability,interaction and effort degree of enterprise response under negative information of food safety event have significant impacts on communication effect and consumers' purchasing intention.

Effect of corporate social responsibility on creation of added value

In the process of financial management and operation, a firm should not only aim to maximize its shareholders' benefits, but also consider the interests of all stakeholders. Bearing social responsibility to each stakeholder to a certain extent and pursuing harmonious social development are fully consistent with the concept of China's building a harmonious socialist society. Furthermore, added value also reflects the idea of social responsibility Based on the relational contract theory, the paper divides stakeholders into staff and shareholders under relational contracts, creditors, suppliers and consumers under transactional contracts and governments and communities under special contracts. The paper details the effect mechanism of a firm's bearing social responsibilities to each stakeholder on the creation of added value respectively, and considers that corporate social responsibilities should be included in the system for creating added value to theoretically support firm managers to fulfill social responsibilities.

Social Effect of Environmental Pollution on Valley-cities in Western China

Accompanied with the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization,the large and medium-scale valley-cities in the western China are facing environmental problems at respective levels in common. The urban environmental pollution causes economic losses,and also brings out negative effects on urban society. Based on the social investigation method,this paper aims to study the harms to urban society brought by environmental pollution. After the investigation to the inhabitants of six typical valley-cities:Lanzhou,Xining,Chongqing,Baiyin,Luzhou and Zigong,we found that the urban environmental pollution has resulted in negative influences with different levels on residents' physical,psychological,work,recreations,studies and social activities. The problem of environmental pollution has become a serious restriction to sustainable development of cities mentioned above. Herewith,it has become urgent to strengthen the government regulations for controlling urban environmental pollution.

Effects of Dietary Protein Variations at Different Life-stages on Vocal Dominance of the African Clawed Frogs

How nutritional conditions during early development affect an organism’s phenotype at adulthood is still poorly understood despite a plethora of research on developmental plasticity.The"environmental matching"hypothesis predicts that individuals will have high fitness providing that their adult environment"matches"what they experienced during development.In contrast,the"silver spoon"hypothesis predicts that individuals who obtain better developmental resources will be generally superior.Here we tested these two hypotheses and examined the underlying hormonal mechanisms by manipulating the early dietary protein content of African clawed frogs(Xenopus laevis)for a year with a 2×2 factorial experimental design.We found that only a lowprotein food during development enhanced the vocal competition ability of male X.laevis,and that vocal dominance was associated with higher cortisol levels but not related with testosterone content.These results were not congruent with the"environmental matching"hypothesis or with the"silver spoon"hypothesis,suggesting the behavioral plasticity during development is more complex than our expectation in amphibians.

Use of Social Networks to Affect the Teaching and Learning Effectiveness of 3D Design

In recent years, with the rapid development of technologies, information technological software and social networks have been widely accepted. Therefore, social networks can be integrated with information technologies for teaching purposes. In addition, the sharing of learning outcomes via social networks can improve students’ learning effectiveness. This study used an information technology teaching environment to teach students 3D skills, and used 3D SketchUp to enable students to explore, operate, and complete their personal works by themselves. Moreover, this study used Facebook as the media of a WBI (web-based instruction) community, and used the discussions and sharing between students and students, and students and teachers, to improve learning effectiveness and reduce learning disabilities. The research results showed that, proper use of social networks to provide students with opportunities to discuss and share outcomes can help improve students’ learning effectiveness and reduce learning disabilities.

Henriksen and Flora （1999） Revisited A Literature Review on Third-Person Effects and Children/Adolescents＊

In this literature review on TPE （third-person effects） and the behavioral consequences on children, the research questions posed are how the body of knowledge has evolved since the first empirical evidence of TPE among children and what knowledge gaps that remain. The traceable developments are two： （1） Compared to the vast amount of articles on TPE in general, the 5 9 identified on the topic of children are few and two thirds actually focus on adolescents/young adults rather than children. The reason put forward for studying younger children is the urge to prevent risky behavior through media literacy programs or pro-social advertisements; and （2） The studies have not primarily addressed results to support occurrence of TPE among children. Rather they support parental TPE or among the adolescents that TPE and reverse TPE occur due to certain kind of media content. The discussion on knowledge gaps that remain follow three themes： （1） Differentiations between self and others are in psychological studies implied to occur among children between the ages of 3-4 years old, yet no study address how children develop TPE; （2） There is a tendency to follow the more general development within TPE research with the renewed interest in behavioral consequences. But the primary behavioral consequence studied in TPE in general and within studies of TPE and children is support for censorship. Few studies address ＂real＂ behavioral consequences like parental mediation; and （3） There is also a need for more theoretically coherent research on the importance of social distance.

Moderating effect of psychological resilience on the perceived social support and loneliness in the left-behind elderly in rural areas

Objective:To investigate the loneliness and psychological resilience with the perceived social support of the left-behind elderly in rural areas and explore the moderating effect of psychological resilience on the understanding of social support and loneliness of the left-behind elderly in rural areas.Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted;272 left-behind elderly people in 6 rural villages in the Sichuan Province were investigated by using the General Situation Questionnaire,Perceived Social Support Scale(PSSS),Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale(CD-RISC),and the University of California at Los Angeles Loneliness Scale(UCLA)with a stratified random cluster sampling method.Results:The loneliness score of the left-behind elderly in rural areas was 52.54±7.25,the psychological resilience score was 78(68.87),and the perceived social support score was 57(51.62).The perceived social support and psychological resilience were negatively correlated with loneliness,while the perceived social support was positively correlated with psychological resilience.The moderating effect of psychological resilience on the perceived social support and loneliness of the left-behind elderly in rural areas was−0.102(P<0.001).Conclusions:Higher level resilience is of positive significance to alleviate the negative effect of social support on loneliness.Improving the resilience of the left-behind elderly in rural areas is a beneficial exploration to promote their mental health.

The Impact of Strategic Leadership on Innovation Ambidexterity:The Mediating Effect of Social Capital

This study focused on the strategic leadership in the organization and the internal and external social capital can be seen as the ambidexterity innovation assets for building organization capability.The research selected 500 top managers and 385 ones were returned,using purposive sampling in Southern Tainan Real Estate firms as subjects to explore the interactions and relationships among strategic leadership,social capital,innovation ambidexterity,and contextual ambidexterity,and examines the fitness of model in this study.The data were analyzed by a variety of statistical methods,such as regression analysis,hierarchical regression analysis,ANOVA,and SEM to test the hypotheses of this study and model fitness.The conclusions are as follows:(1)Strategic leadership has significant positive influence on social capital and innovation ambidexterity.(2)Social capital has significant positive influence on innovation ambidexterity.(3)Good model fitness of relationship exists among each construct,and the social capital has significant mediating effects between strategic leadership and innovation ambidexterity.(4)The relationship between social capital and innovation ambidexterity has a moderating influence of contextual ambidexterity.

Chinese Citizens' Right To Work and Social Security Effectively Protected——An interview with Zheng Silin, minister of labor and social security

Following is an interview by staff reporters of the Human Rights magazine with Zheng Silin, Chinese minister of labor and social security. The interview was meant in part to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the implementation of the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China that falls on January 1,2005. We are publishing this transcript with a view to providing our readers with information about how China has worked persistently to protect citizens' right to work and social security and the achievements it has made in this regard. We need to remind our readers of the fact that back in March 2004, the National People's Congress, China's highest legislature, approved a recommendation for revision of China's Constitution. In accordance with the recommendation, the Constitution had one more clause added: The state shall establish and improve a social security system commensurate to the level of the economic and social development.

The Effect of Perceived Anonymity on Online Transgressions:The Moderating Role of Moral Excuses

With the development of science and technology,the use of the Internet is becoming more and more widespread.However,with the popularity of the Internet,some problems have gradually surfaced.The anonymity of Internet use has become a breeding ground for many acts that are contrary to public decency,and this study is conducted against this background.This study explored the impact of perceived anonymity on online transgressions and investigated the moderating effect of moral excuses.A total of 414 subjects,210 males and 204 females,participated in this experimental survey.The SPSS data analysis concluded that perceived anonymity played a significant positive predictive role on online deviance(p<0.01),and the moderating role of moral excuses was not significant.This study will be conducive to the better implementation of the action of clearing cyberspace and to the regulation of public behaviour in cyberspace.