University of Memphis

About: University of Memphis is a education organization based out in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 7710 authors who have published 20082 publications receiving 611618 citations. The organization is also known as: U of M.

Health literacy: concept analysis.

Abstract: Aim. This paper reports an analysis of the concept of health literacy in order to clarify its meaning, reduce ambiguities associated with references to it, and promote consistency in using the concept in nursing dialogue and research. Background. Health literacy is a relatively new concept in health promotion research. Only within the last decade have researchers identified the problems associated with health literacy, the role it plays in an individual's ability to comprehend health and self-care information, and its relationship to health outcomes. Clarifying the concept is essential so that nurses develop an awareness of the phenomenon and its relationship to the outcomes of their communication and health education efforts. Method. The method used for this concept analysis was that of Walker and Avant (1995). Findings. Health literacy empowers people to act appropriately in new and changing health-related circumstances through the use of advanced cognitive and social skills. The defining attributes of health literacy are reading and numeracy skills, comprehension, the capacity to use information in health care decision-making, and successful functioning as a healthcare consumer. Antecedents of health literacy are literacy and a health-related experience. Consequences of health literacy include improved self-reported health status, lower health care costs, increased health knowledge, shorter hospitalizations, and less frequent use of health care services. Empirical referents of the concept are the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults and the health literacy component of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Conclusions. An analysis of the concept of health literacy enhances nurses’ ability to assess more accurately their clients’ levels of health literacy, thus identifying those at risk for misunderstanding health care instructions, shame associated with inadequate reading skills, and inability to adhere to health care recommendations.

A blow-up result for a nonlinear wave equation with damping: The critical case

Abstract: Using a different and much shorter approach, we prove a blow-up result which is more general than the interesting blow-up result of G Todorova and B Yordanov concerning a nonlinear wave equation with a damping term We also show that the critical exponent belongs to the blow-up case This problem had been left open by these authors

Multimodal semi-automated affect detection from conversational cues, gross body language, and facial features

Abstract: We developed and evaluated a multimodal affect detector that combines conversational cues, gross body language, and facial features. The multimodal affect detector uses feature-level fusion to combine the sensory channels and linear discriminant analyses to discriminate between naturally occurring experiences of boredom, engagement/flow, confusion, frustration, delight, and neutral. Training and validation data for the affect detector were collected in a study where 28 learners completed a 32- min. tutorial session with AutoTutor, an intelligent tutoring system with conversational dialogue. Classification results supported a channel × judgment type interaction, where the face was the most diagnostic channel for spontaneous affect judgments (i.e., at any time in the tutorial session), while conversational cues were superior for fixed judgments (i.e., every 20 s in the session). The analyses also indicated that the accuracy of the multichannel model (face, dialogue, and posture) was statistically higher than the best single-channel model for the fixed but not spontaneous affect expressions. However, multichannel models reduced the discrepancy (i.e., variance in the precision of the different emotions) of the discriminant models for both judgment types. The results also indicated that the combination of channels yielded superadditive effects for some affective states, but additive, redundant, and inhibitory effects for others. We explore the structure of the multimodal linear discriminant models and discuss the implications of some of our major findings.

Promiscuous females protect their offspring

Abstract: Multi-male mating (MMM) by females is relatively common among mammals, occurring in at least 133 species and several evolutionary benefits of MMM have been proposed. The most convincing explanation is that MMM confuses paternity, thereby deterring infanticide by males. A second explanation for females that are unlikely to experience infanticide is that MMM is a consequence of sexual harassment. Mate guarding and, perhaps even in some cases, behavioral monogamy, might have evolved in response to the threat of infanticide and the subsequent tendency for females to mate multiply. Benefits relating to improved genetic fitness of offspring do occur in some species, but do not provide a widespread explanation for the evolutionary origin of MMM; if cryptic female choice through sperm competition is adaptive to females it probably evolved as a consequence of, rather than a precursor to, female promiscuity. Here, we provide support for the original hypothesis of paternity confusion for MMM, rather than for the more popular good genes or sperm competition hypotheses.