Parents' perception of the quality of life of preschool children at risk or having developmental disabilities.

Despite increased concern for the health related quality of life (HRQOL) of people with disabilities, little is known about the HRQOL of children with developmental disabilities. The present study aimed to explore the HRQOL of children who were at risk or having developmental disabilities in Hong Kong. Using the parent-reported Chinese Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), the HRQOL of 173 children (2–4 years) with signs of delays in development was contrasted with that of 132 children with typical development. We found that those who exhibited high risk of developing a developmental disability had significantly lower overall well-being (76.3 ± 13.7 vs. 84.2 ± 11.3; p<0.001) and psychosocial health (71.3 ± 15.6 vs. 82.5 ± 12.9; p<0.001) but not necessarily physical health. The findings are consistent with previous findings in children with different disabilities and chronic illnesses. They suggest children at risk or having DDs need help in restoring their quality of life up to the standard experienced by their healthy peers, particular in psychosocial aspects such as social functioning, emotion functioning, and school functioning.

Evidence for crossvergence in the perception of task and contextual performance : a study of western expatriates working in Thailand

The applicability of the Western model of task and contextual performance to the context of Thai and Western managers, professionals and consultants working together in Thailand is addressed in this research. The results show a clear difference in the factor structure of how Western and Thai managers perceive the importance of performance factors. Moreover, the task and contextual factor structure found for Western managers working in a Western culture did not hold for Westerners working within the Thai cultural environment. These findings provide evidence of adaptation by the Westerner to the Thai cultural environment, supporting the notion of crossvergence.

Review of the green consumers' perception formation about the environmentally safe products

This study examines the influence of various factors on the green purchase intention of customers in Australia. A conceptual model has been proposed and was subjected to empirical verification with the use of a survey of metropolitan and regional households in Victoria. The results indicate that corporate perception with respect of companies not placing higher priority on reducing pollution than increasing profitability was the significant predictor of customers’ negative overall perception toward environmentally safe products. The only positive contribution to customers’ perceptions was their past experience with the product. Other factors including the perception of environmentally safe products, product labels, and regulatory protection did not appear to influence customers’ perceptions. The results also suggest that customers are not tolerant of lower quality and higher prices of environmentally safe products. The present findings provide an understanding of the antecedents of green purchasing and highlight that green customers rely more on personal experience with the product rather than the information provided by the marketer.

Public environmental consumerism : recycling behaviour and its impact on intentions to purchase green products

Recycling behaviour has been used as indicators of green behavior since research has indicated that there is a positive relationship between environmental concern and ecologically responsible behavior such as recycling. The objective of this study is to find out if there is a difference between recyclers and non-recyclers and heavy and light recyclers with respect to their willingness to pay more for green products despite the perception of green products being of a lower quality in comparison to alternative products. The answers to this will help us to better understand environmentally conscious consumerism of both groups of consumers i.e. the light and heavy recyclers. The results indicate that willingness to pay somewhat higher prices and accepting somewhat lower quality of green products appears to be, generally, independent of recycling and non-recycling, as well as heavy and light recycling behaviour. It also addresses the implications of these findings for business managers.

Participation in physical activity : perception of women with a previous history of gestational diabetes

The aim was to explore the perceptions of physical activity among women with previous gestational diabetes mellitus, in the context of preventing Type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Hyperstereopsis in helmet-mounted NVDs : absolute distance perception

Modern helmet-mounted night vision devices, such as the Thales TopOwl helmet, project imagery from intensifiers mounted on the side of the helmet onto the helmet faceplate. The increased separation of the cameras induces hyperstereopsis - the exaggeration of the stereoscopic disparities that support the perception of relative depth around the point of fixation. Increased camera separation may also affect absolute depth perception, because it increases the amount of vergence (crossing) of the eyes required for binocular fusion, and because the differential perspective from the viewpoints of the two eyes is increased. The effect of hyperstereopsis on the perception of absolute distance was investigated using a large-scale stereoscopic display system. A fronto-parallel textured surface was projected at a distance of 6 metres. Three stereoscopic viewing conditions were simulated - hyperstereopsis (four times magnification), normal stereopsis, and hypostereopsis (one quarter magnification). The apparent distance of the surface was measured relative to a grid placed in a virtual "leaf room" that provided rich monocular cues, such as texture gradients and linear perspective, to absolute distance as well as veridical sterescopic disparity cues. The different stereoscopic viewing conditions had no differential effect on the apparent distance of the textured surface at this viewing distance

Hyperstereopsis in helmet-mounted NVDs : slope perception

Modern helmet-mounted night vision devices, such as the Thales TopOwl helmet, project imagery from intensifiers mounted on the sides of the helmet onto the helmet faceplate. This produces a situation of hyperstereopsis in which binocular disparities are magnified. This has the potential to distort the perception of slope in depth (an important cue to landing), because the slope cue provided by binocular disparity conflicts with veridical cues to slope, such as texture gradients and motion parallax. In the experiments, eight observers viewed sparse and dense textured surfaces tilted in depth under three viewing conditions: normal stereo hyper-stereo (4 times magnification), and hypostereo (1 / 4 magnification). The surfaces were either stationary, or rotated slowly around a central vertical axis. Stimuli were projected at 6 metres to minimise conflict between accommodation and convergence, and stereo viewing was provided by a Z-screen and passive polarised glasses. Observers matched perceived visual slope using a small tilt table set by hand. We found that slope estimates were distorted by hyperstereopsis, but to a much lesser degree than predicted by disparity magnification. The distortion was almost completely eliminated when motion parallax was present.

Marketing students' perception of traditional and intensive delivery : an exploratory study

The study investigated how undergraduate marketing students perceived intensive delivery of subjects over summer school as compared to traditional semester delivery. The results suggest that students did not perceive there were substantial differences in learning, but preferred the more intensive nature of the learning. The results also indicate that summer school students found the subject more interesting and rated the subject higher overall as compared with the traditional mode. Individual assessment grades for students in the intensive mode did differ to those in the traditional mode, but examination results and final grades were not statistically different. Intensive modes may be viable alternatives to traditional semester long classes, although they do potentially have increased costs.

An empirical investigation of the effect of interaction justice perception on consumer intentions after complaining

This study examined how apology as interaction justice impacts on consumer perceptions of service recovery attempt.  Data was collected using hypothetical scenarios.  Two types of service failures were proposed and the impact of recovery action on each failure type was compared.  Findings include that there is direct effect of recovery action on consumer future intentions in both type of failures.  Implications and direction to the future research were proposed.

A development of environmental conscious design of prison buildings

Environmental conscious design refers to variety of approaches in architecture design that covers technical, behavioural, and functional aspects (Goulding et al, 1992). These approaches usually include contradictory measures with social indicators (Sykes, 1995; Norton, 1999). The contradiction is magnified in incarceration architecture, which is very specific type of buildings (McConville, 2000). Prison buildings represent the split between the society requirements and the needs for the users, in this case the prisoners, to have comfortable environment. Energy as an ultimate natural resource reflects both the cost to the society, in terms of cooling/ heating load and the need for comfort and rehabilitation of prisoners (Al-Hosany and Elkadi, 2000). Different energy codes tend to control the thermal behaviour of buildings in certain environment in order to maximise their energy efficiency (e.g. CIBSE, 1999). In prison buildings, some of the main variables of such code are not relevant. While energy codes, for example, regulate the use of glass in buildings by either minimise the openings size (prescriptive criteria) or by determine an overall limit of heat transfer (performance criteria), the objective in prison buildings is to minimise glass areas for security purposes. This leads in turn to reduction in visual and comfort levels in prison cells. The aim of this paper is to address the balance between the society requirements of reducing energy consumption in prison buildings and the need for humane and comfortable environment for prisoners in order to maintain sustainability. The paper investigates the possible role of façade technologies to bridge the gap between requirements of both society and prisoners.