• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2022

Purpose: This study established the state of the utilisation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Zimbabwean urban district councils to manage municipal knowledge. The way municipal knowledge and service delivery information are managed influences the usefulness and accessibility of the information to the various stakeholders. The effective management of this information thus determines the quality of decisions made by Zimbabwean urban councils. Research design, data and methodology: The study adopted a single case study design, employing a purely qualitative research approach. The purposive sampling technique was used to select key informants who participated in the study. Collected data were analysed using thematic content analysis. Results: The findings revealed that the Masvingo City Council was not fully utilising ICTs to manage service delivery knowledge. It has been at a minimum level in cases where they have been used. Conclusions: This research contributes to the Zimbabwean local government body of knowledge, providing the evidence needed to form a basis for future research, focusing on knowledge management and information technology utilisation in municipal organisations. The researchers recommended that Masvingo City Council direct more resources towards improving the existing ICT infrastructure and employee training programmes to improve the management of the organisation's knowledge.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.57-84
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• 2022

Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions of early childhood educators about the role of middle managers in daycare centers. Methods: A survey was conducted with 254 educators including directors, middle managers, and teachers working at daycare centers located in Jeonbuk. An interview was then conducted with 18 educators working at six different centers. IPA for the survey and thematic analysis were performed for the interview contents. Results: The results show that all the participants perceived that communication among managers, daycare staff, and related organizations should be improved most urgently; in the interview, middle managers as a solver of the uncomfortable relationship between directors and teachers and as a linker between generations were emphasized. Also, the directors and middle managers recognized that the skills to have as middle managers needed to be improved most urgently, and the teachers recognized nothing needed to be improved urgently. Different emphasis for the need of supports for environment and systems was made in the interview by each position. Conclusion/Implications: The study discussed the necessity of the official position of middle managers in a daycare center to promote the professionalism of early childhood educators.

• International Journal of Internet, Broadcasting and Communication
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.44-52
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• 2022

With recent scientific advances and growing interest in AI technologies, AI-based chatbots have been viewed as a practical learning aid for English language development. The purpose of this study is to examine preservice teachers' perceptions on the potential benefits of employing AI chatbots in English instruction and its pedagogical aspects. 28 preservice teachers majoring in English education were asked to use Kuki chatbots for a week with a guidance of a researcher and then report on their perceptions of AI chatbots in terms of perceived usefulness after use, applicability, and educational benefits and drawbacks. Emerging codes and themes were identified and evaluated using Thematic Analysis(TA) based on qualitative data from surveys and interviews. The findings show that six emerging themes were identified, encompassing perspectives on teacher, learner, communication, linguistic, affective, and assessment. The overall findings of this study revealed that AI-based chatbots can play a significant role as learning tools for stimulating interactive communication in a target language. Most preservice primary teachers acknowledge that AI chatbots can be useful as teaching and learning aids for both teachers and students. Furthermore, when applying various learner data to chatbot technology, such as learner assessment and diagnosis, a guided approach is necessary to perform a conversation appropriate for the learner's level and characteristics. Finally, as chatbots have a variety of benefits in terms of affective aspects, they may improve EFL learners' confidence in speaking English and learning motivation.

• Proceedings of the National Institute of Ecology of the Republic of Korea
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.144-152
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• 2021

Sanankerto is one of pilot projects for tourism villages in Indonesia due to its natural tourism potential with a 24-ha bamboo forest located in Boon Pring Andeman area. However, the distribution of existing bamboo has never been identified or mapped. Thus, the mana gement is facing difficulty in planning and developing tourism potential as well as spatial management in the area. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to identify and analyze the structure of bamboo vegetation in the Boon Pring Tourism village an d to perform vegetation mapping. The type of research was descriptive exploratory with a cluster sampling technique (i.e., a two-stage cluster) covering an area of ± 10 ha. Bamboo vegetation analysis was performed by calculating diversity index (H'), evenness index (E), and Species Richness index (R). Data were collected through observation and interviews with local people and the manager to determine zonation division. Mapping of bamboo vegetation based on zoning was processed into thematic maps using ArcG is 10.3. Micro climatic factors were measured with three replications for each sub -cluster. Data were analyzed descriptively and quantitatively. Nine species of bamboo identified. Diversity, evenness, and species richness indices differed at each location. Activities of local communities, tourists, and manager determined the presence, number, and distribution of bamboo species. These bamboo distribution maps in three zoning (utilization, buffer, and core) can be used by manager for planning and developing natural tourism potential.

• Journal of muscle and joint health
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.293-304
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• 2021

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the experience of medical treatment and management of nursing staffs in long term care settings. Methods: This study is qualitative research. The participants were seven nursing staff (five nurses and two nursing assistants) who had experience over six months in long term care facilities. Data were collected through in-depth interviews using semi-structured research questions. The collected data were analysed using qualitative thematic analysis method. Results: Four main themes were emerged as 'various medical treatments', 'difficulties about managing medical problems', 'lack of regulatory support' and 'strategies for solving medical problems'. Conclusion: The findings of this study provide the nursing staffs' difficulties and opinion about medical treatment and management in long term care settings. To provide more effective health service for the aged, the regulatory complement about medical treatment in long term care facilities should be considered.

• Educational Technology International
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.67-96
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• 2022

Although blogs have been used in online learning environments with optimistic expectations, the distributed nature of blogs can pose some challenges. Currently, we do not have a robust collection of tested blogging strategies to help students interact more effectively with each other when blogs are used as a primary form of engagement in an online class. Thus, the purpose of the study was to test an early iteration of an instructional blogging strategy, "Featured Student Profiles," which is designed to help students become acquainted with each other better and encourage them to visit and comment on each other's blogs. Sixteen pre-service teachers who were enrolled in an online course in which student blogs are the primary medium of peer interactions, participated in the study. Using a design case approach, seven students participated in interviews and all student blog interactions were analyzed. Thematic analysis was applied to analyze the interview data and identify salient themes of students' blogging experiences overall under the study strategy. The findings indicated that students took the most direct and efficient path they experienced to complete the blog task. Their peer interaction patterns varied, but several shifted from random to targeted relationships as the semester progressed. Although all students perceived the strategy as a positive approach to peer awareness, there was no clear evidence of its effect on student interactions.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2023

This study determines how social media users (SMUs) verify the information they come across on the Internet. It determines SMUs' perception of online fact-checking services in terms of their ease of use, usefulness, and trust. By conducting a focus group discussion and key informant interviews, themes were derived in determining fact-checking practices while a survey was further conducted to determine such perceived ease of use, usefulness, and trust in fact-checking services. The thematic analysis revealed major information verification practices, such as cross-checking and verifying with other sources, inspecting comments and reactions, and confirming from personal and social networks. The results showed that SMUs considered fact-checking services easy to use. However, a concern was raised about their usefulness stemming from the delayed action in addressing the information issues that need to be verified. As to perceived trust, it was found that SMUs have reservations about fact-checking services. Finally, it is believed that fact-checking services are expected to be credible and need to be promoted to mitigate any form of fake news, particularly on social media platforms.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.55-66
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• 2023

Community portraits can deeply explore the characteristics of community structures and describe the personalized knowledge needs of community users, which is of great practical significance for improving community recommendation services, as well as the accuracy of resource push. The current community portraits generally have the problems of weak perception of interest characteristics and low degree of integration of topic information. To resolve this problem, the reader community portrait method based on the thematic and timeliness characteristics of interest labels (UIT) is proposed. First, community opinion leaders are identified based on multi-feature calculations, and then the topic features of their texts are identified based on the LDA topic model. On this basis, a semantic mapping including "reader community-opinion leader-text content" was established. Second, the readers' interest similarity of the labels was dynamically updated, and two kinds of tag parameters were integrated, namely, the intensity of interest labels and the stability of interest labels. Finally, the similarity distance between the opinion leader and the topic of interest was calculated to obtain the dynamic interest set of the opinion leaders. Experimental analysis was conducted on real data from the Douban reading community. The experimental results show that the UIT has the highest average F value (0.551) compared to the state-of-the-art approaches, which indicates that the UIT has better performance in the smooth time dimension.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.236-246
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• 2023

This study aims to understand microaggressions directed toward international students from the perspective of international exchange professionals, who tend to be in relatively close contact with international students. This study targeted professionals who directly advise and support international students at university international exchange centers in J and G cities. The data were collected by conducting focus group interviews with seven participants in two groups from 25 May to 8 June 2023. Data were collected by conducting focus group interviews of seven participants in two groups from 25 May to 8 June 2023. After analyzing the interview data using thematic analysis, two themes emerged: the experiences of international students and the perspectives of international exchange professionals. The experience of international were further categorized into three sub-themes: differences in cultural context, academic discrimination, and discrimination due to lack of information. The perspectives of international exchange professionals were further categorized into three sub-themes: limited access to infrastructure, different perspectives depending on the level of the country, and consideration as a barrier. It is hoped that the findings of this study, obtained by exploring the microdiscrimination faced by international students at universities, will facilitate the development of different systems and policy recommendations to improve the experiences of international students.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.111-120
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• 2023

Purpose: The gradual increase in the number of children with disabilities in Korea highlights the necessity for further research on the role of school health teachers in their care. This study explored the specific experiences of school health teachers in special schools through individual in-depth interviews. Methods: In this study, 11 school health teachers participated, and data were collected through individual in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the collected data. Results: The experiences of health teachers at special schools were classified into 5 themes and 13 subthemes. These included "concerns about working in special schools and attachment after working," "management of diverse diseases and ongoing, careful observation," "ambivalence regarding students with disabilities," "competences needed to care for students with disabilities," and "enhancing care education for students with disabilities: demanding institutional support." Conclusion: Effective student health management depends on open communication channels and the establishment of strong connections among health teachers, school personnel, and parents of impaired students. To enhance the quality of care for children with disabilities, specialized education programs to improve teachers' healthcare competency should be developed. Additionally, specific guidelines for the range of medical treatments provided by health instructors, should be devised.