| 1. |
- Astor, Kim, et al.
(author)
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Maternal postpartum depression impacts infants' joint attention differentially across cultures
- 2022
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In: Developmental Psychology. - : American Psychological Association (APA). - 0012-1649 .- 1939-0599. ; 58:12, s. 2230-2238
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We assessed whether the negative association between maternal postpartum depression (PPD) and infants’ development of joint attention (gaze following) generalizes from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) to Majority World contexts. The study was conducted in Bhutan (N = 105, M = 278 days, 52% males) but also draws from publicly available Swedish data (N = 113, M = 302 days, 49% males). We demonstrate that Bhutanese and Swedish infants’ development follows the same trajectory. However, Bhutanese infants’ gaze following were not related to maternal PPD, which the Swedish infants’ were. The results support the notion that there are protecting factors built into the interdependent family model. Despite all the benefits of being raised in a modern welfare state, it seems like Swedish infants, to an extent, are more vulnerable to maternal mental health than Bhutanese infants.
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| 2. |
- Juvrud, Joshua, et al.
(author)
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High quality social environment buffers infants’ cognitive development from poor maternal mental health : Evidence from a study in Bhutan
- 2022
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In: Developmental Science. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 1363-755X .- 1467-7687. ; 25:3
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Poor maternal mental health negatively impacts cognitive development from infancy to childhood, affecting both behavior and brain architecture. In a non-western context (Thimphu, Bhutan), we demonstrate that culturally-moderated factors such as family, community social support, and enrichment may buffer and scaffold the development of infant cognition when maternal mental health is poor. We used eye-tracking to measure early building blocks of cognition: attention regulation and social perception, in 9-month-old Bhutanese infants (N = 121). The cognitive development of Bhutanese infants in richer social environments was buffered from poor maternal mental health, while for infants in environments with lower rates of protective social environment factors, worse maternal mental health significantly predicted greater costs for infant attention, a fundamental building block cognition. International policies and interventions geared to improve maternal mental health and child health outcomes should incorporate each regions’ unique family, cultural, and community support structures.
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| 3. |
- Atif, Yacine, 1967-, et al.
(author)
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A fuzzy logic approach to influence maximization in social networks
- 2020
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In: Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing. - : Springer. - 1868-5137 .- 1868-5145. ; 11:6, s. 2435-2451
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Within a community, social relationships are paramount to profile individuals’ conduct. For instance, an individual within a social network might be compelled to embrace a behaviour that his/her companion has recently adopted. Such social attitude is labelled social influence, which assesses the extent by which an individual’s social neighbourhood adopt that individual’s behaviour. We suggest an original approach to influence maximization using a fuzzy-logic based model, which combines influence-weights associated with historical logs of the social network users, and their favourable location in the network. Our approach uses a two-phases process to maximise influence diffusion. First, we harness the complexity of the problem by partitioning the network into significantly-enriched community-structures, which we then use as modules to locate the most influential nodes across the entire network. These key users are determined relatively to a fuzzy-logic based technique that identifies the most influential users, out of which the seed-set candidates to diffuse a behaviour or an innovation are extracted following the allocated budget for the influence campaign. This way to deal with influence propagation in social networks, is different from previous models, which do not compare structural and behavioural attributes among members of the network. The performance results show the validity of the proposed partitioning-approach of a social network into communities, and its contribution to “activate” a higher number of nodes overall. Our experimental study involves both empirical and real contemporary social-networks, whereby a smaller seed set of key users, is shown to scale influence to the high-end compared to some renowned techniques, which employ a larger seed set of key users and yet they influence less nodes in the social network.
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| 4. |
- Berglund, Anders, 1956-, et al.
(author)
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"How research came inside me as a new knowledge" : An inside perspective from two Bhutanese students on learning research in Computing Education
- 2018
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In: 2018 6th International Conference on Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering (LaTICE). - : IEEE. - 9781538678978 ; , s. 98-102
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Scholars have argued that there is no simple definition for research due to a wide variety of disciplines and educational contexts; how students are involved in research may vary a lot with a discipline, and with national and regional curricula within a particular discipline. The present study advances autoethnographic accounts of two Bhutanese students' participation in research. The context of participation is their exchange period, and specifically their attendance at a particular Computing Education Research course, at Uppsala University. The autoethnographic epiphanies that our report suggest transformations in perspective as to what research is and what it may provide personally. The students coauthored the present paper, which, we hope, helped in generating a plausible autoethnographic text, while manifesting their continued interest in research.
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| 5. |
- Berglund, Anders, 1956-, et al.
(author)
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The exchange programme between new and different partners, Royal University of Bhutan and Uppsala University
- 2020
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In: 2020 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE). - 9781728189611 - 9781728189628
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This WiP paper discusses difficulties, but also gains, in starting new collaborations, mainly when the universities differ: different natures of their strengths and weaknesses, acting in different contexts and having different international recognitions. At the same time, it is the differences that make exchanges fruitful and opens for new learning experiences. An example of such a collaboration between asymmetric partners can be found in the Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, Sweden and College of Science and Technology, Royal University of Bhutan.
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| 6. |
- Dukpa, Dorji, et al.
(author)
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Applied dendroecology informs the sustainable management of Blue Pine forests in Bhutan
- 2018
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In: Dendrochronologia. - : Elsevier BV. - 1125-7865 .- 1612-0051. ; 49, s. 89-93
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Tree ring science is a new discipline in Bhutan but has contributed substantially to our understanding of climate history and informed sustainable forest management practices in the country. This paper describes dendroecological contributions to the second aspect for Blue Pine using three case studies. i) The effects of livestock grazing impact on Blue Pine radial growth were quantified. Radial growth increment was tendentially higher after three years of livestock exclosure, as compared to continued grazing. However, differences remained statistically not significant, likely due to the brevity of the treatment period. ii) Radial growth rates of Blue Pine were characterized across a 400m elevation gradient. Cumulative radial growth over 40 years differed by a factor of more than three between the low and the high end of the gradient. However, below 2300 m, radial growth showed a continuous decline from 1990, likely as a results of drought due to climate change. iii) Effects of three levels of prescribed thinning of pole stage (DBH 30-50 cm) Blue Pine in central Bhutan showed distinct response to thinning. Heavy thinning lead to a thinning shock in the year after harvest and did not lead to significantly higher radial growth as compared to moderate thinning, which is thus recommended for the species. A positive thinning effect remained for seven years post operation. The case studies were incorporated into national guidelines on sustainable forest management in Bhutan and prove the demand for tree ring based research to inform policy and practice.
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| 7. |
- Lederman, Judith S., et al.
(author)
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Completing the progression establishing an international baseline of primary, middle and secondary students’ views of scientific inquiry
- 2023
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In: International Journal of Science Education. - : Routledge. - 0950-0693 .- 1464-5289.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Knowledge of scientific inquiry (SI) is considered essential to the development of an individual's Scientific Literacy (SL) and therefore, SI is included in many international science education reform documents. Two previous large scale international studies assessed the SI understandings of students entering middle school and secondary students at the end of their formal K-12 science education. The purpose of this international project was to use the VASI-E to collect data on what primary level students have learned about SI in their first few years of school. This study adds to previous research to bridge the landscape of SI understandings now with representation from primary, middle and high school samples. A total of 4,238 students from 35 countries/regions spanning six continents participated in the study. The results show that globally, primary students are not adequately informed about SI for their age group. However, when compared with the students in the previous international studies (grades seven and 12), the primary students' understandings were surprisingly closer to the levels of understanding of SI of the secondary school students than those in the seventh grade study.
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| 8. |
- Memedi, Mevludin, 1983-, et al.
(author)
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An interface for IoT : feeding back health-related data to Parkinson's disease patients
- 2018
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In: Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks. - : MDPI. - 2224-2708. ; 7:1, s. 1-16
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents a user-centered design (UCD) process of an interface for Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients for helping them to better manage their symptoms. The interface is designed to visualize symptom and medication information, collected by an Internet of Things (IoT)-based system, which will consist of a smartphone, electronic dosing device, wrist sensor and a bed sensor. In our work, the focus is on measuring data related to some of the main health-related quality of life aspects such as motor function, sleep, medication compliance, meal intake timing in relation to medication intake, and physical exercise. A mock-up demonstrator for the interface was developed using UCD methodology in collaboration with PD patients. The research work was performed as an iterative design and evaluation process based on interviews and observations with 11 PD patients. Additional usability evaluations were conducted with three information visualization experts. Contributions include a list of requirements for the interface, results evaluating the performance of the patients when using the demonstrator during task-based evaluation sessions as well as opinions of the experts. The list of requirements included ability of the patients to track an ideal day, so they could repeat certain activities in the future as well as determine how the scores are related to each other. The patients found the visualizations as clear and easy to understand and could successfully perform the tasks. The evaluation with experts showed that the visualizations are in line with the current standards and guidelines for the intended group of users. In conclusion, the results from this work indicate that the proposed system can be considered as a tool for assisting patients in better management of the disease by giving them insights on their own aggregated symptom and medication information. However, the actual effects of providing such feedback to patients on their health-related quality of life should be investigated in a clinical trial.
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| 9. |
- Tshering, G., et al.
(author)
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Understanding security in the government's use of blockchain technology with value focused thinking approach
- 2020
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In: Journal of Enterprise Information Management. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1741-0398 .- 1758-7409. ; 33:3, s. 519-540
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose: The purpose of the research is to assess security concerns in government's use of Blockchain technology through the lens of value focused thinking (VFT) approach.Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative methods such as open ended questions and interviews were used to gather data and the data was analysed in a structured approach to formulate a means-ends network of objectives. The data were collected from eight interviews of selected participants.Findings: The findings are 35 objectives of which ten are fundamental objectives related to the values of identity, trust, data privacy, transparency, integrity, public service delivery, cost, availability of public information, responsibility and usability.Practical implications: The study implies that governments or private organisations building blockchain solutions for governments can benefit from insights on values to focus on in blockchain security; and the current research serves as a base to understand more on blockchain use in the governments as well as security values and application of VFT approach for future academic researchers in this area.Social implications: It is a need-driven approach in which blockchain is assessed to ensure its fit to societal needs and public values. Originality/value: It is first of its kind in studying security in blockchain use by government through the lens of VFT approach, and it provides insights of values that are of importance to further blockchain use in the government.
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