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This paper aims to discuss the barriers to preventative breast cancer screening (BCS) among Muslim Syrian refugee women in a Western Canadian Prairie city.

Situated within a larger mixed-method study aimed at identifying barriers and facilitators to breast cancer (BC) preventative practices, the authors interviewed three key informants to get an in-depth understanding of the cultural, religious and social factors affecting knowledge of BC and BCS practices among Muslim Syrian refugee women.

Qualitative findings confirm quantitative results revealing that knowledge about BC and cultural and religious barriers on gender might translate into poor health outcomes for Muslim Syrian refugee women in a Western Canadian city.

This research has limitations related to the sample size and the lack of generalizability to all refugee women. Results indicate the need to develop culturally tailored intervention programs to increase breast awareness and participation in breast-self-examination, clinical breast examination and mammography. The study has implications for health-care policy. Muslim Syrian refugee women need to be educated about BC upon arrival in Canada to counteract low participation rates, promote positive health outcomes and decrease potential costs to the health-care system.

Evidence on Muslim Syrian refugee women’s knowledge and beliefs on BC is sparse. This study addressed this gap by documenting a lack of knowledge and barriers to BCS among Muslim Syrian refugee women.

Public investment programming is a complex exercise and involves a number of factors. These include social, economical, environmental, technological and political factors. In addition, each of the factors depends on many subfactors. For example, the economic factor depends on project impact on local and national economy, number of beneficiaries, and opportunity cost of work lost. The Public Projects Programming System (3PS) is mainly a decision support system aimed at helping senior decision makers in the public sector to program the implementation of public investment projects. A multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) approach was used based on the weighted average multi‐criteria analysis (WAMA) model. The structure (database, model base, and user interface) of the 3PS is presented. A case study, in the northern suburbs of Beirut, shows the implementation of the system in a real post conflict reconstruction environment in Lebanon.

This final chapter draws together the key findings presented in the preceding pages and considers emergent conclusions and implications for mental health and wellbeing in schools. The author draws upon the evidence presented by the book’s eclectic range of contributors and the health promoting schools’ (HPSs) framework to provide a road map of what an effective whole school approach (WSA) might look like moving forward. Crucially, lessons from recent crises in education, including COVID-19-driven changes in pathways to support, are highlighted as pivotal factors in a future vision which sees schools as an effective and sustainable frontline force to help tackle the global burden of child and adolescent mental health through a proactive, preventive stance. With this future focus in mind, next steps are considered in terms of developing effective and sustainable mental health and wellbeing support for all within healthy school settings.

This study aims to analyze major concerns facing the Palestinian local governments in order to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency in managing local governments.

A special questionnaire was developed to collect the perception of the municipalities' officials; thus qualitative data analysis has been done to analyze the answers.

The study found that the efficiency of local government is still limited in the Palestinian municipalities, including the absence of an internal auditor, the absence of written job descriptions for municipality functions, the weakness participation of the public. The study pointed out that the major‐managerial problems are similar to other experiences of emerging countries such as the undefined local‐central relation, the low participation and involvement of citizens in municipalities' activities and plans, and the lack of existing transparency aspects.

There is a need for open public‐official sessions of municipal councils and the need for periodical meetings for senior officials with the Mayer of the municipality; in addition, there is a need to conduct annual periodical evaluation for measuring the performance of municipal employees.

This paper presented the features of the local‐government performance in Palestine in order to enhance the management efficiency of local governments and enhance the contribution of the related groups of communities.

A non‐linear finite element program for concrete structures is outlined, with emphasis on the material modelling. It is shown that the package can be used with confidence in the analysis of practical structural forms. In addition, there is considerable potential for the application of the program to research and design.

The purpose of this paper is to present a hybrid meta-heuristic based on genetic algorithms (GAs), simulated annealing, variable neighborhood descent and path relinking for solving the variant of the unrelated parallel machine scheduling problem considering sequence-dependent setup times.

The authors carried out computational experiments on literature problem instances proposed by Vallada and Ruiz (2011) and Arnaout et al. (2010) to test the performance of the proposed meta-heuristic. The objective function adopted was makespan minimization, and the authors used relative deviation, average and population standard deviation as performance criteria.

The results indicate the competitivity of the proposed approach and its superiority in comparison with several other algorithms. In small instances proposed by Vallada and Ruiz (2011) and on small and large instances proposed by Arnaout et al. (2010), the proposed approach presented the best results in most tested problem instances.

In small instances proposed by Vallada and Ruiz (2011) and on small and large instances proposed by Arnaout et al. (2010), the proposed approach presented the best results in most tested problem instances.

The proposed approach presented high-quality results, with an innovative hybridization of a GA and neighborhood search algorithms, tested in diverse instances of literature. Furthermore, the case study demonstrated that the proposed approach is recommended for solving real-world problems.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate concerning community participation in school-based health education and health promotion, with regard to food and nutrition.

Based on empirical data generated over the course of one year of fieldwork in three rural communities and schools in Ecuador, the study examines community participation related to the implementation of the school feeding programme (SFP) in rural schools in Ecuador. The conceptual framework for the study is shaped by the concepts of student and community participation within the health promoting school (HPS) paradigm.

The findings help identify and portray different forms of community participation, ranging from a total absence of meaningful participation, though very limited, to consequential participation determined as community influence on the SFP practices to meet the community needs, priorities and systems of meanings.

The study shows that the meaningful participation of the parents and community members in small rural schools in a low- to middle-income country such as Ecuador can be linked to an empowered stance towards the SFP so that it is better tuned to local conditions, priorities and systems of meaning. School leadership, geographical characteristics and internal community organization seem to influence how participation is valued and enacted. Challenges remain in the interpretations of community participation, including counter- and non-participation of members.

The study contributes to an understanding of policy implementation and the implications of a HPS approach to health education and health promotion in small rural schools.

This qualitative case study aims to identify and analyse the factors influencing the implementation and effectiveness of electronic health record systems (EHRS) in primary health-care (PHC) facilities in Tanzania. This study aims to explore ways to optimize the use of EHRS for better health-care service delivery.

The study uses a qualitative case study design. Data were collected through interviews and focus groups conducted with health-care workers and information and communication technology officers at the PHC facilities in Tanzania. Purposive sampling and data source triangulation were used to address potential biases and limitations associated with the study’s small sample size.

This study identifies several key findings related to the implementation and effectiveness of EHRS in Tanzanian PHC facilities. The primary obstacles include inadequate technical infrastructure, poor internet connectivity and insufficient financial resources. The study suggests a comprehensive strategy for improving EHRS, emphasizing patient and health-care professional involvement in system design, investments in technical infrastructure and connectivity, data quality and accuracy and ongoing technical support and training.

This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge by offering a nuanced understanding of the Tanzanian health-care context. It emphasizes the need for tailored solutions and strategies specific to the region’s challenges and opportunities. The study’s originality lies in its focus on EHRS in the Tanzanian context, providing valuable insights for future initiatives. A key policy implication underscores the importance of a supportive regulatory framework, dedicated resources and consistent stakeholder communication for successful EHRS implementation.

The use of modern technology has many challenges and risks. However, by collaborating with schoolchildren, ideas to effectively promote health and learning in school can be identified. The purpose of this paper is to examine how a participatory approach can deepen the understanding of how schoolchildren relate to and use gamification as a tool to promote physical activity and learning.

Inspired by the concept and process of empowerment and child participation, the methodological focus of this study was on consulting schoolchildren. During a two-month period, 18 schoolchildren (10-12 years old) participated in workshops to create game ideas that would motivate them to be physically active and learn in school.

The phenomenological analysis resulted in one main theme, “Playing games for fun to be the best I can be.” This consisted of four themes with two sub-themes each. The findings offer insights on how to increase physical activity and health education opportunities using serious games in school.

The knowledge gained provides gamification concepts and combinations of different technological applications to increase health and learning, as well as motivational aspects suggested by the schoolchildren. The findings are discussed with health promotion and health education in mind.

This study aims to investigate the behavioural intention and adoption of internet banking (IB) among clients of local and foreign Islamic banks in Malaysia.

Survey questionnaires were distributed among the Islamic banks’ clients at two main states, namely, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. The number of clients involved is 319 (n = 319). The data was analysed using the partial least square (PLS) and theoretically, the research framework in this study is guided by the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2).

The smart PLS analysis yielded three main outcomes, namely, the variables such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, price value, facilitating conditions and habit have a positive influence over the behavioural intention and subsequently lead to the adoption of IB. The other two variables, namely, social influence and hedonic motivation were negatively-related and insignificant for behavioural intention. Third, this paper also noticed that facilitating conditions and habits have a direct relationship with the adoption of IB.

Based on the findings, Islamic banks can take necessary action to design a better policy to further accelerate the usage of IB among their client. By identifying those factors, this, perhaps, can allow Islamic banks to invest more ideas on those significant factors that influence their interest, and subsequently leads to good business to Islamic banks as the clients nowadays are looking for simplicity and convenience factors when using IB.

This research is expected to enhance existing literature on internet banking, especially in Islamic banking research on the technological edge. Limited research has been done in Malaysia, particularly on the intention and continuous adoption of IB in Islamic banks using the UTAUT2 framework. This would be breakthrough research in identifying factors that influence customers’ continuous adoption of IB.