Search results

Family planning (FP) services through the lens of human rights are not well known in Nepal. This study aims to assess Family Planning 2020: Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning and identify factors affecting contraceptive use among HIV-infected women living in rural Far Western Nepal.

This study conducted a cross-sectional survey using self-designed proforma. To assess the association between contraceptive use and independent variables, this study calculated adjusted odd ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) V.20.

Only 37.8% of participants had access to full range of contraceptive methods, and only 57.5% of participants received proper counseling. Agency/autonomy, transparency/accountability and voice/participation were practiced by 43.7%, 23.4% and 19.7% of participants, respectively. Husband’s support (AOR = 4.263; 95% CI: 1.640–11.086), availability of FP services in their locality (AOR = 2.497; 95% CI: 1.311–4.754), employment (AOR = 3.499; 95% CI: 1.186–10.328) and postpartum period (AOR = 0.103; 95% CI: 0.023–0.475) were significantly associated with contraceptive use.

Health-care providers’ and program managers’ perspectives were not examined.

Findings of this study will be useful for making strategic plan on human rights-based approach to FP.

Expanding access to contraceptive information and services and strengthening autonomy, accountability and participation are key to human rights-based approach to FP.

This study identified that inadequate counselling, nonavailability of full range of contraceptive methods, low level of autonomy, accountability and participation were key bottlenecks in fulfilling human rights-based approach to FP.

National identity has a profound impact on building a modern state, maintaining social stability and promoting economic development. Based on three waves of data collected from the World Values Survey (WVS) in Hong Kong between 2005 and 2018, this study aims to examine the changes in the national identity awareness of Hong Kongese over time.

The data used in this paper originate from the WVS. The WVS is a cross-country time-series survey that has been carried out in seven waves in 85 countries around the world, since 1981. There are three waves of data involving Hong Kong, which were obtained from the surveys in 2005, 2014 and 2018.

This study examined the changes in the national identity awareness of Hong Kongese over time and found that this has shown both continuity and rupture. Extreme groups lacking national identity have emerged and become more common over the decades and the elites’ national identity is much stronger than that of the lower and middle classes. It also shows that political trust, social capital, subjective well-being and possession of authoritarian personality have strong explanatory power for the changes in Hong Kongese national identity over time, but their explanatory strength varies across eras.

Based on three waves of surveys conducted by the WVS in Hong Kong in 2005, 2014 and 2018, respectively, this paper charts these changes over time and explores the differences in how they are influenced by political trust, social capital, subjective well-being and authoritarian personality.

Solder bumps for chip interconnections are downsizing from current approximately 100 µm to the expected 1 µm in future. As a result, the Cu-Ni cross-interaction in Cu/Solder/Ni solder joints will be more complicated and then strongly influence the growth of the intermetallic compounds (IMCs). Thus, it is critical to understand the fundamental aspects of interfacial reaction in micro solder joints. This paper aims to reveal the effect mechanism of reflow temperature and solder size on the interfacial reaction in Cu/Solder/Ni solder joints.

The Cu-Ni cross-interaction in the Cu/Sn/Ni micro solder joints with 50 and 100 µm solder sizes at 250°C and 300°C were observed, respectively. The line-type interconnects were soaked in silicone oil, and the temperature of the line-type interconnects was 250 ± 3°C and 300 ± 3°C, which were monitored by a fine K-type thermocouple, and followed by an isothermal aging process at various times. After aging, the specimens were removed from the silicone oil and cooled in the air to room temperature.

The major interfacial reaction product on both interfaces was (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅, and the asymmetric growth of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅, evidenced by the thickness of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ IMCs at the Sn/Ni interface was always larger than that at the Sn/Cu interface, resulted from the directional migration of Cu atoms toward the Sn/Ni interface under Cu concentration gradient. The morphology of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ IMC at Sn/Cu interface was columnlike at 250°C, and which changed from columnlike to scallop with large aspect ratio at 300°C, while that at Sn/Ni interface gradually evolved from needlelike to the mixture of needlelike and layered at 250°C, and which evolved from needlelike to scallop with large aspect ratio at 300°C. The evolution of morphology of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ is attributed to the content of Ni. Furthermore, the results indicate that the Cu-Ni cross-interaction was stronger with small solder size and relatively low temperature in the Cu/Sn/Ni micro solder joints.

The asymmetric growth of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ in the Cu/Sn/Ni micro solder joints, evidenced by the thickness of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ IMCs at the Sn/Ni interface, was always larger than that at the Sn/Cu interface. The morphology evolution of (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ IMC at both interfaces was attributed to the content of Ni. The Cu-Ni cross-interaction was stronger with small solder size and relatively low temperature in the Cu/Sn/Ni micro solder joints.

Deep excavation in soft clay often causes additional deformations to surroundings. Then, if deformations cannot be predicted reasonably, the adjacent buildings may be threatened by the deep excavation. Based on the good field observations from ten deep excavations in Hangzhou, this paper aims to thoroughly investigate the characteristics of wall deflections and ground settlements induced by deep excavations.

On the basis of good field observation of ten deep excavations, the performances of excavations, supported by contiguous pile in Hangzhou, were studied, and also compared with other case histories.

The maximum wall deflections (dhm) rang mostly from 0.7 to 1.2 per cent H_e, where He is the final excavation depth, larger than those in Taipei and Shanghai. The observed maximum ground settlement in the Hangzhou cases generally ranges from 0.2 to 0.8 per cent H_e. Then, the settlement influence zone extends to a distance of 2.0-4.0 H_e from the excavation. The relatively large movements and influence zones in Hangzhou may be attributed to low stability numbers, large excavation widths and the creep effect. The excavation width is justified to have a significant influence on the wall deflection. Therefore, to establish a semi-empirical formula for predicting the maximum wall deflection, it is necessary to include the factor of excavation width.

The relevant literature concentrated on the characteristics of deep excavations supported by the contiguous pile wall in Hangzhou soft clay can rarely be found. Based on the ten deep excavations with good field observation in Hangzhou, the characteristics of wall deflection and ground settlements were comprehensively studied for the first time, which can provide some theoretical support for similar projects.

Noise abatement is one of the key techniques for Partial Discharge (PD) on-line measurement and monitoring. However, how to enhance the efficiency of PD signal noise suppression is a challenging work. Hence, this study aims to improve the efficiency of PD signal noise abatement.

In this approach, the time–frequency characteristics of PD signal had been obtained based on fast kurtogram and S-transform time–frequency spectrum, and these characteristics were used to optimize the parameters for the signal matching over-complete dictionary. Subsequently, a self-adaptive selection of matching atoms was realized when using Matching Pursuit (MP) to analyze PD signals, which leading to seldom noise signal element was represented in sparse decomposition.

The de-noising of PD signals was achieved efficiently. Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method has good adaptability and significant noise abatement effect compared with Empirical Mode Decomposition, Wavelet Threshold and global signal sparse decomposition of MP.

A self-adaptive noise abatement method was proposed to improve the efficiency of PD signal noise suppression based on the signal sparse representation and its MP algorithm, which is significant to on-line PD measurement.

The purpose of this paper is to propose whistleblowing judgment (WBJ), positive mood (PM), and organizational ethical culture (OEC) as predictors of whistleblowing intention (WBI).

The study obtains the data from 364 usable questionnaires collected from Chinese employees of ten banks in China.

WBJ explains a high variance in WBI while OEC moderate the relationship. A three‐way interaction effect is observed, in which organizational culture affects the strength of PM as a moderator.

Findings are interpreted with respect to theories of moral psychology and organizational behavior. Theoretical implications and limitations of the study are discussed, including potential self‐report bias and self‐selection bias.

The effect of PM on whistleblowing decision making depends on people's perceptions of OEC. Only when people perceive their organizational culture to be unethical do the effect of PM come into play.

To realize the operation optimizing of today’s distribution power system (DPS), like economic dispatch, contingency analysis, and reliability and security assessment etc., it is beneficial and indispensable that a faster linear load flow method is adopted with a reasonable accuracy. Considering the high R/X branch ratios and unbalanced features of DPS, the purpose of this paper is to propose a faster and non-iterative linear load flow solution for DPS.

Based on complex function theory, the derivations of the injection current linear approximation have been proposed for the balanced and the single-, double- and three-phase unbalanced loads of DPS on complex plane. Then, a simple and direct linear load flow has been developed with loop-analysis theory and node-branch incidence matrix.

The methodology is appropriate for balanced and single-, double- and three-phase hybrid distribution system with different load models. It provides a fast and robust load flow method with a satisfactory accuracy to handle the problems of DPS whenever the load flow solutions are required.

The distributed generators (DGs) with unity or fixed power factors can be easily included. But the power and voltage nodes cannot be dealt with directly and need to be further studied.

By combining the current linear approximation with the loop theory-based method, a new linear load flow method for DPS has been proposed. The method is valid and acute enough for balanced and unbalanced systems and has no convergent problems.

This article reviews the quantitative marketing literature on artificial intelligence (AI) through an economics lens. We apply the framework in Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence to systematically categorize 96 research papers on AI in marketing academia into five levels of impact, which are prediction, decision, tool, strategy, and society. For each paper, we further identify each individual component of a task, the research question, the AI model used, and the broad decision type. Overall, we find there are fewer marketing papers focusing on strategy and society, and accordingly, we discuss future research opportunities in those areas.

The purpose of this study is to present a simplified analytical method to estimate ground lateral displacement due to excavation. Excavations of foundation pit will inevitably lead to soil movements that may adversely impact surrounding facilities or structures. Thus, estimation of the ground displacement induced by excavation is essential in engineering practice.

Based on a theory of elastic mechanics, a simplified analytical method for predicting the ground lateral displacement resulting from foundation pit excavation is proposed.

As the distance from the soil to the supporting structure increases, the maximum ground lateral displacement decreases nonlinearly but at a reduced rate. Poisson’s ratio of soil has a mild influence on the ground lateral displacement, whereas the influence of the supporting structure’s deflection modes is significant.

The advantage of the proposed simplified analytical method lies in that it considers the supporting structure’s arbitrary deflections, giving it wider practical applicability than previous methods.