BACKGROUND while low response rates need not introduce bias into research, having a lower percentage of responders does increase the potential for this to occur. This is of particular concern given the decline that has been occurring in response rates since the 1950s. However, there are various methods that can be incorporated into the study design, which can assist in increasing levels of part...

Rural aquaculture is the farming of aquatic organisms with extensive and semi-intensive husbandry practised by small-scale rural households for their consumption and income. From a field survey in Southeast Vietnam, using enterprise budget analysis and nonparametric tests with indices of change, adoption, and agreement, this study justifies that rural aquaculture is a good option for rural deve...

We present a discussion of the potential and anticipated impact of immersive VR touch workbenches for creative 3D work in engineering and art practice. The discussion highlights three recent interaction techniques developed for these applications. Based on this experience, we formulate a set of guidelines and domain specific challenges to guide future practitioners.

The nature of moral action versus moral judgment has been extensively debated in numerous disciplines. We introduce Virtual Reality (VR) moral paradigms examining the action individuals take in a high emotionally arousing, direct action-focused, moral scenario. In two studies involving qualitatively different populations, we found a greater endorsement of utilitarian responses-killing one in or...

The present research demonstrates that the visual perspective--own first-person versus observer's third-person--people use to picture themselves engaging in a potential future action affects their self-perceptions and subsequent behavior. On the eve of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, registered voters in Ohio were instructed to use either the first-person or the third-person perspective to...

The Live Birth Information System (SINASC) was implemented in 1990 for the purpose of providing information about the live-birth characteristics for the establishment of specific health indicators. This work evaluates the information quality of SINASC in relation to its data completeness and coverage for five municipalities from the State of Acre from 2005 to 2010. Lack of information (not fill...

Research was undertaken to evaluate alternative methods of selecting a sample of eligible respondents for the National Medical Expenditure Survey (NM ES) from the National Health Interview Survey (N HIS). This report presents estimates of the effects of alternative design options, obtained by statistical modeling techniques, for linking the NMES with the NH IS, The estimated survey costs for al...