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Purpose – This study investigates the sociodemographics, late entry to antiretroviral therapy (ART), and clinical markers associated with AIDS-related mortality.

Methodology/Approach – Applying retrospective cohort design, 960 medical records of people who died of AIDS, from October 2006 to December 2014, were accessed from the ART center at tertiary health care center of Ranchi (India).

Findings – With useable data from 889 medical records revealed that the majority of people who died of AIDS consisted of married males in the age group of 19–40 years who were truck drivers, migrant laborers, and of rural origins. The median survival period was below 3 months following the ART. Males and people on the pre-ART group had a shorter survival period than their counterparts. Early mortality was associated with lower CD4+ T cell counts, the third or fourth clinical stage, ambulatory or bed-ridden functional status, and poor medication adherence.

Research limitations/implications – This study was limited to the analysis of AIDS deceased people only; it did not compare the survival duration with living people on ART. The lower CD4+ T cell counts and medication adherence, being strong predictors of mortality, can be addressed to attain higher survival rates of people who have AIDS.

Originality/Value of Paper – This is the first study conducted in the tribal-populated region, covering a large sample of 889 cases. Unique findings of this study update the existing data on AIDS-related mortality.

Over 8 per cent of the Dutch nursing home population is bedfast, and this number is slowly increasing. The quality of life (QoL) of this population is lower than that of residents who are still mobile. Little research has been conducted on how to improve the QoL of this bedfast population, particularly through making technological adjustments to the bed and the direct surroundings. The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the QoL of bedfast residents and how to improve this through technology.

A mixed-method multi-case study with thematic analysis was conducted in two nursing homes with seven participants based on semi-structured interviews and Short Form-12 questionnaire.

The major causes of the experienced low QoL were the limited opportunities for engaging in social contacts with others, and coping with the dependency on other people and having limited control. Participants suggested improvements of QoL through the application of modern communication technologies to engage in social contacts and to control the bed itself and environment around the bed.

The results may help improve the design of the bed and the direct environment in order to improve the QoL of bedfast nursing home residents.

The QoL of bedfast nursing home residents has not been studied before in relation to the bed itself and technological solutions that may help improve the QoL and level of control.

This paper estimates the impact of public medical resources on morbidity indicators. Since health status also depends on a number of factors that are not directly related to health itself, the demographic, socioeconomic and life‐style characteristics of those individuals who are included in the sample are examined. The estimations are carried out using probability regressions and two‐part models in which it is assumed that health resources are exogenous. The results indicate that increases in public health expenditure improve both psychological and physical health.

The purpose of this paper is to study and compare knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly of health volunteers before and after the increase in ability program participation.

Quasi experimental research includes one group pretest-posttest design. The research was conducted from January to March 2018. The samples were 30 health volunteers in Nakorn Pathom Province selected by purposive sampling. They were all female, aged 20–50 years, with minimal education level of early secondary school and were current or former health volunteers. The increase ability program consisted of lecture and skill practice by demonstration and individual replay demonstration. The program duration was 30 h with 19 h of skill practice and 2 days of site visit to the dependent elderly’ homes. The tool for collecting data was a questionnaire for the evaluation of knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly. The data were analyzed by means, standard deviation and paired t-test.

After the increase in ability program participation, the health volunteers had very good level of knowledge in basic care for the dependent elderly with statistical significance (p<0.01) and had most correct skills in basic care for the dependent elderly with a score of 9 from 11 items.

Knowledge and skills in basic care for the dependent elderly of the health volunteers increased to a very good level after program participation. Thailand should provide periodic and continuous training program to increase health volunteers’ knowledge and skills in basic elderly care to provide care for the elderly with most benefits.

To date, limited studies have examined the country-specific social institutions to explain the informal entrepreneurial activities of women, particularly, within the context of the Middle East. This research paper attempts to close this gap through identifying the contextual and personal factors of domestic informal female entrepreneurs (DIFE) within the context of Turkey as a representative case of the Middle East region. The chapter takes national culture as the external context to identify the informal institutions that shape women's informal entrepreneurial activities and uses the Globe Project cultural dimensions to describe the sociocultural context. The qualitative research presented here was conducted with 38 DIFEs who participated in an EU-funded project in Turkey.

The profile of the informal domestic female entrepreneur reflects a middle-aged woman, married with children, literate with a low-level education and a necessity-type entrepreneur at the beginning who gradually evolves into a pull-type sociocultural entrepreneur in time. The findings show that, the perceived sociocultural environment can be categorized as a socially supportive culture – SSC (Hayton and Cacciotti, 2013, p. 713) which is one of the facilitators of informal entrepreneurial activities and creates a fertile and socially legitimized ground for the informal commercial activities of women in Turkey.

The purpose of this paper is to review the International Robot Exhibition (IREX) in Tokyo, Japan 2011, with emphasis on the new trend of the Japanese robot industry.

This paper is based on in‐depth interviews with exhibitors and the reporter's insight into the Japanese robot industry.

A big change is observed in the direction of the Japanese industrial robotics in an attempt to cope with the increasing demand from the emerging nations and to create new business in domestic Japan.

This is the first report describing the change in the Japanese robot industry after the great earthquake and tsunami.

WHEN The Crock of Gold was first published in London in 1912, this extraordinary prose‐fantasy, described by a reviewer in The Times as ‘an inspired medley of topsy‐turvydom’, was hailed as a veritable masterpiece from the hands of a new poet of the same school with Yeats and Synge. That poet was, of course, James Stephens, the poet whom Sean O'Casey would later refer to as ‘the jesting poet with a radiant star in's coxcomb’, and to whom he dedicated, in 1949, his favourite play, Cock‐a‐Doodle Dandy. The reviewer in Punch at the time likened The Crock of Gold to ‘a fairy fantasy, elvish, grotesque, realistic, allegorical, humorous, satirical, idealistic, and poetical by turns … and very beautiful’.

AUTOMATION Westinghouse Electric continues its research project into automated assembly lines. The Company has been awarded $1.4 million by the U.S. National Science Foundation to carry on its work. The project aims at producing a computer‐controlled assembly line to make small motors using a batch manufacturing method. The system is to include robot arms and other hardware of a sensory nature, including the use of vision. The Westinghouse development is well advanced and an assembly line is expected to be in operation, complete with both hardware and software, by the earlier 1980s.