Considering Complex Challenges
Oxford Brookes University (Gipsy Lane Campus)
Research on the Validity and Reliability of the World Health Organization's Quality of Life Module in Elderly Individuals View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sebnem Yücel, Demet Akarçay Ulutaş, Nilgun Sarp, Recep Yücel
Based on career development, socialization and working process are generally accepted as a necessary and important phenomenon in the life of all people. In our age, even if a person does not work, he remains in the process of maturation and old age in both these periods. On the other hand, recent developments in medicine indicate the importance of quality of life as well as prolonging the aging period. Based on these general opinions, the aim of the research is to examine the validity and reliability of the scale for cultural differences and the quality of life in old age, socio-demographic differences in total scores and sub-dimensions. For this purpose, the quality of life of 148 elderly individuals was investigated in terms of socio-demographics. As a result of research, at the overall dimension or sub-dimension level; differences were found in terms of education level, marital status, smoking or not, a drug that is used regularly, and whether or not to have children. In addition, it has been observed that education level, marital status, and continuous drug and smoking use play a role in explaining the quality of life.
Featured Deaf Refugees: Mobilizing Agency in Double Displacement View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kate Mc Auliff
Deaf refugees face two simultaneous displacements. They are displaced from their homes, countries, and livelihoods by forced displacement. They are also displaced from the hearing world as deaf people and users of signed languages. Deaf refugees in Jordan navigate this double displacement by mobilizing their agency through connections to deaf networks across borders. This interdisciplinary study describes how deaf refugees are situated at the intersection of Deaf Studies, Refugee Studies, and Disability Studies. It highlights the main enabling and disabling factors of deaf refugee agency including language use and access, social capital, and intersectional power dynamics. The paper explores what implications a recognition of deaf refugee agency could have on institutional practice and policy. The aim of this study is to provide insight into how agency is mobilized by a marginalized community which is displaced in multiple ways, in this case, deaf refugees. This presentation is the culmination of PhD research conducted from 2019 to 2023. It documents and explores the experiences of deaf refugees in Jordan, primarily from Syria and Iraq. It used an inclusive research approach with deaf refugees in Amman & Irbid, Jordan to ensure research methods, knowledge creation, and outputs were led by deaf refugees as much as possible. Methods included interviews, focus groups, photo elicitation, and participant observation conducted in 2021 and 2022. This study also includes a review of the situation of displaced deaf people worldwide, collected through literature review.
The Use of In-depth Interview Data in an AI-based Pandemic Simulator View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Janaka Ekanayake
This paper describes how in-depth interview data was used to develop an AI-based simulator that can be used to predict COVID spread under different interventions and their impact on underprivileged social groups. This simulator can simulate different environments, such as educational zones, industrial zones, fishery zones, residential zones, etc. In order to obtain data to be fed into the simulator, in-depth interviews were conducted with 189 interviewers. The sample is purposively selected to cover different occupations such as teachers, drivers, office workers, factory workers, garment workers, school students, housewives, daily wage earners, farmers, and medical professionals. Based on the in-depth interview data, a location matrix in binary form for each individual was developed that has an hourly resolution. Using these location matrices, for each occupancy, a probability density function was derived for a given location. This information was used inside the AI simulator to determine the probability of contact tracing and then to predict COVID spread. The simulator can easily be adopted for other pandemics due to its modular nature.
