Search Results (20)

Near-death experiences (NDEs) encompass transformative existential experiences that lead to religious change. Although most previous research focused primarily on Western contexts, there remains less understanding of individuals’ interpretations of NDEs in pluralistic societies such as the Philippines. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined the relationship between NDEs and spiritual transformation in a sample of 683 Filipino adults who acknowledged having NDEs. Quantitative data were assessed in terms of levels of religiosity, NDE occurrence, and perceived spiritual change according to different demographics. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, and logistic regression. For the qualitative analysis, narrative responses on the reason why their spirituality increased, stayed the same, or decreased were thematically classified. Six focused phenomenological narratives are noted: altruism and helping others, challenges to spirituality, increased and strengthened religious practices, no changes or decreased faith, reflection and growth, and validation of divine presence. In addition, while the majority reported increased or unchanged spirituality following their NDE, only age emerged as a significant predictor of perceived spiritual change. Overall, findings highlight how personal experience, identity, and cultural beliefs shape religious meaning-making after NDEs. This study offers a culturally grounded understanding of spiritual change and highlights the value of a mixed-methods approach in religious studies. Full article

This research addresses the critical need for language preservation among the Higaonon indigenous community in Mindanao, Philippines, through the development of a culturally responsive mobile dictionary application. The Higaonon language faces significant endangerment due to generational language shift, limited documentation, and a scarcity of educational materials. Employing user-centered design principles and participatory lexicography, this study involved collaboration with tribal elders, educators, and youth to document and digitize Higaonon vocabulary across ten culturally significant semantic domains. Each Higaonon lexeme was translated into English, Filipino, and Cebuano to enhance comprehension across linguistic groups. The resulting mobile application incorporates multilingual search capabilities, offline access, phonetic transcriptions, example sentences, and culturally relevant design elements. An evaluation conducted with 30 participants (15 Higaonon and 15 non-Higaonon speakers) revealed high satisfaction ratings across functionality (4.81/5.0), usability (4.63/5.0), and performance (4.73/5.0). Offline accessibility emerged as the most valued feature (4.93/5.0), while comparative analysis identified meaningful differences in user experience between native and non-native speakers, with Higaonon users providing more critical assessments particularly regarding font readability and performance optimization. The application demonstrates how community-driven technological interventions can support indigenous language revitalization while respecting cultural integrity, intellectual property rights, and addressing practical community needs. This research establishes a framework for ethical indigenous language documentation that prioritizes community self-determination and provides empirical evidence that culturally responsive digital technologies can effectively preserve endangered languages while serving as repositories for cultural knowledge embedded within linguistic systems. Full article

The decline in colorectal cancer (CRC) due to screening success in the U.S. is inconsistent across populations and age groups. CHamorus (Chamorros) and Filipinos constitute minorities in the U.S. but comprise over 70% of the population in Guam where steep increases in CRC incidence occur before the age of 50, and only 53.9% of persons have met national screening standards. This preliminary study explored knowledge, cultural beliefs, and age-specific recommendations associated with CRC and screening. Five focus groups segregated by age and gender were conducted with persons aged 40 and above. Data were collected on knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and screening education recommendations. Focus group participants (n = 25) were predominantly CHamoru (60%), Filipino (32%), and female (56%). The mean age was 55. Participants preferred interventions that integrated storytelling from CRC survivors with emphasis on family education rather than limiting to screening-age adults. Multicoders performed an iterative collaborative analysis for the main themes: knowledge of CRC/screening primarily derives from family experiences; increased outreach is needed for men; use of personal narratives; and screening is motivated by family values and intergenerational consciousness. Findings can inform future studies on age- and culturally-tailored early detection strategies to improve CRC screening participation in Pacific populations. Full article

Background and Objectives: Numerous traditional and innovative approaches have been employed to understand and evaluate children’s food preferences and food and nutrition knowledge, recognizing their essential role in shaping good nutrition. Drawing as a projective technique allows children to express their unconscious thoughts and preferences through visual representation, distinguishing it from other methods by providing an insight into their inner feelings and perceptions that may not be easily articulated through verbal techniques. The main goals of the study are to use drawing as a projective technique to gain insights into children’s food preferences, and to examine the children’s current nutrition knowledge and dietary perceptions. Methods: This study involved school-aged children from four public schools in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, who met the inclusion criteria and provided parental consent and the children’s permission. Data collection included (a) questionnaires to measure food group and food frequency knowledge, the children’s opinions on food healthiness and likability, and (b) a drawing activity as a projective technique. The questionnaire scores and the specific foods on the children’s drawings were entered into an electronic worksheet and analyzed quantitatively. Results: The majority of Filipino school-aged children have a low (50%) to average (43%) level of food group knowledge and an average (62%) to low (32%) level of food frequency knowledge. The children can identify the healthiness of the food, but they express a liking for both healthy and unhealthy options. The children’s drawings showed a low preference for Glow food groups, including fruits and vegetables (47%), as compared to Grow foods (94%), Beverages (89%), and Go foods (85%) groups. “Rice and Egg”, the most paired items, indicated a preference among Filipino children. Gender-based analysis showed girls favored “Ice Cream”, “Bread”, “Apple”, and “Oranges” more than boys, but there were no significant gender differences found in Grow food group preferences. Conclusions: Children’s drawings are an effective, valuable complementary tool for understanding children’s food preferences, displaying the value of creative methods in gaining unique insights. The results highlight specific gaps in knowledge, such as the need for a better understanding of food groups and the importance of fruits and vegetables among children. Addressing these gaps in educational programs could enhance children’s food knowledge and encourage healthier dietary choices. Nutrition education programs might use interactive activities focused on food groups and emphasize the benefits of fruits and vegetables to promote better dietary habits for the improvement of children’s long-term health outcomes. Full article

NRAS belongs to the RAS family of GTPases. In colorectal cancer (CRC), NRAS mutations are rare compared to KRAS, but may lead to worse outcomes. We report the functional characterization of the novel NRAS mutants—G48C, Q43K, and E37K—identified in Filipino young-onset CRC patients. Unlike previously characterized NRAS mutants with no apparent effects on cell proliferation, these mutants enhanced proliferation of both HCT116 and NIH3T3 cells. This was confirmed in 3D spheroid assays to mimic the spatial organization of cells. G48C and E37K showed apoptosis resistance in both cell lines, and Q43K showed resistance in HCT116 cells. All three showed no effect on cellular migration in NIH3T3, but G48C enhanced the migration rate of HCT116 cells. Actin staining of NIH3T3 cells expressing the mutants showed a shrunken cytoplasm and transient structures associated with motility and invasiveness. Docking simulations show that GDP is only able to bind fully within the binding pocket of wild-type NRAS, but not in the mutants. Further, G48C, Q43K, and E37K all have less negative ΔG values, indicating a weaker GDP-binding affinity compared to wild-type NRAS. Taken together, the results suggest that oncogenic readouts of NRAS mutants are codon- and mutation-specific, with potential repercussions on the aggressiveness, resistance, and therapeutic response. Full article

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) poses significant health risks to both mothers and infants, emphasizing the need for early detection strategies to mitigate its impact. However, the existing diagnostic methods, particularly the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) administered in the second or third trimester, show limitations in the detection of GDM during its early stages. This study aimed to explore the potential of the genes Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase Receptor-type Gamma (PTPRG) and Immunoglobulin Kappa Variable 2D-28 (IGKV2D-28) as early indicators for GDM among Filipino pregnant women. Utilizing reverse transcription–quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), the gene expressions were analyzed in first-trimester blood samples obtained from 24 GDM and 36 non-GDM patients. The diagnostic performance of PTPRG and IGKV2D-28 was analyzed and evaluated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The findings revealed elevated expression levels of PTPRG and IGKV2D-28 within the GDM cohort. Remarkably, PTPRG exhibited a sensitivity of 83%, while IGKV2D-28 demonstrated a specificity of 94% at determined cut-off values. Combining both genes yielded an improved but limited diagnostic accuracy with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.63. This preliminary investigation of PTPRG and IGKV2D-28 sheds light on novel avenues for early GDM detection. While these findings are promising, further validation studies in larger cohorts are necessary to confirm these results and explore additional biomarkers to enhance diagnostic precision in GDM pregnancies and, ultimately, to improve maternal and fetal outcomes. Full article

Nutritional awareness is considered prevalent in today’s society. In effect, more people have been inclined to perform food calculations in the food they eat to improve their physical fitness and balance the meals they eat. In this study, the Internet of Things was used through a mobile application with Filipino meal recognition that was integrated into a weighing scale to simplify meal recognition and food calculation without individually scaling and measuring the macronutrients of each food. An ESP32 was programmed to determine the weight of the food sample. Moreover, a TensorFlow Lite Model was created using Teachable Machine, whereas the dataset comprised three Filipino meal combinations of rice, pork adobo, and pork giniling; rice, ginataang kalabasa, and pork giniling; and rice, ginataang kalabasa, and pork adobo. The model identified the 15 samples of Filipino meals per combination. The precision was 91.26% for the first meal combination, 82.73% for the second meal combination, and 85.46% for the third meal combination. One-factor ANOVA was conducted to determine the similarities of the actual and predicted macronutrient contents of the food samples, whereas 10 weight values of successfully determined food meals for each combination were used. The model recognized each Filipino food combination with an overall accuracy of 93.33%. The predicted macronutrient contents were similar to the actual macronutrient contents of the meal based on the statistical analysis performed. Full article

The current diverse opportunities available worldwide have caused an increase in the pursuit of changing jobs in the Philippines for greener pastures, leading to a decrease in organization efficiency due to career shifts or intentions for shifting. With the evident movement of workers, this study aimed to establish a model for determining the factors that influence job-seeking Filipino workers to shift careers and seek greener pastures by holistically analyzing variables using the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Value-Belief-Norm. A total of 210 valid responses among employees who shifted careers were collected through online surveys via social media platforms using purposive sampling. Partial least square structural equation modeling as the main multivariate tool was utilized to assess the hypothesized relationships. The findings of this study revealed that self-transcendence values in shaping personal norms and ascription to responsibility affected the intention to career shift or greener pasture-seeking behavior. In addition, subjective norms affected attitude, while organizational commitment negatively affected intention for greener pastures. It was seen that the factors that affect intention behavior the most among Filipinos were better opportunities, financial stability, workplace environment, and work–life balance—a notion that connects with the Protestant Work Ethics. It was evident that self-perception of a better career, growth, and overall profit merged to influence the intention of a career shift. It could be suggested that job rotation and job enhancement may reduce these intentions and lead to satisfaction among employees. Moreover, job roles may be reevaluated to identify (dis)satisfaction among employees, so the spearheading team may evaluate what actions are needed. Enhancement of skills and development through seminars and training may also be considered. Full article

In response to the recent formalization of Filipino Sign Language (FSL) and the lack of comprehensive studies, this paper introduces a real-time FSL gesture recognition system. Unlike existing systems, which are often limited to static signs and asynchronous recognition, it offers dynamic gesture capturing and recognition of 10 common expressions and five transactional inquiries. To this end, the system sequentially employs cropping, contrast adjustment, grayscale conversion, resizing, and normalization of input image streams. These steps serve to extract the region of interest, reduce the computational load, ensure uniform input size, and maintain consistent pixel value distribution. Subsequently, a Convolutional Neural Network and Long-Short Term Memory (CNN-LSTM) model was employed to recognize nuances of real-time FSL gestures. The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed technique over existing FSL recognition systems, achieving an impressive average accuracy, recall, and precision rate of 98%, marking an 11.3% improvement in accuracy. Furthermore, this article also explores lightweight conversion methods, including post-quantization and quantization-aware training, to facilitate the deployment of the model on resource-constrained platforms. The lightweight models show a significant reduction in model size and memory utilization with respect to the base model when executed in a Raspberry Pi minicomputer. Lastly, the lightweight model trained with the quantization-aware technique (99%) outperforms the post-quantization approach (97%), showing a notable 2% improvement in accuracy. Full article

Smartwatches enable users to easily monitor their health, self-quantify, and track various activities. However, manufacturers and researchers in the field of smartwatches must explore and improve perceived usability to enhance the user experience of consumers and increase the device’s adoption rate. Therefore, this study investigates the factors influencing the adoption of smartwatches among Filipinos, focusing on usability and demographic influences. This is performed by utilizing the UTAUT2 model to examine key factors. External variables are explored, including perceived usability and privacy. To analyze the data acquired, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was conducted. The results indicated that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, hedonic motivation, price value, habit, and behavioral intention significantly influence smartwatch adoption. Habit emerged as positively affecting intention to use and usage behavior. However, facilitating conditions were found not to be significant in influencing intention to use and usage behavior, and privacy was perceived as having an insignificant relationship with the intention to use smartwatches. These findings offer theoretical and practical implications for enhancing smartwatch design and usability, addressing the diverse needs of users, and expanding inclusivity in the market. Full article

The Philippines’ real estate (RE) market vis à vis its government’s collective efforts to accelerate its digital transformation faces prevalent illegal RE practices online on top of limited publicly accessible data for decision-making and decentralized and highly regional RE markets. As the middle-income millennials’ and Gen Zs’ purchasing power rises, these increasingly important consumer groups might fall prey to online RE colorums or make bad RE investment decisions. In anticipation of big data, ML, and AI becoming integral to the Philippine RE industry, this study extends the theory of the planned behavior model to account for RE investment and illegal practice and to build a theoretical basis for foundational models. A total of 400 Filipinos aged 15 to 42 from different regions in the country responded to a self-administered online survey questionnaire. The model was assessed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and was proven to be sufficient to explain the proposed model. Results from the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) revealed that during inflation, risk tolerance (RT), perceived property value (PPV), and aversion from illegal practice (IP) significantly influence millennials’ and Gen Zs’ intention to invest in the RE market, implying that they would consider prioritizing profitability at the expense of sustainability. Thus, a collective commitment to provide transparent and real-time data on RE KPIs and projects is necessary for safer and optimized operations while ensuring the sustainability of current and future projects. Full article

Many people have switched to gardening as their new hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Filipinos. With its increasing popularity, Filipinos called the new hobbyists “plantitas” and “plantitos” instead of the old-fashioned term “plant people”. Among different plants, succulents are one of the most popular for plant lovers as they can thrive with even minimal care, making them suitable to be an indoor/outdoor plant. This study aims to determine the various preferences of plantitas and plantitos based on succulent attributes using a conjoint analysis approach, and to discover the market segments using a k-means clustering approach. The attributes presented in this study are the types of succulents, succulent variegation, price, size of the succulent (in terms of diameter), size of the pot, pot material, and payment method. The conjoint analysis results indicated that the price was the attribute that significantly affected consumer buying behavior, followed by the diameter size of the succulent. On the other hand, the k-means cluster analysis identified three customer segments based on the buying frequency of customers, namely high-value customers, core-value customers, and lower-value customers. A marketing strategy for succulent sellers was proposed based on these segmentations, particularly on how to gain and attract more customers. This study is one of the first studies that analyzed the preferences related to succulent attributes. Finally, the conjoint analysis approach and k-means clustering in this study can be utilized to analyze succulent preferences worldwide. Full article

This study evaluated the clinical performance and overall utility of a multivariate index assay in detecting early-stage ovarian cancer in a Filipino population. This is a prospective cohort study among Filipino women undergoing assessment for an ovarian mass in a tertiary center. Patients diagnosed with early-stage ovarian cancer and who underwent a physical examination before level III specialist ultrasonographic and Doppler evaluation, multivariate index assay (MIA2G), and surgery for an adnexal mass were included in this study. Ovarian tumors were classified as high-risk for malignancy based on the IOTA-LR2 score. The ovarian imaging and biomarker results were correlated with the reference standard: surgico-pathologic findings. The MIA2G exhibited the best overall performance among individual classifiers with a sensitivity of 91.7% and NPV of 84.7%, with a concomitant higher sensitivity in early-stage disease, whether as an individual classifier (93.5%) or in serial combination with ultrasound (85.5%). The performance of biomarkers (specificity, positive predictive values, and AUROC) such as MIA2G and CA-125 significantly improved when combined with an ultrasound risk scoring approach (p < 0.01). MIA2G showed a higher sensitivity for detecting lesions among EOC and late-stage ovarian cancers than otherwise. The application of biomarkers for evaluating ovarian masses in our local setting is secondary to ultrasound but adopting multivariate index assays rather than CA-125 would increase the detection of early-stage ovarian cancers regardless of menopausal status. This is most relevant in areas where level III sonographers or gynecologic oncologists are limited and preoperative referrals to these specialists can improve the survival of our patients. Full article

The aim of this study was to investigate caregivers’ experiences of complementary feeding (CF) among the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (NHPI), and Filipino populations. Research focused on the timing of CF commencement, and the influence of transgenerational experience on feeding practices. The experiences and practices of those who fed human milk exclusively (HME), were compared to those who included infant formula (F&HM). Caregivers of a subset of 32 infants who were participating in a larger longitudinal study relating to CF and diet diversity, took part in voluntary in-depth interviews relating to CF practices. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Two researchers analyzed interview transcripts. Interrater reliability and saturation were established. Institutional Review Board exemption was confirmed prior to study commencement. Interviews with 29 caregivers of infants were included in this study. Only infants of the F&HM group had an early introduction to complementary foods (<4 months of age). Caregivers reported receiving conflicting advice from healthcare professionals (HCPs) in relation to timing of the introduction of complementary foods. Nonetheless, the majority of caregivers reported following the advice of HCPs. Extended family (including grandparents) played less of a role in infant feeding, compared to previous generations. While transgenerational practices were valued and included, ultimately, the perceived health and safety of the practice for infants influenced decisions. Full article

The present study examines the ways in which the Filipino Christian value of pakikipagkapwa (fellowship) can be seen and experienced in modern society. Using empirical phenomenology, this paper aims to (re)imagine the ways of cultivating ways of dialogue with religious others while understand the meaning of pakikipagkapwa (fellowship). This study explores the contemporary notions and practices of pakikipagkapwa among select Filipino Christians and how such cultural value fosters interreligious dialogue. Moreover, the study investigates the importance of dialogue between religious actors as they navigate the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors contend that pakikipagkapwa and interreligious dialogue build communities, support social cohesion, and help religious actors find meaning in difficult circumstances. Full article