Search Results (23)

This article describes the design and implementation of a Specialized Mental Health Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program for clergy and theological students of all spiritual, religious, and cultural backgrounds. Addressing the need for mental health competencies in religious leaders and chaplains, this training equips participants with specialized skills in individual and group mental health spiritual assessment and spiritual care. Program participants become effective members of a multiprofessional team, gain knowledge of mental health philosophies of concordant and discordant spiritual orienting systems, and gain greater relational capacity. The Mental Health CPE Program includes traditional and novel CPE elements: (1) clinical practice, (2) group and individual supervision, (3) didactic presentations and journal clubs, (4) verbatim (Protocols of patient encounters) and case presentations, (5) group leadership training and practica, and (6) experience of faith reflections. This article provides insights into the origins of CPE, a description of the implementation in a free-standing psychiatric hospital, and observed developmental changes of program participants. We include graduates’ anecdotal feedback about their learning experience and its impact on their leadership in chaplaincy and in religious communities. Additionally, we report on areas for future development and further study of the effectiveness of Mental Health CPE. Full article

In the 21st-century global economy, the rapid growth of the finance industry, particularly in personal credit, fuels economic growth and market prosperity. However, the rapid expansion of personal credit business has brought explosive growth in the amount of data, which puts forward higher requirements for the risk management of financial institutions. To solve this problem, this paper constructs an intelligent evaluation model of personal credit risk under the background of big data. Firstly, based on the forest optimization feature selection algorithm, combined with initialization based on chi-square check, adaptive global seeding, and greedy search strategies, key risk factors are accurately identified from high-dimensional data. Then, the XGBoost algorithm is used to evaluate the credit risk level of customers, and the traditional Sparrow Search Algorithm is improved by using Tent chaotic mapping, sine and cosine search, reverse learning, and Cauchy mutation strategy to improve the optimization performance of algorithm parameters. Finally, using the Lending Club dataset for empirical analysis, the experiment shows that the model improves the accuracy of personal credit risk assessment and enhances the ability of risk control. Full article

Credit scoring is a cornerstone of financial risk management, enabling financial institutions to assess the likelihood of loan default. However, widely recognized contemporary credit risk metrics, like FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) or Vantage scores, remain proprietary and inaccessible to the public. This study aims to devise an alternative credit scoring metric that mirrors the FICO score, using an extensive dataset from Lending Club. The challenge lies in the limited available insights into both the precise analytical formula and the comprehensive suite of credit-specific attributes integral to the FICO score’s calculation. Our proposed metric leverages basic information provided by potential borrowers, eliminating the need for extensive historical credit data. We aim to articulate this credit risk metric in a closed analytical form with variable complexity. To achieve this, we employ a symbolic regression method anchored in genetic programming (GP). Here, the Occam’s razor principle guides evolutionary bias toward simpler, more interpretable models. To ascertain our method’s efficacy, we juxtapose the approximation capabilities of GP-based symbolic regression with established machine learning regression models, such as Gaussian Support Vector Machines (GSVMs), Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs), Regression Trees, and Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFNs). Our experiments indicate that GP-based symbolic regression offers accuracy comparable to these benchmark methodologies. Moreover, the resultant analytical model offers invaluable insights into credit risk evaluation mechanisms, enabling stakeholders to make informed credit risk assessments. This study contributes to the growing demand for transparent machine learning models by demonstrating the value of interpretable, data-driven credit scoring models. Full article

Medical education acknowledges our need to teach our physicians about “social determinants of health” and “health care disparities”. However, educators often lack actionable training to address this need. We describe a faculty development activity, a health disparities journal club, using the jigsaw strategy with the intent of increasing awareness, encouraging self-directed learning, and inspiring future teaching of the subject to health professional learners. We completed six workshops at six individual hospitals, with 95 total attendees in medicine and numerous other health professions. Our evaluation asked trainees to: report the number of journal articles about health disparities they had read, excluding the assigned journal club articles, in the past 12 months, and to predict future plans for reading about health disparities. In total, 28.9% responded they had “never read” a prior article on health or healthcare disparities, while 54.2% responded “1–5 articles”. Many (60%) reported they would continue to investigate this topic. Our experience has demonstrated the utility and positive impact of a “flipped classroom” jigsaw method, showing it can be used successfully in Inter-Professional (IPE) Faculty Development to increase active exposure and discussion of the content. Additionally, this method promotes individual reflection and enhances continued collective engagement. Full article

For the financial health of lenders and institutions, one important risk assessment called credit risk is about correctly deciding whether or not a borrower will fail to repay a loan. It not only helps in the approval or denial of loan applications but also aids in managing the non-performing loan (NPL) trend. In this study, a dataset provided by the LendingClub company based in San Francisco, CA, USA, from 2007 to 2020 consisting of 2,925,492 records and 141 attributes was experimented with. The loan status was categorized as “Good” or “Risk”. To yield highly effective results of credit risk prediction, experiments on credit risk prediction were performed using three widely adopted supervised machine learning techniques: logistic regression, random forest, and gradient boosting. In addition, to solve the imbalanced data problem, three sampling algorithms, including under-sampling, over-sampling, and combined sampling, were employed. The results show that the gradient boosting technique achieves nearly perfect $Accuracy$, $Precision$, $Recall$, and $F1score$ values, which are better than 99.92%, but its $MCC$ values are greater than 99.77%. Three imbalanced data handling approaches can enhance the model performance of models trained by three algorithms. Moreover, the experiment of reducing the number of features based on mutual information calculation revealed slightly decreasing performance for 50 data features with $Accuracy$ values greater than 99.86%. For 25 data features, which is the smallest size, the random forest supervised model yielded 99.15% $Accuracy$. Both sampling strategies and feature selection help to improve the supervised model for accurately predicting credit risk, which may be beneficial in the lending business. Full article

Financial institutions utilize data for the intelligent assessment of personal credit. However, the privacy of financial data is gradually increasing, and the training data of a single financial institution may exhibit problems regarding low data volume and poor data quality. Herein, by fusing federated learning with deep learning (FL-DL), we innovatively propose a dynamic communication algorithm and an adaptive aggregation algorithm as means of effectively solving the following problems, which are associated with personal credit evaluation: data privacy protection, distributed computing, and distributed storage. The dynamic communication algorithm utilizes a combination of fixed communication intervals and constrained variable intervals, which enables the federated system to utilize multiple communication intervals in a single learning task; thus, the performance of personal credit assessment models is enhanced. The adaptive aggregation algorithm proposes a novel aggregation weight formula. This algorithm enables the aggregation weights to be automatically updated, and it enhances the accuracy of individual credit assessment by exploiting the interplay between global and local models, which entails placing an additional but small computational burden on the powerful server side rather than on the resource-constrained client side. Finally, with regard to both algorithms and the FL-DL model, experiments and analyses are conducted using Lending Club financial company data; the results of the analysis indicate that both algorithms outperform the algorithms that are being compared and that the FL-DL model outperforms the advanced learning model. Full article

It appears to be a challenge to keep young adolescents involved in sports, while motivation has been confirmed as a key determinant for sport participation. Consequently, the aim of this study was to get a better insight into the motivational aspects and barriers of young adolescents while paying attention to the various contexts of youth sports in the Netherlands (i.e., club, commercial and urban sports). In total, 741 young adolescents (ages 12–15) filled in a questionnaire about the motivation and barriers to participate in sports and starting a new sport. The most important motivational factor in all sports contexts appears to be ‘fun/pleasure’. Additionally, they like the atmosphere of sports, and are motivated by learning new skills and becoming better at sports. Furthermore, young adolescents value a positive atmosphere, a skilled trainer and being able to participate at their own level (with others) when starting a new sport. Identified barriers are ‘liking other activities’, ‘a lack of time’, and that ‘sport is not fun anymore’. Nevertheless, the young adolescents surveyed, even those not active in sports, generally do not experience a high degree of barriers to participate in sports. The findings provide directions for developing future interventions that improve sport participation and prevent dropout. Full article

Despite the many benefits of club-organized sports participation for children, sports participation is lower among children from low-income families than among those from middle- or high-income families. Social safety experienced by parents from low-income families is an important facilitator for parents to request financial support for their children’s sports participation. Therefore, the first aim of this study was to better understand parental social (un)safety in the context of acquiring financial support for children’s sports participation and how to create a safe social environment for low-income parents to request and receive this financial support. The second aim was to describe the co-creation process, which was organized to contribute to social safety solutions. To reach these goals, we applied a participatory action research method in the form of four co-creation sessions with professionals and an expert-by-experience, as well as a group interview with parents from low-income families. The data analysis included a thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The results showed that from the perspective of parents, social safety encompassed various aspects such as understandable information, procedures based on trust, and efficient referral processes. Sport clubs were identified as the primary source of information for parents. Regarding the co-creation process, the study found that stakeholders tended to overestimate parental social safety levels. Although the stakeholders enjoyed and learned from the sessions, differences in prior knowledge and a lack of a shared perspective on the purpose of the sessions made it challenging to collaboratively create solutions. The study’s recommendations include strategies for increasing parental social safety and facilitating more effective co-creation processes. The findings of this study can be used to inform the development of interventions that contribute to a social environment in which parents from low-income families feel safe to request and receive financial support for their children’s sports participation. Full article

Beginning with social inequities in terms of access to quality, inclusive education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, especially rural teenagers who leave school early, the Holtis Association, with the support of the UNICEF Representative in Romania, developed a number of interventions intended to facilitate the transition from lower to higher secondary education of students from vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. One of the interventions was the establishment of teenagers’ clubs for volunteer activities, leadership development, and participation in the community to encourage social and emotional learning. (1) Background: This study aims to investigate the extent to which participation in the Holtis club projects contributed to the development of transformative social and emotional learning (T-SEL), as observed from the perspective of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) competencies among adolescents. (2) Methods: The study was qualitative and used focus groups for data collection. Out of the 65 active clubs, 18 were selected, and their representatives participated in the focus groups. (3) Results: Participating in the club activities, which were organized in the school, with the aim of organizing activities outside the school space stimulated and developed T-SEL competencies among adolescents. (4) Conclusions: The data, which were collected through the voices of teenagers, underlined the personal transformation from the perspective of the CASEL model competencies of SEL, and the study privileged their perspectives. Full article

This study explored college students’ learning experiences and outcomes as club committee members. Using a linear regression model, it investigated the relevance of personal background variables and club learning experiences to club learning outcomes. This study selected 15 universities and colleges’ student club committee members in TaiwanA total of 1850 questionnaires were distributed, and 1761 valid questionnaires were recovered, with a recovery rate of over 95%. The study findings are as follows: Regarding learning experiences and learning outcomes, the student club committee members was good. According to this study’s linear regression analysis: The personal background of student club committee members and their club learning experience had significant explanatory power on the learning outcomes, with R² values ranging from 39.6% to 61.1% for each dimension. This indicates that learning from club activities can be an essential pathway to cultivating students’ learning outcomes and a valuable reference for promoting club education in colleges and universities in Taiwan. Higher education practitioners should plan activities or programs for student club leaders with learning outcomes in mind, and design learning programs to meet the needs of student club leaders in each school so that students can achieve higher quality learning outcomes. In addition, this study also found that the assessment indicators of learning outcomes of the CAS of the U.S. can be applied to check the learning outcomes of student clubs in higher education in Taiwan. Full article

Background: The Lions Quest Skills for Adolescence (LQSFA) is an evidence-based social and emotional learning program for school students. It is implemented as a teacher-led extracurricular activity for children aged 10–15 years. From 2019 to 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in collaboration with Lions Clubs International Foundation, implemented the LQSFA in 41 schools in Croatia. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown measures, the intervention was adjusted into a hybrid modality (in-class and online). We evaluated the experience that the teachers had with the LQSFA in a hybrid modality. Methods: We used a focus-group discussion approach to evaluate the experience of five LQSFA teachers. Results: Three themes emerged: (1) the appreciation of evidence-based programs by the teachers, (2) the benefit of the LQSFA on the parents, and (3) the length of the online version of the questionnaire tool that was used to assess pre- and post-LQSFA experiences among students was too long. These results indicate that the LQSFA is undergoing a scaling on a national level in Croatia, even when implemented in a hybrid setting. Conclusions: Using an evidence-based program such as the LQSFA was rewarding for teachers, despite the challenges in the administrative adjustments regarding the online and in-person class teaching. LQSFA filled an important gap during COVID19-related stress. Full article

In comparison with European and American countries, the CSR of professional sports in Asian countries is affected by many factors due to differences in management system, social environment, etc. At present, the research on CSR of professional sports in Asian countries is very limited, and the practice form of CSR under this special management system has great research space and value. For booming professional sports of China, neighboring Japanese professional sports system is similar to it, and has a more advanced level of professional sports CSR development, which is worthy of further learning and reference for Chinese Super League clubs. Therefore, this study combs the historical background, core content and governance experience of CSR of J League in Japan, and puts forward valuable enlightenment for Chinese Super League clubs. The results show that the CSR of J League in Japan has distinctive characteristics and times, and the Chinese Super League clubs need to combine their own development stages, Chinese national conditions and other factors for reference. Full article

Traditionally, golf instruction has been oriented toward imitation of role models, guided by errors that surround a channel of supposedly correct repetition. Recent motor learning approaches relying on the dynamics of living systems suggest the inclusion of additional noise during practice for supporting players’ movement exploration and improving adaptability that in consequence will lead to increased performance. While the effectiveness of this approach has now been demonstrated in many sports, research exploring the effects of differential learning (DL) in golf is scarce, especially when considering different shot distances and players with various handicap levels. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the effects of an enriched learning and information intervention as opposed to a more constrained approach, on the pitching performance of golfers with different handicaps from different distances. A total of 29 adolescent golfers with an average experience of 7.8 years were divided into a DL (n = 15) and a repetitive-oriented (RB, n = 14) group. Both groups were further compared dependent on their handicap level (DL, low handicap n = 7, high handicap n = 8; RB, low handicap n = 5, high handicap n = 9). The TrackMan 4 was used to measure the shot performance for 20 m, 35 m, and 50 m distances (10 shots from each distance) based on a pre- and post-test design. Each group performed the same number of trials (n = 270, 9 executions per distance per session) across 10 sessions. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used for the statistical analysis, using the pre-test as covariate and the post-test as dependent variable. The DL group revealed advantageous adaptations in the attack and face angle (p ≤ 0.05), while also in the dynamic loft (p ≤ 0.05), mostly for the 35 m and 50 m. In addition, this intervention led to improvements in the score, club head speed, and carry distance for the 50 m when compared to the RB (p ≤ 0.05; small effects). The low handicap players from the DL group also revealed adaptation in the angles’ variables (p ≤ 0.05) when compared with high handicap players, who improved the score (p ≤ 0.05) in all distances after intervention. The low handicap players from the RB group improved the score (p ≤ 0.05) and club speed (p ≤ 0.05) for the 20 and 35 m, while the high handicap golfers revealed higher improvements for these variables only in the 50 m distance condition. Overall, coaches may incorporate approaches into their skill training that increase the number of opportunities to improve the performance of both experienced and non-experienced players by promoting the adaptability of movement patterns. Full article

Mindfulness-based art therapy has shown to improve psychological well-being. Zentangle is an easy-to-learn, mindfulness-based art therapy suitable for everyone. We reported the transition from face-to-face to online Zentangle workshops in family social services during COVID-19. We explored feedback from face-to-face workshops and the acceptability of an online approach utilizing information communication technology (ICT) to achieve greater service reach, satisfaction, and knowledge and related outcomes. Under the Hong Kong Jockey Club SMART Family-Link Project and in collaboration with Caritas Integrated Family Service Centre—Aberdeen, this study was conducted in two phases: a four-session, face-to-face workshop (phase one) and eleven online single-session workshops (phase two) from September 2019 to September 2020. A total of 305 participants joined the workshops. Phase one participants (n = 11) reported high satisfaction (4.7 out of 5), increases in knowledge (4.2/5) and confidence (3.9/5) towards managing stress, increases in knowledge (4.1/5) and confidence (3.9/5) in showing support and care towards family members, and an increase in knowledge towards strengthening family relationships (4.0/5). Phase two participants (n = 294) also reported high satisfaction (4.7/5) and strongly agreed that ICT helped with learning Zentangle more conveniently, that they had increased knowledge and interest in Zentangle (all 4.7/5), and would definitely join the workshop again (4.8/5). The qualitative data supported the quantitative findings. We are the first to report on the utilization of ICT in an exploratory trial of brief, online Zentangle art workshops targeting the general public, with high satisfaction and positive participant experiences with ICT integration, learning Zentangle, and enhanced psychological and family well-being. This study provided preliminary evidence on the use of ICT to successfully transition face-to-face to online workshops and reach a wider audience. Full article

Sweden has an extensive culture of community club sports for children and youths, based on voluntary leadership. Being a voluntary coach can be stressful and can affect coaches’ well-being. Since voluntary coaching is closely connected to and conditioned by family life and civil occupation, coaches need support for practical issues as well as for developing their coaching assignment in relation to the constantly changing conditions within sports for children and youths. The aim of this paper was to conceptualize and problematize the supportive structures in everyday activities, in order to promote learning and well-being and to prevent mental health issues. This paper is conceptual and based on a paradigm case. The starting point is communities of practice (CoP) and how CoPs can contribute to the development of supportive structures for coaches in youth sports. In conclusion, a CoP is dependent on negotiation within the coaching team as well as on facilitating factors that can add knowledge, perspectives, and experiences to the CoP. The facilitating factors mean that a CoP has the potential to be health-promoting for both coaches and players. Hence, it is important to create conditions, structures, and support—such as policies, practice-based education, mentorship, and facilitators. Full article