Search results for: gender specific data

Authors: Sara De Pelsmaeker, Catarina Ferreira da Silva, Janne Prawit

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Recent studies show that enzymatically hydrolysed collagen is absorbed and distributed to joint tissues, where it has analgesic and active anti-inflammatory properties. Reviews of the associated relevant literature also support this theory. However, these studies are all using hydrolyzed collagen from animal hide or skin. This study looks into the effect of daily supplementation of hydrolyzed cartilage collagen (HCC), which has a different composition. A consumer study was set up using a double-blind placebo-controlled design with a control group using twice a day 0.5gr of maltodextrin and an experimental group using twice 0.5g of HCC, over a trial period of 12 weeks. A follow-up phase of 4 weeks without supplementation was taken into the experiment to investigate the ‘wash-out’ phase. As this consumer study was conducted during the lockdown periods, a specific app was designed to follow up with the participants. The app had the advantage that in this way, the motivation of the participants was enhanced and the drop-out range of participants was lower than normally seen in consumer studies. Participants were recruited via various sports and health clubs across the UK as we targeted a general population of people that considered themselves in good health. Exclusion criteria were ‘not experiencing any medical conditions’ and ‘not taking any prescribed medication’. A minimum requirement was that they regularly engaged in some level of physical activity. The participants had to log the type of activity that they conducted and the duration of the activity. Weekly, participants were providing feedback on their joint health and subjective pain using the validated pain measuring instrument Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). The weekly repoAbstract Public Health and Wellbeing Conferencerting section in the app was designed with simplicity and based on the accuracy demonstrated in previous similar studies to track subjective pain measures of participants. At the beginning of the trial, each participant indicated their baseline on joint pain. The results of this consumer study indicated that HCC significantly improved joint health and subjective pain scores compared to the placebo group. No significant differences were found between different demographic groups (age or gender). The level of activity, going from high intensive training to regular walking, did not significantly influence the effect of the HCC. The results of the wash-out phase indicated that when the participants stopped the HCC supplementation, their subjective pain scores increased again to the baseline. In conclusion, the results gave a positive indication that the daily supplementation of HCC can contribute to the overall mobility and wellbeing of a general active population

Keywords: VAS-score, food supplement, mobility, joint health

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Authors: Michael Gidey Gebru

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Most DEA models operate in a static environment with input and output parameters that are chosen by deterministic data. However, due to ambiguity brought on shifting market conditions, input and output data are not always precisely gathered in real-world scenarios. Fuzzy numbers can be used to address this kind of ambiguity in input and output data. Therefore, this work aims to expand crisp DEA into DEA with fuzzy environment. In this study, the input and output data are regarded as fuzzy triangular numbers. Then, the DEA model with fuzzy environment is solved using a multi-objective method to gauge the Decision Making Units’ efficiency. Finally, the developed DEA model is illustrated with an application on real data 50 educational institutions.

Keywords: efficiency, DEA, fuzzy, decision making units, higher education institutions

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Authors: Qasim Kriri, Harsh B. Desai

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Water supply and sanitation in Saudi Arabia is portrayed by difficulties and accomplishments. One of the fundamental difficulties is water shortage. With a specific end goal to beat water shortage, significant ventures have been attempted in sea water desalination, water circulation, sewerage, and wastewater treatment. The motivation behind Statistical Process Control (SPC) is to decide whether the execution of a procedure is keeping up an acceptable quality level [AQL]. SPC is an analytical decision-making method. A fundamental apparatus in the SPC is the Control Charts, which follow the inconstancy in the estimations of the item quality attributes. By utilizing the suitable outline, administration can decide whether changes should be made with a specific end goal to keep the procedure in charge. The two most important quality factors in the distilled water which were taken into consideration were pH (Potential of Hydrogen) and TDS (Total Dissolved Solids). There were three stages at which the quality checks were done. The stages were as follows: (1) Water at the source, (2) water after chemical treatment & (3) water which is sent for packing. The upper specification limit, central limit and lower specification limit are taken as per Saudi water standards. The procedure capacity to accomplish the particulars set for the quality attributes of Berain water Factory chose to be focused by the proposed SPC system.

Keywords: acceptable quality level, statistical quality control, control charts, process charts

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Authors: Mamdouh Milad Adly Morkos

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Despite having the greatest rates of mortality and morbidity in the world, low- and middle-income (LMIC) nations trail high-income nations in terms of the number of clinical trials, the number of qualified researchers, and the amount of research information specific to their people. Health inequities and the use of precision medicine may be hampered by a lack of local genomic data, clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics competence, and training opportunities. These issues can be solved by carrying out health care infrastructure development, which includes data gathering and well-designed clinical pharmacology training in LMICs. It will be advantageous if there is international cooperation focused at enhancing education and infrastructure and promoting locally motivated clinical trials and research. This paper outlines various instances where clinical pharmacology knowledge could be put to use, including pharmacogenomic opportunities that could lead to better clinical guideline recommendations. Examples of how clinical pharmacology training can be successfully implemented in LMICs are also provided, including clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics training programmes in Africa and a Tanzanian researcher's personal experience while on a training sabbatical in the United States. These training initiatives will profit from advocacy for clinical pharmacologists' employment prospects and career development pathways, which are gradually becoming acknowledged and established in LMICs. The advancement of training and research infrastructure to increase clinical pharmacologists' knowledge in LMICs would be extremely beneficial because they have a significant role to play in global health

Keywords: electromagnetic solar system, nano-material, nano pharmacology, pharmacovigilance, quantum theoryclinical simulation, education, pharmacology, simulation, virtual learning low- and middle-income, clinical pharmacology, pharmacometrics, career development pathways

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Authors: Qingjin Liu, Jinpeng Niu, Kangjia Chen, Jiao Li, Huafu Chen, Wei Liao

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Functional connectomics is essential in cognitive science and neuropsychiatry, offering insights into the brain's complex network structures and dynamic interactions. Although neuroimaging has uncovered functional connectivity issues in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients, the dynamic shifts in connectome topology and their link to gene expression are yet to be fully understood. To explore the differences in dynamic connectome topology between MDD patients and healthy individuals, we conducted an extensive analysis of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 434 participants (226 MDD patients and 208 controls). We used multilayer network models to evaluate brain module dynamics and examined the association between whole-brain gene expression and dynamic module variability in MDD using publicly available transcriptomic data. Our findings revealed that compared to healthy individuals, MDD patients showed lower global mean values and higher standard deviations, indicating unstable patterns and increased regional differentiation. Notably, MDD patients exhibited more frequent module switching, primarily within the executive control network (ECN), particularly in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right fronto-insular regions, whereas the default mode network (DMN), including the superior frontal gyrus, temporal lobe, and right medial prefrontal cortex, displayed lower variability. These brain dynamics predicted the severity of depressive symptoms. Analyzing human brain gene expression data, we found that the spatial distribution of MDD-related gene expression correlated with dynamic module differences. Cell type-specific gene analyses identified oligodendrocytes (OPCs) as major contributors to the transcriptional relationships underlying module variability in MDD. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive description of altered brain module dynamics in MDD patients linked to depressive symptom severity and changes in whole-brain gene expression profiles.

Keywords: major depressive disorder, module dynamics, magnetic resonance imaging, transcriptomic

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Authors: Fatma Ezzahra Kateb, Neila Boulila Taktak, Mohamed Kabir Hassan

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We examine the impact of Islamic accounting and auditing standards issued by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) on the income smoothing perspective of Islamic financial institutions located in the Middle East and North Africa region between 2013 and 2018. Based on General Least square regression for panel data, we find a significant and positive relationship between intentional income smoothing and earning persistence and cash flow predictability in all models. However, we discovered that AAOIFI accounting standards (FAS) had a negative and significant effect on intentional income smoothing and earning persistence. As a result, the income smoothing efficiency is lower for IFIs that use FASs than IFIs that use IFRSs. Our findings emphasize the need for specific standards to enhance the relevance of financial reports disclosed by Islamic financial institutions.

Keywords: AAOIFI, financial reporting quality, income smoothing perspective, MENA countries

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Authors: Aurélie Cassiers

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In this presentation, an overview is given of the freedom of states to legislate concerning abortion. Today, access to safe and legal abortion is still a hot topic in many countries in the world. Abortion policies try to strike a balance between women’s rights to self-determination and private life on the one hand, and the protection of the life of unborn children on the other. Each country has different religious, cultural and political views on abortion, and therefore specific legislations. However, citizens may submit a complaint at international courts when they find their national legislation too restrictive. The study is discussed of the development of the ECtHR, UNCHR, and IACHR case law, regarding the question of the ‘right to abort’ and indirectly of the protection of the unborn children. Each relevant case is analyzed to answer the following questions: Is the unborn child protected, and if so, how? Why does the woman want to abort and how is her interest or right protected? How is a fair balance reached between the different interests? Is the state completely free to write policies that restrict abortion? What are the factors to determine the margin of appreciation of the state? In conclusion, does this specific court recognize a right to abort, and if so, under which conditions? To conclude, this presentation shows that each court has its own perspective on and perception of abortion, and its own criteria to determine whether the state is complying with international norms regarding individual liberty and protection of the children.

Keywords: abortion, international courts, unborn children, women rights

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Authors: A. Nguyen, K. Nguyen, J. Jackson, E. Manlapig

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With the recent advancement in core imaging systems, a large volume of high resolution drill core images can now be collected rapidly. This paper presents a method for rapid prediction of ore-specific breakage parameters from high resolution mineral classified core images. The aim is to allow for a rapid assessment of the variability in ore hardness within a mineral deposit with reduced amount of physical breakage tests. This method sees its application primarily in project evaluation phase, where proper evaluation of the variability in ore hardness of the orebody normally requires prolong and costly metallurgical test work program. Applying this image-based texture analysis method on mineral classified core images, the ores are classified according to their textural characteristics. A small number of physical tests are performed to produce a dataset used for developing the relationship between texture classes and measured ore hardness. The paper also presents a case study in which this method has been applied on core samples from a copper porphyry deposit to predict the ore-specific breakage A*b parameter, obtained from JKRBT tests.

Keywords: geometallurgy, hyperspectral drill core imaging, process simulation, texture analysis

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Authors: Denise Hexom, Judith Menoher

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Teachers and administrators across America are being asked to use data and hard evidence to inform practice as they begin the task of implementing Common Core State Standards. Yet, the courses they are taking in schools of education are not preparing teachers or principals to understand the data-driven decision making (DDDM) process nor to utilize data in a much more sophisticated fashion. DDDM has been around for quite some time, however, it has only recently become systematically and consistently applied in the field of education. This paper discusses the theoretical framework of DDDM; empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of DDDM; a process a department in a school of education has utilized to implement DDDM; and recommendations to other schools of education who attempt to implement DDDM in their decision-making processes and in their students’ coursework.

Keywords: data-driven decision making, institute of higher education, special education, continuous improvement

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Authors: Yaeji Lim, Hee-Seok Oh

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The coherence analysis measures the linear time-invariant relationship between two data sets and has been studied various fields such as signal processing, engineering, and medical science. However classical coherence analysis tends to be sensitive to outliers and focuses only on mean relationship. In this paper, we generalized cross periodogram to quantile cross periodogram and provide richer inter-relationship between two data sets. This is a general version of Laplace cross periodogram. We prove its asymptotic distribution under the long range process and compare them with ordinary coherence through numerical examples. We also present real data example to confirm the usefulness of quantile coherence analysis.

Keywords: coherence, cross periodogram, spectrum, quantile

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Authors: Iyanujesu Adereti, Tajudeen Basiru, Ayodamola Olanipekun

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Background: Substance abuse among adolescents is of public health concern globally. Despite being the most abused by adolescents, there are limited studies on the prevalence of alcohol use and cigarette smoking among adolescents in Mauritius. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of cigarette smoking, alcohol use and associated correlates among school-going adolescents in Mauritius. Methodology: Data obtained from 2017 WHO Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS) survey of 3,012 school-going adolescents in Mauritius was analyzed using STATA. Descriptive statistics were used to obtain prevalence. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate predictors of cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Results: Prevalence of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking were 26.0% and 17.1%, respectively. Smoking and alcohol use was more prevalent among males, younger adolescents, and those in higher school grades (p-value <.000). In multivariable logistic regression, male gender was associated with a higher risk of cigarette smoking (adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR) [95%Confidence Interval (CI)]= 1.51[1.06-2.14]) but lower risk of alcohol use (aOR[95%CI]= 0.69[0.53-0.90]) while older age (mid and late adolescence) and parental smoking were found to be associated with increased risk of alcohol use (aOR[95%CI]= 1.94[1.34-2.99] and 1.36[1.05-1.78] respectively). Marijuana use, truancy, being in a fight and suicide ideation were associated with increased odds of alcohol use (aOR[95%CI]= 3.82[3.39-6.09]; 2.15[1.62-2.87]; 1.83[1.34-2.49] and 1.93[1.38-2.69] respectively) and cigarette smoking (aOR[95%CI]= 17.28[10.4 - 28.51]; 1.73[1.21-2. 49]; 1.67[1.14-2.45] and 2.17[1.43-3.28] respectively) while involvement in sexual activity was associated with reduced risk of alcohol use (aOR[95%CI]= 0.50[0.37-0.68]) and cigarette smoking (aOR[95%CI]= 0.47[0.33-0.69]). Parental support and parental monitoring were uniquely associated with lower risk of cigarette smoking (aOR[95%CI]= 0.69[0.47-0.99] and 0.62[0.43-0.91] respectively). Conclusion: The high prevalence of alcohol use and cigarette smoking in this study shows the need for the government of Mauritius to enhance policies that will help address this issue putting into accounts the various risk and protective factors.

Keywords: adolescent health, alcohol use, cigarette smoking, global school-based student health survey

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Authors: Pranee Suecharoen, Ratchadaporn Soontornpas, Jaturat Kanpittaya

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Background: Contrast media has an important role for disease diagnosis through detection of pathologies. Contrast media can, however, cause adverse reactions after administration of its agents. Although non-ionic contrast media are commonly used, the incidence of adverse events is relatively low. The most common reactions found (10.5%) were mild and manageable and/or preventable. Pharmacists can play an important role in evaluating adverse reactions, including awareness of the specific preparation and the type of adverse reaction. As most common types of adverse reactions are idiosyncratic or pseudo-allergic reactions, common standards need to be established to prevent and control adverse reactions promptly and effectively. Objective: To measure the effect of using tools for symptom evaluation in order to reduce the severity, or prevent the occurrence, of adverse reactions from contrast media. Methods: Retrospective review descriptive research with data collected on adverse reactions assessment and Naranjo’s algorithm between June 2015 and May 2016. Results: 158 patients (10.53%) had adverse reactions. Of the 1,500 participants with an adverse event evaluation, 137 (9.13%) had a mild adverse reaction, including hives, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and headache. These types of symptoms can be treated (i.e., with antihistamines, anti-emetics) and the patient recovers completely within one day. The group with moderate adverse reactions, numbering 18 cases (1.2%), had hypertension or hypotension, and shortness of breath. Severe adverse reactions numbered 3 cases (0.2%) and included swelling of the larynx, cardiac arrest, and loss of consciousness, requiring immediate treatment. No other complications under close medical supervision were recorded (i.e., corticosteroids use, epinephrine, dopamine, atropine, or life-saving devices). Using the guideline, therapies are divided into general and specific and are performed according to the severity, risk factors and ingestion of contrast media agents. Patients who have high-risk factors were screened and treated (i.e., prophylactic premedication) for prevention of severe adverse reactions, especially those with renal failure. Thus, awareness for the need for prescreening of different risk factors is necessary for early recognition and prompt treatment. Conclusion: Studying adverse reactions can be used to develop a model for reducing the level of severity and setting a guideline for a standardized, multidisciplinary approach to adverse reactions.

Keywords: role of pharmacist, management of adverse reactions, guideline for contrast media, non-ionic contrast media

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Authors: Lazlo Fauth, Andreas Ligocki

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For cost-effective use of harvesters, expensive repairs and unplanned downtimes must be reduced as far as possible. The predictive detection of failing systems and the calculation of intelligent service intervals, necessary to avoid these factors, require in-depth knowledge of the machines' behavior. Such know-how needs permanent monitoring of the machine state from different technical perspectives. In this paper, three approaches will be presented as they are currently pursued in the publicly funded project PreForst at Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences. These include the intelligent linking of workshop and service data, sensors on the harvester, and a special online hydraulic oil condition monitoring system. Furthermore the paper shows potentials as well as challenges for the use of these data in the conception of a predictive maintenance system.

Keywords: predictive maintenance, condition monitoring, forest harvesting, forest engineering, oil data, hydraulic data

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Authors: Anna Petr Safrankova, Karla Hrbackova

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The education of socially disadvantaged students is in the long term spotlight of many pedagogical researches in both Czech and foreign environment. These researches among others investigate this topic from the point of view of individual compensatory measure which tries to overcome or remove the social disadvantage. The focus of the study is to highlight the important role of teachers in the education of this specific group of students, among others in terms of their (teachers´) pre-graduate training. The aim of the study is to point out the importance of teachers´ self-efficacy. The study is based on the assumption that the teacher's self-efficacy may significantly affect the teacher's perception of a particular group of students and thereby affect the education of the students. The survey involved 245 teachers from the two regions in the Czech Republic. In the research were used TES questionnaire (with the dimensions personal teaching efficacy – PTE and general teaching efficacy – GTE) by Gibson and Dembo and the semantic differential (containing 12 scales with bipolar adjectives) which investigated the components of teachers' attitudes toward socially disadvantaged students. It was found that teachers’ self-efficacy significantly affects the teachers’ perception of the group of socially disadvantaged students. Based on this finding we believe that it is necessary to work with this concept (prepare teachers to educate this specific group of students) already during higher education and especially during the pre-graduate teachers training.

Keywords: teachers, socially disadvantaged students, semantic differential, teachers self-efficacy

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Authors: Yuliya Kovalenko

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Given the social nature of people, it is interesting to explore strategies of responding to psycho-traumatic situations in individuals of different ethnic and religious identity. This would allow to substantially expand the idea of human behavior in general, and coping behavior, in particular. This paper investigated the weighted impact of ethnic and religious identities on the patterns of coping behavior. This cross-cultural research empirically revealed intergroup differences in coping strategies and behavior in the samples of young students and teachers of different ethnic identities (Egyptians N=216 and Ukrainians N=109) and different religious identities (Egyptian Muslims N=147 and Christians, including Egyptian Christians N=68 and Ukrainian Christians N = 109). The empirical data were obtained using the questionnaires SACS and COPE. Statistical analysis and interpretation of the results were performed with IBM SPSS-23.0. It was found that, compared to the religious identity, the ethnic identity of the subjects appeared more predictive of coping behavior. It was shown that the constant exchange of information and the unity of biological and social contributed to a more homogeneous picture in the society where Christians and Muslims were integrated into a single cultural space. It was concluded that depending on their ethnic identity, individuals would form a specific hierarchy of coping strategies resulting in a specific pattern of coping with certain stressors. The Egyptian subjects revealed the following pattern of coping with various kinds of academic stress: 'seeking social support', 'problem solving', 'adapting', 'seeking information'. The coping pattern demonstrated by the Ukrainian subjects could be presented as 'seeking information', 'adapting', 'seeking social support', 'problem solving'. There was a tendency in the group of Egyptians to engage in more collectivist coping strategies (with the predominant coping strategy 'religious coping'), in contrast to the Ukrainians who displayed more individualistic coping strategies (with 'planning' and 'active coping' as the mostly used coping strategies). At the same time, it was obvious that Ukrainians should not be unambiguously attributed to the individualistic coping behavior due to their reliance on 'seeking social support' and 'social contact'. The final conclusion was also drawn from the peculiarities of developing religious identity, including religiosity, in Egyptians (formal religious education of both Muslims and Christians) and Ukrainians (more spontaneous process): Egyptians seem to learn to resort to the religious coping, which could be an indication that, in principle, it is possible and necessary to train individuals in desirable coping behavior.

Keywords: coping behavior, cross-cultural research, ethnic and religious identity, hierarchical pattern of coping

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Authors: A. Gazdzinska, P. Jagielski, E. Kaniewska, S. P. Gazdzinski, M. Wylezol

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Background: In the multi-factor etiology of obesity, an increasing degree of importance is attributed to behavioral factors. Lifestyle and health-oriented behaviors heavily influence the treatment of multiple diseases, including obesity. However, only a few studies evaluated health-related behaviors exhibited by patients qualified for bariatric surgery. None of them was performed in Polish population. Aim: Assessment of health behaviors of obese patients according to the degree of mood disorders. Method: The study involved 93 patients (66 females) who were qualified for bariatric surgery in the Department of Surgery of the Military Institute of Aviation Medicine in Warsaw. Diagnostic instrument was the Juczynski’s Inventory of Health Behavior (HBI), which evaluates health behavior in four categories, i.e. proper nutrition habits (PNH), preventive behavior (PH), health practices (HP) and positive mental attitude (PMA). The average HBI falls in the range between 24 and 120 points, for each category of health behaviors fall between 1 and 5 (higher score means higher severity declared healthy behaviors). The depressive symptoms in patients were assessed with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). All analyses were conducted using STATISTICA 12. Results: The average age was 44.2 ± 11.5 years, mean BMI was 44.3 ± 10.5 kg/m2 and 46.8 ± 7.6 kg/m2, in females and males respectively. According to BDI, 32% patients had mild level of depression, 10% moderate and 14% severe depression. BDI scores were not different between females and males. Low results with regard to the health behaviors declared were obtained by 35.5 % of patients, medium by 44.0%, while high ones by only 20.5%. On average, patients gained 3.28 points in PNH, 3.37 points in PH, 3.29 points in HP, while 3.42 in the PMA category, showing average intensity of these behaviors. These health behaviors were practiced significantly more often by women (p = 0.04). The average HBI was 80.2; with average score of 81.5 for females and 76.6 for males, respectively (p = 0.03). Women were better in the PNH category (p = 0.02). A positive correlation was found between age and all categories of health behaviors, in particular PNH (R = 0.38; p = 0.001), PH (R = 0.26; p = 0.01), HP (R = 0.27; p = 0.01) and PMA (R = 0.24; p = 0.02), independent of gender. The severity of depression had a significant impact only on the behaviors associated with proper eating habits, which saw a negative correlation between BDI scores and the PNH (R = -0.21; p = 0.04). Conclusions: Majority of morbidly obese patients qualified for bariatric surgery obtained low to average scores in health behavior questionnaire. However, these results are similar in comparison with the Polish adult population. In accordance to these results, it seems that healthy behaviors, among them eating behaviors, do not appear to be a cause of obesity epidemic or they might be acquired when the disease is already underway. Female gender and age had a positive effect, and depression had a negative effect on the level of health behaviors among patients qualified for bariatric surgery.

Keywords: depression, habits, health behaviours, obesity

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Authors: H. Y. Jung, Ju H. Park, S. M. Lee

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A sampled-data controller is presented for solid oxide fuel cell systems which is expressed by a sector bounded nonlinear model. The sector bounded nonlinear systems, which have a feedback connection with a linear dynamical system and nonlinearity satisfying certain sector type constraints. Also, the sampled-data control scheme is very useful since it is possible to handle digital controller and increasing research efforts have been devoted to sampled-data control systems with the development of modern high-speed computers. The proposed control law is obtained by solving a convex problem satisfying several linear matrix inequalities. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed design method.

Keywords: sampled-data control, fuel cell, linear matrix inequalities, nonlinear control

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Authors: Masoud Soltanialvar, Ali Bagherpour

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The aim of this study was to determinate the variety of Anaplasma species among sheep of khouzestan province, Iran. From April 2013 to June 2013, a total of 200 blood samples were collected via the jugular vein from healthy sheep (100), randomly. The extracted DNA from blood cells were amplified by Anaplasma-all primers, which amplify an approximately 1468bp DNA fragment from region of 16S rRNA gene from various members of the genus Anaplasma. For raising the test sensivity, the PCR products were amplified with the primers, which were designed from the region flanked by the first primers. The amplified nested PCR product had an expected PCR product with 345 nucleotides in length. In 100 sheep blood samples, 7 samples were Anaplasma spp. positive by first PCR and nested PCR. The results showed that 2 of total 100 blood samples (2%) were A.phagocytophilum positive by specific nested PCR based on 16S rRNA gene. The extracted DNA from positive Anaplasma spp. samples were amplified by Anaplasma ovis specific primers, which amplify an approximately 866bp DNA fragment from region of msp4 gene. 5 out of 100 sheep blood samples (5%) were positive for Anaplasma ovis. This study is the first molecular detection of A. ovis and A.phagocytophilum from sheep in Iran.

Keywords: Iran, anaplasma species, sheep, A. ovis, A. phagocytophilum, PCR

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Authors: Sharifah Sumayyah Engku Alwi, Masrah Azrifah Azmi Murad

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The development of the information technology and Internet has been transforming the healthcare industry. The internet is continuously accessed to seek for health information and there are variety of sources, including search engines, health websites, and social networking sites. Providing more and better information on health may empower individuals, however, ensuring a high quality and trusted health information could pose a challenge. Moreover, there is an ever-increasing amount of information available, but they are not necessarily accurate and up to date. Thus, this paper aims to provide an insight of the models and frameworks related to online health information seeking of consumers. It begins by exploring the definition of information behavior and information seeking to provide a better understanding of the concept of information seeking. In this study, critical factors such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence will be studied in relation to the value of seeking health information. It also aims to analyze the effect of age, gender, and health status as the moderator on the factors that influence online health information seeking, i.e. trust and information quality. A preliminary survey will be carried out among the health professionals to clarify the research problems which exist in the real world, at the same time producing a conceptual framework. A final survey will be distributed to five states of Malaysia, to solicit the feedback on the framework. Data will be analyzed using SPSS and SmartPLS 3.0 analysis tools. It is hoped that at the end of this study, a novel framework that can improve online health information seeking is developed. Finally, this paper concludes with some suggestions on the models and frameworks that could improve online health information seeking.

Keywords: information behavior, information seeking, online health information, technology acceptance model, the theory of planned behavior, UTAUT

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Authors: A. Alao Olumuyiwa

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Health hazards reported to be associated with exposure to electromagnetic radiations which include brain tumors, genotoxic effects, neurological effects, immune system deregulation, allergic responses and some cardiovascular effects are discussed under a closed tabular model in this study. This review however showed that there is strong and robust evidence that chronic exposures to electromagnetic frequency across the spectrum, through strength, consistency, biological plausibility and many dose-response relationships, may result in brain cancer and other carcinogenic disease symptoms. There is therefore no safe threshold because of the genotoxic nature of the mechanism that may however be involved. The discussed study explains that the cell phone has induced effects upon the blood –brain barrier permeability and the cerebellum exposure to continuous long hours RF radiation may result in significant increase in albumin extravasations. A physical Biomodeling approach is however employed to review this health effects using Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) of different GSM machines to critically examine the symptoms such as a decreased loco motor activity, increased grooming and reduced memory functions in a variety of animal spices in classified grouped and sub grouped models.

Keywords: brain cancer, electromagnetic radiations, physical biomodeling, specific absorption rate (SAR)

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Authors: Gebrehiwot H., Giorgis Bahita

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Firms in Africa experience less financial market in comparison to other emerging and developed countries, thus lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of innovation and growth. Though there are different factors to be considered, underdeveloped financial systems take the lion's share in hindering firm innovation and growth in Africa. Insufficient capacity to innovate is one of the problems facing African businesses. Moreover, a critical challenge faced by firms in Africa is access to finance and the inability of financially constrained firms to grow. Only little is known about how different sources of finance affect firm innovation and growth in Africa, specifically the formal and informal finance effect on firm innovation and growth. This study's aim is to address this gap by using formal and informal finance for working capital and fixed capital and its role in firm innovation and firm growth using firm-level data from the World Bank enterprise survey 2006-2019 with a total of 5661 sample firms from 14 countries based on available data on the selected variables. Additionally, this study examines factors for accessing credit from a formal financial institution. The logit model is used to examine the effect of finance on a firm’s innovation and factors to access formal finance, while the Ordinary List Square (OLS) regression mode is used to investigate the effect of finance on firm growth. 2SLS instrumental variables are used to address the possible endogeneity problem in firm growth and finance-innovation relationships. A result from the logistic regression indicates that both formal and informal finance used for working capital and investment in fixed capital was found to have a significant positive association with product and process innovation. In the case of finance and growth, finding show that positive association of both formal and informal financing to working capital and new investment in fixed capital though the informal has positive relations to firm growth as measured by sale growth but no significant association as measured by employment growth. Formal finance shows more magnitude of effect on innovation and growth when firms use formal finance to finance investment in fixed capital, while informal finance show less compared to formal finance and this confirms previous studies as informal is mainly used for working capital in underdeveloped economies like Africa. The factors that determine credit access: Age, firm size, managerial experience, exporting, gender, and foreign ownership are found to have significant determinant factors in accessing credit from formal and informal sources among the selected sample countries.

Keywords: formal finance, informal finance, innovation, growth

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Authors: Christian Skowronski, Andrew Shanholtzer, Brent Yelton, Muayad Almahariq, Daniel J. Krauss

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Prostate cancer has the third highest incidence rate and is the second leading cause of cancer death for men in the United States. Of the diagnostic tools available for intermediate-risk prostate cancer, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides superior soft tissue delineation serving as a valuable tool for both diagnosis and treatment planning. Currently, there is minimal data regarding the practical utility of MRI for evaluation of intermediate-risk prostate cancer. As such, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s guidelines indicate MRI as optional in intermediate-risk prostate cancer evaluation. This project aims to elucidate whether MRI affects radiation treatment decisions for intermediate-risk prostate cancer. This was a retrospective study evaluating 210 patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer, treated with definitive radiotherapy at our institution between 2019-2020. NCCN risk stratification criteria were used to define intermediate-risk prostate cancer. Patients were divided into two groups: those with pretreatment prostate MRI, and those without pretreatment prostate MRI. We compared the use of external beam radiotherapy, brachytherapy alone, brachytherapy boost, and androgen depravation therapy between the two groups. Inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to match the two groups for age, comorbidity index, American Urologic Association symptoms index, pretreatment PSA, grade group, and percent core involvement on prostate biopsy. Wilcoxon Rank Sum and Chi-squared tests were used to compare continuous and categorical variables. Of the patients who met the study’s eligibility criteria, 133 had a prostate MRI and 77 did not. Following propensity matching, there were no differences between baseline characteristics between the two groups. There were no statistically significant differences in treatments pursued between the two groups: 42% vs 47% were treated with brachytherapy alone, 40% vs 42% were treated with external beam radiotherapy alone, 18% vs 12% were treated with external beam radiotherapy with a brachytherapy boost, and 24% vs 17% received androgen deprivation therapy in the non-MRI and MRI groups, respectively. This analysis suggests that pretreatment MRI does not significantly impact radiation therapy or androgen deprivation therapy decisions in patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer. Obtaining a pretreatment prostate MRI should be used judiciously and pursued only to answer a specific question, for which the answer is likely to impact treatment decision. Further follow up is needed to correlate MRI findings with their impacts on specific oncologic outcomes.

Keywords: magnetic resonance imaging, prostate cancer, definitive radiotherapy, gleason score 7

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Authors: Placide Poba-Nzaou, Anicet Tchibozo, Malatsi Galani, Ali Etkkali, Erwin Halim

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is a general-purpose technology that is transforming many industries, working life and society by stimulating economic growth and innovation. Despite the huge potential of benefits to be generated, the adoption of AI varies from one organization to another, from one region to another, and from one industry to another, due in part to obstacles that can inhibit an organization or organizations located in a specific geographic region or operating in a specific industry from adopting AI technology. In this context, these obstacles and their implications for AI adoption from the perspective of configurational theory is important for at least three reasons: (1) understanding these obstacles is the first step in enabling policymakers and providers to make an informed decision in stimulating AI adoption (2) most studies have investigating obstacles or challenges of AI adoption in isolation with linear assumptions while configurational theory offers a holistic and multifaceted way of investigating the intricate interactions between perceived obstacles and barriers helping to assess their synergetic combination while holding assumptions of non-linearity leading to insights that would otherwise be out of the scope of studies investigating these obstacles in isolation. This study aims to pursue two objectives: (1) characterize organizations by uncovering the typical profiles of combinations of 15 internal and external obstacles that may prevent organizations from adopting AI technology, (2) assess the variation in terms of intensity of AI adoption associated with each configuration. We used data from a survey of AI adoption by organizations conducted throughout the EU27, Norway, Iceland and the UK (N=7549). Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis help uncover configurations of organizations based on the 15 obstacles, including eight external and seven internal. Second, we compared the clusters according to AI adoption intensity using an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and a Tamhane T2 post hoc test. The study uncovers three strongly separated clusters of organizations based on perceived obstacles to AI adoption. The clusters are labeled according to their magnitude of perceived obstacles to AI adoption: (1) Cluster I – High Level of perceived obstacles (N = 2449, 32.4%)(2) Cluster II – Low Level of perceived obstacles (N =1879, 24.9%) (3) Cluster III – Moderate Level of perceived obstacles (N =3221, 42.7%). The proposed taxonomy goes beyond the normative understanding of perceived obstacles to AI adoption and associated implications: it provides a well-structured and parsimonious lens that is useful for policymakers, AI technology providers, and researchers. Surprisingly, the ANOVAs revealed a “high level of perceived obstacles” cluster associated with a significantly high intensity of AI adoption.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence (AI), obstacles, adoption, taxonomy.

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Authors: Hiba Dakroub, Danilo Russo, Luca Cistrone, Francesco Serra, Giovanna Fusco, Esterina De Carlo, Maria Grazia Amoroso

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The question of the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and the cycle of transmission between humans and animals is still unanswered. One serious concern associated with the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is that the virus might spill back from humans to wildlife, which would render some animal species reservoirs of the human virus. The aim of the present study is to monitor the potential risk of SARS-CoV-2 reverse infection from humans to bats, by performing bat surveillance from different sites in Central-Southern Italy. We collected 240 droppings or saliva from 129 bats and tested them using specific and general primers of SARS-COV-2 and coronaviruses respectively. All samples, including 127 nasal swabs and 113 fecal droppings resulted negative for SARS-COV-2, and these results were confirmed by testing the samples with the Droplet Digital PCR. Also, an end-point RT-PCR was performed and no sample showed specific bands. The absence of SARS-CoV-2 in the bats we surveyed is a first step towards a better understanding of reverse transmission to bats of this virus. We hope our first contribution will encourage the establishment of systematic surveillance of wildlife, and specifically bats, to help prevent reverse zoonotic episodes that would jeopardize human health as well as biodiversity conservation and management.

Keywords: coronaviruses, bats, zoonotic viruses, spillback, SARS-CoV-2

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Authors: Duncan Wallace, M-Tahar Kechadi

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In recent years, Machine Learning (ML) approaches have been successfully applied to an analysis of patient symptom data in the context of disease diagnosis, at least where such data is well codified. However, much of the data present in Electronic Health Records (EHR) are unlikely to prove suitable for classic ML approaches. Furthermore, as scores of data are widely spread across both hospitals and individuals, a decentralized, computationally scalable methodology is a priority. The focus of this paper is to develop a method to predict outliers in an out-of-hours healthcare provision center (OOHC). In particular, our research is based upon the early identification of patients who have underlying conditions which will cause them to repeatedly require medical attention. OOHC act as an ad-hoc delivery of triage and treatment, where interactions occur without recourse to a full medical history of the patient in question. Medical histories, relating to patients contacting an OOHC, may reside in several distinct EHR systems in multiple hospitals or surgeries, which are unavailable to the OOHC in question. As such, although a local solution is optimal for this problem, it follows that the data under investigation is incomplete, heterogeneous, and comprised mostly of noisy textual notes compiled during routine OOHC activities. Through the use of Deep Learning methodologies, the aim of this paper is to provide the means to identify patient cases, upon initial contact, which are likely to relate to such outliers. To this end, we compare the performance of Long Short-Term Memory, Gated Recurrent Units, and combinations of both with Convolutional Neural Networks. A further aim of this paper is to elucidate the discovery of such outliers by examining the exact terms which provide a strong indication of positive and negative case entries. While free-text is the principal data extracted from EHRs for classification, EHRs also contain normalized features. Although the specific demographical features treated within our corpus are relatively limited in scope, we examine whether it is beneficial to include such features among the inputs to our neural network, or whether these features are more successfully exploited in conjunction with a different form of a classifier. In this section, we compare the performance of randomly generated regression trees and support vector machines and determine the extent to which our classification program can be improved upon by using either of these machine learning approaches in conjunction with the output of our Recurrent Neural Network application. The output of our neural network is also used to help determine the most significant lexemes present within the corpus for determining high-risk patients. By combining the confidence of our classification program in relation to lexemes within true positive and true negative cases, with an inverse document frequency of the lexemes related to these cases, we can determine what features act as the primary indicators of frequent-attender and non-frequent-attender cases, providing a human interpretable appreciation of how our program classifies cases.

Keywords: artificial neural networks, data-mining, machine learning, medical informatics

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Authors: Irfan Ahmad Afip

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This main research objective is to accurately identify the possibility for a Leptospirosis outbreak severity of a certain area based on its input features into a multivariate regression model. The research question is the possibility of an outbreak in a specific area being influenced by this feature, such as social demographics and hydrometeorological extremes. If the occurrence of an outbreak is being subjected to these features, then the epidemic severity for an area will be different depending on its environmental setting because the features will influence the possibility and severity of an outbreak. Specifically, this research objective was three-fold, namely: (a) to identify the relevant multivariate features and visualize the patterns data, (b) to develop a multivariate regression model based from the selected features and determine the possibility for Leptospirosis outbreak in an area, and (c) to compare the predictive ability of multivariate regression model and machine learning algorithms. Several secondary data features were collected locations in the state of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia, based on the possibility it would be relevant to determine the outbreak severity in the area. The relevant features then will become an input in a multivariate regression model; a linear regression model is a simple and quick solution for creating prognostic capabilities. A multivariate regression model has proven more precise prognostic capabilities than univariate models. The expected outcome from this research is to establish a correlation between the features of social demographic and hydrometeorological with Leptospirosis bacteria; it will also become a contributor for understanding the underlying relationship between the pathogen and the ecosystem. The relationship established can be beneficial for the health department or urban planner to inspect and prepare for future outcomes in event detection and system health monitoring.

Keywords: geographical information system, hydrometeorological, leptospirosis, multivariate regression

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Authors: Guo Wenyu, Qu Youli

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A practical and simple self-indexing data structure, Partitioned Elias-Fano (PEF) - Compressed Suffix Arrays (CSA), is built in linear time for the CSA based on PEF indexes. Moreover, the PEF-CSA is compared with two classical compressed indexing methods, Ferragina and Manzini implementation (FMI) and Sad-CSA on different type and size files in Pizza & Chili. The PEF-CSA performs better on the existing data in terms of the compression ratio, count, and locates time except for the evenly distributed data such as proteins data. The observations of the experiments are that the distribution of the φ is more important than the alphabet size on the compression ratio. Unevenly distributed data φ makes better compression effect, and the larger the size of the hit counts, the longer the count and locate time.

Keywords: compressed suffix array, self-indexing, partitioned Elias-Fano, PEF-CSA

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Authors: Wanjiku Karanja

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Facebook has monopoly power in the social networking market. It has grown and entrenched its monopoly power through the capture of its users’ data value chains. However, antitrust law’s consumer welfare roots have prevented it from effectively addressing the role of data capture in Facebook’s market dominance. These regulatory blind spots are augmented in Facebook’s proposed Diem cryptocurrency project and its Novi Digital wallet. Novi, which is Diem’s digital identity component, shall enable Facebook to collect an unprecedented volume of consumer data. Consequently, Novi has seismic implications on internet identity as the network effects of Facebook’s large user base could establish it as the de facto internet identity layer. Moreover, the large tracts of data Facebook shall collect through Novi shall further entrench Facebook's market power. As such, the attendant lock-in effects of this project shall be very difficult to reverse. Urgent regulatory action is therefore required to prevent this expansion of Facebook’s data resources and monopoly power. This research thus highlights the importance of data capture to competition and market health in the social networking industry. It utilizes interviews with key experts to empirically interrogate the impact of Facebook’s data capture and control of its users’ data value chains on its market power. This inquiry is contextualized against Novi’s expansive effect on Facebook’s data value chains. It thus addresses the novel antitrust issues arising at the nexus of Facebook’s monopoly power and the privacy of its users’ data. It also explores the impact of platform design principles, specifically data portability and data portability, in mitigating Facebook’s anti-competitive practices. As such, this study finds that Facebook is a powerful monopoly that dominates the social media industry to the detriment of potential competitors. Facebook derives its power from its size, annexure of the consumer data value chain, and control of its users’ social graphs. Additionally, the platform design principles of data interoperability and data portability are not a panacea to restoring competition in the social networking market. Their success depends on the establishment of robust technical standards and regulatory frameworks.

Keywords: antitrust law, data protection law, data portability, data interoperability, digital identity, Facebook

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Authors: Madhujit Deb, G. R. K. Sastry, R. S. Panua, Rahul Banerjee, P. K. Bose

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The present work attempts to investigate the combustion, performance and emission characteristics of an existing single-cylinder four-stroke compression-ignition engine operated in dual-fuel mode with hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Environmental concerns and limited amount of petroleum fuels have caused interests in the development of alternative fuels like hydrogen for internal combustion (IC) engines. In this experimental investigation, a diesel engine is made to run using hydrogen in dual fuel mode with diesel, where hydrogen is introduced into the intake manifold using an LPG-CNG injector and pilot diesel is injected using diesel injectors. A Timed Manifold Injection (TMI) system has been developed to vary the injection strategies. The optimized timing for the injection of hydrogen was 100 CA after top dead center (ATDC). From the study it was observed that with increasing hydrogen rate, enhancement in brake thermal efficiency (BTHE) of the engine has been observed with reduction in brake specific energy consumption (BSEC). Furthermore, Soot contents decrease with an increase in indicated specific NOx emissions with the enhancement of hydrogen flow rate.

Keywords: diesel engine, hydrogen, BTHE, BSEC, soot, NOx

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Authors: Edward Shizha, Edward Makwarimba

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This literature review explores current research on the educational strengths and barriers of newcomer and refugee youth in Canada. Canada’s shift in immigration policy in the past three decades, from Europe to Asian and African countries as source continents of recent immigrants to Canada, has tremendously increased the ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious diversity of the population, including that of students in its education system. Over 18% of the country’s population was born in another country, of which 70% are visible minorities. There has been an increase in admitted immigrants and refugees, with a total of 226,203 between July 2020 and June 2021. Newcomer parents and their children in all major destination countries, including Canada, face tremendous challenges, including racism and discrimination, lack of English language skills, poverty, income inequality, unemployment, and underemployment. They face additional challenges, including discrimination against those who cannot speak the official languages, English or French. The severity of the challenges depends on several intersectional factors, including immigrant status (asylum seeker, refugee, or immigrant), age, gender, level of education and others. Through the lens of intersectionality as an explanatory perspective, this literature review examines the educational attainment and outcomes of newcomer and refugee youth in Canada in order to understand their educational needs, educational barriers and strengths. Newcomer youths’ experiences are shaped by numerous intersectional and interconnected sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic factors—including gender, migration status, racialized status, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, sexual minority status, age, race—that produce and perpetuate their disadvantage. According to research, immigrants and refugees from visible minority ethnic backgrounds experience exclusions more than newcomers from other backgrounds and groups from the mainstream population. For many immigrant parents, migration provides financial and educational opportunities for their children. Yet, when attending school, newcomer and refugee youth face unique challenges related to racism and discrimination, negative attitudes and stereotypes from teachers and other school authorities, language learning and proficiency, differing levels of acculturation, and different cultural views of the role of parents in relation to teachers and school, and unfamiliarity with the social or school context in Canada. Recognizing discrepancies in educational attainment of newcomer and refugee youth based on their race and immigrant status, the paper develops insights into existing research and data gaps related to educational strengths and challenges for visible minority newcomer youth in Canada. The paper concludes that the educational successes or failures of the newcomer and refugee youth and their settlement and integration into the school system in Canada may depend on where their families settle, the attitudes of the host community and the school officials (teachers, guidance counsellors and school administrators) after-school support programs and their own set of coping mechanisms. Conceivably a unique approach to after-school programming should provide learning supports and opportunities that consider newcomer and refugee youth’s needs, experiences, backgrounds and circumstances. This support is likely to translate into significant academic and psychological well-being of newcomer students.

Keywords: deficit discourse, discrimination, educational outcomes, newcomer and refugee youth, racism, strength-based approach, whiteness

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