Search results for: positive functioning

Authors: Amlan Datta

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Dengue is an arboviral, vector borne infection, quite prevalent in tropical countries such as India. Approximately, 1 to 25% of cases may give rise to neurological complication, such as, seizure, delirium, Guillian-Barre syndrome (GBS), multiple cranial nerve palsies, intracranial thrombosis, stroke-like presentations, to name a few. Dengue fever, as an antecedent to GBS is uncommon, especially in adults.Here, we report a case about a middle aged lady who presented with an acute onset areflexic ascending type of polyradiculoneuropathy along with bilateral lower motor neuron type of facial nerve palsy, as well as abducens and motor component of trigeminal (V3) weakness. Her respiratory and neck muscles were spared. She had an established episode of dengue fever (NS1 and dengue IgM positive) 7 days prior to the weakness. Nerve conduction study revealed a demyelinating polyradiculopathy of both lower limbs and cerebrospinal fluid examination showed albuminocytological dissociation. She was treated with 5 days of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), following which her limb weakness improved considerably. This case highlights GBS as a potential complication following dengue fever.

Keywords: areflexic, demyelinating, dengue, polyradiculoneuropathy

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Authors: Fauzi Jarushi, Sinan Mohsin AlKaabi

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The Standard Penetration Test (SPT) is the most common insitu test for soil investigations. On the other hand, the Cone Penetration Test (CPT) is considered one of the best investigation tools. Due to the fast and accurate results that can be obtained it complaints the SPT in many applications like field explorations, design parameters, and quality control assessments. Many soil index and engineering properties have been correlated to both of SPT and CPT. Various foundation design methods were developed based on the outcome of these tests. Therefore it is vital to correlate these tests to each other so that either one of the tests can be used in the absence of the other, especially for preliminary evaluation and design purposes. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the SPT and CPT for different types of soil in Florida. Data for this research were collected from number of projects sponsored by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT), six sites served as the subject of SPT-CPT correlations. The correlations were established between the cone resistance (qc) and the SPT blows (i.e., N) for various soils. A positive linear relationship was found between fs and N for various soils. In general, qc versus N showed higher correlation coefficients than fs versus N. qc/N ratios were developed for different soil types and compared to literature values, the results of this research revealed higher ratios than literature values.

Keywords: in situ tests, correlation, SPT, CPT

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Authors: Asma Meliani, S. Lakehal, F. Z. Benrebiha, C. Chaouia

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There is an increasing interest in phytochemicals as new source of natural antioxidant and antimicrobial agents. Plants essential oils have come more into the focus of phytomedicine. Many researchers have reported various biological and/or pharmacological properties of Artemisia herba alba Asso essential oil. The present study describes antimicrobial and antioxidant properties of Artemisia herba alba Asso essential oil. Artemisia herba alba Asso essential oil obtained by hydrodistillation (using Clevenger type apparatus) growing in Algeria (M’sila) was analyzed by GC-MS. The essential oil yield of the study was 0.7 %. The major components were found to be camphor, chrysanthenone et 1,8-cineole. The antimicrobial activity of the essential oil was tested against four bacteria (Gram-negative and Gram-positive) and one fungi using the diffusion method and by determining the inhibition zone. The oil was found to have significant antibacterial activity. In addition, antioxidant activity was determined by 1,1-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay, ferric reducing (FRAP) assay and β-carotene bleaching test, and high activity was found for Artemisia herba-alba oil.

Keywords: Artemisia herba-alba, essential oil, antibacterial activity, antioxidant activity

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Authors: Nikolaos Konstantopoulos, Aristeidis Samitas, Vasileiou Evangelos

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The purpose of this study is to examine if the financial trends influence not only the stock markets’ returns, but also their anomalies. We choose to study the day of the week effect (DOW) for the Greek stock market during the Euro period (2002-12), because during the specific period there are not significant structural changes and there are long term financial trends. Moreover, in order to avoid possible methodological counterarguments that usually arise in the literature, we apply several linear (OLS) and nonlinear (GARCH family) models to our sample until we reach to the conclusion that the TGARCH model fits better to our sample than any other. Our results suggest that in the Greek stock market there is a long term predisposition for positive/negative returns depending on the weekday. However, the statistical significance is influenced from the financial trend. This influence may be the reason why there are conflict findings in the literature through the time. Finally, we combine the DOW’s empirical findings from 1985-2012 and we may assume that in the Greek case there is a tendency for long lived turn of the week effect.

Keywords: day of the week effect, GARCH family models, Athens stock exchange, economic growth, crisis

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Authors: Nouini Adrâa

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Background: The management of dizziness and vertigo can be challenging in the emergency department (ED). It is important to rapidly diagnose vertebrobasilar stroke (VBS), as therapeutic options such as thrombolysis and anticoagulation require prompt decisions. Objective: This study aims to assess the rate of misdiagnosis in patients with dizziness caused by VBS in the ED. Methods and Results: The cohort was comprised of 82 patients with a mean age of 55 years; 51% were women and 49% were men. Among dizzy patients, 15% had VBS. We used Cohen’s kappa test to quantify the agreement between two raters – namely, emergency physicians and neurologists – regarding the causes of dizziness in the ED. The agreement between emergency physicians and neurologists is low for the final diagnosis of central vertigo disorders and moderate for the final diagnosis of VBS. The sensitivity of ED clinal examination for benign conditions such as BPPV was low at 56%. The positive predictive value of the ED clinical examination for VBS was also low at 50%. Conclusion: There is a substantial rate of misdiagnosis in patients with dizziness caused by VBS in the ED. To reduce the number of missing diagnoses of VBS in the future, there is a need to train emergency physicians in neuro vestibular examinations, including the HINTS examination for acute vestibular syndrome (AVS) and the Dix-Hallpike (DH) maneuver for episodic vestibular syndrome. Using video head impulse tests could help reduce the rate of misdiagnosis of VBS in the ED.

Keywords: dizziness, vertigo, vestibular disease, emergency

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Authors: Rachana Tank, Donald. M. Lyall, Kristin Flegal, Joey Ward, Jonathan Cavanagh

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Alzheimer’s research UK estimates by 2050, 2 million individuals will be living with Late Onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD). However, individuals experience considerable cognitive deficits and brain pathology over decades before reaching clinically diagnosable LOAD and studies have utilised gene candidate studies such as genome wide association studies (GWAS) and polygenic risk (PGR) scores to identify high risk individuals and potential pathways. This investigation aims to determine whether high genetic risk of LOAD is associated with worse brain MRI and cognitive performance in healthy older adults within the UK Biobank cohort. Previous studies investigating associations of PGR for LOAD and measures of MRI or cognitive functioning have focused on specific aspects of hippocampal structure, in relatively small sample sizes and with poor ‘controlling’ for confounders such as smoking. Both the sample size of this study and the discovery GWAS sample are bigger than previous studies to our knowledge. Genetic interaction between loci showing largest effects in GWAS have not been extensively studied and it is known that APOE e4 poses the largest genetic risk of LOAD with potential gene-gene and gene-environment interactions of e4, for this reason we  also analyse genetic interactions of PGR with the APOE e4 genotype. High genetic loading based on a polygenic risk score of 21 SNPs for LOAD is associated with worse brain MRI and cognitive outcomes in healthy individuals within the UK Biobank cohort. Summary statistics from Kunkle et al., GWAS meta-analyses (case: n=30,344, control: n=52,427) will be used to create polygenic risk scores based on 21 SNPs and analyses will be carried out in N=37,000 participants in the UK Biobank. This will be the largest study to date investigating PGR of LOAD in relation to MRI. MRI outcome measures include WM tracts, structural volumes. Cognitive function measures include reaction time, pairs matching, trail making, digit symbol substitution and prospective memory. Interaction of the APOE e4 alleles and PGR will be analysed by including APOE status as an interaction term coded as either 0, 1 or 2 e4 alleles. Models will be adjusted partially for adjusted for age, BMI, sex, genotyping chip, smoking, depression and social deprivation. Preliminary results suggest PGR score for LOAD is associated with decreased hippocampal volumes including hippocampal body (standardised beta = -0.04, P = 0.022) and tail (standardised beta = -0.037, P = 0.030), but not with hippocampal head. There were also associations of genetic risk with decreased cognitive performance including fluid intelligence (standardised beta = -0.08, P<0.01) and reaction time (standardised beta = 2.04, P<0.01). No genetic interactions were found between APOE e4 dose and PGR score for MRI or cognitive measures. The generalisability of these results is limited by selection bias within the UK Biobank as participants are less likely to be obese, smoke, be socioeconomically deprived and have fewer self-reported health conditions when compared to the general population. Lack of a unified approach or standardised method for calculating genetic risk scores may also be a limitation of these analyses. Further discussion and results are pending.

Keywords: Alzheimer's dementia, cognition, polygenic risk, MRI

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Authors: Valentina V. Zhurikhina, Mihail I. Petrov, Alexandra A. Rtischeva, Mark Dussauze, Thierry Cardinal, Andrey A. Lipovskii

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Polarization of glass, often referred to as thermal poling, is a well-known method to modify the glass physical and chemical properties, that manifest themselves in loosing central symmetry of the medium, glass structure and refractive index modification. The usage of the poling for second optical harmonic generation, fabrication of optical waveguides and electrooptic modulators was also reported. Nevertheless, the detailed description of the poling of glasses, containing multiple charge carriers is still under discussion. In particular, the role of possible migration of electrons in the space charge formation usually remains out of the question. In this work, we performed the numerical simulation of thermal poling of a silicate glass, containing Na, K, Mg, and Ca. We took into consideration the contribution of electrons in the polarization process. The possible explanation of migration of electrons can be the break of non-bridging oxygen bonds. It was found, that the modeled depth of the space charge region is about 10 times higher if the migration of the negative charges is taken under consideration. The simulated profiles of cations, participating in the polarization process, are in a good agreement with the experimental data, obtained by glow discharge spectroscopy.

Keywords: glass poling, charge transport, modeling, concentration profiles

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Authors: Syed Hassan Amjad

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In today’s competitive environment, in order for a company to exist, it must continually improve its Performance by reducing cost, improving quality and productivity, and easy access to market.The purpose of this thesis is to check the firm financial growth and performance and which type of factors affect the firm financial performance. This paper examines the key determinants of firm financial performance. We will differentiate between financial and non financial drivers of the firm financial performance. For the measurement of the firm financial performance there are many ways but all the measure had been taken in aggregation, such as debt, tax rate, operating expenses, earning per share and economic conditions. This study has also been done in developed countries but these researches show that foreign companies face many difficulties inimproving the firm financial performance. In findings we found that marketing expenditures and international diversification had a positive impact on firm valuation. In research also found that a firm's ownership composition, particularly the level of equity ownership by Domestic Financial Institutions and Dispersed Public Shareholders, and the leverage of the firm, tax rate and economic conditions were important factors affecting its financial performance.

Keywords: debt, tax rate, firm financial performance, operating expenses, dividend per share, economic conditions

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Authors: Eunice Tan

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The purpose of this presentation is to look at an alternative to the approach and methodologies of working with a child with special needs. The strength-based approach to education embodies a paradigm shift. It is a strategy to move away from a deficit-based methodology which inadvertently may lead to an extensive list of things that the child cannot do or is unable to do. Today, many parents of individuals with special needs are focused on the individual’s deficits rather than on his or her strengths. Even when parents recognise and identify their child’s savant strengths to be valuable and wish to develop their abilities, they face the challenge that there are insufficient programs committed to supporting the development and improvement of such abilities. What is a strength-based approach in education? A strength-based approach in education focuses on students' positive qualities and contributions to class instead of the skills and abilities they may not have. Many schools are focused on the child’s special educational needs rather than the whole child. Parents interviewed have said that they have to engage external tutors to help hone in on their child’s interests and strengths. The strength-based approach to writing statements encourages educators to find out: • What a child can do • What a child can do when he or she is given educational support • Learning more about children with special needs and their strengths and talents will broaden our understanding of how we can help them with language acquisition, social skills, as well as self-help and independence skills.

Keywords: special needs, strengths, and talents, alternative educational approach, strength based approach

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Authors: Sawsan J. Al-husseini, Talib A. Dosa

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Educational institutions are today facing increasing pressures due to economic, political and social upheaval. This is only exacerbated by the nature of education as an intangible good which relies upon the intellectual assets of the organisation, its staff. Top management support has been acknowledged as having a positive general influence on knowledge management and creativity. However, there is a lack of models linking top management support, knowledge sharing, and innovation within higher education institutions, in general within developing countries, and particularly in Iraq. This research sought to investigate the impact of top management support on innovation through the mediating role of knowledge sharing in Iraqi private HEIs. A quantitative approach was taken and 262 valid responses were collected to test the causal relationships between top management support, knowledge sharing, and innovation. Employing structural equation modelling with AMOS v.25, the research demonstrated that knowledge sharing plays a pivotal role in the relationship between top management support and innovation. The research has produced some guidelines for researchers as well as leaders, and provided evidence to support the use of knowledge sharing to increase innovation within the higher education environment in developing countries, particularly Iraq.

Keywords: top management support, knowledge sharing, innovation, structural equation modelling

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Authors: Anduela Lile

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The purpose of this cross sectional study was to investigate the effectiveness of teaching and learning Statistics from a student centered perspective in higher education institutions. Statistics education has emphasized the application of tangible and interesting examples in order to motivate students learning about statistical concepts. Participants in this study were 112 bachelor students enrolled in the ‘Applied Statistics’ course in Sports University of Tirana. Experimental group students received a student-centered teaching approach; Control group students received an instructor-centered teaching approach. This study found student-centered approach student group had statistically significantly higher assessments scores (52.1 ± 18.9) at the end of the evaluation compared to instructor-centered approach student group (61.8 ± 16.4), (t (108) = 2.848, p = 0.005). Results concluded that student-centered perspective can improve student positive attitude to statistical methods and to motivate project work. Therefore, findings of this study may be very useful to the higher education institutions to establish their learning strategies especially for courses related to Statistics.

Keywords: student-centered, instructor-centered, course assessment, learning outcomes, applied statistics

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Authors: Aynur Bütün Ayhan, Utku Beyazıt

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Adolescents can be heavily influenced by social media content as they develop their identities and body images. Therefore, the intensive use of social media platforms may have important effects on their body image beliefs. In this context, the objective of the present study was to assess the relationship between adolescents' social media use and their body image concerns. The study included 265 adolescents (133 girls and 132 boys) between the ages of 15 and 17 who were attending a high school in Ankara, Türkiye. In the study, the adolescents were administered the Social Media Addiction Scale to assess their level of social media use and the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale to assess their social appearance anxiety. Prior to analysis, a normality test was applied, and it was determined that the data displayed a non-parametric distribution. As a result, a significant positive relationship (r=.322, p<.01) was found between adolescents' level of social use and social appearance anxiety. It was also determined that social media addiction and social appearance anxiety significantly differed (p<.05) according to adolescents' opinions about their own bodies, being influenced by body images they see on social media and weight perceptions. The findings suggest that social media use should be managed carefully for adolescents to develop a healthy body image.

Keywords: social media, adolescent, social appearence, anxiety

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Authors: Pranvera Shehaj

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Unlike any prior analysis on the withholding tax rates negotiated in tax treaties, this study looks at the treaty heterogeneity content, by investigating the impact of the residence country’s double tax relief method and of tax-sparing agreements, on the difference between developing countries’ domestic withholding taxes on dividends on one side, and treaty negotiated withholding taxes at source on portfolio dividends on the other side. Using a dyadic panel dataset of asymmetric double tax treaties between 2005 and 2019, this study suggests first that the difference between domestic and negotiated WHTs on portfolio dividends is higher when the OECD member uses the credit method, as compared to when it uses the exemption method. Second, results suggest that the inclusion of tax-sparing provisions vanishes the positive effect of the credit method at home on the difference between domestic and negotiated WHTs on portfolio dividends, incentivizing developing countries to negotiate higher withholding taxes.

Keywords: double tax treaties, asymmetric investments, withholding tax, dividends, double tax relief method, tax sparing

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Authors: Nugraheni Widianingtyas, Niko Albert Setiawan

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For ELESP Teachers’ College, teaching learning strategies such as presentation and group discussion are classical ones to be implemented in the class. In order to create a breakthrough which can bring about more positive advancements in the learning process, a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) is being offered and implemented in certain classes. Interestingly, FGD is frequently used in the social-business inquiries such as for recruiting employees. It is then interesting to investigate FGD when it is implemented in the educational scope, especially in the Sociolinguistics class which regarded as one of the most arduous subjects in this study program. Thus, this study focused on how FGD enhances students Sociolinguistics mastery. In response to that, a quantitative survey research was conducted in which observation, questionnaire, and interview (triangulation method) became the instruments. The respondents of this study were 29 sixth-semester students who take Sociolinguistics of ELESP, Sanata Dharma University in 2017. The findings indicated that FGD could help students in enhancing Sociolinguistics mastery. In addition, it also revealed that FGD was exploring students’ logical thinking, English communication skill, and decision-making.

Keywords: focus group discussion, material mastery, sociolinguistics, teaching strategy

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Authors: Adamu Garba, Saidu Idi

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This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of Dermatophilosis in cattle in Bauchi State and suggest possible control measures. Data were obtained from the State Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Veterinary Division and monthly reports from Local Government Area Veterinary Offices for a period of three years ranging from 1996-1998. The result revealed that the disease is more prevalent in the rainy season which coincides with preponderance of the predisposing factors. Of the total 17,252 infected cattle in the State, Western zone had the highest cases with 8,298 (50.0%), followed by Central zone with 5,211 (30.0%) and the least was in the Northern zone with 3,753 (20.0%) cases. Rainfall pattern within the zones could be responsible for the variation in the prevalence rate. Analysis of variance revealed that there is no significant difference in the prevalence of Dermatophilosis between the years (P<0.212) while there is significant difference within the zones (P<0.012). Correlation analysis carried out showed that there is positive relationship between rainfall and Dermatophilosis (r<0.909). Since the disease is more prevalent during the rainy season, efforts should be exerted on thorough preventive measures during the period to control the disease in the State, particularly in the Western zone.

Keywords: incidence, dermatophilosis, cattle, Bauchi State

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Authors: André Rafael Ferreira, Laurentina Vareiro, Raquel Mendes

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This study’s main objective is to explore residents’ perceptions of film-induced tourism and the impacts of filmmaking on the development of a destination. Specifically, the research examines resident´s perceptions of the social, economic, and environmental impacts on a Portuguese municipality (Arcos de Valdevez) given its feature in a popular Portuguese television series. Data is collected by means of an Internet survey, in which resident´s perceptions of the impacts of filmmaking are solicited. Residents generally agree that the recording and exhibition of the television series is important to the municipality, and contributes to the increased number of tourists. Given that residents consider that the positive impacts are more significant than the negative impacts, they supported the recording of another television series in the same municipality. Considering that destination managers and tourism development authorities aim to plan for optimal tourism development, and at the same time wish to minimize the negative impacts of this development on the local communities, monitoring residents’ opinions of perceived impacts is a good way of incorporating their reaction into tourism planning and development. The results of this research may provide useful information in this sense.

Keywords: film-induced tourism, residents’ perceptions, tourism development, tourism impacts

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Authors: Joanna Dzieńdziora

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Lobbying is an instrument of influence in various decision-making processes. It is also the underestimated issue as a research problem. The lack of research on the modern lobbyist competencies is the most crucial element. The paper presents attempts of finding answers to the following questions: Who should run the lobbying activity? What competencies should a lobbyist possess in order to implement lobbying activities effectively? Searching for answers for the mentioned above questions requires positioning the opportunity to change the image of lobbying in the area of competencies of entities that provide lobbying activities. The aim of the paper is presenting the lobbyist competencies profile in the framework of his professional role. The essence of lobbying activity and its significance in the modern economy as well as areas, the scope of lobbying activities, diagnosis of a modern lobbyist’s competences, lobbyist’s competencies profile that is focused on the professionalization of the lobbying activity, will have been presented in this paper. Indicated research tasks let emerge lobbyist’s competencies in the way that allows identifying and elaborating the lobbyist competencies profile. The profile lets improve lobbying activities. Its elaboration is based on the author’s research results analysis. Taking into consideration the shortages within the theory and research on the lobbying activity, the implementation of this research enables to fill the cognitive gap existing in the theory of management sciences.

Keywords: competencies, competencies profile, lobbying, lobbyist

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Authors: Karen L. Lindsay, Sonja Entringer, Claudia Buss, Pathik D. Wadhwa

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Maternal nutrition and stress are independently recognized as among the most important factors that influence prenatal biology, with implications for fetal development and poor pregnancy outcomes. While there is substantial evidence from non-pregnancy human and animal studies that a complex, bi-directional relationship exists between nutrition and stress, to the author’s best knowledge, their interaction in the context of pregnancy has been significantly understudied. The aim of this study is to assess the interaction between maternal psychological stress and diet quality across pregnancy and its effects on biomarkers of prenatal insulin resistance and inflammation. This is a prospective longitudinal study of N=235 women carrying a healthy, singleton pregnancy, recruited from prenatal clinics of the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. Participants completed a 4-day ambulatory assessment in early, middle and late pregnancy, which included multiple daily electronic diary entries using Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) technology on a dedicated study smartphone. The EMA diaries gathered moment-level data on maternal perceived stress, negative mood, positive mood and quality of social interactions. The numerical scores for these variables were averaged across each study time-point and converted to Z-scores. A single composite variable for 'STRESS' was computed as follows: (Negative mood+Perceived stress)–(Positive mood+Social interaction quality). Dietary intakes were assessed by three 24-hour dietary recalls conducted within two weeks of each 4-day assessment. Daily nutrient and food group intakes were averaged across each study time-point. The Alternative Healthy Eating Index adapted for pregnancy (AHEI-P) was computed for early, middle and late pregnancy as a validated summary measure of diet quality. At the end of each 4-day ambulatory assessment, women provided a fasting blood sample, which was assayed for levels of glucose, insulin, Interleukin (IL)-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-α. Homeostasis Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) was computed. Pearson’s correlation was used to explore the relationship between maternal STRESS and AHEI-P within and between each study time-point. Linear regression was employed to test the association of the stress-diet interaction (STRESS*AHEI-P) with the biological markers HOMA-IR, IL-6 and TNF-α at each study time-point, adjusting for key covariates (pre-pregnancy body mass index, maternal education level, race/ethnicity). Maternal STRESS and AHEI-P were significantly inversely correlated in early (r=-0.164, p=0.018) and mid-pregnancy (-0.160, p=0.019), and AHEI-P from earlier gestational time-points correlated with later STRESS (early AHEI-P x mid STRESS: r=-0.168, p=0.017; mid AHEI-P x late STRESS: r=-0.142, p=0.041). In regression models, the interaction term was not associated with HOMA-IR or IL-6 at any gestational time-point. The stress-diet interaction term was significantly associated with TNF-α according to the following patterns: early AHEI-P*early STRESS vs early TNF-α (p=0.005); early AHEI-P*early STRESS vs mid TNF-α (p=0.002); early AHEI-P*mid STRESS vs mid TNF-α (p=0.005); mid AHEI-P*mid STRESS vs mid TNF-α (p=0.070); mid AHEI-P*late STRESS vs late TNF-α (p=0.011). Poor diet quality is significantly related to higher psychosocial stress levels in pregnant women across gestation, which may promote inflammation via TNF-α. Future prenatal studies should consider the combined effects of maternal stress and diet when evaluating either one of these factors on pregnancy or infant outcomes.

Keywords: diet quality, inflammation, insulin resistance, nutrition, pregnancy, stress, tumor necrosis factor-alpha

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Authors: Emmanuel Donkor

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Aim/Purpose – This paper examines the influence of construction workers wages and working conditions on productivity in Ghana. Design/methodology/Approach - The study adopted a quantitative research approach with purposive sampling techniques where data was collected using surveys. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20.0, which enables the findings of the study to be examined under thematic areas.Findings: - The study revealed that good wages and working condition of workers have a positive correlation on productivity in the construction industry. Increase and improved wages and working conditions can results in higher productivity in the construction industry.Originality/value - This paper is exceptional in the sense that, it does examine the influence of construction workers wages and working conditions on productivity in Ghana. Social value/implications - The paper concludes that workers’ wages and their conditions have a high influence on productivity. It is then recommended that government should train, educate, give good wages to workers and improve on their working condition, give incentives and reduce tax importation on building or construction materials to aid in good productivity of construction firms.

Keywords: construction firms, construction industry, productivity, workers’ wages, working conditions

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Authors: Meiyan Gao, Zongmin Wang, Haibo Yang, Qiuhua Liang

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Under the background of global climate change and rapid development of modern urbanization, the frequency of climate disasters such as extreme precipitation in cities around the world is gradually increasing. In this paper, Hi-PIMS model is used to simulate the "720" flood in Zhengzhou, and the continuous stages of flood resilience are determined with the urban flood stages are divided. The flood resilience curve under the influence of multiple factors were determined and the urban flood toughness was evaluated by combining the results of resilience curves. The flood resilience of urban unit grid was evaluated based on economy, population, road network, hospital distribution and land use type. Firstly, the rainfall data of meteorological stations near Zhengzhou and the remote sensing rainfall data from July 17 to 22, 2021 were collected. The Kriging interpolation method was used to expand the rainfall data of Zhengzhou. According to the rainfall data, the flood process generated by four rainfall events in Zhengzhou was reproduced. Based on the results of the inundation range and inundation depth in different areas, the flood process was divided into four stages: absorption, resistance, overload and recovery based on the once in 50 years rainfall standard. At the same time, based on the levels of slope, GDP, population, hospital affected area, land use type, road network density and other aspects, the resilience curve was applied to evaluate the urban flood resilience of different regional units, and the difference of flood process of different precipitation in "720" rainstorm in Zhengzhou was analyzed. Faced with more than 1,000 years of rainstorm, most areas are quickly entering the stage of overload. The influence levels of factors in different areas are different, some areas with ramps or higher terrain have better resilience, and restore normal social order faster, that is, the recovery stage needs shorter time. Some low-lying areas or special terrain, such as tunnels, will enter the overload stage faster in the case of heavy rainfall. As a result, high levels of flood protection, water level warning systems and faster emergency response are needed in areas with low resilience and high risk. The building density of built-up area, population of densely populated area and road network density all have a certain negative impact on urban flood resistance, and the positive impact of slope on flood resilience is also very obvious. While hospitals can have positive effects on medical treatment, they also have negative effects such as population density and asset density when they encounter floods. The result of a separate comparison of the unit grid of hospitals shows that the resilience of hospitals in the distribution range is low when they encounter floods. Therefore, in addition to improving the flood resistance capacity of cities, through reasonable planning can also increase the flood response capacity of cities. Changes in these influencing factors can further improve urban flood resilience, such as raise design standards and the temporary water storage area when floods occur, train the response speed of emergency personnel and adjust emergency support equipment.

Keywords: urban flood resilience, resilience assessment, hydrodynamic model, resilience curve

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Authors: Pranee Liamputtong, Hala Kurban

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Based on the therapeutic landscape theory, this paper examines how young Middle-Eastern refugee individuals perceive their health and well-being and address the barriers they face in their new homeland and the means that helped them to form social connections in their new social environment. Qualitative methods (in-depth interviews and mapping activities) were conducted with ten young people from refugee backgrounds. Thematic analysis method was used to analyse the data. Findings suggested that the young refugees face various structural and cultural inequalities that significantly influenced their health and well-being. Mental health well-being was their greatest health concern. All reported the significant influence the English language had on their ability to adapt and form connections with their social environment. The presence of positive social support in their new social environment had a great impact on the health and well-being of the participants. The findings of this study have implications for social justice among refugees. They also contributed to the role of therapeutic landscapes and social support in helping young refugees to feel that they belonged to the society, and hence assisted them to adapt to their new living situation.

Keywords: young refugees, Middle-Eastern, social support, social justice

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Authors: Aggrey Daniel Maina Thuo

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Rapid urban population growth means an increasing demand for urban land, particularly for housing, and also for various other urban uses. This land is not available within cities but in peri-urban areas. The expansion of the cities into the peri-urban areas is creating direct and indirect impacts with those living there facing new challenges and opportunities in meeting their life needs and accommodating the by-products of urbanization. Although urbanization of these areas provides opportunities for employment, better housing, education, knowledge and technology transfer, and ready markets for the agricultural products, increase in population places enormous stress on natural resources and existing social services and infrastructure, therefore causing environmental degradation. This environmental degradation is affecting agriculture for those still holding onto their farms for agricultural purposes. This paper, using a multiple theoretical framework and qualitative research approach, attempts to describe the positive and adverse effects of urbanization on peri-urban agriculture, using the Town Council of Karuri within Nairobi peri-urban areas as a case study.

Keywords: peri-urban agriculture, urbanization, land use, environmental degradation, planning

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Authors: Sawsan Kamal Kalil El Galad, Heba Shafik Ibrahim Mohamed, Rania Ismail Moussa

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New developments in the technological world have made the internet an innovative way for individuals and families to communicate. Social media sites help in fulfilling communication needs and wants of their users. The use of social media may have an effect on the family relation either in a positive or negative manner. This study aimed to investigate the family relationships among users and non users of social media. The study followed a cross- sectional descriptive comparative research design. It was conducted on 360 employees, at Damanhour University in Elbeheira, Egypt. Brief Family Relationship Scale (BFRS) was used to collect the data of this study. The results revealed that the mean score of the social media users is slightly increased in relation to the non users of social media mean score with no significant difference between both groups. It was concluded that using social media for short time has no effect on the family relationship, sitting with family in daily base satisfy the social and emotional needs of its member and enhance family relations. Recommendations encompassed that the time spent on social media should be assessed regularly to prevent being isolated from the family members. Educational programs to increase the parent’s awareness how to deal with their children regarding social media and its risks.

Keywords: social media, family relationships, communication needs, culture

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Authors: Min-Ha Hong, Kee-Won Kim, Seung-Hoon Kim

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The character in the story-based content, such as novels and movies, is one of the core elements to understand the story. In particular, the character’s tendency is an important factor to analyze the story-based content, because it has a significant influence on the storyline. If readers have the knowledge of the tendency of characters before reading a novel, it will be helpful to understand the structure of conflict, episode and relationship between characters in the novel. It may therefore help readers to select novel that the reader wants to read. In this paper, we propose a method of extracting the tendency of the characters from a novel written in Korean. In advance, we build the dictionary with pairs of the emotional words in Korean and English since the emotion words in the novel’s sentences express character’s feelings. We rate the degree of polarity (positive or negative) of words in our emotional words dictionary based on SenticNet. Then we extract characters and emotion words from sentences in a novel. Since the polarity of a word grows strong or weak due to sentence features such as quotations and modifiers, our proposed method consider them to calculate the polarity of characters. The information of the extracted character’s polarity can be used in the book search service or book recommendation service.

Keywords: character tendency, data mining, emotion word, Korean novel

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Authors: Mohamed S. Negm, Waleed S. Mandour

Abstract:

The present study aims primarily at investigating words of peace (lexemes of peace) in the formal speeches of the Egyptian president Abdulfattah El-Sisi in a two-year span of time, from 2018 to 2019. This paper attempts to shed light not only on the contextual use of the antonyms, war and peace, but also it underpins quantitative analysis through the current methods of corpus linguistics. As such, the researchers have deployed a corpus-based approach in collecting, encoding, and processing 30 presidential speeches over the stated period (23,411 words and 25,541 tokens in total). Further, semantic fields and collocational networkzs are identified and compared statistically. Results have shown a significant propensity of adopting peace, including its relevant collocation network, textually and therefore, ideationally, at the expense of war concept which in most cases surfaces euphemistically through the noun conflict. The president has not justified the action of war with an honorable cause or a valid reason. Such results, so far, have indicated a positive sociopolitical mindset the Egyptian president possesses and moreover, reveal national and international fair dealing on arising issues.

Keywords: CADS, collocation network, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis

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Authors: Archana Vadeyar, Smita Phatak

Abstract:

Nurturing flora and fauna is the crux of Environment Education yet one tends to forget to nurture the human minds. Youth education presently is too academic, exam oriented and lacks all-round development. A project is whole-hearted purposeful activity proceeding in a social environment. Projects at +2 stages have become, just an easier way of securing marks. The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of an experiential environment education (EE) project for youth involving community interaction. Youth were encouraged to plan activities for children-based on EE through General knowledge (GK), language, math, science, fun games, quiz, sports, art and craft, stories. A purposive sample of 73 students was administered a self-prepared and validated questionnaire; supported by content analysis of reports from EE Journals of 21 students and some photos. Responses of students revealed that project was a joyful and motivating experience, with learnings and realizations, developed concern for others, made them feel responsible, happy and contented. Community interaction programs need to be included in the regular schedule to add more meaning to EE projects and cater to the needs of adolescents for diverting youth energy towards positive action.

Keywords: experiential, project, environment education, youth, community interaction

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Authors: Feixiang Zhao, Shuangcheng Jia, Qian Li

Abstract:

High-precision measurement of the target’s position and size is one of the hotspots in the field of vision inspection. This paper proposes a three-dimensional object positioning and measurement method using a monocular camera and GPS, namely the Distance Area Number-New Minimize Projection Error (DAN-NMPE). Our algorithm contains two parts: DAN and NMPE; specifically, DAN is a picture sequence algorithm, NMPE is a relatively positive optimization algorithm, which greatly improves the measurement accuracy of the target’s position and size. Comprehensive experiments validate the effectiveness of our proposed method on a self-made traffic sign dataset. The results show that with the laser point cloud as the ground truth, the size and position errors of the traffic sign measured by this method are ± 5% and 0.48 ± 0.3m, respectively. In addition, we also compared it with the current mainstream method, which uses a monocular camera to locate and measure traffic signs. DAN-NMPE attains significant improvements compared to existing state-of-the-art methods, which improves the measurement accuracy of size and position by 50% and 15.8%, respectively.

Keywords: monocular camera, GPS, positioning, measurement

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Authors: Tabinda Sadiq, Tehmina Ashfaq Qazi, Hoor Shumail

Abstract:

Recently, the advent of emerging technology has created an emerging generation of restaurant marketing. It explores the aspects that influence customers’ decision-making process in selecting a restaurant after reading food bloggers' reviews online. The motivation behind this research is to investigate the correlation between the credibility of the source and their attitude toward restaurant visits. The researcher collected the data by distributing a survey questionnaire through google forms by employing the Source credibility theory. Non- probability purposive sampling technique was used to collect data. The questionnaire used a predeveloped and validated scale by Ohanian to measure the relationship. Also, the researcher collected data from 250 respondents in order to investigate the influence of food bloggers on Gen Z's decision-making process. SPSS statistical version 26 was used for statistical testing and analyzing the data. The findings of the survey revealed that there is a moderate positive correlation between the variables. So, it can be analyzed that food bloggers do have an impact on Generation Z's decision making process.

Keywords: credibility, decision making, food bloggers, generation z, e-wom

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Authors: P. C. Li, R. H. Feng, S. J. Chen, Y. J. Yu, Y. L. Chen, X. Y. Fan

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of mindfulness and wisdom comprehensive strategy intervention on addiction to the Internet of college students by engaging fourteen intensive full-day mindfulness-based wisdom retreat curriculum. Wisdom, one of the practice method from the threefold training. Internet addiction, a kind of impulse control disorder, which attract the attentions of society due to its high prevalence and harmfulness in the last decade. Therefore, the study of internet addiction intervention is urgent. Participants with internet addiction were Chinese college students and screened by internet addiction disorder diagnose questionnaire (IAD-DQ). A quasi-experimental pretest and posttest design was used as research design. The finding shows that the mindfulness-based wisdom intervention strategy appeared to be effective in reducing the Internet addiction. Moreover, semi-structure interview method was conducted and outcomes included five themes: the reduction of internet use, the increment of awareness on emotion, self-control, present concentration and better positive lifestyle, indicating that mindfulness could be an effective intervention for this group with internet addiction.

Keywords: mindfulness, internet addiction, wisdom comprehensive intervention, cognitive-behavior therapy

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Authors: Manjie Li, Xiangju Cheng, Yongcan Chen

Abstract:

With rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, water environmental deterioration is widespread in majority of urban rivers, which seriously affects city image and life satisfaction of residents. As an emergency measure to improve water quality, clean water diversion is introduced for water environmental management. Lubao River and Southwest River, two urban rivers in typical plain tidal river network, are identified as technically and economically feasible for the application of clean water diversion. One-dimensional hydrodynamic-water quality model is developed to simulate temporal and spatial variations of water level and water quality, with satisfactory accuracy. The mathematical model after calibration is applied to investigate hydrodynamic and water quality variations in rivers as well as determine the optimum operation scheme of water diversion. Assessment system is developed for evaluation of positive and negative effects of water diversion, demonstrating the effectiveness of clean water diversion and the necessity of pollution reduction.

Keywords: assessment system, clean water diversion, hydrodynamic-water quality model, tidal river network, urban rivers, water environment improvement

Procedia PDF Downloads 276