Search results for: IYCF (Infant and Young Child Feeding)

Authors: Thaís T. Valério Caetano, Lívia de Carvalho Ferreira, João Máximo De Siqueira, Carlos Alexandre Carollo, Arthur Ladeira Macedo, Vanessa C. Stein

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Nicotiana glauca, commonly known as wild tobacco or tobacco bush, belongs to the Solanaceae family. It is native to South America but has become naturalized in various regions, including Australia, California, Africa, and the Mediterranean. N. glauca is listed in the Global Invasive Species Database (GISD) and the Invasive Species Compendium (CABI). It is known for producing pyridine alkaloids, including anabasine, which is highly toxic. Anabasine is predominantly found in the leaves and can cause severe health issues such as neuromuscular blockade, respiratory arrest, and cardiovascular problems when ingested. Mistaken identity with edible plants like spinach has resulted in food poisoning cases in Israel and Brazil. Anabasine, a minor alkaloid constituent of tobacco, may contribute to tobacco addiction by mimicking or enhancing the effects of nicotine. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the production pattern of anabasine and its relationship to the developmental stages of the plant. This study aimed to establish the relationship between the phenological plant age, cultivation place, and the increase in anabasine concentration, which can lead to human intoxication cases. In this study, N. glauca plants were collected from three different rural areas in Brazil during a year to examine leaves at various stages of development. Samples were also obtained from cultivated plants in Marilândia, Minas Gerais, Brazil, as well as from Divinópolis, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and Arraial do Cabo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In vitro cultivated plants on MS medium were included in the study. The collected leaves were dried, powdered, and stored. Alkaloid extraction was performed using a methanol and water mixture, followed by liquid-liquid extraction with chloroform. The anabasine content was determined using HPLC-DAD analysis with nicotine as a standard. The results indicated that anabasine production increases with the plant's development, peaking in adult leaves during the reproduction phase and declining afterward. In vitro, plants showed similar anabasine production to young leaves. The successful adaptation of N. glauca in new environments poses a global problem, and the correlation between anabasine production and the plant's developmental stages has been understudied. The presence of substances produced by the plant can pose a risk to other species, especially when mistaken for edible plants. The findings from this study shed light on the pattern of anabasine production and its association with plant development, contributing to a better understanding of the potential risks associated with N. glauca and the importance of accurate identification.

Keywords: alkaloid production, invasive species, nicotiana glauca, plant phenology

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Authors: Gopalasingam Daisan

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Landmines and ammunitions have been creating a significant threat to the people and animals, after the war, the landmines remain in the land and it plays a vital role in civilian’s security. Especially the Children are at the highest risk because they are curious. After all, an unexploded bomb can look like a tempting toy to an inquisitive child. The initial step of designing the UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) for landmine detection is to choose an appropriate and effective sensor to locate the landmines and other unexploded ammunitions. The sensor weight and other components related to the sensor supporting device’s weight are taken as a payload weight. The mission requirement is to find the landmines in a particular area by making a proper path that will cover all the vicinity in the desired area. The weight estimation of the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) can be estimated by various techniques discovered previously with good accuracy at the first phase of the design. The next crucial part of the design is to calculate the power requirement and the wing loading calculations. The matching plot techniques are used to determine the thrust-to-weight ratio, and this technique makes this process not only easiest but also precisely. The wing loading can be calculated easily from the stall equation. After these calculations, the wing area is determined from the wing loading equation and the required power is calculated from the thrust to weight ratio calculations. According to the power requirement, an appropriate engine can be selected from the available engine from the market. And the wing geometric parameter is chosen based on the conceptual sketch. The important steps in the wing design to choose proper aerofoil and which will ensure to create sufficient lift coefficient to satisfy the requirements. The next component is the tail; the tail area and other related parameters can be estimated or calculated to counteract the effect of the wing pitching moment. As the vertical tail design depends on many parameters, the initial sizing only can be done in this phase. The fuselage is another major component, which is selected based on the slenderness ratio, and also the shape is determined on the sensor size to fit it under the fuselage. The landing gear is one of the important components which is selected based on the controllability and stability requirements. The minimum and maximum wheel track and wheelbase can be determined based on the crosswind and overturn angle requirements. The minor components of the landing gear design and estimation are not the focus of this project. Another important task is to calculate the weight of the major components and it is going to be estimated using empirical relations and also the mass is added to each such component. The CG and moment of inertia are also determined to each component separately. The sensitivity of the weight calculation is taken into consideration to avoid extra material requirements and also reduce the cost of the design. Finally, the aircraft performance is calculated, especially the V-n (velocity and load factor) diagram for different flight conditions such as not disturbed and with gust velocity.

Keywords: landmine, UAS, matching plot, optimization

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Authors: Nidhi Malshe

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Background: Currently, there are approximately 1.3 billion individuals worldwide living with significant disabilities, which accounts for 16% of the global population—about 1 in 6 people. As the global population continues to grow, so does the number of people experiencing disabilities. Traffic accidents alone contribute to millions of injuries and disabilities each year, particularly among young people. Additionally, as life expectancy rises, more individuals are likely to experience disabilities in their later years. 27.0% of Canadians aged 15 and over, or 8 million people, had at least one disability in 2022. This represents an increase of 4.7 percentage points from 2017. A person with a disability earns 21.4% less on average as compared to a person without a disability. Using innovative and inclusive methods for accommodations, disability management, and employment, we can progress towards inclusive workplaces and potential income parity for this equity-seeking population. Objective: This study embraces innovative and inclusive approaches to disability management, thereby unlocking the advantages associated with a) fostering equal opportunities for all individuals, b) facilitating streamlined accommodations and making it easier for companies to accommodate people with disabilities, c) harnessing diverse perspectives to drive innovation and enhance overall productivity. Methodology: Literature review, assessments of specific needs and requirements in the workplace. a) Encourage the ability to think out of the box for potential workplace accommodations based on the specific needs of individuals. e.g., propose prolonged integration post disability. b) Perform a cost-benefit analysis of early interventions of return to work vs. duration on disability. c) Expand the scope of vocational assessment/retraining – e.g., retraining a person with permanent physical impairment to become a video game coder. d) Leverage the use of technology while planning to return to work e.g., speech-to-text software for persons with voice impairments. Hypothesized Results: Prolonged progression of return to work increases the potential for sustainable and productive employment. Co-developing a person-centric accommodation plan based on reported functional abilities and applying pioneering methods for extending accommodations to prevent secondary disabilities. Facilitate a sense of belonging by providing employees with benefits and initiatives that honor their unique contributions. Engage individuals with disabilities as active members of the planning committee to ensure the development of innovative and inclusive accommodations that address the needs of all. Conclusion: The global pandemic underscored the need for creativity in our daily routine. It is imperative to integrate the lessons learned from the pandemic, enhance them within employment, and return to work processes. These learnings can also be used to develop creative, distinct methods to ensure equal opportunities for everyone.

Keywords: disbaility management, diversity, inclusion, innovation

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Authors: Keda Li, Hong Hu

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Auxetic materials, as an emerging artificial designed metamaterial has attracted growing attention due to their promising negative Poisson’s ratio behaviors and tunable properties. The conventional auxetic lattice structures for which the deformation process is governed by a bending-dominated mechanism have faced the limitation of poor mechanical performance for many potential engineering applications. Recently, both load-bearing and energy absorption capabilities have become a crucial consideration in auxetic structure design. This study reports the finite element analysis of a class of hexagonal double-arrowhead auxetic structures with enhanced stiffness and energy absorption performance. The structure design was developed by extending the traditional double-arrowhead honeycomb to a hexagon frame, the stretching-dominated deformation mechanism was determined according to Maxwell’s stability criterion. The finite element (FE) models of 2D lattice structures established with stainless steel material were analyzed in ABAQUS/Standard for predicting in-plane structural deformation mechanism, failure process, and compressive elastic properties. Based on the computational simulation, the parametric analysis was studied to investigate the effect of the structural parameters on Poisson’s ratio and mechanical properties. The geometrical optimization was then implemented to achieve the optimal Poisson’s ratio for the maximum specific energy absorption. In addition, the optimized 2D lattice structure was correspondingly converted into a 3D geometry configuration by using the orthogonally splicing method. The numerical results of 2D and 3D structures under compressive quasi-static loading conditions were compared separately with the traditional double-arrowhead re-entrant honeycomb in terms of specific Young's moduli, Poisson's ratios, and specified energy absorption. As a result, the energy absorption capability and stiffness are significantly reinforced with a wide range of Poisson’s ratio compared to traditional double-arrowhead re-entrant honeycomb. The auxetic behaviors, energy absorption capability, and yield strength of the proposed structure are adjustable with different combinations of joint angle, struts thickness, and the length-width ratio of the representative unit cell. The numerical prediction in this study suggests the proposed concept of hexagonal double-arrowhead structure could be a suitable candidate for the energy absorption applications with a constant request of load-bearing capacity. For future research, experimental analysis is required for the validation of the numerical simulation.

Keywords: auxetic, energy absorption capacity, finite element analysis, negative Poisson's ratio, re-entrant hexagonal honeycomb

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Authors: Areej Al-Khabbaz, Swapna Goerge, Majedah Abdul-Rasoul

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Introduction: The most prevalent periodontal disease among children is gingivitis, and it usually becomes more severe in adolescence. A number of intervention studies suggested that resolution of periodontal inflammation can improve metabolic control in patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Aim: to assess the effect of non-surgical periodontal therapy on glycemic control of children diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Method: Twenty-eight children diagnosed with diabetes mellitus were recruited with established diagnosis diabetes for at least 1 year. Informed consent and child assent form were obtained from children and parents prior to enrolment. The dental examination for the participants was performed on the same week directly following their annual medical assessment. All patients had their glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c%) test one week prior to their annual medical and dental visit and 3 months following non-surgical periodontal therapy. All patients received a comprehensive periodontal examination The periodontal assessment included clinical attachment loss, bleeding on probing, plaque score, plaque index and gingival index. All patients were referred for non-surgical periodontal therapy, which included oral hygiene instruction and motivation followed by supra-gingival and subg-ingival scaling using ultrasonic and hand instruments. Statistical Analysis: Data were entered and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science software (SPSS, Chicago, USA), version 18. Statistical analysis of clinical findings was performed to detect differences between the two groups in term of periodontal findings and HbA1c%. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed in order to examine which factors were significant in multivariate analysis after adjusting for confounding between effects. The regression model used the dependent variable ‘Improved glycemic control’, and the independent variables entered in the model were plaque index, gingival index, bleeding %, plaque Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Result: A total of 28 children. The mean age of the participants was 13.3±1.92 years. The study participants were divided into two groups; Compliant group (received dental scaling) and non-complaints group (received oral hygiene instructions only). No statistical difference was found between compliant and non-compliant group in age, gender distribution, oral hygiene practice and the level of diabetes control. There was a significant difference between compliant and non-compliant group in term of improvement of HBa1c before and after periodontal therapy. Mean gingival index was the only significant variable associated with improved glycemic control level. In conclusion, this study has demonstrated that non-surgical mechanical periodontal therapy can improve HbA1c% control. The result of this study confirmed that children with diabetes mellitus who are compliant to dental care and have routine professional scaling may have better metabolic control compared to diabetic children who are erratic with dental care.

Keywords: children, diabetes, metabolic control, periodontal therapy

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Authors: G. Yanay-Ventura, H. Desivilya Syna, K. Michael

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Social businesses are based on the idea that an enterprise can be established for the sake of profit and, at the same time, with the aim of fulfilling social goals. Yet, the question of how these goals can be integrated in practice to derive parallel benefit in both realms still needs to be examined. Particularly notable in this context is the ‘governance challenge’ of social businesses, meaning the danger of the mission drifts from the social goal in the pursuit of good business. This study is based on an evaluation study of a social business that operates as a restaurant providing professional training to at-risk youth. The evaluation was based on the collection of a variety of data through interviews with stakeholders in the enterprise (directors and managers, business partners, social partners, and position holders in the restaurant and the social enterprise), a focus group consisting of the youth receiving the professional training, observations of the restaurant’s operation, and analysis of the social enterprise’s primary documents. The evaluation highlighted significant strengths of the social enterprise, including reaching relatively fast business sustainability, effective management of the restaurant, stable employment of the restaurant staff, and effective management of the social project. The social enterprise and business management have both enjoyed positive evaluations from a variety of stakeholders. Clearly, the restaurant was deemed by all a promising young business. However, the social project suffered from a 90% dropout rate among the youth entering its ranks, extreme monthly fluctuation in the number of youths participating, and a distinct minority of the youth who have succeeded in completing their training period. Possible explanations of the high dropout rate included the small number of cooks, which impeded the effectiveness of the training process and the provision of advanced cooking skills; lack of clarity regarding the essence and the elements of training; and lack of a meaningful peer group for the youth engaged in the program. Paradoxically, despite the stakeholders’ great appreciation for the social enterprise, the challenge of governability was also formidable, revealing a tangible risk of mission drift in the reduction of the social enterprise’s target population and a breach of the commitment made to the youth with regard to practical training. The risk of mission drifts emerged as a hidden and evasive issue for the stakeholders, who revealed a deep appreciation for the management and the outcomes of the social enterprise. The challenge of integration, therefore, requires an in-depth examination of how to maintain a successful business without hindering the achievement of the social goal. The study concludes that clear conceptualization of the training process and its aims, increased cooks’ participation in the social project, and novel conceptions with regard to the evaluation of success could serve to benefit the youth and impede mission drift.

Keywords: evaluation study, management, mission drift, social business

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Authors: Iris Xiaohong Quan

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The global digital health market reached 175 billion U.S. dollars in 2019, and is expected to grow at about 25% CAGR to over 650 billion USD by 2025. Different terms such as digital health, e-health, mHealth, telehealth have been used in the field, which can sometimes cause confusion. The term digital health was originally introduced to refer specifically to the use of interactive media, tools, platforms, applications, and solutions that are connected to the Internet to address health concerns of providers as well as consumers. While mHealth emphasizes the use of mobile phones in healthcare, telehealth means using technology to remotely deliver clinical health services to patients. According to FDA, “the broad scope of digital health includes categories such as mobile health (mHealth), health information technology (IT), wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized medicine.” Some researchers believe that digital health is nothing else but the cultural transformation healthcare has been going through in the 21st century because of digital health technologies that provide data to both patients and medical professionals. As digital health is burgeoning, but research in the area is still inadequate, our paper aims to clear the definition confusion and provide an overall picture of digital health companies. We further investigate how business models are designed and differentiated in the emerging digital health sector. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in the research. For the quantitative analysis, our research data came from two databases Crunchbase and CBInsights, which are well-recognized information sources for researchers, entrepreneurs, managers, and investors. We searched a few keywords in the Crunchbase database based on companies’ self-description: digital health, e-health, and telehealth. A search of “digital health” returned 941 unique results, “e-health” returned 167 companies, while “telehealth” 427. We also searched the CBInsights database for similar information. After merging and removing duplicate ones and cleaning up the database, we came up with a list of 1464 companies as digital health companies. A qualitative method will be used to complement the quantitative analysis. We will do an in-depth case analysis of three successful unicorn digital health companies to understand how business models evolve and discuss the challenges faced in this sector. Our research returned some interesting findings. For instance, we found that 86% of the digital health startups were founded in the recent decade since 2010. 75% of the digital health companies have less than 50 employees, and almost 50% with less than 10 employees. This shows that digital health companies are relatively young and small in scale. On the business model analysis, while traditional healthcare businesses emphasize the so-called “3P”—patient, physicians, and payer, digital health companies extend to “5p” by adding patents, which is the result of technology requirements (such as the development of artificial intelligence models), and platform, which is an effective value creation approach to bring the stakeholders together. Our case analysis will detail the 5p framework and contribute to the extant knowledge on business models in the healthcare industry.

Keywords: digital health, business models, entrepreneurship opportunities, healthcare

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Authors: Bakytzhan Bimbetov, Abay Zhangabilov, Saule Aitbaeva, Galymzhan Meirambekov

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Mare’s milk (saumal) contains in total about 40 biological components necessary for the human body. The most significant among them are amino acids, fats, carbohydrates, enzymes (lysozyme, amylase), more minerals and vitamins which are well balanced with each other. In Kazakhstan, Company "Eurasia Invest Ltd.” produces a freeze-dried saumal in form of powder by the use of modern German innovative technology by means of evaporating at low temperature (-35°C) with an appropriate pasteurization. Research of freeze-dried biomilk for the qualitative content showed that main ingredients of freshly drown milk are being preserved. We are currently studying medical and dietary properties of freeze-dried mare's milk for diseases of the digestive system, including for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and liver cirrhosis (LC) viral etiology. The studied group consisted of 14 patients with NASH, and 7 patients with LC viral etiology of Class A severity degree as per Child-Pugh. Patients took freeze-dried saumal, preliminary dissolved in boiled warm water (24 g. powder per 200 ml water) 3-4 times a day for a month in conjunction with basic therapy. The results were compared to a control group (11 patients with NASH and LC) who received only basic therapy without mare’s milk. Results of preliminary research showed an improvement of subjective and objective conditions of all patients, but more significant improvement of clinical symptoms and syndromes were observed in the treatment group compared to the control one. Patients with NASH significantly over time compared to the beginning of therapy decreased asthenic and dyspeptic syndromes (p<0,01). Hepatomegaly, identified on the basis of ultrasound prior to treatment was observed in 92,8±2,4% of patients, and after combination therapy hepatomegaly the rate decreased by 14,3%, amounting to 78,5±2,8%. Patients with LC also noted the improvement of asthenic (p<0,01) and dyspeptic (p<0,05) syndromes and hemorrhagic syndrome (nosebleeds and bleeding gums when brushing your teeth, p<0,05), and jaundice. Laboratory study also showed improvement in the research group, but more significant changes were observed in the experimental group. Group of patients with NASH showed a significant improvement of index in cytolysis in conjunction with a combination therapy (p<0,05). In the control group, these indicators were also improved, but they were not statistically reliable (p>0,05). Markers of liver failure were additionally studied during the study of laboratory parameters in patients with liver cirrhosis, in particular, bilirubin, albumin and prothrombin index (PTI). Combined therapy with the use of basic treatment and mare's milk showed a significant improvement in cytolysis and bilirubin (p<0,05). In our opinion, a very important and interesting fact is that, in conjunction with basic therapy, the use of mare's milk revealed an improvement of liver function in the form of normalized PTI and albumin in patients with liver cirrhosis viral etiology. Results of this work have shown therapeutic efficiency of the use of mare's milk in complex treatment of patients with liver disease and require further in-depth study.

Keywords: liver cirrhosis, non-alcohol steatohepatitis, saumal, mare’s milk

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Authors: Gaurav Kumar Mishra, Sanjeeva Nayaka, Dalip Kumar Upreti

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Our nature exhibited presence of a number of unique plants which can be used as indicator of environmental condition of particular place. Lichens are unique plant which has an ability to absorb not only organic, inorganic and metaloties but also absorb radioactive nuclide substances present in the environment. In the present study pyrenocarpous lichens will used as indicator of good forest health in a particular place. The Pyrenocarpous lichens are simple crust forming with black dot like perithecia have few characters for their taxonomical segregation as compared to their foliose and fruticose brethrean. The thallus colour and nature, presence and absence of hypothallus are only few characters of thallus are used to segregate the pyrenocarpous taxa. The fruiting bodies of pyrenolichens i.e. ascocarps are perithecia. The perithecia and the contents found within them posses many important criteria for the segregation of pyrenocarpous lichen taxa. The ascocarp morphology, ascocarp arrangement, the perithecial wall, ascocarp shape and colour, ostiole shape and position, ostiole colour, ascocarp anatomy including type of paraphyses, asci shape and size, ascospores septation, ascospores wall and periphyses are the valuable charcters used for segregation of different pyrenocarpous lichen taxa. India is represented by the occurrence of the 350 species of 44 genera and eleven families. Among the different genera Pyrenula is dominant with 82 species followed by the Porina with 70 species. Recently, systematic of the pyrenocarpous lichens have been revised by American and European lichenologists using phylogenetic methods. Still the taxonomy of pyrenocarpous lichens is in flux and information generated after the completion of this study will play vital role in settlement of the taxonomy of this peculiar group of lichens worldwide. The Indian Himalayan region exhibit rich diversity of pyrenocarpous lichens in India. The western Himalayan region has luxuriance of pyrenocarpous lichens due to its unique topography and climate condition. However, the eastern Himalayan region has rich diversity of pyrenocarpous lichens due to its warmer and moist climate condition. The rich moist and warmer climate in eastern Himalayan region supports forest with dominance of evergreen tree vegetation. The pyrenocarpous lichens communities are good indicator of young and regenerated forest type. The rich diversity of lichens clearly indicates that moist of the forest within the eastern Himalayan region has good health of forest. Due to fast pace of urbanization and other developmental activities will defiantly have adverse effects on the diversity and distribution of pyrenocarpous lichens in different forest type and the present distribution pattern will act as baseline data for carried out future biomonitoring studies in the area.

Keywords: lichen diversity, indicator species, environmental factors, pyrenocarpous

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Authors: Sookbin Im, Myounglyun Heo

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This study aims at analyzing composition and effects of the preliminary intervention to promote resiliency of children whose parents suffer mental illness, and considerations according to the program, and developing the resiliency promotion program for children of psychiatric patients. For participants of preliminary intervention, they were recruited through a community mental health and social welfare center in a city, and there were 10 children (eight girls and two boys) who are from second to five graders in elementary school, and whose parents suffer schizophrenia, depression, or alcoholism, etc. The program was conducted in the seminar room of the community mental illness and social welfare center from October to December 2015 and from July to September 2016. The elements of resiliency were figured out by reviewing the literature. And therapeutic activities to promote resiliency was composed, and total twice, 8 sessions(two hours, once a week) were applied. Each session consisted of playgroup activities, art activities, and role-playing with feedback for achieving goals to promote self-awareness, self-efficacy, positive outlook, ability to solve problems, empathy for others, peer group acceptance, having goals and aspirations, and assertiveness. In addition, auxiliary managers as many as children played a role as mentor and role model, and children's behaviors were collected by participatory observation. As a result of the study, four children quit the program because the schedules of their own school programs were overlapped with it. Therefore, six children completed the program. Children who completed it became active, positive, decreased compulsive actions, and increased self-expressions. The participants reacted the 8-session program is too short and regretted about it. However, recruiting the participants were difficult, and too distracting children caused negative influences in the group activities. Based on the results, the program was developed as follows: The program would consist of total 11 sessions, and the first eight sessions would be made of plays, art activities, role-plays, and presentations for promoting self-understanding, improving positiveness, providing meaning for experiences, emotional control, and interpersonal relations. In order to balance various contents, methods such as structuring environments, storytelling, emotional coaching, and group feedback would be applied, and the ninth to eleventh sessions would be booster sessions consisting of optional activities for children. This program is for children who attend school with active linguistic communications and interactions with peers. Especially, considering that effective development starts at around 10 years old, it would be for children who are third and fourth graders in elementary school. These result showed that this program was useful for improving the key elements of resiliency such as positive thinking or impulse control. It is suggested the necessary of resiliency promoting program model and practical guidance with comprehensive measuring methods(narratives, drawing, self-reported questionnaire, behavioral observation). Also, it is necessary to make a training program for the coaches or leaders to operate this program to spread out for child health.

Keywords: children, mental, parents, resilience

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Authors: Sadat Sembatya

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Tantalum metal is used in addressing capacitance challenge in the 21st-century technology growth. Tantalum is rarely found in its elemental form. Hence it’s often found with niobium and the radioactive elements of thorium and uranium. Industrial processes are required to extract pure tantalum. Its deposits are mainly oxide associated and exist in Ta-Nb oxides such as tapiolite, wodginite, ixiolite, rutile and pyrochlore-supergroup minerals are of minor importance. The stability and chemical inertness of tantalum makes it a valuable substance for laboratory equipment and a substitute for platinum. Each period of Tantalum ore formation is characterized by specific mineralogical and geochemical features. Compositions of Columbite-Group Minerals (CGM) are variable: Fe-rich types predominate in the Man Shield (Sierra Leone), the Congo Craton (DR Congo), the Kamativi Belt (Zimbabwe) and the Jos Plateau (Nigeria). Mn-rich columbite-tantalite is typical of the Alto Ligonha Province (Mozambique), the Arabian-Nubian Shield (Egypt, Ethiopia) and the Tantalite Valley pegmatites (southern Namibia). There are large compositional variations through Fe-Mn fractionation, followed by Nb-Ta fractionation. These are typical for pegmatites usually associated with very coarse quartz-feldspar-mica granites. They are young granitic systems of the Kibara Belt of Central Africa and the Older Granites of Nigeria. Unlike ‘simple’ Be-pegmatites, most Ta-Nb rich pegmatites have the most complex zoning. Hence we need systematic exploration tools to find and rapidly assess the potential of different pegmatites. The pegmatites exist as known deposits (e.g., abandoned mines) and the exposed or buried pegmatites. We investigate rocks and minerals to trace for the possibility of the effect of hydrothermal alteration mainly for exposed pegmatites, do mineralogical study to prove evidence of gradual replacement and geochemistry to report the availability of trace elements which are good indicators of mineralisation. Pegmatites are not good geophysical responders resulting to the exclusion of the geophysics option. As for more advanced prospecting, we bulk samples from different zones first to establish their grades and characteristics, then make a pilot test plant because of big samples to aid in the quantitative characterization of zones, and then drill to reveal distribution and extent of different zones but not necessarily grade due to nugget effect. Rapid assessment tools are needed to assess grade and degree of fractionation in order to ‘rule in’ or ‘rule out’ a given pegmatite for future work. Pegmatite exploration is also unique, high risk and expensive hence right traceability system and certification for 3Ts are highly needed.

Keywords: exploration, mineralogy, pegmatites, tantalum

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Authors: Hande Burcu Deniz

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People in the U.S. spend a considerable portion of their time indoors. This makes it crucial to provide environments that support the well-being of people. Restorative environments aim to help people recover their cognitive resources that were spent due to intensive use of directed attention. Spending time in nature and taking a nap are two of the best ways to restore these resources. However, they are not possible to do most of the time. The problem is that many studies have revealed how nature and spending time in natural contexts can help boost restoration, but there are fewer studies conducted to understand how cognitive resources can be restored in interior settings. This study aims to explore the answer to this question: which qualities of interiors increase the restorativeness of an interior setting and how do they mediate restorativeness of an interior. To do this, a phenomenological qualitative study was conducted. The study was interested in the definition of attention restoration and the experiences of the phenomena. As the themes emerged, they were analyzed to match with Attention Restoration Theory components (being away, extent, fascination, compatibility) to examine how interior design elements mediate the restorativeness of an interior. The data was gathered from semi-structured interviews with international residents of Minnesota. The interviewees represent young professionals who work in Minnesota and often experience mental fatigue. Also, they have less emotional connections with places in Minnesota, which enabled data to be based on the physical qualities of a space rather than emotional connections. In the interviews, participants were asked about where they prefer to be when they experience mental fatigue. Next, they were asked to describe the physical qualities of the places they prefer to be with reasons. Four themes were derived from the analysis of interviews. The themes are in order according to their frequency. The first, and most common, the theme was “connection to outside”. The analysis showed that people need to be either physically or visually connected to recover from mental fatigue. Direct connection to nature was reported as preferable, whereas urban settings were the secondary preference along with interiors. The second theme emerged from the analysis was “the presence of the artwork,” which was experienced differently by the interviewees. The third theme was “amenities”. Interviews pointed out that people prefer to have the amenities that support desired activity during recovery from mental fatigue. The last theme was “aesthetics.” Interviewees stated that they prefer places that are pleasing to their eyes. Additionally, they could not get rid of the feeling of being worn out in places that are not well-designed. When we matched the themes with the four art components (being away, extent, fascination, compatibility), some of the interior qualities showed overlapping since they were experienced differently by the interviewees. In conclusion, this study showed that interior settings have restorative potential, and they are multidimensional in their experience.

Keywords: attention restoration, fatigue, interior design, qualitative study, restorative environments

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Authors: Raymond Chi Fai Si Tou, Jacey Ja Young Choe, Amy Siu Ian So

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Smart hotels can be defined as the hotel which has an intelligent system, through digitalization and networking which achieve hotel management and service information. In addition, smart hotels include high-end designs that integrate information and communication technology with hotel management fulfilling the guests’ needs and improving the quality, efficiency and satisfaction of hotel management. The purpose of this study is to identify appropriate factors that may influence guests’ satisfaction and intention to revisit Smart Hotels based on service quality measurement of lodging quality index and extended UTAUT theory. Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) is adopted as a framework to explain technology acceptance and use. Since smart hotels are technology-based infrastructure hotels, UTATU theory could be as the theoretical background to examine the guests’ acceptance and use after staying in smart hotels. The UTAUT identifies four key drivers of the adoption of information systems: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. The extended UTAUT modifies the definitions of the seven constructs for consideration; the four previously cited constructs of the UTAUT model together with three new additional constructs, which including hedonic motivation, price value and habit. Thus, the seven constructs from the extended UTAUT theory could be adopted to understand their intention to revisit smart hotels. The service quality model will also be adopted and integrated into the framework to understand the guests’ intention of smart hotels. There are rare studies to examine the service quality on guests’ satisfaction and intention to revisit in smart hotels. In this study, Lodging Quality Index (LQI) will be adopted to measure the service quality in smart hotels. Using integrated UTAUT theory and service quality model because technological applications and services require using more than one model to understand the complicated situation for customers’ acceptance of new technology. Moreover, an integrated model could provide more perspective insights to explain the relationships of the constructs that could not be obtained from only one model. For this research, ten in-depth interviews are planned to recruit this study. In order to confirm the applicability of the proposed framework and gain an overview of the guest experience of smart hotels from the hospitality industry, in-depth interviews with the hotel guests and industry practitioners will be accomplished. In terms of the theoretical contribution, it predicts that the integrated models from the UTAUT theory and the service quality will provide new insights to understand factors that influence the guests’ satisfaction and intention to revisit smart hotels. After this study identifies influential factors, smart hotel practitioners could understand which factors may significantly influence smart hotel guests’ satisfaction and intention to revisit. In addition, smart hotel practitioners could also provide outstanding guests experience by improving their service quality based on the identified dimensions from the service quality measurement. Thus, it will be beneficial to the sustainability of the smart hotels business.

Keywords: intention to revisit, guest satisfaction, qualitative interviews, smart hotels

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Authors: Shamim Mushtaq, Moazzam Shahid

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Breast cancer (BC) claims the lives of half a million women every year and is the most common cause of death in the developing world. In 2019, it was estimated that BC alone accounts for 15% of all cancer deaths in younger women (aged < 45 years old) with advanced-stage lung metastasis. According to the World Health Organization & International Union against Cancer, in Asia, a high number of cancer-related deaths will be observed in 2020, whereas the burden will be reduced in Western countries due to awareness about the disease, better health facilities and advanced treatments. In the last 15 years, it has been reported that the incidence of BC has increased by 1.1% among Asian compared to the US population from 2003 to 2012. To date, several BC biological subtypes have been reported so far, which are associated with different treatment responses. The heterogeneity and diversity of BC reflected these different subtypes, including Luminal A (23.7% prevalence) and B (38.8% prevalence) that have pathological estrogen receptor (ER+)-positive tumors, the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) (11.2% prevalence) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) (25% prevalence). According to Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Centre – Pakistan, ten years of data showed that among 636 BC patients, 30.5% had TNBC who were <40 years of age, which is an extremely alarming situation. Therefore, there is a dire need to explore and develop therapeutic targets for the treatment of early TNBC. Since the last decade, unfortunately, there has been little success in understanding the complexity of TNBC and in discovering new biological therapeutic targets. However, conventional chemotherapy is the only choice of treatment for TNBC patients. Many investigators revealed advances in multi-omics (multiple "omes", e.g., genome, proteome, transcriptome, epigenome, and microbiome) which were later identified as actionable targets and increased prevalence in TNBC patients. However, various drugs have been identified so far which are related to a particular diagnostic and prognostic biomarker. For example, Epidermal growth factor receptor ( EGFR or ErbB-1), HER-2/neu (ErbB-2), HER-3 (ErbB-3), and HER-4 (ErbB-4). Protein Transglin-2 (TAGLN 2 ) and Profilins-1 (Pfn-1 ) are the ubiquitously expressed large family of proteins present in all eukaryotes, enabling actin cytoskeletal reorganization. It is known that the oncogenic transformation of cells is accompanied by alteration in the actin cytoskeleton. There are causal connections between altered expression of actin cytoskeletal regulators and cancer progression. Our case-control study identified TAGLN-2 and Pfn-1 proteins in TNBC blood by mass spectrometry. Both TAGLN-2 and Pfn-1 proteins are differentially expressed in early and advanced stages of TNBS patients, which could be potential predictors or therapeutic targets for TNBC.

Keywords: TNBC, blood biomarkers, mass spectrometry, qPCR, ELISA

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Authors: Alejandra Sierra, Gloria Valadez, Adriana Dávalos, Mirliana Ramírez

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For years, the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization and other organizations have made efforts to the improve access and the quality of prenatal care as part of comprehensive programs for maternal and neonatal health, the standards of care have been renewed in order to migrate from a medical perspective to a holistic perspective. However, despite the efforts currently antenatal care models have not been verified by a scientific evaluation in order to determine their effectiveness. The teenage pregnancy is considered as a very important phenomenon since it has been strongly associated with inequalities, poverty and the lack of gender quality; therefore it is important to analyze the antenatal care that’s been given, including not only the clinical intervention but also the activities surrounding the advertising and the health education. In this study, the objective was to describe if the previously established activities (on the prenatal care models) are being performed in the care of pregnant teenagers attending prenatal care in health institutions in two cities in México and Chile during 2013. Methods: Observational and descriptive study, of a transversal cohort. 170 pregnant women (13-19 years) were included in prenatal care in two health institutions (100 women from León-Mexico and 70 from Chile-Coquimbo). Data collection: direct survey, perinatal clinical record card which was used as checklists: WHO antenatal care model WHO-2003, Official Mexican Standard NOM-007-SSA2-1993 and Personalized Service Manual on Reproductive Process- Chile Crece Contigo; for data analysis descriptive statistics were used. The project was approved by the relevant ethics committees. Results: Regarding the fulfillment of interventions focused on physical, gynecological exam, immunizations, monitoring signs and biochemical parameters in both groups was met by more than 84%; the activities of guidance and counseling pregnant teenagers in Leon compliance rates were below 50%, on the other hand, although pregnant women in Coquimbo had a higher percentage of compliance, no one reached 100%. The topics that less was oriented were: family planning, signs and symptoms of complications and labor. Conclusions: Although the coverage of the interventions indicated in the prenatal care models was high, there were still shortcomings in the fulfillment of activities to orientation, education and health promotion. Deficiencies in adherence to prenatal care guidelines could be due to different circumstances such as lack of registration or incomplete filling of medical records, lack of medical supplies or health personnel, absences of people at prenatal check-up appointments, among many others. Therefore, studies are required to evaluate the quality of prenatal care and the effectiveness of existing models, considering the role of the different actors (pregnant women, professionals and health institutions) involved in the functionality and quality of prenatal care models, in order to create strategies to design or improve the application of a complete process of promotion and prevention of maternal and child health as well as sexual and reproductive health in general.

Keywords: adolescent health, health systems, maternal health, primary health care

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Authors: Jakub Berčík, Elena Horská, Ľudmila Nagyová

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Nowadays, the point of sale remains one of the few channels of communication which is not oversaturated yet and has great potential for the future. The fact that purchasing decisions are significantly affected by emotions, while up to 75 % of them are implemented at the point of sale, only demonstrates its importance. The share of impulsive purchases is about 60-75 %, depending on the particular product category. Nevertheless, habits predetermine the content of the shopping cart above all and hence in this regard the role of in-store communication is to disrupt the routine and compel the customer to try something new. This is the reason why it is essential to know how to work with this relatively young branch of marketing communication as efficiently as possible. New global trend in this discipline is evaluating the effectiveness of particular tools in the in-store communication. To increase the efficiency it is necessary to become familiar with the factors affecting the customer both consciously and unconsciously, and that is a task for neuromarketing and sensory marketing. It is generally known that the customer remembers the negative experience much longer and more intensely than the positive ones, therefore it is essential for marketers to avoid this negative experience. The final effect of POP (Point of Purchase) or POS (Point of Sale) tools is conditional not only on their quality and design, but also on the location at the point of sale which contributes to the overall positive atmosphere in the store. Therefore, in-store advertising is increasingly in the center of attention and companies are willing to spend even a third of their marketing communication budget on it. The paper deals with a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research of the impact of traditional as well as innovative tools of in-store communication on the attention and emotional state (valence and arousal) of consumers on the food market. The research integrates measurements with eye camera (Eye tracker) and electroencephalograph (EEG) in real grocery stores as well as in laboratory conditions with the purpose of recognizing attention and emotional response among respondents under the influence of selected tools of in-store communication. The object of the research includes traditional (e.g. wobblers, stoppers, floor graphics) and innovative (e.g. displays, wobblers with LED elements, interactive floor graphics) tools of in-store communication in the fresh unpackaged food segment. By using a mobile 16-channel electroencephalograph (EEG equipment) from the company EPOC, a mobile eye camera (Eye tracker) from the company Tobii and a stationary eye camera (Eye tracker) from the company Gazepoint, we observe the attention and emotional state (valence and arousal) to reveal true consumer preferences using traditional and new unusual communication tools at the point of sale of the selected foodstuffs. The paper concludes with suggesting possibilities for rational, effective and energy-efficient combination of in-store communication tools, by which the retailer can accomplish not only captivating and attractive presentation of displayed goods, but ultimately also an increase in retail sales of the store.

Keywords: electroencephalograph (EEG), emotion, eye tracker, in-store communication

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Authors: Tiffany Baetens, Sophie Halliez, Luc Buée, Emiliano Pallecchi, Vincent Thomy, Steve Arscott

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We demonstrate here a viable stretchable bio-microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMS) technology for use with biological studies concerned with the effect of high mechanical strains on living cells. An example of this is traumatic brain injury (TBI) where neurons are damaged with physical force to the brain during, e.g., accidents and sports. Robust, miniaturized integrated systems are needed by biologists to be able to study the effect of TBI on neuron cells in vitro. The major challenges in this area are (i) to develop micro, and nanofabrication processes which are based on stretchable substrates and to (ii) create systems which are robust and performant at very high mechanical strain values—sometimes as high as 100%. At the time of writing, such processes and systems were rapidly evolving subject of research and development. The BioMEMS which we present here is composed of an elastomer substrate (low Young’s modulus ~1 MPa) onto which is patterned robust electrodes and insulators. The patterning of the thin films is achieved using standard photolithography techniques directly on the elastomer substrate—thus making the process generic and applicable to many materials’ in based systems. The chosen elastomer used is commercial ‘Sylgard 184’ polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). It is spin-coated onto a silicon wafer. Multistep ultra-violet based photolithography involving commercial photoresists are then used to pattern robust thin film metallic electrodes (chromium/gold) and insulating layers (parylene) on the top of the PDMS substrate. The thin film metals are deposited using thermal evaporation and shaped using lift-off techniques The BioMEMS has been characterized mechanically using an in-house strain-applicator tool. The system is composed of 12 electrodes with one reference electrode transversally-orientated to the uniaxial longitudinal straining of the system. The electrical resistance of the electrodes is observed to remain very stable with applied strain—with a resistivity approaching that of evaporated gold—up to an interline strain of ~50%. The mechanical characterization revealed some interesting original properties of such stretchable BioMEMS. For example, a Poisson effect induced electrical ‘self-healing’ of cracking was identified. Biocompatibility of the commercial photoresist has been studied and is conclusive. We will present the results of the BioMEMS, which has also characterized living cells with a commercial Multi Electrode Array (MEA) characterization tool (Multi Channel Systems, USA). The BioMEMS enables the cells to be strained up to 50% and then characterized electrically and optically.

Keywords: BioMEMS, elastomer, electrical impedance measurements of living cells, high mechanical strain, microfabrication, stretchable systems, thin films, traumatic brain injury

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Authors: Nkeiruka Elsie Ezomike, Chinwe L. Onyekonwu, Anthony N. Ikefuna, Bede C. Ibe

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Superficial fungal infections (SFIs) are one of the common cutaneous infections that affect children worldwide. They may lead to school absenteeism or school drop-out and hence setback in the education of the child. Community-based studies in any locality are good reflections of the health conditions within that area. There is a dearth of information in the literature about SFI among primary school children in Enugu. This study aimed to determine the clinicomycological pattern of SFIs among primary school children in rural and urban communities in Enugu. This was a comparative descriptive cross-sectional study among primary school children in Awgu (rural) and Enugu North (urban) Local Government Areas (LGAs). Subjects' selection was made over 6 months using a multi-stage sampling method. Information such as age, sex, parental education, and occupation were collected using questionnaires. Socioeconomic classes of the children were determined using the classification proposed by Oyedeji et al. The samples were collected from subjects with SFIs. Potassium hydroxide tests were done on the samples. The samples that tested positive were cultured for SFI by inoculating onto Sabouraud's dextrose chloramphenicol actidione agar. The characteristics of the isolates were identified according to their morphological features using Mycology Online, Atlas 2000, and Mycology Review 2003. Equal numbers of children were recruited from the two LGAs. A total of 1662 pupils were studied. The mean ages of the study subjects were 9.03 ± 2.10years in rural and 10.46 ± 2.33years in urban communities. The male to female ratio was 1.6:1 in rural and 1:1.1 in urban communities. The personal hygiene of the children was significantly related to the presence of SFIs. The overall prevalence of SFIs among the study participants was 45%. In the rural, the prevalence was 29.6%, and in the urban prevalence was 60.4%. The types of SFIs were tinea capitis (the commonest), tinea corporis, pityriasis Versicolor, tinea unguium, and tinea manuum with prevalence rates lower in rural than urban communities. The clinical patterns were gray patch and black dot type of non-inflammatory tinea capitis, kerion, tinea corporis with trunk and limb distributions, and pityriasis Versicolor with face, trunk and limb distributions. Gray patch was the most frequent pattern of SFI seen in rural and urban communities. Black dot type was more frequent in rural than urban communities. SFIs were frequent among children aged 5 to 8years in rural and 9 to 12 years in urban communities. SFIs were commoner in males in the rural, whereas female dominance was observed in the urban. SFIs were more in children from low social class and those with poor hygiene. Trichophyton tonsurans and Trichophyton soudanese were the common mycological isolates in rural and urban communities, respectively. In conclusion, SFIs were less prevalent in rural than in urban communities. Trichophyton species were the most common fungal isolates in the communities. Health education of mothers and their children on SFI and good personal hygiene will reduce the incidence of SFIs.

Keywords: clinicomycological pattern, communities, primary school children, superficial fungal infections

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Authors: Lamia Bouzgarrou, Amira Omrane, Malika Azzouzi, Asma Kheder, Amira Saadallah, Ilhem Boussarsar, Kamel Rejeb

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Introduction: Increasing the women’s labor force participation is a political issue in countries with developed economies and those with low growth prospects. However, in the labor market, women continue to face several obstacles, either for the integration or for the maintenance at work. This study aims to assess the prevalence of premature withdrawal from working life -due to invalidity or medical justified early retirement- among active women in the Tunisian center and to identify its determinants. Material and methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study, over one year, focusing on the agreement for invalidity or early retirement for premature usury of the body- delivered by the medical commission of the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM) in the central Tunisian district. We exhaustively selected women's files. Data related to Socio-demographic characteristics, professional and medical ones, were collected from the CNAM's administrative and medical files. Results: During the period of one year, 222 women have had an agreement for premature departure of their professional activity. Indeed, 149 women (67.11%) benefit of from invalidity agreement and 20,27% of them from favorable decision for early retirement. The average age was 50 ± 6 years with extremes of 23 and 62 years, and 18.9% of women were under 45 years. Married women accounted for 69.4% and 59.9% of them had at least one dependent child in charge. The average professional seniority in the sector was 23 ± 8 years. The textile-clothing sector was the most affected, with 70.7% of premature departure. Medical reasons for withdrawal from working life were mainly related to neuro-degenerative diseases in 46.8% of cases, rheumatic ones in 35.6% of cases and cardiovascular diseases in 22.1% of them. Psychiatric and endocrine disorders motivated respectively 17.1% and 13.5% of these departures. The evaluation of the sequels induced by these pathologies concluded to an average permanent partial disability equal to 61.4 ± 17.3%. The analytical study concluded that the agreement of disability or early retirement was correlated with the insured ‘age (p = 10-3), the professional seniority (p = 0.003) and the permanent partial incapacity (PPI) rate assessed by the expert physician (p = 0.04). No other social or professional factors were correlated with this decision. Conclusion: Despite many advances in labour law and Tunisian legal text on employability, women still exposed to several social and professional inequalities (payment inequality, precarious work ...). Indeed, women are often pushed to accept working in adverse conditions, thus they are more vulnerable to develop premature wear on the body and being forced to premature departures from the world of work. These premature withdrawals from active life are not only harmful to the concerned women themselves, but also associated with considerable costs for the insurance organism and the society. In order to ensure maintenance at work for women, a political commitment is imperative in the implementation of global prevention strategies and the improvement of working conditions, particularly in our socio-cultural context.

Keywords: Active Women , Early Retirement , Invalidity , Maintenance at Work

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Authors: Carine Platat, Fatima Qshadi, Ghofran Kayed, Nour Hussein, Amjad Jarrar, Habiba Ali

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Nowadays, smartphones are very popular. They are offering a variety of easy-to-use and free applications among which step counters and fitness tests. The number of users is huge making of such applications a potentially efficient new strategy to encourage people to become more active. Nonetheless, data on their reliability and validity are very scarce and when available, they are often negative and contradictory. Besides, weight status, which is likely to introduce a bias in the physical activity assessment, was not often considered. Hence, the use of these applications as motivational tool, assessment tool and in research is questionable. PACER is one of the free step counters application. Even though it is one of the best rated free application by users, it has never been tested for reliability and validity. Prior any use of PACER, this remains to be investigated. The objective of this work is to investigate the reliability and validity of the smartphone application PACER in measuring the number of steps and in assessing the cardiorespiratory fitness by the 6 minutes walking test. 20 overweight or obese students (10 male and 10 female) were recruited at the United Arab Emirate University, aged between 18 and 25 years old. Reliability and validity were tested in real life conditions and in controlled conditions by using a treadmill. Test-retest experiments were done with PACER on 2 days separated by a week in real life conditions (24 hours each time) and in controlled conditions (30 minutes on treadmill, 3km/h). Validity was tested against the pedometer OMRON in the same conditions. During treadmill test, video was recorded and steps numbers were compared between PACER, pedometer and video. The validity of PACER in estimating the cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2max) as part of the 6 minutes walking test (6MWT) was studied against the 20m shuttle running test. Reliability was studied by calculating intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), 95% confidence interval (95%CI) and by Bland-Altman plots. Validity was studied by calculating Spearman correlation coefficient (rho) and Bland-Altman plots. PACER reliability was good in both male and female in real life conditions (p≤10-3) but only in female in controlled conditions (p=0.01). PACER was valid against OMRON pedometer in male and female in real life conditions (rho=0.94, p≤10-3 ; rho=0.64, p=0.01, in male and female respectively). In controlled conditions, PACER was not valid against pedometer. But, PACER was valid against video in female (rho=0.72, p≤10-3). PACER was valid against the shuttle run test in male and female (rho-=0.66, p=0.01 ; rho=0.51, p=0.04) to estimate VO2max. This study provides data on the reliability and viability of PACER in overweight or obese male and female young adults. Globally, PACER was shown as reliable and valid in real life conditions in overweight or obese male and female to count steps and assess fitness. This supports the use of PACER to assess and promote physical activity in clinical follow-up and community interventions.

Keywords: smartphone application, pacer, reliability, validity, steps, fitness, physical activity

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Authors: Smita Lahkar

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Sattriya, the youngest of the eight principal Classical Indian dance traditions, has undergone too many changes and modifications to arrive at its present stage of performing art form extracting itself from age-old religious confinement. Although some of the other traditions have been revived in the recent past, Sattriya has a living tradition since its inception in the 15th century by Srimanta Sankardeva, the great Vaishnavite saint, poet, playwright, lyricist, painter, singer and dancer of Assam, a primary north-eastern state of India. This living dance tradition from the Sattras, the Vaishnavite monasteries, has been practiced for over five hundred years by celibate male monks, as a powerful medium for propagating the Vaishnava religious faith. Sankardeva realised the potential of the vocalised word integrated with the visual image as a powerful medium of expression and communication. So he used this principal medium for propagating his newly found message of devotion among the people of his time. Earlier, Sattriya was performed by male monks alone in monasteries (Sattras) as a part of daily rituals. The females were not even allowed to learn this art form. But, in present time, Sattriya has come out from the Sattras to proscenium stage, performed mostly by female as well as few male dancers also. The technique of performing movements, costumes, ornaments, music and style of performance too have experienced too many changes and modifications. For example, earlier and even today in Sattra, the ‘Pataka’ hand gesture is depicted in conformity with the original context (religious) of creation of the dance form. But, today stage-performers prefer the instructions of the scripture ‘Srihastamuktavali’ and depict the ‘Pataka’ in a sophisticated manner affecting decontextualisation to a certain extent. This adds aesthetic beauty to the dance form as an art distancing it from its context of being a vehicle for propagating Vaishnava religion. The Sattriya dance today stands at the crossroads of past and future, tradition and modernity, devotion and display, spirituality and secularism. The traditional exponents trained under the tutelage of Sattra maestros and imbibing a devotionally inspired rigour of the religion, try to retain the traditional nuances; while the young artists being trained outside the monasteries are more interested in taking up the discipline purely from the perspective of ‘performing arts’ bereft of the philosophy of religion or its sacred associations. Hence, this paper will be an endeavor to establish the hypothesis that the Sattriya, whose origin was for propagating Vaishnava faith, has now entered the world of performing arts with highly aesthetical components. And as a transformed art form, Sattriya may be expected to carve a niche in world dance arena. This will be done with the help of historical evidences, observations from the recorded past and expert rendezvous.

Keywords: dance, performing art, religion, Sattriya

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Authors: Regis Pochon, Nicolas Stefaniak, Veronique Baltazart, Pamela Gobin

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Anxiety is known to have an impact on working memory. In reasoning or memory tasks, individuals with anxiety tend to show longer response times and poorer performance. Furthermore, there is a memory bias for negative information in anxiety. Given the crucial role of working memory in lexical learning, anxious students may encounter more difficulties in learning to read and spell. Anxiety could even affect an earlier learning, that is the activation of phonological representations, which are decisive for the learning of reading and writing. The aim of this study is to compare the access to phonological representations of beginning readers and writers according to their level of anxiety, using an auditory lexical decision task. Eighty students of 6- to 9-years-old completed the French version of the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale and were then divided into four anxiety groups according to their total score (Low, Median-Low, Median-High and High). Two set of eighty-one stimuli (words and non-words) have been auditory presented to these students by means of a laptop computer. Stimuli words were selected according to their emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral). Students had to decide as quickly and accurately as possible whether the presented stimulus was a real word or not (lexical decision). Response times and accuracy were recorded automatically on each trial. It was anticipated a) longer response times for the Median-High and High anxiety groups in comparison with the two others groups, b) faster response times for negative-valence words in comparison with positive and neutral-valence words only for the Median-High and High anxiety groups, c) lower response accuracy for Median-High and High anxiety groups in comparison with the two others groups, d) better response accuracy for negative-valence words in comparison with positive and neutral-valence words only for the Median-High and High anxiety groups. Concerning the response times, our results showed no difference between the four groups. Furthermore, inside each group, the average response times was very close regardless the emotional valence. Otherwise, group differences appear when considering the error rates. Median-High and High anxiety groups made significantly more errors in lexical decision than Median-Low and Low groups. Better response accuracy, however, is not found for negative-valence words in comparison with positive and neutral-valence words in the Median-High and High anxiety groups. Thus, these results showed a lower response accuracy for above-median anxiety groups than below-median groups but without specificity for the negative-valence words. This study suggests that anxiety can negatively impact the lexical processing in young students. Although the lexical processing speed seems preserved, the accuracy of this processing may be altered in students with moderate or high level of anxiety. This finding has important implication for the prevention of reading and spelling difficulties. Indeed, during these learnings, if anxiety affects the access to phonological representations, anxious students could be disturbed when they have to match phonological representations with new orthographic representations, because of less efficient lexical representations. This study should be continued in order to precise the impact of anxiety on basic school learning.

Keywords: anxiety, emotional valence, childhood, lexical access

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Authors: Josiane Yaguibou, Ngoy Kishimba, Issiaka V. Coulibaly, Sabrina Pestilli, Falinirina Razanalison, Hantanirina V. Andremanisa

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Background In Madagascar modern contraceptive prevalence rate increased from 18% in 2003 to 43% in 2021. Anecdotal evidence suggests that increased use and frequent stock out in public health facilities of male condoms and medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) can be related to diverted use of these products. This study analyzed the use of contraceptives and mode of utilization (correct or diverted) at the community level in the period 2019-2023 in Madagascar. Methodology: The study included a literature review, a quantitative survey combined with a qualitative study. It was carried out in 10 regions out of the 23 of the country. Eight regions (Bongolava, Vakinakaratra, Italy, Hautre Matsiatra, Betsiboka, Diana, Sofia and Anosy) were selected based on a study that showed existence of medroxyprogesterone acetate in pigs (MPA). The remaining 2 regions were selected due to high mCPR (Atsimo Andrefana) and to ensure coverage of all geographical zones in the country (Alaotra Mangoro). Sample random method was used, and the sample size was identified at 300 individuals per region. Zonal distribution is based on the urbanization rate for the region. 6 focus group discussions were organized in 3 regions, equally distributed between rural and urban areas. Key findings: Overall, 67% of those surveyed or their partner are currently using contraception. Injectables (MPA) are the most popular choice (33%), followed by implants and male condoms, 12% and 9%, respectively. The majority of respondents use condoms to prevent unwanted pregnancy but also to prevent STDs. Still, 43% of respondents use condoms for other purposes, reaching 52% of respondents in urban areas and 71,2% in the age group 15-18. Diverted use includes hair growth (18.9%), as a toy (18.8%), cleaning the screen of electronic devices (10 %), cleaning shoes (3.1%) and for skincare (1.6%). Injectables are the preferred method of contraception both in rural areas (35%) and urban areas (21.2%). However, diverted use of injectables was confirmed by 4% of the respondents, ranging from 3 % in rural areas to 12% in urban. The diverted use of injectables in pig rearing was to avoid pregnancy and facilitate pig’s growth. Program Implications: The study confirmed the diverted use of some contraceptives. The misuse of male condoms is among the causes of stockouts of products in public health facilities, limiting their availability for pregnancy and STDs prevention. The misuse of injectables in pigs rearing needs to be further studied to learn the full extent of the misuse and eventual implications for meat consumption. The study highlights the importance of including messages on the correct use of products during sensibilization activities. In particular, messages need to address the anecdotal and false effects of male condoms, especially amongst young people. For misuse of injectables is critical to sensibilize farmers and veterinaries on possible negative effects for humans.

Keywords: diverted use, injectables, male condoms, sensibilization

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Authors: Stacey Herzog, Mitchell McCleary, Istvan Kovacs

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Purpose: Maximal strength and maximal power are key athletic abilities in many sports disciplines. In recent years, velocity-based training (VBT) with a relatively high 75-85% 1RM resistance has been popularized in preparation for powerlifting and various other sports. The purpose of this study was to discover differences between beginner/intermediate and advanced lifters’ push/press performances after a heavy resistance-based BP training program. Methods: A six-week, three-workouts per week program was administered to 52 young, physically active adults (age: 22.4±5.1; 12 female). The majority of the participants (84.6%) had prior experience in bench pressing. Typical workouts began with BP using 75-95% 1RM in the 1-5 repetition range. The sets in the lower part of the range (75-80% 1RM) were performed with velocity-focus as well. The BP sets were followed by seated dumbbell presses and six additional upper-body assistance exercises. Pre- and post-tests were conducted on five test exercises: one-repetition maximum BP (1RM), calculated relative strength index: BP/BW (RSI), four-repetition maximal-effort dynamic BP for peak concentric velocity with 80% 1RM (4RV), 4-repetition ballistic pushups (BPU) for height (4PU), and seated medicine ball toss for distance (MBT). For analytic purposes, the participant group was divided into two subgroups: self-indicated beginner or intermediate initial resistance training status (BITS) [n=21, age: 21.9±3.6; 10 female] and advanced initial resistance training status (ATS) [n=31, age: 22.7±5.9; 2 female]. Pre- and post-test results were compared within subgroups. Results: Paired-sample t-tests indicated significant within-group improvements in all five test exercises in both groups (p < 0.05). BITS improved 18.1 lbs. (13.0%) in 1RM, 0.099 (12.8%) in RSI, 0.133 m/s (23.3%) in 4RV, 1.55 in. (27.1%) in BPU, and 1.00 ft. (5.8%) in MBT, while the ATS group improved 13.2 lbs. (5.7%) in 1RM, 0.071 (5.8%) in RSI, 0.051 m/s (9.1%) in 4RV, 1.20 in. (13.7%) in BPU, and 1.15 ft. (5.5%) in MBT. Conclusion: While the two training groups had different initial resistance training backgrounds, both showed significant improvements in all test exercises. As expected, the beginner/intermediate group displayed better relative improvements in four of the five test exercises. However, the medicine ball toss, which had the lightest resistance among the tests, showed similar relative improvements between the two groups. These findings relate to two important training principles: specificity and transfer. The ATS group had more specific experiences with heavy-resistance BP. Therefore, fewer improvements were detected in their test performances with heavy resistances. On the other hand, while the heavy resistance-based training transferred to increased power outcomes in light-resistance power exercises, the difference in the rate of improvement between the two groups disappeared. Practical applications: Based on initial training status, S&C coaches should expect different performance gains in maximal strength training-specific test exercises. However, the transfer from maximal strength to a non-training-specific performance category along the F-v curve continuum (i.e., light resistance and high velocity) might not depend on initial training status.

Keywords: exercise, power, resistance training, strength

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Authors: Vesna Vulić

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Croatia has made large steps forward in the development of higher education over the past 10 years. Purposes and objectives of the tertiary education system are focused on the personal development of young people so that they obtain competences for employment on a flexible labour market. The most frequent tensions between the tertiary institutions and employers are complaints that the current tertiary education system still supplies students with an abundance of theoretical knowledge and not enough practical skills. Polytechnics and schools of professional higher education should deliver professional education and training that will satisfy the needs of their local communities. The 21^st century sets demand on undergraduates as well as their lecturers to strive for the highest standards. The skills students acquire during their studies should serve the needs of their future professional careers. In this context, teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) presents an enormous challenge for teachers. They have to cope with teaching the language in classes with a large number of students, limitations of time, inadequate equipment and teaching material; most frequently, this leads to focusing on specialist vocabulary neglecting the development of skills and competences required for future employment. Globalization has transformed the labour market and set new standards a perspective employee should meet. When knowledge of languages is considered, new generic skills and competences are required. Not only skillful written and oral communication is needed, but also information, media, and technology literacy, learning skills which include critical and creative thinking, collaborating and communicating, as well as social skills. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the needs of two groups of ESP first year Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study students taking ESP as a mandatory course: 47 first-year Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study students, 21 first-year employed part-time Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study students and 30 graduates with a degree in Undergraduate Professional Administrative Study with various amounts of work experience. The survey adopted a quantitative approach with the aim to determine the differences between the groups in their perception of the four language skills and different areas of law, as well as getting the insight into students' satisfaction with the current course and their motivation for studying ESP. Their perceptions will be compared to the results of the questionnaire conducted among sector professionals in order to examine how they perceive the same elements of the ESP course content and to what extent it fits into their working environment. The results of the survey indicated that there is a strong correlation between acquiring work experience and the level of importance given to particular areas of law studied in an ESP course which is in line with our initial hypothesis. In conclusion, the results of the survey should help lecturers in re-evaluating and updating their ESP course syllabi.

Keywords: English for Specific Purposes (ESP), language skills, motivation, needs analysis

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Authors: C. Treadgold, S. Sivaraman

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The Starlight Children's Foundation (Starlight) is an Australian non-profit organisation that delivers programs, in partnership with health professionals, to support children, adolescents, and their families who are living with a serious illness. While supporting children and adolescents with life-limiting conditions has always been a feature of Starlight's work, providing a dedicated program, specifically targeting and meeting the needs of the paediatric palliative population, is a recent area of focus. Recognising the challenges in providing children’s palliative services, Starlight initiated a research and development project to better understand and meet the needs of this group. The aim was to create a program which enhances the wellbeing of children, adolescents, and their families receiving paediatric palliative care in their community through the provision of on-going, tailored, positive experiences or 'moments'. This paper will present the results of the formative evaluation of this unique program, highlighting the development processes and outcomes of the pilot. The pilot was designed using an innovation methodology, which included a number of research components. There was a strong belief that it needed to be delivered in partnership with a dedicated palliative care team, helping to ensure the best interests of the family were always represented. This resulted in Starlight collaborating with both the Victorian Paediatric Palliative Care Program (VPPCP) at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, and the Sydney Children's Hospital Network (SCHN) to pilot the 'Moments' program. As experts in 'positive disruption', with a long history of collaborating with health professionals, Starlight was well placed to deliver a program which helps children, adolescents, and their families to experience moments of joy, connection and achieve their own sense of accomplishment. Building on Starlight’s evidence-based approach and experience in creative service delivery, the program aims to use the power of 'positive disruption' to brighten the lives of this group and create important memories. The clinical and Starlight team members collaborate to ensure that the child and family are at the centre of the program. The design of each experience is specific to their needs and ensures the creation of positive memories and family connection. It aims for each moment to enhance quality of life. The partnership with the VPPCP and SCHN has allowed the program to reach families across metropolitan and regional locations. In late 2019 a formative evaluation of the pilot was conducted utilising both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to document both the delivery and outcomes of the program. Central to the evaluation was the interviews conducted with both clinical teams and families in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of and satisfaction with the program. The findings, which will be shared in this presentation, provide practical insight into the delivery of the program, the key elements for its success with families, and areas which could benefit from additional research and focus. It will use stories and case studies from the pilot to highlight the impact of the program and discuss what opportunities, challenges, and learnings emerged.

Keywords: children, families, memory making, pediatric palliative care, support

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Authors: Anurag Devkota

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Foreign employment serves to be the strongest pillar in engendering employment options for a large number of the young Nepali population. Nepali workers are forced to leave the comfort of their homes and are exposed to precarious conditions while on a journey to earn enough money to live better their lives. The exponential rise in foreign labour migration has produced a snowball effect on the economy of the nation. The dramatic variation in the economic development of the state has proved to establish the fact that migration is increasingly significant for livelihood, economic development, political stability, academic discourse and policy planning in Nepal. The foreign employment practice in Nepal largely incorporates the role of individual agents in the entire process of migration. With the fraudulent acts and false promises of these agents, the problems associated with every Nepali migrant worker starts at home. The workers encounter tremendous pre-departure malpractice and exploitation at home by different individual agents during different stages of processing. Although these epidemic and repetitive ill activities of intermediaries are dominant and deeply rooted, the agents have been allowed to walk free in the absence of proper laws to curb their wrongdoings and misconduct. It has been found that the existing regulatory mechanisms have not been utilised to their full efficacy and often fall short in addressing the actual concerns of the workers because of the complex legal and judicial procedures. Structural changes in the judicial setting will help bring perpetrators under the law and victims towards access to justice. Thus, a qualitative improvement of the overall situation of Nepali migrant workers calls for a proper 'regulatory' arrangement vis-à-vis these brokers. Hence, the author aims to carry out a doctrinal study using reports and scholarly articles as a major source of data collection. Various reports published by different non-governmental and governmental organizations working in the field of labour migration will be examined and the research will focus on the inductive and deductive data analysis. Hence, the real challenge of establishing a pro-migrant worker regime in recent times is to bring the agents under the jurisdiction of the court in Nepal. The Gulf Visit Study Report, 2017 prepared and launched by the International Relation and Labour Committee of Legislature-Parliament of Nepal finds that solving the problems at home solves 80 percent of the problems concerning migrant workers in Nepal. Against this backdrop, this research study is intended to determine the ways and measures to curb the role of agents in the foreign employment and labour migration process of Nepal. It will further dig deeper into the regulatory mechanisms of Nepal and map out essential determinant behind the impunity of agents.

Keywords: foreign employment, labour migration, human rights, migrant workers

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Authors: Young Ik Suh, Sanghak Lee, Tywan G. Martin

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An increasing number of athletes, across all sports, are moving from their home countries to play in foreign countries. The migration of athletes, coaches, managers, and administrators within and between nations is an important aspect of the social and cultural changes taking place in modern, global sports. It is especially important to understand the context of these migrations as they are critical factors in the successful development of sports policies. In previous decades, efforts have been made to understand the motives of migrating athletes from a variety of sports, including rugby, cricket, baseball, and soccer. These studies focused on the athletes’ motivations, experiences as migrants, and recruit process. However, few studies have been conducted in order to understand athletes’ constraints of migration. The concept of constraints in leisure studies refers to the barriers that exist between an individual’s desire for participation and an individual’s real participation. The study of constraints is not a new topic in the fields of sports and recreation. In addition to understanding the motives that drive athletes to work or play in foreign countries, it is also important to recognize that negative dimensions exist that stop some athletes from migrating. Furthermore, little research has explored what makes athletes consider playing in small and unknown volleyball markets, such as the Korean Volleyball League (V-League). The V-League is a professional men’s and women’s volleyball league, started in 2005. It consists of seven men’s clubs, and six women’s clubs and each team has one foreign player. In addition, several limitations are placed on the foreign players, such as on height, position, and salary to play in the V-League. Thus, the main focus of the present research is to understand why foreign athletes (e.g., European, American, Brazil, etc.) are attracted to the V-League, which has a smaller market compared to its neighbors (i.e., China, Japan, and The Philippines). In addition, the current study seeks to identify the negative factors that prevent athletes from playing in the V-League. The participants for this study will be foreign volleyball players participating in the V-League. The investigators will provide a brief introduction to this study and inform the potential participants that they can choose whether to participate in this study. In terms of theoretical saturation, at least 12 participants are generally an adequate number to reach saturation, if they belong to a relatively homogenous group based on culture and ethnicity. This study utilizes a qualitative approach in order to understand the migration experiences foreign volleyball athletes playing in the V-League. The proposed study represents ongoing research to support work conducted by the investigators to understand the possible motivations and constraints for foreign volleyball players playing in the V-League. In addition, significant contributions to scholarship in the field of sports, psychology, and coaching studies will be an outcome of this study along with additions to the body of knowledge in several disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and social work.

Keywords: athletes’ migration, motivation, constraints, volleyball

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Authors: Federica Marangio

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This study looks at the triangle of knowledge: research-education-innovation as growth engine of an inclusive and sustainable society, where the research is the strategic process which allows the acquisition of knowledge, innovation appraises the knowledge acquired and the education is the enabling factor of the human capital to create entrepreneurial capital. Where does Italy and China stand in the global geography of innovation? Europe is calling on a smart, inclusive and sustainable growth through a specializing process that looks at the social and economic challenges, able to understand the characteristics of specific geographic areas. It is easily questionable why it is not as simple as it looks to come up with entrepreneurial ideas in all the geographic areas. Seen that the technology plus the human capital should be the means through which is possible to innovate and contribute to the boost of innovation culture, then the young educated people can be seen as the society changing agents and it becomes clear the importance of investigating the skills and competencies that lead to innovation. By starting innovation-based activities, other countries on an international level, are able now to be part of an healthy innovative ecosystem which is the result of a strong growth policy which enables innovation. Analyzing the geography of the innovation on a global scale, comes to light that the innovative entrepreneurship is the process which portrays the competitiveness of the regions in the knowledge-based economy as strategic process able to match intellectual capital and market opportunities. The level of innovative entrepreneurship is not only the result of the endogenous growth ability of the enterprises, but also by significant relations with other enterprises, universities, other centers of education and institutions. To obtain more innovative entrepreneurship is necessary to stimulate more synergy between all these territory actors in order to create, access and value existing and new knowledge ready to be disseminate. This study focuses on individual’s lived experience and the researcher believed that she can’t understand the human actions without understanding the meaning that they attribute to their thoughts, feelings, beliefs and so given she needed to understand the deeper perspectives captured through face-to face interaction. A case study approach will contribute to the betterment of knowledge in this field. This case study will represent a picture of the innovative ecosystem and the entrepreneurial mindset as a key ingredient of endogenous growth and a must for sustainable local and regional development and social cohesion. The case study will be realized analyzing two Chinese companies. A structured set of questions will be asked in order to gain details on what generated success or failure in the different situations with the past and at the moment of the research. Everything will be recorded not to lose important information during the transcription phase. While this work is not geared toward testing a priori hypotheses, it is nevertheless useful to examine whether the projects undertaken by the companies, were stimulated by enabling factors that, as result, enhanced or hampered the local innovation culture.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, education, geography of innovation, education.

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Authors: Özgür Bahadir, Meltem Kurtuncu

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The study was designed as quasi-experimental and conducted to determine the effect of music therapy on anxiety, fear and pain management in 6-12-year-old children undergoing surgery. The present study was carried out between 01.01.2016 and 19.08.2016 in BEU. Application and Research Center. The children aged 6 -12 who applied for surgery between the mentioned dates constituted the universe of the study. In the quasi-experimental study that was conducted in the clinics where children received operational treatment, two groups were formed: experimental group (the children who received musical therapy before the surgery) and control group (the children who were administered surveys and the surgery service routines only). Each group consisted of 30 children, and the participants of the study were 60 children in total. Necessary permissions were obtained from the parents of the children hospitalized before the beginning of the implementation. The data was collected through Child Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI), “Fear In Medical Treatment Scale”, Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability Scale (FLACC), Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Participant Information Form. In the analysis of the data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov distribution scale was used to examine the normality of the distribution along with descriptive statistics methods (Frequency, Percentage, Mean, Standard Deviation). Data was presented in the tables in numbers and percentages. Means were demonstrated along with the standard deviations. The research compared children received; case and control groups include socio-demographic perspective, non-significant difference statistically among similar groups are intertwined. The general level of fear regarding the medical processes before returning to service after the operation and 30 minutes before getting discharged was found to be significantly low in the experimental group compared to control group (p<0.05). No statistically significant difference was found between experimental and control groups in terms of general level of fear regarding the medical processes before the operation, during the operation day and in the recovery room after the operation (p>0.05). Total CASI AD (anxiety sensitivity) levels before the operation, day of the operation and 30 minutes before the discharge for patients in experimental group was found to be significantly higher than the control group (p>0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups in the total CASI AD levels for the post-operative recovery room and for returning to the service room after the operation (p>0.05). VAS levels for patients in the experimental group in the post-operative recovery room was significantly higher than the control group (p>0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of VAS findings in returning to service room after the operation and in 30 minutes before the discharge (p>0.05). As a result of the research; applied children music therapy in the experimental group anxiety, fear, and pain of the scales, their scores average, is lower than the control group children in this situation an increase in the satisfaction of children and parents was observed. In line with this, music therapy preoperative anxiety, fear, and can be used as an effective method of decreasing postoperative pain clinics is suggested.

Keywords: anxiety, children, fear, music therapy, pain

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