Search results for: healthy eating

Authors: Maria Klitgaard Christensen, Carmen Lim, Sukanta Saha, Danielle Cannon, Finley Prentis, Oleguer Plana-Ripoll, Natalie Momen, Kim Moesgaard Iburg, John J. McGrath

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Introduction: About a third of the world’s population will develop a mental disorder over their lifetime. Having a mental disorder is a huge burden in health loss and cost for the individual, but also for society because of treatment cost, production loss and caregivers’ cost. The objective of this study is to synthesize the international published literature on the economic burden of mental disorders. Methods: Systematic literature searches were conducted in the databases PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, EconLit, NHS York Database and PsychInfo using key terms for cost and mental disorders. Searches were restricted to 1980 until May 2019. The inclusion criteria were: (1) cost-of-illness studies or cost-analyses, (2) diagnosis of at least one mental disorder, (3) samples based on the general population, and (4) outcome in monetary units. 13,640 publications were screened by their title/abstract and 439 articles were full-text screened by at least two independent reviewers. 112 articles were included from the systematic searches and 31 articles from snowball searching, giving a total of 143 included articles. Results: Information about diagnosis, diagnostic criteria, sample size, age, sex, data sources, study perspective, study period, costing approach, cost categories, discount rate and production loss method and cost unit was extracted. The vast majority of the included studies were from Western countries and only a few from Africa and South America. The disorder group most often investigated was mood disorders, followed by schizophrenia and neurotic disorders. The disorder group least examined was intellectual disabilities, followed by eating disorders. The preliminary results show a substantial variety in the used perspective, methodology, costs components and outcomes in the included studies. An online tool is under development enabling the reader to explore the published information on costs by type of mental disorder, subgroups, country, methodology, and study quality. Discussion: This is the first systematic review synthesizing the economic cost of mental disorders worldwide. The paper will provide an important and comprehensive overview over the economic burden of mental disorders, and the output from this review will inform policymaking.

Keywords: cost-of-illness, health economics, mental disorders, systematic review

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Authors: Lorenzo Maiorino, Fabio Fortuna, Giovanni Panebianco, Marco Sanzari, Gabriella Arcese, Valerio Maria Paolozzi

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It is well known that sport is a factor of social cohesion and the breaking down of barriers between people. From this point of view, the aim is to demonstrate how, through the (re)generation of sustainable structures, it is possible to give life to a new social, cultural, and economic pathway, where possible, in peripheral areas with problems of abandonment and degradation. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to study realities such as European programs and funds and to highlight the ways in which planning can be used to respond to critical issues such as urban decay, abandonment, and the mitigation of social differences. For this reason, the analysis will be carried out through the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) package, the Next Generation EU, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the Cohesion Fund, the European Social Fund, and other managed funds. The procedure will rely on sources and data of unquestionable origin, and the relation to the object of study in question will be highlighted. The project lends itself to be ambitious and exploring a further aspect of the sports theme, which, as we know, is one of the foundations for a healthy society.

Keywords: sport, social inclusion, urban regeneration, sports facilities, European funds

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Authors: M. Sadeghi, H. Pezeshk, R. Tusserkani, A. Sharifi Zarchi, A. Malekpour, M. Foroughmand, S. Goliaei, M. Totonchi, N. Ansari–Pour

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The role and relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors in the development of complex diseases such as cancer still remains a controversial issue. Determining the amount of variation explained by these factors needs experimental data and statistical models. These models are nevertheless based on the occurrence and accumulation of random mutational events during stem cell division, thus rendering cancer development a stochastic outcome. We demonstrate that not only individual genome sequencing is uninformative in determining cancer risk, but also assigning a unique genome sequence to any given individual (healthy or affected) is not meaningful. Current whole-genome sequencing approaches are therefore unlikely to realize the promise of personalized medicine. In conclusion, since genome sequence differs from cell to cell and changes over time, it seems that determining the risk factor of complex diseases based on genome sequence is somewhat unrealistic, and therefore, the resulting data are likely to be inherently uninformative.

Keywords: cancer risk, extrinsic factors, genome sequencing, intrinsic factors

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Authors: Magali Mari, Misha Muller

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The present study’s objectives were to determine how diverse implicit stereotypes affect the processing of written information and linguistic inferential processes, such as presupposition accommodation. When reading a text, one constructs a representation of the described situation, which is then updated, according to new outputs and based on stereotypes inscribed within society. If the new output contradicts stereotypical expectations, the representation must be corrected, resulting in longer reading times. A similar process occurs in cases of linguistic inferential processes like presupposition accommodation. Presupposition accommodation is traditionally regarded as fast, automatic processing of background information (e.g., ‘Mary stopped eating meat’ is quickly processed as Mary used to eat meat). However, very few accounts have investigated if this process is likely to be influenced by domains of social cognition, such as implicit stereotypes. To study the effects of implicit stereotypes on presupposition accommodation, adults were recorded while they read sentences in French, combining two methods, an eye-tracking task and a classic self-paced reading task (where participants read sentence segments at their own pace by pressing a computer key). In one condition, presuppositions were activated with the French definite articles ‘le/la/les,’ whereas in the other condition, the French indefinite articles ‘un/une/des’ was used, triggering no presupposition. Using a definite article presupposes that the object has already been uttered and is thus part of background information, whereas using an indefinite article is understood as the introduction of new information. Two types of stereotypes were under examination in order to enlarge the scope of stereotypes traditionally analyzed. Study 1 investigated gender stereotypes linked to professional occupations to replicate previous findings. Study 2 focused on nationality-related stereotypes (e.g. ‘the French are seducers’ versus ‘the Japanese are seducers’) to determine if the effects of implicit stereotypes on reading are generalizable to other types of implicit stereotypes. The results show that reading is influenced by the two types of implicit stereotypes; in the two studies, the reading pace slowed down when a counter-stereotype was presented. However, presupposition accommodation did not affect participants’ processing of information. Altogether these results show that (a) implicit stereotypes affect the processing of written information, regardless of the type of stereotypes presented, and (b) that implicit stereotypes prevail over the superficial linguistic treatment of presuppositions, which suggests faster processing for treating social information compared to linguistic information.

Keywords: eye-tracking, implicit stereotypes, reading, social cognition

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Authors: Aleena Rena Onozuka, Patompong Satapornpong

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Introduction: In a Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)’s immune response, HLA alleles (HLA class I and class II) play a crucial role in fighting against pathogens. HLA-B*15:01 allele had a significant association with asymptomatic COVID-19 infection (p-value = 5.67 x 10-5 ; OR = 2.40 and 95% CI = 1.54 - 3.64). There was also a notable linkage between HLA-B*51:01 allele and critically ill patients with COVID-19 (p-value = 0.007 and OR = 3.38). This study has described the distribution of HLA marker alleles in Thais and sub-groups. Objective: We want to investigate the prevalence of HLA-B*15:01 and HLA-B*51:01 alleles in the Thai population. Materials and Methods: 200 healthy Thai population were included in this study from the College of Pharmacy, Rangsit University. HLA-B alleles were genotyped using the sequence-specific oligonucleotides process (PCR-SSOs). Results: We found out that HLA-B*46:01 (12.00%), HLA-B*15:02 (9.25%), HLA-B*40:01 (6.50%), HLA-B*13:01 (6.25%), and HLA-B* 38:02 (5.50%) alleles were more common than other alleles in Thai population. HLA-B*46:01 and HLA-B*15:02 were the most common allele found across four regions. Moreover, the frequency of HLA-B*15:01 and HLA-B*51:01 alleles were similarly distributed in Thai population (0.50, 5.25 %) and (p-value > 0.05), respectively. The frequencies of HLA-B*15:01 and HLA-B*51:01 alleles were not significantly different from other populations compared to the Thai population. Conclusions: We can screen for HLA-B*15:01 and HLA-B*51:01 alleles to determine the symptoms of COVID-19 since they are universal HLA-B markers. Importantly, the database of HLA markers indicates the association between HLA frequency and populations. However, we need further research on larger numbers of COVID-19 patients and in different populations.

Keywords: HLA-B*15:01, HLA-B*51:01, COVID-19, HLA-B alleles

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Authors: Sri Ratna Rahayu, Oktia Woro Kasmini Handayani, Lourensiana Y. S. Ngaga, Imade Sudana, Irwan Budiono

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Malaria is an infectious disease that still cannot be solved in Kori village, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, where the most of people live in rumah panggung (Stilts House). The purpose of this study was to know whether there were the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture, and behavior on malaria incidence in the Kori village. A cross-sectional study was performed to explore the effects of rumah panggung environment, social culture and behavior on malaria incidence. This study recruited 280 respondents, who live in the rumah panggung, permanent residents in Kori village, were age above 17 years old, and suffered from malaria in the past year. The collected data were analyzed with path analysis. The results of this study showed that the environment of rumah panggung and behavior have a direct effect on the incidence of malaria (p < 0.05). It could be concluded that improvement of environmental conditions of rumah panggung, sociocultural, and behavioral changes to maintain a healthy environment are needed to reduce the malaria incidence.

Keywords: Rumah panggung, socio-cultural, behavior, Malaria

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Authors: Devina Aprilia Gunawan, Tasya Aspiranti, Inugrah Ratia Pratiwi

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This research aims to classify the mining sector companies based on Altman’s Z-score model, and providing an analysis based on the Altman’s Z-score model’s financial ratios to provide a picture about the financial condition in mining sector companies in Indonesia and their viability in the future, and to find out the partial and simultaneous impact of each of the financial ratio variables in the Altman’s Z-score model, namely (WC/TA), (RE/TA), (EBIT/TA), (MVE/TL), and (S/TA), toward the financial condition represented by the Z-score itself. Among 38 mining sector companies listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), 28 companies are selected as research sample according to the purposive sampling criteria.The results of this research showed that during 3 years research period at 2010-2012, the amount of the companies that was predicted to be healthy in each year was less than half of the total sample companies and not even reach up to 50%. The multiple regression analysis result showed that all of the research hypotheses are accepted, which means that (WC/TA), (RE/TA), (EBIT/TA), (MVE/TL), and (S/TA), both partially and simultaneously had an impact towards company’s financial condition.

Keywords: Altman’s Z-score model, financial condition, mining companies, Indonesia

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Authors: M. Titaouine, T. Meziane, K. Deghnouche

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The purpose of this study was to determine reference serum biochemistry values from dromedary (Camelus dromedarius) in Algeria and to evaluate potential sources of physiological variability such as the sex, age and season on serum data. Usual serum biochemistry values were determined in blood samples from 26 apparently healthy dromedaries, 11 males and 15 females, divided into 3 lots (ender 4years), (between 5 and 10 years), (up 10 years). Parametric reference ranges and physiological variations are determined for calcium (Ca), organic phosphate (P), magnesium (Mg), natrium (Na), potassium (K), iron (Fe), glucose, triglycerides (TG), cholesterol, urea, creatinine, total proteins and albumin. The results demonstrate: * Values which agreed with literature * Significant statistically differences (Anova test, p < 0.05) depending on: -the sex for Na, glucose, TG, cholesterol, urea, creatinine, albumin, -the age for Ca, P, K, Mg, glucose, TG, b and g globulin, -and season for Fe, urea, total proteins, TG, cholesterol and glucose. These reference ranges for serum biochemical analysis can be used for metabolic and nutritional disorders detection in dromedary.

Keywords: age, biochemistry, dromadery, season, sex

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Authors: Semion Kertzman, Pinhas Dannon

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Impulsive behaviour and the underlying brain processes are hypothesized to be central in the development and maintenance of pathological gambling. Inhibition ability can be differentially impaired in pathological gamblers (PGs). Aims: This study aimed to compare the ability of eight widely used inhibition measures to discriminate between PGs and healthy controls (HCs). Methods: PGs (N=51) and demographically matched HCs (N=51) performed cognitive inhibition (the Stroop), motor inhibition (the Go/NoGo) and reflective inhibition (the Matching Familiar Figures (MFFT)) tasks. Results: An augmented total interference response time in the Stroop task (η² =0.054), a large number of commission errors (η² =0.053) in the Go/NoGo task, and the total number of errors in the MFFT (η² =0.05) can discriminate PGs from HCs. Other measures are unable to differentiate between PGs and HCs. No significant correlations were observed between inhibition measures. Conclusion: Inhibition measures varied in the ability to discriminate PGs from HCs. Most inhibition measures were not relevant to gambling behaviour. PGs do not express rash, impulsive behaviour, such as quickly choosing an answer without thinking. In contrast, in PGs, inhibition impairment was related to slow-inaccurate performance.

Keywords: pathological gambling, impulsivity, neurocognition, addiction

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Authors: Eid Alharbi, Yaser Miaji

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The importance of fruit quality and freshness is potential in today’s life. Most recent studies show and automatic online sorting system according to the internal disorder for fresh apple fruit has developed by using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopic technology. The automatic conveyer belts system along with sorting mechanism was constructed. To check the internal quality of the apple fruit, apple was exposed to the NIR radiations in the range 650-1300nm and the data were collected in form of absorption spectra. The collected data were compared to the reference (data of known sample) analyzed and an electronic signal was pass to the sorting system. The sorting system was separate the apple fruit samples according to electronic signal passed to the system. It is found that absorption of NIR radiation in the range 930-950nm was higher in the internally defected samples as compared to healthy samples. On the base of this high absorption of NIR radiation in 930-950nm region the online sorting system was constructed.

Keywords: mechatronics design, NIR, fruit quality, spectroscopic technology

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Authors: Eid Alharbi, Yaser Miaji

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The importance of fruit quality and freshness is potential in today’s life. Most recent studies show and automatic online sorting system according to the internal disorder for fresh apple fruit has developed by using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopic technology. The automatic conveyer belts system along with sorting mechanism was constructed. To check the internal quality of the apple fruit, apple was exposed to the NIR radiations in the range 650-1300nm and the data were collected in form of absorption spectra. The collected data were compared to the reference (data of known sample) analyzed and an electronic signal was pass to the sorting system. The sorting system was separate the apple fruit samples according to electronic signal passed to the system. It is found that absorption of NIR radiation in the range 930-950nm was higher in the internally defected samples as compared to healthy samples. On the base of this high absorption of NIR radiation in 930-950nm region the online sorting system was constructed.

Keywords: mechatronics design, NIR, fruit quality, spectroscopic technology

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Authors: Lise Paesen, Marielle Leijten

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People diagnosed with probable Alzheimer disease suffer from an impairment of their language capacities; a gradual impairment which affects both their spoken and written communication. Our study aims at characterising the language decline in DAT patients with the use of congeneric elicited writing tasks. Within these tasks, a descriptive text has to be written based upon images with which the participants are confronted. A randomised set of images allows us to present the participants with a different task on every encounter, thus allowing us to avoid a recognition effect in this iterative study. This method is a revision from previous studies, in which participants were presented with a larger picture depicting an entire scene. In order to create the randomised set of images, existing pictures were adapted following strict criteria (e.g. frequency, AoA, colour, ...). The resulting data set contained 50 images, belonging to several categories (vehicles, animals, humans, and objects). A pre-test was constructed to validate the created picture set; most images had been used before in spoken picture naming tasks. Hence the same reaction times ought to be triggered in the typed picture naming task. Once validated, the effectiveness of the descriptive tasks was assessed. First, the participants (n=60 students, n=40 healthy elderly) performed a typing task, which provided information about the typing speed of each individual. Secondly, two descriptive writing tasks were carried out, one simple and one complex. The simple task contains 4 images (1 animal, 2 objects, 1 vehicle) and only contains elements with high frequency, a young AoA (<6 years), and fast reaction times. Slow reaction times, a later AoA (≥ 6 years) and low frequency were criteria for the complex task. This task uses 6 images (2 animals, 1 human, 2 objects and 1 vehicle). The data were collected with the keystroke logging programme Inputlog. Keystroke logging tools log and time stamp keystroke activity to reconstruct and describe text production processes. The data were analysed using a selection of writing process and product variables, such as general writing process measures, detailed pause analysis, linguistic analysis, and text length. As a covariate, the intrapersonal interkey transition times from the typing task were taken into account. The pre-test indicated that the new images lead to similar or even faster reaction times compared to the original images. All the images were therefore used in the main study. The produced texts of the description tasks were significantly longer compared to previous studies, providing sufficient text and process data for analyses. Preliminary analysis shows that the amount of words produced differed significantly between the healthy elderly and the students, as did the mean length of production bursts, even though both groups needed the same time to produce their texts. However, the elderly took significantly more time to produce the complex task than the simple task. Nevertheless, the amount of words per minute remained comparable between simple and complex. The pauses within and before words varied, even when taking personal typing abilities (obtained by the typing task) into account.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, experimental design, language decline, writing process

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Authors: Ali Bayram, Burak Uz, Remzi Yiğiter

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The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression levels of homo sapiens nuclear factor of kappa light polypeptide gene enhancer in B-cells 1, transcript variant 1 (NFKB1*1) mRNA in the peripheral blood of patients with Parkinson to elucidate the role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease (PD). The study group comprised 50 patients with the diagnosis of PD who have applied to Gaziantep University Faculty of Medicine, and Department of Neurology. 50 healthy individuals without any neuro degenerative disease are included as controls. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) was obtained from blood samples of patient and control groups. Complementary deoxyribonucleic acid (cDNA) was obtained from RNA samples using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique. The gene expression of NFKB1*1 in patient/control groups were observed to decrease significantly, and the differences between groups with the Mann-Whitney method within 95% confidence interval (p<0.05) were analyzed. This salient finding provide a clue for our hypothesis that reduced activity of NFKB1*1 gene might play a role, at least partly, in the pathophysiology of PD.

Keywords: Parkinson’s Disease, NFKB1, mRNA expression, RT-PCR

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Authors: Alisha Gupta

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Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis which is a degenerative joint disease causing joints to begin to break down and underlying bones to change. This “wear and tear” most frequently affects hands, hips, and knees. This is important because OA pain is considered to be a leading cause of mobility impairment in older adults, with hip and knee OA ranked 11th highest contributors to global disability. Bone tissue engineering utilizing polymer scaffolds and hydrogels is an emerging field for treating osteoarthritis. Polymer scaffolds provide a three-dimensional structure for tissue growth, and hydrogels can be used to deliver drugs and growth factors. The combination of the two materials creates a hybrid structure that can better withstand physiological and mechanical demands while also providing a more controlled environment for drug and nutrient delivery. I think using bone tissue engineering for making scaffold-hydrogel composites that are self-regenerating and vascularizing might be useful in solving this problem. Successful implementation can reconstruct healthy, simulated bone tissue on deficient applicants.

Keywords: tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, scaffold-hydrogel composites, osteoarthritis

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Authors: Santoshi Halder, Bijoya Saha

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Adolescent’s attitude is one of the most important variables in the inclusion of people with disabilities. This article investigated attitudes of general adolescent in the eastern part of India (Kolkata), India, towards people with disabilities measured by responses on the Attitude toward Disabled Persons Scale. The present study examined 400, High School adolescent students of Mean Age 14 from various schools in and around Kolkata, West Bengal. The study measured whether demographic characteristics such as gender, socioeconomic status (SES) habitat affect the attitudes of adolescent students towards people with disabilities. The results of this study indicate that habitat and socioeconomic status are some of the significant factors affecting the attitudes of the general adolescent students towards people with disabilities (PwD). However findings also indicate no significant effect on the attitude of the students towards people with disabilities (PwD) with respect to gender. Implication of this study: Broader and wide range of exposure to students and healthy family environment in order to increase positive attitudes towards people with disabilities.

Keywords: attitudes, People with Disabilities (PwD), adolescent students, socioeconomic status, gender, habitat, inclusion

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Authors: Ammal M. Metwally, Lobna A. ElEtreby, Rehan M. Saleh, Ghada Abdrabou, Somia I. Salama, Amira Orabi, Mohamed Abdelrahman

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Hepatitis C virus infection is a public health threat in Egypt. To control infection, efforts should be spent to encourage healthy behavior. This study aimed to assess the level of behavioral development in order to create a positive environment for the adoption of the recommended behaviors. The study was conducted over one year from Jan. 2011 till Jan. 2012. Knowledge, attitude and behavior of 540 HCV patients and 102 of their contacts were assessed and the level of behavioral development was determined. The study revealed that the majority of patients and contacts knew that HCV infection is dangerous with perceived concern for early diagnosis and treatment. More than 75% knew the correct modes of transmission. The assessment showed positive attitudes towards the recommended practices with the intention to adopt those practices. Strategies to create opportunities to continue the recommended behaviors should be adopted together with the reinforcement of social support.

Keywords: hepatitis C virus, level of behavioral development, recommended behaviors

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Authors: Mustopa, Setyawan Wahyu Pradana

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This study aims to determine the application of animal welfare in Madura cow racing competition at Sumenep district, Madura Island. This study conducted by survey and discussion methods with 3 Madura cow owners in the competition. The animal welfare is going to be proved by observing the condition of the cage, the cleanliness of it, feeding and water, the health of the cow, also owner treatments for their Madura cow that will be served as a racer. Observations made using stable conditions ACRES form with assessment scores ranged from 1 = very poor, 2 = poor, 3 = regular, 4 = good and 5 = very good, animal welfare conditions seen by conducting observations and interviews with Madura cow owners. The result shows that the Madura cow competition has fulfilled the criteria of animal welfare application. Application of animal welfare principle by the owner of Madura cow terms of ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society) below standard, the average score obtained was 2.06, which is mean in a poor ratings. Besides considering the animal welfare application, Madura cow owners also do special treatments for their Madura cow with purpose to produce racers that are healthy and fast. Therefore, if the cow wins in Madura cow racing competition, it will purchase a high-value price.

Keywords: animal welfare, competition, Madura cow, racing

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Authors: Mohamad Sharif bin Mustaffa, Maizatul Akmam binti Abu Bakar, Mohd Harriszamani bin Abu Bakar

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Most teens who gave birth to an illegitimate child will suffer from depression. This depression issues arising from the incident itself which contains the teen will feel ashamed because labeled as immoral, apart from that most teenagers go through this episode without support from their spouse or family. Teens also face the possibility of a large part with the will be born babies because the issue of too young and needs to go back to school. Teens also can not make a decision on the future of the baby later because they are too immature and no baby care skills other than financial issues, where young people themselves are still dependent on their family. This paper will look at how to apply neurofeedback can be used to see the level of depression experienced by teenagers who get pregnant out of wedlock. Play therapy that will help improve adolescent focus will be used for this purpose. Each level experienced by teenagers going through the phase of easy-to-high difficulty level. Apart from that a recovery module will also be developed as a whole to reduce the level of depression to enable the youth to perform routine healthy activities and can go back to school with cheerful feeling, motivated and active.

Keywords: neurofeedback, depression, pregnant, adolescent, illegitimate

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Authors: Leila Jafari, Viliam Makis, G. B. Akram Khaleghei

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In this paper, we present a maintenance model of a two-unit series system with economic dependence. Unit#1, which is considered to be more expensive and more important, is subject to condition monitoring (CM) at equidistant, discrete time epochs and unit#2, which is not subject to CM, has a general lifetime distribution. The multivariate observation vectors obtained through condition monitoring carry partial information about the hidden state of unit#1, which can be in a healthy or a warning state while operating. Only the failure state is assumed to be observable for both units. The objective is to find an optimal opportunistic maintenance policy minimizing the long-run expected average cost per unit time. The problem is formulated and solved in the partially observable semi-Markov decision process framework. An effective computational algorithm for finding the optimal policy and the minimum average cost is developed and illustrated by a numerical example.

Keywords: condition-based maintenance, semi-Markov decision process, multivariate Bayesian control chart, partially observable system, two-unit system

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Authors: Ferruh Taspinar, Gulce K. Seyyar, Gamze Kurt, Eda O. Okur, Emrah Afsar, Ismail Saracoglu, Betul Taspinar

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Alterations of physical activity can effect body composition (especially body fat ratio); however body mass index may not sufficient to indicate these minimal differences. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between body composition and physical activity in university students. In this study, 132 university students (mean age; 21.21±1.51) were included. Tanita BC-418 and International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) were used to evaluate participants. The correlation between the parameters was analysed via Spearman correlation analysis. Significance level in statistical analyses was accepted is 0.05. The results showed that there was no correlation between body mass index and physical activity (p>0.05). There was a positive correlation between body muscle ratio and physical activity, whereas a negative correlation between body fat ratio and physical activity (p<0.05). This study showed that body fat and muscle ratio affects the level of physical activity in healthy university students. Therefore, we thought that physical activity might reduce effects of the diseases caused by disturbed body composition. Further studies are required to support this idea.

Keywords: body composition, body mass index, physical activity, university student

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Authors: Fabio Rodriguez Sanchez, Josef Bruers, Iciar Arteagoitia, Carlos Rodriguez Andres

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Background: Oral implants are a routine treatment to replace lost teeth. Although they have a high rate of success, implant failures do occur. Perioperative antibiotics have been suggested to prevent postoperative infections and dental implant failures, but they remain a controversial treatment among healthy patients. The objective of this study was to determine whether antibiotic prophylaxis is a common treatment in the Netherlands among general dentists, maxillofacial-surgeons, periodontists and implantologists in conjunction with oral implant surgery among healthy patients and to assess the nature of antibiotics prescriptions in order to evaluate whether any consensus has been reached and the current recommendations are being followed. Methodology: Observational cross-sectional study based on a web-survey reported according to the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines. A validated questionnaire, developed by Deeb et al. (2015), was translated and slightly adjusted to circumstances in the Netherlands. It was used with the explicit permission of the authors. This questionnaire contained both close-ended and some open-ended questions in relation to the following topics: demographics, qualification, antibiotic type, prescription-duration and dosage. An email was sent February 2018 to a sample of 600 general dentists and all 302 oral implantologists, periodontists and maxillofacial surgeons who were recognized by the Dutch Association of Oral Implantology (NVOI) as oral health care providers placing oral implants. The email included a brief introduction about the study objectives and a link to the web questionnaire, which could be filled in anonymously. Overall, 902 questionnaires were sent. However, 29 questionnaires were not correctly received due to an incorrect email address. So a total number of 873 professionals were reached. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS (IBM Corp., released 2012, Armonk, NY). Results: The questionnaire was sent back by a total number of 218 participants (response rate=24.2%), 45 female (20.8%) and 171 male (79.2%). Two respondents were excluded from the study group because they were not currently working as oral health providers. Overall 151 (69.9%) placed oral implants on regular basis. Approximately 79 (52.7%) of these participants prescribed antibiotics only in determined situations, 66 (44.0%) prescribed antibiotics always and 5 dentists (3.3%) did not prescribe antibiotics at all when placing oral implants. Overall, 83 participants who prescribed antibiotics, did so both pre- and postoperatively (58.5%), 12 exclusively postoperative (8.5%), and 47 followed an exclusive preoperative regime (33.1%). A single dose of 2,000 mg amoxicillin orally 1-hour prior treatment was the most prescribed preoperative regimen. The most frequent prescribed postoperative regimen was 500 mg amoxicillin three times daily for 7 days after surgery. On average, oral health professionals prescribed 6,923 mg antibiotics in conjunction with oral implant surgery, varying from 500 to 14,600 mg. Conclusions: Antibiotic prophylaxis in conjunction with oral implant surgery is prescribed in the Netherlands on a rather large scale. Dutch professionals might prescribe antibiotics more cautiously than in other countries and there seems to be a lower range on the different antibiotic types and regimens being prescribed. Anyway, recommendations based on last-published evidence are frequently not being followed.

Keywords: clinical decision making, infection control, antibiotic prophylaxis, dental implants

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Authors: Saira Baloch, Mohsin Ali Baloch

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Background: Malaria is a potentially life-threatening disease and also a major public health problem in Pakistan. Renal failure is an emerging problem correlated with morbidity and mortality, however can be diagnosed and treated in the early stages. Objectives: To elucidate the biochemical renal parameters in patients with falciparum malaria and comparison with healthy control subjects. Method: 80 patients, who were diagnosed to be affected by falciparum malaria. Detailed history, general physical and systemic examination and necessary pathological, biochemical renal laboratory parameters and investigations were done. Results: Among the 80 patients, 43 were males and 37 were females. All patients were infected with P. falciparum. All patients had increased serum creatinine and urea levels and urine output of less than 400 ml/day were categorized as suffering from renal failure. Conclusion: Patients infected with P. falciparum are at an increased risk of developing renal failure when compared to patients infected with other complications. P. vivax has massive potential to cause life threatening complications and even death. Further research is required to understand the exact pathogenesis of various complications encountered in vivax malaria.

Keywords: falciparum malaria, renal failure, biochemical parameters, pathogenesis

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Authors: Mohammadreza Hedyehzadeh, Mahdi Yousefi

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Colon cancer is one of the most common cancer, which predicted to increase its prevalence due to the bad eating habits of peoples. Nowadays, due to the busyness of people, the use of fast foods is increasing, and therefore, diagnosis of this disease and its treatment are of particular importance. To determine the best treatment approach for each specific colon cancer patients, the oncologist should be known the stage of the tumor. The most common method to determine the tumor stage is TNM staging system. In this system, M indicates the presence of metastasis, N indicates the extent of spread to the lymph nodes, and T indicates the size of the tumor. It is clear that in order to determine all three of these parameters, an imaging method must be used, and the gold standard imaging protocols for this purpose are CT and PET/CT. In CT imaging, due to the use of X-rays, the risk of cancer and the absorbed dose of the patient is high, while in the PET/CT method, there is a lack of access to the device due to its high cost. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to estimate the tumor size and the extent of its spread to the lymph nodes using MR images. More than 1300 MR images collected from the TCIA portal, and in the first step (pre-processing), histogram equalization to improve image qualities and resizing to get the same image size was done. Two expert radiologists, which work more than 21 years on colon cancer cases, segmented the images and extracted the tumor region from the images. The next step is feature extraction from segmented images and then classify the data into three classes: T0N0، T3N1 و T3N2. In this article, the VGG-16 convolutional neural network has been used to perform both of the above-mentioned tasks, i.e., feature extraction and classification. This network has 13 convolution layers for feature extraction and three fully connected layers with the softmax activation function for classification. In order to validate the proposed method, the 10-fold cross validation method used in such a way that the data was randomly divided into three parts: training (70% of data), validation (10% of data) and the rest for testing. It is repeated 10 times, each time, the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the model are calculated and the average of ten repetitions is reported as the result. The accuracy, specificity and sensitivity of the proposed method for testing dataset was 89/09%, 95/8% and 96/4%. Compared to previous studies, using a safe imaging technique (MRI) and non-use of predefined hand-crafted imaging features to determine the stage of colon cancer patients are some of the study advantages.

Keywords: colon cancer, VGG-16, magnetic resonance imaging, tumor size, lymph node metastasis

Procedia PDF Downloads 52

Authors: Rehan Mohammad

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Background: Improved Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practices in schools ensure children’s health, well-being and cognitive performance. In India under various WASH interventions in schools, teachers, and other staff make every possible effort to educate children about personal hygiene, sanitation practices and harms of open defecation. However, once children get back to their families, they see other practicing inappropriate WASH behaviors, and they consequently start following them. This show disconnect between school behavior and family behavior, which needs to be bridged to achieve desired WASH outcomes. Aims and Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the factors causing disconnect of WASH-related behaviors between school and the family of children. It also suggests behavior change interventions to bridge the gap. Methodology: The present study has chosen a mixed- method approach. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection have been used in the present study. The purposive sampling for data collection has been chosen. The data have been collected from 20% children in each age group of 04-08 years and 09-12 years spread over three primary schools and 20% of households to which they belong to which is spread over three slum communities in south district of Delhi. Results: The present study shows that despite of several behavior change interventions at school level, children still practice inappropriate WASH behaviors due to disconnect between school and family behaviors. These behaviors show variation from one age group to another. The inappropriate WASH behaviors being practiced by children include open defecation, wrong disposal of garbage, not keeping personal hygiene, not practicing hand washing practices during critical junctures and not washing fruits and vegetables before eating. The present study has highlighted that 80% of children in the age group of 04-08 years still practice inappropriate WASH behaviors when they go back to their families after school whereas, this percentage has reduced to 40% in case of children in the age group 09-12 years. Present study uncovers association between school and family teaching which creates a huge gap between WASH-related behavioral practices. The study has established that children learn and de-learn the WASH behaviors due to the evident disconnect between behavior change interventions at schools and household level. The study has also made it clear that children understand the significance of appropriate WASH practices but owing to the disconnect the behaviors remain unsettled. The study proposes several behavior change interventions to sync the behaviors of children at school and family level to ensure children’s health, well-being and cognitive performance.

Keywords: behavioral interventions, child health, family behavior, school behavior, WASH

Procedia PDF Downloads 108

Authors: Hiroshi Kinoshita, Yasuto Nakanishi, Ryuhei Okuno, Toshio Higashi

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Various kinds of pegboards have been developed and used widely in research and clinics of rehabilitation for evaluation and training of patient’s hand function. A common measure in these peg boards is a total time of performance execution assessed by a tester’s stopwatch. Introduction of electrical and automatic measurement technology to the apparatus, on the other hand, has been delayed. The present work introduces the development of a pegboard with an electric sensor to detect moments of individual peg’s insertion and removal. The work also gives fundamental data obtained from a group of healthy young individuals who performed peg transfer tasks using the pegboard developed. Through trails and errors in pilot tests, two 10-hole peg-board boxes installed with a small photo-reflector and a DC amplifier at the bottom of each hole were designed and built by the present authors. The amplified electric analogue signals from the 20 reflectors were automatically digitized at 500 Hz per channel, and stored in a PC. The boxes were set on a test table at different distances (25, 50, 75, and 125 mm) in parallel to examine the effect of hole-to-hole distance. Fifty healthy young volunteers (25 in each gender) as subjects of the study performed successive fast 80 time peg transfers at each distance using their dominant and non-dominant hands. The data gathered showed a clear-cut light interruption/continuation moment by the pegs, allowing accurately (no tester’s error involved) and precisely (an order of milliseconds) to determine the pull out and insertion times of each peg. This further permitted computation of individual peg movement duration (PMD: from peg-lift-off to insertion) apart from hand reaching duration (HRD: from peg insertion to lift-off). An accidental drop of a peg led to an exceptionally long ( < mean + 3 SD) PMD, which was readily detected from an examination of data distribution. The PMD data were commonly right-skewed, suggesting that the median can be a better estimate of individual PMD than the mean. Repeated measures ANOVA using the median values revealed significant hole-to-hole distance, and hand dominance effects, suggesting that these need to be fixed in the accurate evaluation of PMD. The gender effect was non-significant. Performance consistency was also evaluated by the use of quartile variation coefficient values, which revealed no gender, hole-to-hole, and hand dominance effects. The measurement reliability was further examined using interclass correlation obtained from 14 subjects who performed the 25 and 125 mm hole distance tasks at two 7-10 days separate test sessions. Inter-class correlation values between the two tests showed fair reliability for PMD (0.65-0.75), and for HRD (0.77-0.94). We concluded that a sensor peg board developed in the present study could provide accurate (excluding tester’s errors), and precise (at a millisecond rate) time information of peg movement separated from that used for hand movement. It could also easily detect and automatically exclude erroneous execution data from his/her standard data. These would lead to a better evaluation of hand dexterity function compared to the widely used conventional used peg boards.

Keywords: hand, dexterity test, peg movement time, performance consistency

Procedia PDF Downloads 130

Authors: S. M. Arciniegas, D. Vargas, L. Gutierrez

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The aim of this study was to develop oral drug presentation of doxycycline hyclate that maintains longer therapeutic levels than conventional forms. A polymethacrylate and acrylic acid based matrix were used in different proportions to obtain controlled-release formulations; DOX1 (1:0.25:0.0035), DOX2 (1:2:0.0225) and DOX-C (without excipients). All were tested in vivo in healthy dogs and their serum concentrations vs. time profile was investigated after its oral administration in this species. DOX1 and DOX2 show therapeutic concentrations for 60 hours, while DOX-C only for 24 hours. The pharmacokinetics values tested were K½el, Cmax, Tmax, AUC, AUC∞, AUCt, AUMC, RT, Kel, Vdss, Clb and Frel. DOX1 does not differ significantly from DOX-C, but shows significant differences in all variables with DOX2 (p<0.05). In conclusion, DOX1 presents best pharmacokinetics for time-dependent drug and longer release time of 60 hours, thereby reducing the frequency of administration, the patient's stress, the occurrence of adverse effects and the cost of treatment.

Keywords: tetracyclines, long-acting, sustained-release, carbopol, eudragit, canine

Procedia PDF Downloads 610

Authors: Ousmane Sarr

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The Senegalese coasts have high productivity of fishery resources due to the frequency of intense up-welling system that occurs along its coast, caused by the maritime trade winds making its waters nutrients rich. Fishing plays a primordial role in Senegal's socioeconomic plans and food security. However, a global diagnosis of the Senegalese maritime fishing sector has highlighted the challenges this sector encounters. Among these concerns, some significant stocks, a priority target for artisanal fishing, need further assessment. If no efforts are made in this direction, most stock will be overexploited or even in decline. It is in this context that this research was initiated. This investigation aimed to apply a multi-modal approach (LBB, Catch-only-based CMSY model and its most recent version (CMSY++); JABBA, and JABBA-Select) to assess the stock of Atlantic bonito, Sarda sarda (Bloch, 1793) in the Senegalese Exclusive Economic Zone (SEEZ). Available catch, effort, and size data from Atlantic bonito over 15 years (2004-2018) were used to calculate the nominal and standardized CPUE, size-frequency distribution, and length at retentions (50 % and 95 % selectivity) of the species. These relevant results were employed as input parameters for stock assessment models mentioned above to define the stock status of this species in this region of the Atlantic Ocean. The LBB model indicated an Atlantic bonito healthy stock status with B/BMSY values ranging from 1.3 to 1.6 and B/B0 values varying from 0.47 to 0.61 of the main scenarios performed (BON_AFG_CL, BON_GN_Length, and BON_PS_Length). The results estimated by LBB are consistent with those obtained by CMSY. The CMSY model results demonstrate that the SEEZ Atlantic bonito stock is in a sound condition in the final year of the main scenarios analyzed (BON, BON-bt, BON-GN-bt, and BON-PS-bt) with sustainable relative stock biomass (B2018/BMSY = 1.13 to 1.3) and fishing pressure levels (F2018/FMSY= 0.52 to 1.43). The B/BMSY and F/FMSY results for the JABBA model ranged between 2.01 to 2.14 and 0.47 to 0.33, respectively. In contrast, The estimated B/BMSY and F/FMSY for JABBA-Select ranged from 1.91 to 1.92 and 0.52 to 0.54. The Kobe plots results of the base case scenarios ranged from 75% to 89% probability in the green area, indicating sustainable fishing pressure and an Atlantic bonito healthy stock size capable of producing high yields close to the MSY. Based on the stock assessment results, this study highlighted scientific advice for temporary management measures. This study suggests an improvement of the selectivity parameters of longlines and purse seines and a temporary prohibition of the use of sleeping nets in the fishery for the Atlantic bonito stock in the SEEZ based on the results of the length-base models. Although these actions are temporary, they can be essential to reduce or avoid intense pressure on the Atlantic bonito stock in the SEEZ. However, it is necessary to establish harvest control rules to provide coherent and solid scientific information that leads to appropriate decision-making for rational and sustainable exploitation of Atlantic bonito in the SEEZ and the Eastern Atlantic Ocean.

Keywords: multi-model approach, stock assessment, atlantic bonito, SEEZ

Procedia PDF Downloads 58

Authors: Yael Teff-Seker

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More often than not, ecosystems do not follow anthropogenic political borders. Thus, transboundary environmental protection or rehabilitation initiatives can be beneficial and at times even vital for supporting healthy ecosystems. Marine areas demand unique considerations and challenges for such initiatives, as maritime borders tend to be less defined, less fortified and less visible. In areas of recent conflict, cross-border environmental initiatives can also improve relations between states and promote peace-building efforts, in addition to their environmental benefits. The current study reviews the current literature on transboundary marine environmental protection initiatives that take place in these areas and focuses on joint initiatives in Israel-Jordan and Croatia-Slovenia. In addition to factors described in the literature such as funding and third-party involvement, findings suggest that the peripheral location of marine environmental initiatives can be beneficial for the success of such initiatives, as well as facilitating border crossing and the extent to which such initiatives advance other governmental goals. A sense of urgency, environmental or other, has also been found to be highly relevant to project success.

Keywords: environmental cooperation, environmental peacebuilding, marine environment, environmental conflict, environmental management

Procedia PDF Downloads 169

Authors: Anushree S. Panikkassery

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The paper analyses the pattern and trend of maternal health care in south Indian states. It studies the interstate disparities in terms of maternal health care. It also compares the trends in terms of achieving the target of sustainable development Goal is related to maternal health. The maternal health care (MHC) development is one of the key indicators for the development of health sector in the country and assumes significance from the socioeconomic and developmental perspectives. Maternal health care mainly consists of composite care during pregnancy, child birth as well as postpartum period. Antenatal care, identification, referral and management of high risk pregnancies, safe and healthy child birth and early postnatal care are some of the important issues pertaining to maternal health. Data is collected from national family health survey 1992-93, 1998-99, 2005-06, and 2015-16. A concentration index is used to study the disparities in equity of maternal health among south Indian states. The study shows that there has been an improvement in maternal health care in south Indian states with Kerala topping among the states. But there exist disparities among the south Indian states.

Keywords: antenatal care, disparities, equity, maternal health

Procedia PDF Downloads 380

Authors: Khor Khai Ling, Vashnarekha A/P Kumarasuriar, Tan Kok Wei, Ooi Pei Boon

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The food pyramid had been stressed for years and used to promote a healthy diet. Recently, the Ministry of Health in Malaysia has changed the food pyramid structure. They moved fruits and vegetables to the bottom layer and encouraged citizens to consume more fruits and vegetables. Past research has shown that the amount of vegetables and fruits consumption has associated with cognitive health. However, Malaysians have yet to achieve the amount of fruit and vegetable intake as per recommendation. Thus, this study aims to investigate Malaysian’s habitual diet and cognitive functioning via a cross-sectional study. One hundred and ninety-three participants will be recruited via convenient sampling. A Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) measures the habitual diet, and an online cognitive test measures attention, executive functioning, and memory objectively. The collected one hundred samples to the date of abstract submission, and the data collection is still in progress. This study will provide an insight to Malaysian about the diet pattern and its relationship with cognitive performance.

Keywords: attention, cognitive, executive functioning, habitual diet, memory

Procedia PDF Downloads 195