Search results for: negative media influence

Authors: P. Renjitha, P. Hari Prakash

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Auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) is an auditory disorder with normal cochlear outer hair cell function and disrupted auditory nerve function. It results in unique clinical characteristic with absent auditory brainstem response (ABR), absent acoustic reflex and the presence of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and cochlear microphonics. The lesion site could be at cochlear inner hair cells, the synapse between the inner hair cells and type I auditory nerve fibers, and/or the auditory nerve itself. But the literatures on synchrony at higher auditory system are sporadic and are less understood. It might be interesting to see if there is a recovery of neural synchrony at higher auditory centers. Also, does the level at which the auditory system recovers with adequate synchrony to the extent of observable evoke response potentials (ERPs) can predict speech perception? In the current study, eight ANSD participants and healthy controls underwent detailed audiological assessment including ABR, auditory middle latency response (AMLR), and auditory late latency response (ALLR). AMLR was recorded for clicks and ALLR was evoked using 500Hz and 2 kHz tone bursts. Analysis revealed that the participant could be categorized into three groups. Group I (2/8) where ALLR was present only for 2kHz tone burst. Group II (4/8), where AMLR was absent and ALLR was seen for both the stimuli. Group III (2/8) consisted individuals with identifiable AMLR and ALLR for all the stimuli. The highest speech identification sore observed in ANSD group was 30% and hence considered having poor speech perception. Overall test result indicates that the site of neural synchrony recovery could be varying across individuals with ANSD. Some individuals show recovery of neural synchrony at the thalamocortical level while others show the same only at the cortical level. Within ALLR itself there could be variation across stimuli again could be related to neural synchrony. Nevertheless, none of these patterns could possible explain the speech perception ability of the individuals. Hence, it could be concluded that neural synchrony as measured by evoked potentials could not be a good clinical predictor speech perception.

Keywords: auditory late latency response, auditory middle latency response, auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder, correlation with speech identification score

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Authors: Xiyao Shan, Pavlos Evangelidis, Adam Kositsky, Naoki Ikeda, Yasuo Kawakami

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The human triceps surae (two bi-articular gastrocnemii and one mono-articular soleus) have aponeuroses in the posterior and anterior aspects of each muscle, where the anterior aponeuroses of the gastrocnemii adjoin the posterior aponeurosis of the soleus, possibly contributing to the intermuscular force transmission between gastrocnemii and soleus. Since the mechanical behavior of these aponeuroses at different knee- and ankle-joint positions remains unclear, the purpose of this study was to clarify this through observations of the localized changes in passive stiffness of the posterior aponeuroses, muscle belly and adjoining aponeuroses of the medial gastrocnemius (MG) induced by different knee and ankle angles. Eleven healthy young males (25 ± 2 yr, 176.7 ± 4.7 cm, 71.1 ± 11.1 kg) participated in this study. Each subject took either a prone position on an isokinetic dynamometer while the knee joint was fully extended (K180) or a kneeling position while the knee joint was 90° flexed (K90), in a randomized and counterbalanced order. The ankle joint was then passively moved through a 50° range of motion (ROM) by the dynamometer from 30° of plantar flexion (PF) to 20° of dorsiflexion (DF) at 2°/s and the ultrasound shear-wave velocity was measured to obtain shear moduli of the posterior aponeurosis, MG belly, and adjoining aponeuroses. The main findings were: 1) shear modulus in K180 was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than K90 for the posterior aponeurosis (across all ankle angles, 10.2 ± 5.7 kPa-59.4 ± 28.7 kPa vs. 5.4 ± 2.2 kPa-11.6 ± 4.1 kPa), MG belly (from PF10° to DF20°, 9.7 ± 2.2 kPa-53.6 ± 18.6 kPa vs. 8.0 ± 2.7 kPa-9.5 ± 3.7 kPa), and adjoining aponeuroses (across all ankle angles, 17.3 ± 7.8 kPa-80 ± 25.7 kPa vs. 12.2 ± 4.5 kPa-52.4 ± 23.0 kPa); 2) shear modulus of the posterior aponeuroses significantly increased (p < 0.05) from PF10° to PF20° in K180, while shear modulus of MG belly significantly increased (p < 0.05) from 0° to PF20° only in K180 and shear modulus of adjoining aponeuroses significantly increased (p < 0.05) across the whole ROM of ankle both in K180 and K90. These results suggest that different knee-joint positions can affect not only the bi-articular gastrocnemius but also influence the mechanical behavior of aponeuroses. In addition, compared to the gradual stiffening of the adjoining aponeuroses across the whole ROM of ankle, the posterior aponeurosis became slack in the plantar flexed positions and then was stiffened gradually as the knee was fully extended. This suggests distinct stiffening for the posterior and adjoining aponeuroses which is joint position-dependent.

Keywords: aponeurosis, plantar flexion and dorsiflexion, shear modulus, shear wave elastography

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Authors: Abdul Ghaffar Memon, Xiao Hong Zhou, Yunpeng Xing, Ruoyu Wang, Miao He

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Due to deleterious environmental and health effects of the Hg²⁺ ions, various online, detection methods apart from the traditional analytical tools have been developed by researchers. Biosensors especially, label, label-free, colorimetric and optical sensors have advanced with sensitive detection. However, there remains a gap of ultrasensitive quantification as noise interact significantly especially in the AuNP based label-free colorimetry. This study reported an amplification strategy using Exo-III enzyme for target recycling of Hg²⁺ ions in a T-rich hairpin loop metallobase label-free colorimetric nanosensor with an improved sensitivity using unmodified gold nanoparticles (uGNPs) as an indicator. The two T-rich metallobase hairpin loop structures as 5’- CTT TCA TAC ATA GAA AAT GTA TGT TTG -3 (HgS1), and 5’- GGC TTT GAG CGC TAA GAA A TA GCG CTC TTT G -3’ (HgS2) were tested in the study. The thermodynamic properties of HgS1 and HgS2 were calculated using online tools (http://biophysics.idtdna.com/cgi-bin/meltCalculator.cgi). The lab scale synthesized uGNPs were utilized in the analysis. The DNA sequence had T-rich bases on both tails end, which in the presence of Hg²⁺ forms a T-Hg²⁺-T mismatch, promoting the formation of dsDNA. Later, the Exo-III incubation enable the enzyme to cleave stepwise mononucleotides from the 3’ end until the structure become single-stranded. These ssDNA fragments then adsorb on the surface of AuNPs in their presence and protect AuNPs from the induced salt aggregation. The visible change in color from blue (aggregation stage in the absence of Hg²⁺) and pink (dispersion state in the presence of Hg²⁺ and adsorption of ssDNA fragments) can be observed and analyzed through UV spectrometry. An ultrasensitive quantitative nanosensor employing Exo-III assisted target recycling of mercury ions through label-free colorimetry with nanomolar detection using uGNPs have been achieved and is further under the optimization to achieve picomolar range by avoiding the influence of the environmental matrix. The proposed strategy will supplement in the direction of uGNP based ultrasensitive, rapid, onsite, label-free colorimetric detection.

Keywords: colorimetric, Exo-III, gold nanoparticles, Hg²⁺ detection, label-free, signal amplification

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Authors: Stephen Bahooshy

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Our understanding of gender inequality has advanced in recent years. Differences in pay and societal gendered behaviour expectations have been emphasized. It is acknowledged globally that gender shapes everyone’s experiences of health and social care, including access to care, use of services and products, and the interaction with care providers. NHS Digital in England collects data from local authorities on the number of carers and people with support needs and the services they access. This data does not provide a gender breakdown. Caring can have many positive and negative impacts on carers’ health and wellbeing. For example, caring can improve physical health, provide a sense of pride and purpose, and reduced stress levels for those who undertake a caring role by choice. Negatives of caring include financial concerns, social isolation, a reduction in earnings, and not being recognized as a carer or involved and consulted by health and social care professionals. Treating male and female carers differently is by definition unequitable and precludes one gender from receiving the benefits of caring whilst potentially overburdening the other with the negatives of caring. In order to explore the issue on a preliminary basis, five local authorities who provide statutory adult social care services in England were sent Freedom of Information requests in 2019. The authorities were selected to include county councils and London boroughs. The authorities were asked to provide data on the amount of money spent on care at home packages to people over 65 years, broken down by gender and carer gender for each financial year between 2013 and 2019. Results indicated that in each financial year, female carers supporting someone over 65 years received less financial support for care at home support packages than male carers. Over the six-year period, this difference equated to a £9.5k deficit in financial support received on average per female carer when compared to male carers. An example of a London borough with the highest disparity presented an average weekly spend on care at home for people over 65 with a carer of £261.35 for male carers and £165.46 for female carers. Consequently, female carers in this borough received on average £95.89 less per week in care at home support than male carers. This highlights a real and potentially detrimental disparity in the care support received to female carers in order to support them to continue to care in parts of England. More research should be undertaken in this area to better explore this issue and to understand if these findings are unique to these social care providers or part of a wider phenomenon. NHS Digital should request local authorities collect data on gender in the same way that large employers in the United Kingdom are required by law to provide data on staff salaries by gender. People who allocate social care packages of support should consider the impact of gender when allocating support packages to people with support needs and who have carers to reduce any potential impact of gender bias on their decision-making.

Keywords: caregivers, carers, gender equality, social care

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Authors: Brajesh

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Introduction: It is generally believed that women's lack power to making decision may restrict their use of modern contraceptives practices. However, few studies have examined the different dimensions of women's empowerment and contraceptive use in Asian content. Pervasive gendered inequities and norms regarding the subordination of women give Asian men disproportionately more power than women, particularly in relation to the sex. We hypothesize that lack of sexual empowerment may pose an important barrier to reproductive health and adoption of family planning methods. Using the Demographic Health Survey, we examine the association between women’s sexual empowerment and contraceptive use in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Objectives: To understand the trend and pattern of contraceptive choices and use among women due to sexual empowerment in selected south Asian countries. To examine the association between women’s sexual empowerment and contraceptive practices among non-pregnant married and partnered women in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Methods: Data came from the latest round of Demographic and Health Surveys conducted between 2010-12 in and during deacde1990 -92 in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Responses from married or cohabiting women aged 15-49 years were analyzed for six dimensions of empowerment and the current use of female-only methods or couple of methods. Bi-variate and multivariate multinomial regressions were used to identify associations between the empowerment dimensions and method use. Results: Positive associations were found between the overall empowerment score and method use in all countries (relative risk ratios, 1.1-1.3). In multivariate analysis, household economic decision-making was associated with the use of either female-only or couple methods (relative risk ratios -1. 1 for all), as was agreement on fertility preferences (RRR-1.3-1.6) and the ability to negotiate sexual activity (RRR -1. 1-1.2). In Bangladesh, women's negative attitudes toward domestic violence were correlated with the use of couple of methods (RRR -1. 1). Increasing levels of sexual empowerment were found to be associated with use of contraceptives, even after adjusting for demographic predictors of contraceptive use. This association is moderated by the wealth. Formal education, increasing wealth, and being in an unmarried partnership are associated with contraceptive use, whereas women who identify as being Muslim are less likely to use contraceptives than those who identify as being Hindus or other. These findings suggest that to achieve universal access to reproductive health services, gendered disparities in sexual empowerment, particularly among economically disadvantaged women, need to be better addressed. Conclusions: Intervention programs aimed at increasing contraceptive use may need to involve different approaches, including promoting couples' discussion of fertility preferences and family planning, improving women's self-efficacy in negotiating sexual activity and increasing their economic independence. Policies are needed to encourage the rural families to give their girls a chance of attending higher level education and professional course so that can get a better job opportunity and can economically support their family as son are expected to do.

Keywords: reproductive and child health (RCH), relative risk ratios (RRR), demographic and health survey (DHS), women’s sexual empowerment (WSE)

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Authors: Davod Ahmadigheidari, Isabel Alvarez, Kate Sinclair, Marnie Davidson, Patrick Cortbaoui, Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez

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The burden of collecting water tends to disproportionately fall on women and girls in low-income countries. Specifically, women spend between one to eight hours per day fetching water for domestic use in Sub-Saharan Africa. While there has been research done on the global time burden for collecting water, it has been mainly focused on water quality parameters; leaving the relationship between water fetching and health outcomes understudied. There is little available evidence regarding the relationship between water fetching and maternal child care practices. The main objective of this study was to help fill the aforementioned gap in the literature. Data from two surveys in Ethiopia and Malawi conducted by CARE Canada in 2016-2017 were used. Descriptive statistics indicate that women were predominantly responsible for collecting water in both Ethiopia (87%) and Malawi (99%) respectively, with the majority spending more than 30 minutes per day on water collection. With regards to child care practices, in both countries, breastfeeding was relatively high (77% and 82%, respectively); and treatment for malnutrition was low (15% and 8%, respectively). However, the same consistency was not found for weighing; in Ethiopia only 16% took their children for weighting in contrast to 94% in Malawi. These three practices were summed to create one variable for regressions analyses. Unadjusted logistic regression findings showed that only in Ethiopia was time fetching water significantly associated with child care practices. Once adjusted for covariates, this relationship was no longer found to be significant. Adjusted logistic regressions also showed that the factors that did influence child care practices differed slightly between the two countries. In Ethiopia, a lack of access to community water supply (OR= 0.668; P=0.010), poor attitudes towards gender equality (OR= 0.608; P=0.001), no access to land and (OR=0.603; P=0.000), significantly decreased a women’s odd of using positive childcare practices. Notably, being young women between 15-24 years (OR=2.308; P=0.017), and 25-29 (OR=2.065; P=0.028) increased probability of using positive childcare practices. Whereas in Malawi, higher maternal age, low decision-making power, significantly decreased a women’s odd of using positive childcare practices. In conclusion, this study found that even though amount of time spent by women fetching water makes a difference for childcare practices, it is not significantly related to women’s child care practices when controlling the covariates. Importantly, women’s age contributes to child care practices in Ethiopia and Malawi.

Keywords: time fetching water, community water supply, women’s child care practices, Ethiopia, Malawi

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Authors: Deirdre Mc Grath, Joanne Reid

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Background: Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of mortality among gynaecologic cancers in developed countries and the seventh most common cancer worldwide with nearly 240,000 women diagnosed each year. Although it is recognized engaging in exercise results in positive health care outcomes, women with ovarian cancer are reluctant to participate. No evidence currently exists focusing on how to successfully implement an exercise intervention program for patients with ovarian cancer, using a realist approach. There is a requirement for the implementation of exercise programmes within the oncology health care setting as engagement in such interventions has positive health care outcomes for women with ovarian cancer both during and following treatment. Aim: To co-design the implementation of an exercise intervention for women following treatment for ovarian cancer. Methods: This study is a realist evaluation using quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. Realist evaluation is well-established within the health and social care setting and has in relation to this study enabled a flexible approach to investigate how to optimise implementation of an exercise intervention for this patient population. This single centre study incorporates three stages in order to identify the underlying contexts and mechanisms which lead to the successful implementation of an exercise intervention for women who have had treatment for ovarian cancer. Stage 1 - A realist literature review. Stage 2 -Co-design of the implementation of an exercise intervention with women following treatment for ovarian cancer, their carer’s, and health care professionals. Stage 3 –Implementation of an exercise intervention with women following treatment for ovarian cancer. Evaluation of the implementation of the intervention from the perspectives of the women who participated in the intervention, their informal carers, and health care professionals. The underlying program theory initially conceptualised before and during the realist review was developed further during the co-design stage. The evolving program theory in relation to how to successfully implement an exercise for these women is currently been refined and tested during the final stage of this realist evaluation which is the implementation and evaluation stage. Results: This realist evaluation highlights key issues in relation to the implementation of an exercise intervention within this patient population. The underlying contexts and mechanisms which influence recruitment, adherence, and retention rates of participants are identified. Conclusions: This study will inform future research on the implementation of exercise interventions for this patient population. It is anticipated that this intervention will be implemented into practice as part of standard care for this group of patients.

Keywords: ovarian cancer, exercise intervention, implementation, Co-design

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Authors: Waheed O. Majekodunmi

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Climate change is a real global phenomenon and an unquestionable threat to our quest for a healthy and livable planet. It is now regarded as potentially the most monumental environmental challenge people and the planet will be confronted with over the next centuries. Expectedly, climate change mitigation was one of the central themes of COP 28. Despite contributing the least to climate change, Africa is and remains the hardest hit by the negative consequences of climate change including poor growth performance. Currently, it is being hypothesized that the high level of vulnerability and exposure to climate-related disasters, low adaptive capacity against global warming and high mitigation costs of climate change across the continent could be linked to the recent abysmal economic performance of African countries, especially in oil-producing countries where greenhouse gas emissions, is potentially more prevalent. This paper examines the impact of climate change on the economic performance of selected oil-producing countries in Africa using evidence from Nigeria, Algeria and Angola. The objective of the study is to determine whether or not climate change influences the economic performance of oil-producing countries in Africa by examining the nexus between economic growth and climate-related variables. The study seeks to investigate the effect of climate change on the pace of economic growth in African oil-producing countries. To achieve the research objectives, this study utilizes a quantitative approach by using historical and current secondary data sets to determine the relationship between climate-related variables and economic growth variables in the selected countries. The study employed numbers, percentages, tables and trend graphs to explain the trends or common patterns between climate change, economic growth and determinants of economic growth: governance effectiveness, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability and regulatory efficiency. Results from the empirical analysis of data show that the trends of economic growth and climate-related variables in the selected oil-producing countries are in the opposite directions as the increasing share of renewable energy sources in total energy consumption and the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the oil-producing countries did not translate to higher economic growth. Further findings show that annual surface temperatures in the selected countries do not share similar trends with the food imports ratio and GDP per capita annual growth rate suggesting that climate change does not impact significantly agricultural productivity and economic growth in oil-producing countries in Africa. Annual surface temperature was also found to not share a similar pattern with governance effectiveness, macroeconomic stability and regulatory efficiency reinforcing the claim that some economic growth variables are independent of climate change. The policy implication of this research is that oil-producing African countries need to focus more on improving the macroeconomic environment and streamlining governance and institutional processes to boost their economic performance before considering the adoption of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Keywords: climate change, climate vulnerability, economic growth, greenhouse gas emissions per capita, oil-producing countries, share of renewable energy in total energy consumption

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Authors: I. V. Palamarchuk, N. V. Zaichko

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Background and Aims: Galectin-3 is a marker of subclinical cardiac injury and is elevated in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus; while hydrogen sulfide (H₂S), metabolite of sulfur-containing amino acids, is considered having antifibrogenic effects. This study was designed to investigate whether metformin and its combination with NaHS can influence plasma galectin-3 and cystathionine-γ-lyase/hydrogen sulfide (CSE/H₂S) system in diabetic rat’s heart. Methods: 32 healthy male rats (180-250 g) were divided into 4 groups. To induct diabetes, rats (group 2-4) were injected with streptozotocin (STZ, 40 mg/kg/i.p., 0.1 M citrate buffer (pH 4.5). Rats from 3d (STZ+Metf) and 4th (STZ+Metf+NaHS) groups were given metformin (500 mg/kg/day) orally, and rats from 4th (STZ+Metf+NaHS) group were injected sodium hydrosulfide (NaHS, 3 mg/kg/i.p.) once per day starting from 3 to 28 day after streptozotocin injection. Rats of first group (control) were administered the equivalent volumes of 0.9% NaCl. Plasma galectin-3 was measured by ELISA. Rats’ hearts were sampled for determination of H2S by reaction with N,N-Dimethyl-p-phenylenediamine. Determination of CSE gene expression was performed in real time using PCR in the presence of SYBR Green I, using DT-Light detecting amplifier ('DNA-technology', Russia). Results: Induction of streptozotocin diabetes (STZ-diabetes, group 2) was followed by low myocardial H2S concentration and CSE expression (by 35%, p < 0.05 and 60.5%, p < 0.001 respectively, than that in controls), while plasma galectin-3 in this group was significantly higher than in controls (by 3.8 times, p < 0.05). Administration of metformin (group 3) resulted in significantly higher H₂S concentration (by 28.5%, p < 0.05), whereas CSE expression was only by 6% more than that in STZ-diabetes, as well as plasma galectin-3 was only by 14.8% lower in comparison with untreated diabetic rats. The inhibition of H₂S generation and CSE activity by diabetes was greatly attenuated in STZ+Metf+NaHS group. The combination of metformin with NaHS significantly stimulated H₂S production (by 48%, p < 0.05 and 15%, p < 0.05 more than STZ-diabetes and STZ+Metf respectively) and CSE gene expression (by 64.8%, p < 0.05 compared to STZ-diabetes and by 55.4%,p < 0.05 compared to STZ+Metf). Besides, plasma galectin-3 in rats receiving metformin and NaHS was significantly lower by 42%, p < 0.05 and 32.5%, p < 0.05 compared to STZ-diabetes and STZ+Metf groups respectively. Conclusions: To summarize, dysfunction of CSE/H2S system and galectin-3 stimulation was found in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Metformin and its combination with exogenous H2S effectively prevented the development of metabolic changes induced by diabetes. These findings suggest that CSE/H₂S system can be integrated into pathogenesis of diabetic complications through modulation of pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrogenic mediator galectin-3.

Keywords: cystathionine-γ-lyase, diabetic heart, galectin-3, hydrogen sulfide, metformin, sodium hydrosulfide

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Authors: Anand Kumar Yadav

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the fluctuation of amplitude ratios of various transmitted and reflected waves. Design/methodology/approach – The reflection and transmission of plane waves on the interface between an orthotropic hygro-thermo-elastic half-space (OHTHS) and a viscous-fluid half-space (VFHS) were investigated in this study with reference to coupled hygro-thermo-elasticity. Findings – The interface, where y = 0, is struck by the principal (P) plane waves as they travel through the VFHS. Two waves are reflected in VFHS, and four waves are transmitted in OHTHS as a result namely longitudinal displacement, Pwave − , thermal diffusion TDwave − and moisture diffusion mDwave − and shear vertical SV wave. Expressions for the reflection and transmitted coefficient are developed for the incidence of a hygrothermal plane wave. It is noted that these ratios are graphically displayed and are observed under the influence of coupled hygro-thermo-elasticity. Research limitations/implications – There isn't much study on the model under consideration, which combines OHTHS and VFHS with coupled hygro-thermo-elasticity, according to the existing literature Practical implications – The current model can be applied in many different areas, such as soil dynamics, nuclear reactors, high particle accelerators, earthquake engineering, and other areas where linked hygrothermo-elasticity is important. In a range of technical and geophysical settings, wave propagation in a viscous fluid-thermoelastic medium with various characteristics, such as initial stress, magnetic field, porosity, temperature, etc., gives essential information regarding the presence of new and modified waves. This model may prove useful in modifying earthquake estimates for experimental seismologists, new material designers, and researchers. Social implications – Researchers may use coupled hygro-thermo-elasticity to categories the material, where the parameter is a new indication of its ability to conduct heat in interaction with diverse materials. Originality/value – The submitted text is the sole creation of the team of writers, and all authors equally contributed to its creation.

Keywords: hygro-thermo-elasticity, viscous fluid, reflection coefficient, transmission coefficient, moisture concentration

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Authors: Alejandra Letelier, Anja Heilmann, Richard G. Watt, Stephen Jivraj, Georgios Tsakos

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Background: Socioeconomic position (SEP) influences adult health. People who experienced material disadvantages in childhood or adulthood tend to have higher adult disease levels than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds. Even so, life is a dynamic process and contains a series of transitions that could lead people through different socioeconomic paths. Research on social mobility takes this into account by adopting a trajectory approach, thereby providing a long-term view of the effect of SEP on health. Aim: The aim of this research examines the effects of intergenerational social mobility on adult general health, oral health and functioning in a population aged 50 and over in England. Methods: This study is based on the secondary analysis of data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Using cross-sectional data, nine social trajectories were created based on parental and adult occupational socio-economic position. Regression models were used to estimate the associations between social trajectories and the following outcomes: adult self-rated health, self-rated oral health, oral health related quality of life, total tooth loss and grip strength; while controlling for socio-economic background and health related behaviours. Results: Associations with adult SEP were generally stronger than with childhood SEP, suggesting a stronger influence of proximal rather than distal SEP on health and oral health. Compared to the stable high group, being in the low SEP groups in childhood and adulthood was associated with poorer health and oral health for all examined outcome measures. For adult self-rated health and edentulousness, graded associations with social mobility trajectories were observed. Conclusion: Intergenerational social mobility was associated with self-rated health and total tooth loss. Compared to only those who remained in a low SEP group over time reported worse self-rated oral health and oral health related quality of life, and had lower grip strength measurements. Potential limitations in relation to data quality will be discussed.

Keywords: social determinants of oral health, social mobility, socioeconomic position and oral health, older adults oral health

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Authors: Ernest Gyan Bediako, Petra Dancova, Tomas Vit

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Flow boiling heat transfer remains an important area of research due to its relevance in thermal management systems and other applications. Despite the enormous work done in the field of flow boiling heat transfer over the years to understand how flow parameters such as mass flux, heat flux, saturation conditions and tube geometries influence the characteristics of flow boiling heat transfer, there are still many contradictions and lack of agreement on the actual mechanisms controlling heat transfer and how flow parameters impact the heat transfer. This work thus seeks to experimentally investigate the heat transfer characteristics and flow patterns at low mass fluxes, low heat fluxes and low saturation pressure conditions which are of less attention in literature but prevalent in refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump applications. In this study, flow boiling experiment was conducted for R134a working fluid in a 5 mm internal diameter stainless steel horizontal smooth tube with mass flux ranging from 80- 100 kg/m2 s, heat fluxes ranging from 3.55kW/m2 - 25.23 kW/m2 and saturation pressure of 460 kPa. Vapor quality ranged from 0 to 1. A well-known flow pattern map created by Wojtan et al. was used to predict the flow patterns noticed during the study. The experimental results were correlated with well-known flow boiling heat transfer correlations in literature. The findings show that, heat transfer coefficient was influenced by both mass flux and heat fluxes. However, for an increasing heat flux, nucleate boiling was observed to be the dominant mechanism controlling the heat transfer especially at low vapor quality region. For an increasing mass flux, convective boiling was the dominant mechanism controlling the heat transfer especially in the high vapor quality region. Also, the study observed an unusual high heat transfer coefficient at low vapor qualities which could be due to periodic wetting of the walls of the tube due to slug flow pattern and stratified wavy flow patterns. The flow patterns predicted by Wojtan et al. flow pattern map were mixture of slug and stratified wavy, purely stratified wavy and dry out. Statistical assessment of the experimental data with various well-known correlations from literature showed that, none of the correlations reported in literature could predicted the experimental data with enough accuracy.

Keywords: flow boiling, heat transfer coefficient, mass flux, heat flux.

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Authors: Stefan Kurbatfinski, Aliyah Dosani, Andrew F. Hayes, Deborah Dewey, Nicole Letourneau

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Background: Maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been associated with internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems in preschool children. However, little is known about the influence of maternal adult attachment patterns on this association. Further, potential moderation by maternal mental health, maternal social support, or child sex is poorly understood. Therefore, this study examined associations between 1) maternal ACEs and preschool children’s behavioural problems, with mediation through maternal attachment patterns and moderation by maternal mental health, maternal social support, and child sex; and 2) maternal attachment patterns and children’s behavioural problems, with mediation through maternal mental health and social support and moderation by child sex. Methods: This secondary analysis used data (n=625) from a high socioeconomic, longitudinally prospective cohort (Alberta Pregnancy Outcomes and Nutrition). Child behaviour (BASC-2) and maternal adult attachment (ECR-Q) were measured at five years of child age, maternal ACEs (ACEs Questionnaire) at around 12 months, and maternal mental health (CESD and SCL-90-R) and social support (SSQ) across various prenatal and postnatal time points. All moderation and mediation analyses occurred through RStudio using PROCESS, interpreting significant interactions through Johnson-Neyman plots. Findings: Maternal ACEs interacted with maternal anxiety symptoms to predict both behavioural problems (pexternalizing=0.007; pinternalizing=0.0159). An indirect pathway via dismissive attachment was moderated by maternal social support ([0.0058, 0.0596]). Attachment patterns predicted all behavioural problems (p<0.05) and interacted with maternal anxiety symptoms to predict internalizing behaviours among male children ([0.0321, 0.1307]; [0.0321, 0.1291]). Interpretation: Maternal attachment patterns may predict children’s behavioural problems more than ACEs. Social support interventions may not always be beneficial for highly dismissively attached mothers. Implications for policy and child health include mandatory sex and gender education for teachers; assessing attachment patterns prior to recommending social support as an intervention; and anxiety-focused interventions for mothers in higher socioeconomic populations.

Keywords: maternal adverse childhood experiences, internalizing behaviours, externalizing behaviours, mediators and moderators, attachment patterns, child health

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Authors: Lynn Machin

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Using the lens of a theoretical framework relating to learning to learn the intention of the case study was to explore how transferable the teaching and learning skills of a newly qualified teacher (post-compulsory education) were when used in an overseas, unfamiliar and challenging post-compulsory educational environment. Particularly, the research sought to explore how this newly qualified teacher made use of the skills developed during their teacher training and to ascertain if, and what, other skills were necessary in order for them to have a positive influence on their learners and for them to be able to thrive within a different country and learning milieu. This case study looks at the experience of a trainee teacher who recently qualified in the UK to teach in post compulsory education (i.e. post 16 education). Rather than gaining employment in a UK based academy or college of further education this newly qualified teacher secured her first employment as a teacher in a province in China. Moreover, the newly qualified teacher had limited travel experience and had never travelled to Asia. She was one of the quieter and more reserved members on the one year teacher training course and was the least likely of the group to have made the decision to work abroad. How transferable the pedagogical skills that she had gained during her training would be when used in a culturally different and therefore (to her, challenging) environment was a key focus of the study. Another key focus was to explore the dispositions being used by the newly qualified teacher in order for her to teach and to thrive in an overseas educational environment. The methodological approach used for this study was both interpretative and qualitative. Associated methods were: Observation: observing the wider and operational practice of the newly qualified teacher over a five day period, and their need, ability and willingness to be reflective, resilient, reciprocal and resourceful. Interview: semi-structured interview with the newly qualified teacher following the observation of her practice. Findings from this case study illuminate the modifications made by the newly qualified teacher to her bank of teaching and learning strategies as well as the essentiality of dispositions used by her to know how to learn and also, crucially, to be ready and willing to do so. Such dispositions include being resilient, resourceful, reciprocal and reflective; necessary in order to adapt to the emerging challenges encountered by the teacher during their first months of employment in China. It is concluded that developing the skills to teach is essential for good teaching and learning practices. Having dispositions that enable teachers to work in ever changing conditions and surroundings is, this paper argues, essential for transferability and longevity of use of these skills.

Keywords: learning, post-compulsory, resilience, transferable

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Authors: Oleg Reva, Ilya Korotetskiy, Marina Lankina, Murat Kulmanov, Aleksandr Ilin

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Molecular docking approaches are widely used for design of new antibiotics and modeling of antibacterial activities of numerous ligands which bind specifically to active centers of indispensable enzymes and/or key signaling proteins of pathogens. Widespread drug resistance among pathogenic microorganisms calls for development of new antibiotics specifically targeting important metabolic and information pathways. A generally recognized problem is that almost all molecular targets have been identified already and it is getting more and more difficult to design innovative antibacterial compounds to combat the drug resistance. A promising way to overcome the drug resistance problem is an induction of reversion of drug resistance by supplementary medicines to improve the efficacy of the conventional antibiotics. In contrast to well established computer-based drug design, modeling of drug resistance reversion still is in its infancy. In this work, we proposed an approach to identification of compensatory genetic variants reducing the fitness cost associated with the acquisition of drug resistance by pathogenic bacteria. The approach was based on an analysis of the population genetic of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and on results of experimental modeling of the drug resistance reversion induced by a new anti-tuberculosis drug FS-1. The latter drug is an iodine-containing nanomolecular complex that passed clinical trials and was admitted as a new medicine against MDR-TB in Kazakhstan. Isolates of M. tuberculosis obtained on different stages of the clinical trials and also from laboratory animals infected with MDR-TB strain were characterized by antibiotic resistance, and their genomes were sequenced by the paired-end Illumina HiSeq 2000 technology. A steady increase in sensitivity to conventional anti-tuberculosis antibiotics in series of isolated treated with FS-1 was registered despite the fact that the canonical drug resistance mutations identified in the genomes of these isolates remained intact. It was hypothesized that the drug resistance phenotype in M. tuberculosis requires an adjustment of activities of many genes to compensate the fitness cost of the drug resistance mutations. FS-1 cased an aggravation of the fitness cost and removal of the drug-resistant variants of M. tuberculosis from the population. This process caused a significant increase in genetic heterogeneity of the Mtb population that was not observed in the positive and negative controls (infected laboratory animals left untreated and treated solely with the antibiotics). A large-scale search for linkage disequilibrium associations between the drug resistance mutations and genetic variants in other genomic loci allowed identification of target proteins, which could be influenced by supplementary drugs to increase the fitness cost of the drug resistance and deprive the drug-resistant bacterial variants of their competitiveness in the population. The approach will be used to improve the efficacy of FS-1 and also for computer-based design of new drugs to combat drug-resistant infections.

Keywords: complete genome sequencing, computational modeling, drug resistance reversion, Mycobacterium tuberculosis

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Authors: Pranjali Sharma, Swati Neogi

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Composite pressure vessels are low weight structures mainly used in a variety of applications such as automobiles, aeronautics and chemical engineering. Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials offer the simplicity of design and use, high fuel storage capacity, rapid refueling capability, excellent shelf life, minimal infrastructure impact, high safety due to the inherent strength of the pressure vessel, and little to no development risk. Apart from these preliminary merits, the subsidized weight of composite vessels over metallic cylinders act as the biggest asset to the automotive industry, increasing the fuel efficiency. The result is a lightweight, flexible, non-explosive, and non-fragmenting pressure vessel that can be tailor-made to attune with specific applications. The winding pattern of the composite over-wrap is a primary focus while designing a pressure vessel. The critical stresses in the system depend on the thickness, angle and sequence of the composite layers. The composite over-wrap is wound over a plastic liner, whose geometry can be varied for the ease of winding. In the present study, we aim to optimize the FRP vessel geometry that provides an ease in winding and also aids in weight reduction for enhancing the vessel performance. Finite element analysis is used to study the effect of dome geometry, yielding a design with maximum value of burst pressure and least value of vessel weight. The stress and strain analysis of different dome ends along with the cylindrical portion is carried out in ANSYS 19.2. The failure is predicted using different failure theories like Tsai-Wu theory, Tsai-Hill theory and Maximum stress theory. Corresponding to a given winding sequence, the optimum dome geometry is determined for a fixed internal pressure to identify the theoretical value of burst pressure. Finally, this geometry is used to decrease the number of layers to reach the set value of safety in accordance with the available safety standards. This results in decrease in the weight of the composite over-wrap and manufacturing cost of the pressure vessel. An improvement in the overall weight performance of the pressure vessel gives higher fuel efficiency for its use in automobile applications.

Keywords: Compressed Gas Storage, Dome geometry, Theoretical Analysis, Type-4 Composite Pressure Vessel, Improvement in Vessel Weight Performance

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Authors: Hana Drštičková

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The paper describes the findings of a qualitative, engaged research focused on the intersection between transgender and autistic identity in a politically engaged setting of activist (trans, queer, crip, disability justice or any combination thereof) groups. It explores the relationship that autistic and trans people have towards activism and how do they feel their identity(ies) impact the kind of political action they take. Geographically, the research terrain is located mainly in Czechia; however, there are important overlaps with other Eastern European countries. The basis of the research’s approach is built on the interconnected principles of the feminist theory of intersectionality, queer/trans studies, disability studies and the concept of the Neurodiversity Paradigm. This paper argues that the social phenomenon of autism and transness is formed differently in Czechia/Eastern Europe and, therefore, deserves additional attention. Nevertheless, it points out that, even though the socio-political context is different, the fact that these identities have a radical political potential to disrupt normative structures in society remains the same. The measure of oppression these structures generate, and the near absence of any public discourse beyond the pathological paradigm in the chosen terrain contributes to the emergence of mainly queer and trans-activist, and to a lesser extent crip, disability justice or mad activist groups, that attract trans and autistic membership. The subsections of the research focus on the topics of the mutual influence of both identities in flux within individual participants, the perceived (dis)connection of networks of oppression or, conversely, support and identification with the community or communities, and the question of how the trans* and autistic members feel their presence affects the activity, internal dynamics, thematic scope and general values of the activist groups they participate in. The research methodology includes participant observation and active participation in groups where the researcher acts as a partial insider, semi-structured in-depth interviews and a critical participatory methodology. Also included is the reflection of not only the combination of researcher and insider roles but also the combination of research and activist intent.

Keywords: activism, autism, queer, neurodiversity, neuroqueer, transgender

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Authors: Muhammad Umar Usman

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This study investigates the entrepreneurial intentions, drivers and challenges of starting a business among final year students in Jigawa State polytechnic. Nigeria. Final year students of Jigawa State Polytechnic from the department of accounting, business administration and management and public administration were used as a case study. The study became necessary due to the alarming rate of graduate unemployment in Nigeria. The study adopted a holistic case study approach involving a multiple methods of questionnaires involving (182) Higher National Diploma (HND) and National Diploma (ND) final year students and a telephone interview with two lecturers teaching entrepreneurship in the college. The findings clearly indicate that exposer to entrepreneurship education increases students’ entrepreneurial intentions. The result found that desire for independence, confidence and strong intention are the most important factors that influence students’ entrepreneurial intention. The study identified 3 key drivers of students’ entrepreneurial intentions. These are to earn a living, to seek job security and provision of employment. The result again identified 4 factors namely lack of support, finance, insecurity and erratic power supply as the major challenges in starting a business in Nigeria. It was also revealed that the current entrepreneurship education programme prepares students on how to open up a business not becoming an entrepreneur. The study concluded entrepreneurship helps students toward building and driving their intention to venture into business. However, the challenges of entrepreneurship in Nigeria need to be addressed in order to enable individuals to become an entrepreneur and create employment opportunities that will lead to the development of Nigerian economy. Thus, the government should provide adequate support particularly the issue of infrastructures. The Federal Government of Nigeria in collaboration with the National Board for Technical Education should fashion out the curriculum thereby making it more practically-oriented so that students may become more interested. Polytechnics should develop an internship programme for students to work in firms so as to put theory learnt in the class to practice. Students should try to align the theory learnt in college with the practical application in dynamic economic environment. Hence, this will help in building their capabilities toward entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.

Keywords: entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial drivers, challenges, entrepreneurial education

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Authors: Joudia Akil, Stephane Siffert, Laurence Pirault-Roy, Renaud Cousin, Christophe Poupin

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Oxyfuel combustion is a promising method that enables to obtain a CO2 rich stream, with water vapor ( ̴10%), unburned components such as CO and NO, which must be cleaned before the use of CO2. Our objective is then the final treatment of CO and NO by catalysis. Three-way catalysts are well-developed material for simultaneous conversion of NO, CO and hydrocarbons. Pt and/or Rh ensure a quasi-complete removal of NOx, CO and HC and there is also a growing interest in partly replacing Pt with less-expensive Pd. The use of alumina and ceria as support ensures, respectively, the stabilization of such species in active state and discharging or storing oxygen to control the oxidation of CO and HC and the reduction of NOx. In this work, we will compare different metals (Pd, Rh and Pt) supported on Al2O3 and CeO2, for CO2 purification from oxyfuel combustion. The catalyst must reduce NO by CO in an oxidizing environment, in the presence of CO2 rich stream and resistant to water. In this study, Al2O3 and CeO2 were used as support materials of the catalysts. 1wt% M/Support where M = Pd, Rh or Pt catalysts were obtained by wet impregnation on supports with a precursor of palladium [Pd(acac)2], rhodium [Rh(NO3)3] and platinum [Pt(NO2)2(NO3)2]. Materials were characterized by BET surface area, H2 chemisorption, and TEM. Catalytic activity was evaluated in CO2 purification which is carried out in a fixed-bed flow reactor containing 150 mg of catalyst at atmospheric pressure. The flow of the reactant gases is composed of: 20% CO2, 10% O2, 0.5% CO, 0.02% NO and 8.2% H2O (He as eluent gas) with a total flow of 200 mL.min−1, with same GHSV (2.24x104 h-1). The catalytic performances of the samples were investigated with and without water. It shows that the total oxidation of CO occurred over the different materials. This study evidenced an important effect of the nature of the metals, supports and the presence or absence of H2O during the reduction of NO by CO in oxyfuel combustions conditions. Rh based catalysts show that the addition of water has a very positive influence especially on the Rh catalyst on CeO2. Pt based catalysts keep a good activity despite the addition of water on the both supports studied. For the NO reduction, addition of water act as a poison with Pd catalysts. The interesting results of Rh based catalysts with water can be explained by a production of hydrogen through the water gas shift reaction. The produced hydrogen acts as a more effective reductant than CO for NO removal. Furthermore, in TWCs, Rh is the main component responsible for NOx reduction due to its especially high activity for NO dissociation. Moreover, cerium oxide is a promotor for WGSR.

Keywords: carbon dioxide, environmental chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis

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Authors: Ying Liang, Na Li

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Lipo-alkaloid is a kind of C19-norditerpenoid alkaloids existed in Aconitum species, which usually contains an aconitane skeleton and one or two fatty acid residues. The structures are very similar to that of diester-type alkaloids, which are considered as the main bioactive components in Aconitum carmichaelii. They have anti-inflammatory, anti-nociceptive, and anti-proliferative activities. So far, more than 200 lipo-alkaloids were reported from plants, semisynthesis, and biotransformations. In our research, by the combination of ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-quadruple-time of flight mass spectrometry (UHPLC-Q-TOF-MS) and an in-house database, 148 lipo-alkaloids were identified from A. carmichaelii, including 93 potential new compounds and 38 compounds with oxygenated fatty acid moieties. To our knowledge, this is the first time of the reporting of the oxygenated fatty acids as the side chains in naturally-occurring lipo-alkaloids. Considering the fatty acid residues in lipo-alkaloids should come from the free acids in the plant, the fatty acids and their relationship with lipo-alkaloids were further investigated by GC-MS and LC-MS. Among 17 fatty acids identified by GC-MS, 12 were detected as the side chains of lipo-alkaloids, which accounted for about 1/3 of total lipo-alkaloids, while these fatty acid residues were less than 1/4 of total fatty acid residues. And, total of 37 fatty acids were determined by UHPCL-Q-TOF-MS, including 18 oxidized fatty acids firstly identified from A. carmichaelii. These fatty acids were observed as the side chains of lipo-alkaloids. In addition, although over 140 lipo-alkaloids were identified, six lipo-alkaloids, 8-O-linoleoyl-14-benzoylmesaconine (1), 8-O-linoleoyl-14-benzoylaconine (2), 8-O-palmitoyl-14-benzoylmesaconine (3), 8-O-oleoyl-14-benzoylmesaconine (4), 8-O-pal-benzoylaconine (5), and 8-O-ole-Benzoylaconine (6), were found to be the main components, which accounted for over 90% content of total lipo-alkaloids. Therefore, using these six components as standards, a UHPLC-Triple Quadrupole-MS (UHPLC-QQQ-MS) approach was established to investigate the influence of processing on the contents of lipo-alkaloids. Although it was commonly supposed that the contents of lipo-alkaloids increased after processing, our research showed that no significant change was observed before and after processing. Using the same methods, the lipo-alkaloids in the lateral roots of A. carmichaelii and the roots of A. kusnezoffii were determined and quantified. The contents of lipo-alkaloids in A. kusnezoffii were close to that of the parent roots of A. carmichaelii, while the lateral roots had less lipo-alkaloids than the parent roots. This work was supported by Macao Science and Technology Development Fund (086/2013/A3 and 003/2016/A1).

Keywords: Aconitum carmichaelii, fatty acids, GC-MS, LC-MS, lipo-alkaloids

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Authors: Muhammad Umer Mehmood, Muhammad Luqman, Muhammad Yaseen, Imtiaz Hussain

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Climate change is an arduous fact, which could not be unheeded easily. It is a phenomenon which has brought a collection of challenges for the mankind. Scientists have found many of its negative impacts on the life of human being and the resources on which the life of humanity is dependent. There are many issues which are associated with the factor of prime importance in this study, 'climate change'. Whenever changes happen in nature, they strike the whole globe. Effects of these changes vary from region to region. Climate of every region of this globe is different from the other. Even within a state, country or the province has different climatic conditions. So it is mandatory that the response in that specific region and the coping strategy of this specific region should be according to the prevailing risk. In the present study, the objective was to assess the coping strategies and vulnerability of small landholders. So that a professional suggestion could be made to cope with the vulnerability factor of small farmers. The cross-sectional research design was used with the intervention of quantitative approach. The study was conducted in the Khanewal district, of Punjab, Pakistan. 120 small farmers were interviewed after randomized sampling from the population of respective area. All respondents were above the age of 15 years. A questionnaire was developed after keen observation of facts in the respective area. Content and face validity of the instrument was assessed with SPSS and experts in the field. Data were analyzed through SPSS using descriptive statistics. From the sample of 120, 81.67% of the respondents claimed that the environment is getting warmer and not fit for their present agricultural practices. 84.17% of the sample expressed serious concern that they are disturbed due to change in rainfall pattern and vulnerability towards the climatic effects. On the other hand, they expressed that they are not good at tackling the effects of climate change. Adaptation of coping strategies like change in cropping pattern, use of resistant varieties, varieties with minimum water requirement, intercropping and tree planting was low by more than half of the sample. From the sample 63.33% small farmers said that the coping strategies they adopt are not effective enough. The present study showed that subsistence farming, lack of marketing and overall infrastructure, lack of access to social security networks, limited access to agriculture extension services, inappropriate access to agrometeorological system, unawareness and access to scientific development and low crop yield are the prominent factors which are responsible for the vulnerability of small farmers. A comprehensive study should be conducted at national level so that a national policy could be formulated to cope with the dilemma in future with relevance to climate change. Mainstreaming and collaboration among the researchers and academicians could prove beneficiary in this regard the interest of national leaders’ does matter. Proper policies to avoid the vulnerability factors should be the top priority. The world is taking up this issue with full responsibility as should we, keeping in view the local situation.

Keywords: adaptation, coping strategies, climate change, Pakistan, small farmers, vulnerability

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Authors: Leonardo Parra, Manuel Chacón-Fuentes, Andrés Quiroz

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One of the most important factors in beef and dairy production in the world as well as also in Chile, is related to the correct choice of cultivars or mixtures of forage grasses and legumes to ensure high yields and quality of grassland. However, a great problem is the persistence of the grasses as a result of the action of different hypogeous as epigean pests. The complex insect pests associated with grassland include white grubs (Hylamorpha elegans, Phytoloema herrmanni), blackworm (Dalaca pallens) and Argentine stem weevil (Listronotus bonariensis). In Chile, the principal strategy utilized for controlling this pest is chemical control, through the use of synthetic insecticides, however, underground feeding habits of larval and flight activity of adults makes this uneconomic method. Furthermore, due to problems including environmental degradation, development of resistance and chemical residues, there is a worldwide interest in the use of alternative environmentally friendly pest control methods. In this sense, in recent years there has been an increasing interest in determining the role of endophyte fungi in controlling epigean and hypogeous pest. Endophytes from ryegrass (Lolium perenne), establish a biotrophic relationship with the host, defined as mutualistic symbiosis. The plant-fungi association produces a “cocktail of alkaloids” where peramine is the main toxic substance present in endophyte of ryegrass and responsible for damage reduction of L. bonariensis. In the last decade, few studies have been developed on the effectiveness of new ryegrass cultivars carriers of endophyte in controlling insect pests. Therefore, the aim of this research is to provide knowledge concerning to evaluate the alkaloid content, such as peramine and Lolitrem B, present in new experimental lines of ryegrass and feasible to be used in grasslands of southern Chile. For this, during 2016, ryegrass plants of six experimental lines and two commercial cultivars sown at the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuarias Carrillanca (Vilcún, Chile) were collected and subjected to a process of chemical extraction to identify and quantify the presence of peramine and lolitrem B by the technique of liquid chromatography of high resolution (HPLC). The results indicated that the experimental lines EL-1 and EL-3 had high content of peramine (0.25 and 0.43 ppm, respectively) than with lolitrem B (0.061 and 0.19 ppm, respectively). Furthermore, the higher contents of lolitrem B were detected in the EL-4 and commercial cultivar Alto (positive control) with 0.08 and 0.17 ppm, respectively. Peramine and lolitrem B were not detected in the cultivar Jumbo (negative control). These results suggest that EL-3 would have potential as future cultivate because it has high content of peramine, alkaloid responsible for controlling insect pest. However, their current role on the complex insects attacking ryegrass grasslands should be evaluated. The information obtained in this research could be used to improve control strategies against hypogeous and epigean pests of grassland in southern Chile and also to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides.

Keywords: HPLC, Lolitrem B, peramine, pest

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Authors: Rehan Ullah

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The primary purpose of the study is to observe the relationship that exists between the organizational information technology (IT) capabilities and the organizational performance in China and Pakistan. Nations like China and Pakistan utilize modern techno-how to enhance their production endeavors. Therefore, making a wide-ranging comparison of the manufacturing services between China and Pakistan was chosen due to numerous reasons. One reason for carrying out this comparison is to determine how IT of the two countries enhances organizational competency on small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs). The study hypothesized that organizational IT capabilities (IT infrastructure, IT competence) have a positive influence on organizational performance and the strategic benefits of IT have a mediating effect on the relationship between IT capability and organizational performance. To investigate the relationship between IT capabilities and organizational performance, surveys were sent to managers of small, medium-sized manufacturing organizations located in the southwestern region, Sichuan province of China, and Pakistani companies, which are located in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. These cities were selected as typical representatives of each country. Organizational performance has been measured in terms of profitability, organizational success, growth, market share, and innovativeness. Out of 400 surveys distributed to different manufacturing organizations, 303 usable and valid responses were received that are analyzed in this research. The data were examined using SPSS and Smart PLS computer software. The results of the study, including the descriptive statistics of each variable, are used. The outer model has been measured with considerations to content validity, discriminant validity, and convergent validity. The path coefficients among the constructs were also computed when analyzing the structural model using the bootstrapping technique. The analysis of data from both China and Pakistan yields an identical but unique result. The results show that IT infrastructure, IT competence, strategic benefits of IT are all correlated to the performance of the organizations. Moreover, strategic benefits of IT have been proved to mediate the relationship between IT capabilities and organization performance. The author, concerning the role of IT on the performance of an organization, highlights the different aspects as well as its benefits in an organization. The overall study concludes several implications for both managers and academicians. It also provides the limitations of the study and offers recommendations for future studies and practice.

Keywords: organizational performance, IT capabilities, IT infrastructure, IT competence, strategic benefits of IT, China, Pakistan

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Authors: Tekalign Gidi Kure

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This paper addresses a range of serious problems involving higher education in Ethiopia. In spite of increased enrollment in higher education, educational quality is deteriorating afterwards. Thus, this paper tried to assess the role of social infrastructure in education for economic development of the country and examined major critical problems in higher education of Ethiopia such as higher education finance, curriculum development, and instructor’s career development. Primarily the paper discusses the fundamental contributions of social infrastructure in higher education to economic development; namely development of human capital, improved health, life expectancy, increased productivity, and personal saving, then, the paper examines critically higher education in three regimes of Ethiopia (Emperor Regime, Derg Regime and EPDRF/current government). Thus, four main questions were raised during this research: "What are the antecedents of Ethiopia Higher Education System under three regimes?", " what are the current and emerging higher educational needs in Ethiopia economic development?", " what are the role of private sector in addressing the gaps in the higher education of the country and its adverse effect on quality issues? ", and "what improvements are needed in higher education system of Ethiopia?". Documents from Ministry of Education in Ethiopia, National Statistical Abstracts, and Reports from the World Bank and other recognized institutions were used in addition to recent empirical researches conducted in the country. In doing so, care had been taken to reduce prejudiced reports by involving different reports from multiple sources. The paper concludes that during emperor system higher education enrollment was among the very lowest in the world, therefore, the skilled human resource available to guide development were little, but the cost was very high. During the Derg regime where an ideological change in the system penetrated into higher education resulted with the lack of a large amount of resources to support higher education; the war inside and outside the country diverts resources from the sector. The main purpose of this paper is not only to discuss the problems and issues of higher education in the past, but it also investigates the influence that the current expansion of higher education has on the finance, staff, and other resources for the quality of education. The paper concludes that higher education in Ethiopia are financed by government, outdated curriculum and lagging behind the standard regarding qualified staff. Finally, it provided inevitable solutions if the country wants to gain well record in quality of education as well.

Keywords: social infrastructure, higher education, ethiopia, education quality

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Authors: Julio Silva, Lia Hasenclever, Gilson G. Silva Jr.

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The aim of this paper is to check possible convergence in health measures (aged-standard rate of morbidity and mortality) for communicable diseases between developed and developing countries, conditional to productive structures features. Understanding the interrelations between health patterns and economic development is particularly important in the context of low- and middle-income countries, where economic development comes along with deep social inequality. Developing countries with less diversified productive structures (measured through complexity index) but high heterogeneous inter-sectorial labor productivity (using as a proxy inter-sectorial coefficient of variation of labor productivity) has on average low health levels in communicable diseases compared to developed countries with high diversified productive structures and low labor market heterogeneity. Structural heterogeneity and productive diversification may have influence on health levels even considering per capita income. We set up a panel data for 139 countries from 1995 to 2015, joining several data about the countries, as economic development, health, and health system coverage, environmental and socioeconomic aspects. This information was obtained from World Bank, International Labour Organization, Atlas of Economic Complexity, United Nation (Development Report) and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Database. Econometric panel models evidence shows that the level of communicable diseases has a positive relationship with structural heterogeneity, even considering other factors as per capita income. On the other hand, the recent process of convergence in terms of communicable diseases have been motivated for other reasons not directly related to productive structure, as health system coverage and environmental aspects. These evidences suggest a joint dynamics between the unequal distribution of communicable diseases and countries' productive structure aspects. These set of evidence are quite important to public policy as meet the health aims in Millennium Development Goals. It also highlights the importance of the process of structural change as fundamental to shift the levels of health in terms of communicable diseases and can contribute to the debate between the relation of economic development and health patterns changes.

Keywords: economic development, inequality, population health, structural change

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Authors: David Adade-Boateng, Benard Fei Baffoe, Colin A. Booth, Michael A. Fullen

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Remediation of diesel fuel, oil and grease in contaminated soils obtained from a mine site in Ghana are explored using rhizoremediation technology with different levels of nutrient amendments (i.e. N (nitrogen) in Compost (0.2, 0.5 and 0.8%), Urea (0.2, 0.5 and 0.8%) and Topsoil (0.2, 0.5 and 0.8%)) for a native species. A Ghanaian native grass species, Paspalum spp. from the Poaceae family, indicative across Sub-Saharan Africa, was selected following the development of essential and desirable growth criteria. Vegetative parts of the species were subjected to ten treatments in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) in three replicates. The plant-associated microbial community was examined in Paspalum spp. An assessment of the influence of Paspalum spp on the abundance and activity of micro-organisms in the rhizosphere revealed a build-up of microbial communities over a three month period. This was assessed using the MPN method, which showed rhizospheric samples from the treatments were significantly different (P <0.05). Multiple comparisons showed how microbial populations built-up in the rhizosphere for the different treatments. Treatments G (0.2% compost), H (0.5% compost) and I (0.8% compost) performed significantly better done other treatments, while treatments D (0.2% topsoil) and F (0.8% topsoil) were insignificant. Furthermore, treatment A (0.2% urea), B (0.5% urea), C (0.8% urea) and E (0.5% topsoil) also performed the same. Residual diesel and oil concentrations (as total petroleum hydrocarbons, TPH and oil and grease) were measured using infra-red spectroscopy and gravimetric methods, respectively. The presence of single species successfully enhanced the removal of hydrocarbons from soil. Paspalum spp. subjected to compost levels (0.5% and 0.8%) and topsoil levels (0.5% and 0.8%) showed significantly lower residual hydrocarbon concentrations compared to those treated with Urea. A strong relationship (p<0.001) between the abundance of hydrocarbon degrading micro-organisms in the rhizosphere and hydrocarbon biodegradation was demonstrated for rhizospheric samples with treatment G (0.2% compost), H (0.5% compost) and I (0.8% compost) (P <0.001). The same level of amendment with 0.8% compost (N-level) can improve the application effectiveness. These findings have wide-reaching implications for the environmental management of soils contaminated by hydrocarbons in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, it is necessary to further investigate the in situ rhizoremediation potential of Paspalum spp. at the field scale.

Keywords: rhizoremediation, microbial population, rhizospheric sample, treatments

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Authors: Salah Jellali, Nusiba Suliman, Yassine Charabi, Jamal Al-Sabahi, Ahmed Al Raeesi, Malik Al-Wardy, Mejdi Jeguirim

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Huge amounts of agricultural biomasses are worldwide produced. At the same time, large quantities of phosphorus are annually discharged into water bodies with possible serious effects onto the environment quality. The main objective of this work is to turn a local Omani biomass (date palm fronds wastes: DPFW) into an effective material for phosphorus recovery from aqueous and the reuse of this P-loaded material in agriculture as ecofriendly amendment. For this aim, the raw DPFW were firstly impregnated with 1 M salt separated solutions of CaCl₂, MgCl₂, FeCl₃, AlCl₃, and a mixture of MgCl₂/AlCl₃ for 24 h, and then pyrolyzed under N2 flow at 500 °C for 2 hours by using an adapted tubular furnace (Carbolite, UK). The synthetized biochars were deeply characterized through specific analyses concerning their morphology, structure, texture, and surface chemistry. These analyses included the use of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) coupled with an energy-dispersive X-Ray spectrometer (EDS), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), sorption micrometrics, and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) apparatus. Then, their efficiency in recovering phosphorus was investigated in batch mode for various contact times (1 min to 3 h), aqueous pH values (from 3 to 11), initial phosphorus concentrations (10-100 mg/L), presence of anions (nitrates, sulfates, and chlorides). In a second step, dynamic assays, by using laboratory columns (height of 30 cm and diameter of 3 cm), were performed in order to investigate the recovery of phosphorus by the modified biochar with a mixture of Mg/Al. The effect of the initial P concentration (25-100 mg/L), the bed depth height (3 to 8 g), and the flow rate (10-30 mL/min) was assessed. Experimental results showed that the biochars physico-chemical properties were very dependent on the type of the used modifying salt. The main affected parameters concerned the specific surface area, microporosity area, and the surface chemistry (pH of zero-point charge and available functional groups). These characteristics have significantly affected the phosphorus recovery efficiency from aqueous solutions. Indeed, the P removal efficiency in batch mode varies from about 5 mg/g for the Fe-modified biochar to more than 13 mg/g for the biochar functionalized with Mg/Al layered double hydroxides. Moreover, the P recovery seems to be a time dependent process and significantly affected by the pH of the aqueous media and the presence of foreign anions due to competition phenomenon. The laboratory column study of phosphorus recovery by the biochar functionalized with Mg/Al layered double hydroxides showed that this process is affected by the used phosphorus concentration, the flow rate, and especially the column bed depth height. Indeed, the phosphorus recovered amount increased from about 4.9 to more than 9.3 mg/g used biochar mass of 3 and 8 g, respectively. This work proved that salt-modified palm fronds-derived biochars could be considered as attractive and promising materials for phosphorus recovery from aqueous solutions even under dynamic conditions. The valorization of these P-loaded-modified biochars as eco-friendly amendment for agricultural soils is necessary will promote sustainability and circular economy concepts in the management of both liquid and solid wastes.

Keywords: date palm wastes, Mg/Al double-layered hydroxides functionalized biochars, phosphorus, recovery, sustainability, circular economy

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Authors: Sidra Jawed

Abstract:

The accessibility constructs and the body privilege discourse has been a major problem while dealing with health inequities and inaccessibility. The inherent problem in this arbitrary view of disability is that disability would never be the productive way of living. For past thirty years, disability activists have been working to differentiate ‘impairment’ from ‘disability’ and probing for more understanding of limitation imposed by society, this notion is ultimately known as the Social Model of Disability. The vulnerable population as disability community remains marginalized and seen relentlessly fighting to highlight the importance of social factors. It does not only constitute physical architectural barriers and famous blue symbol of access to the healthcare but also invisible, intangible barriers as attitudes and behaviours. Conventionally the idea of ‘disability’ has been laden with prejudiced perception amalgamating with biased attitude. Equity in contemporary setup necessitates the restructuring of organizational structure. Apparently simple, the complex interplay of disability and contemporary healthcare set up often ends up at negotiating vital components of basic healthcare needs. The role of society is indispensable when it comes to people with disability (PWD), everything from the access to healthcare to timely interventions are strongly related to the set up in place and the attitude of healthcare providers. It is vital to understand the association between assumptions and the quality of healthcare PWD receives in our global healthcare setup. Most of time the crucial physician-patient relationship with PWD is governed by the negative assumptions of the physicians. The multifaceted, troubled patient-physicians’ relationship has been neglected in past. To compound it, insufficient work has been done to explore physicians’ perspective about the disability and access to healthcare PWD have currently. This research project is directed towards physicians’ perspective on the intersection of health and access of healthcare for PWD. The principal aim of the study is to explore the perception of disability in family medicine physicians, highlighting the underpinning of medical perspective in healthcare institution. In the quest of removing barriers, the first step must be to identify the barriers and formulate a plan for future policies, involving all the stakeholders. There would be semi-structured interviews to explore themes as accessibility, medical training, construct of social model and medical model of disability, time limitations, financial constraints. The main research interest is to identify the obstacles to inclusion and marginalization continuing from the basic living necessities to wide health inequity in present society. Physicians point of view is largely missing from the research landscape and the current forum of knowledge with regards to physicians’ standpoint. This research will provide policy makers with a starting point and comprehensive background knowledge that can be a stepping stone for future researches and furthering the knowledge translation process to strengthen healthcare. Additionally, it would facilitate the process of knowledge translation between the much needed medical and disability community.

Keywords: disability, physicians, social model, accessibility

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Authors: Ivanna Shubina

Abstract:

Background/Objectives and Goals: Recent interest in positive psychology is reflected in a plenty of studies conducted on its basic constructs (e.g. self-esteem and happiness) in interrelation with personality features, social rules, business and technology development. The purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating role of self-esteem, exploring the relationships between self-esteem and happiness, self-esteem and locus of control (LOC). It hypothesizes that self-esteem may be interpreted as a predictor of happiness and mediator in the locus of control establishment. A plenty of various empirical studies results have been analyzed in order to collect data for this theoretical study, and some of the analysed results can be considered as arguable or incoherent. However, the majority of results indicate a strong relationship between three considered concepts: self-esteem, happiness, the locus of control. Methods: In particular, this study addresses the following broad research questions: i) Is self-esteem just an index of global happiness? ii) May happiness be possible or realizable without a healthy self-confidence and self-acceptance? iii) To what extent does self-esteem influence on the level of happiness? iv) Is high self-esteem a sufficient condition for happiness? v) Is self-esteem is a strong predictor of internal locus of control maintenance? vi) Is high self-esteem related to internal LOC, while low self-esteem to external LOC? In order to find the answers for listed questions, 60 reliable sources have been analyzed, results of what are discussed more detailed below. Expected Results/Conclusion/Contribution:It is recognized that the relationship between self-esteem, happiness, locus of control is complex: internal LOC is contributing to happiness, but it is not directly related to it; self-esteem is a powerful and important psychological factor in mental health and well-being; the feelings of being worthy and empowered are associated with significant achievements and high self-esteem; strong and appropriate self-esteem (when the discrepancy between “ideal” and “real” self is balanced) is correlated with more internal LOC (when the individual tends to believe that personal achievements depend on possessed features, vigor, and persistence). Despite the special attention paid to happiness, the locus of control and self-esteem, independently, theoretical and empirical equivocations within each literature foreclose many obvious predictions about the nature of their empirical distinction. In terms of theoretical framework, no model has achieved consensus as an ultimate theoretical background for any of the mentioned constructs. To be able to clarify the relationship between self-esteem, happiness, and locus of control more interdisciplinary studies have to take place in order to get data on heterogeneous samples, provided from various countries, cultures, and social groups.

Keywords: happiness, locus of control, self-esteem, mediation

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Authors: Prince Suka Neekia Momta, Rita Iheoma Achonyeulo

Abstract:

Ant Tracking seismic attribute applied over 4-seconds seismic volume revealed structural features triggered by clay diapirism, growth fault development, rapid deltaic sedimentation and intense drilling. The attribute was extracted on vertical seismic sections and time slices. Mega tectonic structures such as growth faults and clay diapirs are visible on vertical sections with obscured minor lineaments or fractures. Fractures are distinctively visible on time slices yielding recognizable patterns corroborating established geologic models. This model seismic attribute enabled the understanding of fluid flow characteristics and production responses. Three structural patterns recognized in the field include: major growth faults, minor faults or lineaments and network of fractures. Three growth faults mapped on seismic section form major deformation bands delimiting the area into three blocks or depocenters. The growth faults trend E-W, dip down-to-south in the basin direction, and cut across the study area. The faults initiating from about 2000ms extended up to 500ms, and tend to progress parallel and opposite to the growth direction of an upsurging diapiric structure. The diapiric structures form the major deformational bands originating from great depths (below 2000ms) and rising to about 1200ms where series of sedimentary layers onlapped and pinchout stratigraphically against the diapir. Several other secondary faults or lineaments that form parallel streaks to one another also accompanied the growth faults. The fracture networks have no particular trend but form a network surrounding the well area. Faults identified in the study area have potentials for structural hydrocarbon traps whereas the presence of fractures created a fractured-reservoir condition that enhanced rapid fluid flow especially water. High aquifer flow potential aided by possible fracture permeability resulted in rapid decline in oil rate. Through the application of Ant Tracking attribute, it is possible to obtain detailed interpretation of structures that can have direct influence on oil and gas production.

Keywords: seismic, attributes, production, structural

Procedia PDF Downloads 74