Search results for: health consequences

Authors: Abdeghani Qadem

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Climate change is now an undeniable reality with increasing impacts on water systems worldwide, especially leading to severe drought episodes. The Southern Mediterranean region is particularly affected by this drought, which can have devastating consequences on water resources. Morocco, due to its geographical location in North Africa and the Southern Mediterranean, is especially vulnerable to these effects of climate change, particularly drought. In this context, this article focuses on the study of climate variability and drought characteristics in the Saiss Plateau region and its adjacent areas with the Middle Atlas, using specific statistical indices. The study begins by analyzing the annual precipitation variation, with a particular emphasis on data homogenization and gap filling using a regional vector. Then, the analysis delves into drought episodes in the region, using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) over a 12-month period. The central objective is to accurately assess significant drought changes between 1980 and 2015, based on data collected from nine meteorological stations located in the study area.

Keywords: climate variability, regional vector, drought, standardized precipitation index, Saiss Plateau, middle atlas

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Authors: Mokgadi Julia Ngoepe-Ntsoane

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The article aims to make a case for a legislative framework for the fire sector in South Africa. Robust legislative framework is essential for empowering those with obligatory mandate within the sector. This article contributes to the body of knowledge in the field of policy reviews particularly with regards to the legal framework. It has been observed overtime that the scholarly contributions in this field are limited. Document analysis was the methodology selected for the investigation of the various legal frameworks existing in the country. It has been established that indeed the national legislation on the fire industry does not exist in South Africa. From the documents analysed, it was revealed that the sector is dominated by cartels who are exploiting the new entrants to the market particularly SMEs. It is evident that these cartels are monopolising the system as they have long been operating in the system turning it into self- owned entities. Commitment to addressing the challenges faced by fire services and creating a framework for the evolving role that fire brigade services are expected to execute in building safer and sustainable communities is vital. Legislation for the fire sector ought to be concluded with immediate effect. The outdated national fire legislation has necessitated the monopolisation and manipulation of the system by dominating organisations which cause a painful discrimination and exploitation of smaller service providers to enter the market for trading in that occupation. The barrier to entry bears long term negative effects on national priority areas such as employment creation, poverty, and others. This monopolisation and marginalisation practices by cartels in the sector calls for urgent attention by government because if left attended, it will leave a lot of people particularly women and youth being disadvantaged and frustrated. The downcast syndrome exercised within the fire sector has wreaked havoc and is devastating. This is caused by cartels that have been within the sector for some time, who know the strengths and weaknesses of processes, shortcuts, advantages and consequences of various actions. These people take advantage of new entrants to the sector who in turn find it difficult to manoeuvre, find the market dissonant and end up giving up their good ideas and intentions. There are many pieces of legislation which are industry specific such as housing, forestry, agriculture, health, security, environmental which are used to regulate systems within the institutions involved. Other regulations exist as bi-laws for guiding the management within the municipalities.

Keywords: sustainable job creation, growth and development, transformation, risk management

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Authors: Cindy Davis, Samantha Rayner

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Secondary traumatic stress (STS) is an indirect form of trauma affecting the psychological well-being of mental health workers; STS is found to be a prevalent risk in mental health occupations. Various factors impact the development of STS within the literature; including the level of trauma individuals are exposed to and their level of empathy. Research is limited on STS in mental health workers in Australia; therefore, this study examined STS and related factors of empathetic behavior and trauma caseload among mental health workers. The research utilized an online survey quantitative research design with a purposive sample of 190 mental health workers (176 females) recruited via professional websites and unofficial social media groups. Participants completed an online questionnaire comprising of demographics, the secondary traumatic stress scale and the empathy scale for social workers. A standard hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to examine the significance of covariates, traumatized clients, traumatic stress within workload and empathy in predicting STS. The current research found 29.5% of participants to meet the criteria for a diagnosis of STS. Age and past trauma within the covariates were significantly associated with STS. Amount of traumatized clients significantly predicted 4.7% of the variance in STS, traumatic stress within workload significantly predicted 4.8% of the variance in STS and empathy significantly predicted 4.9% of the variance in STS. These three independent variables and the covariates accounted for 18.5% of the variance in STS. Practical implications include a focus on developing risk strategies and treatment methods that can diminish the impact of STS.

Keywords: mental health, PTSD, social work, trauma

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Authors: Regina Tedjasulaksana, Maria Martina Nahak, A. A. Gede Agung, Ni Made Widhiasti

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Strategic effort to realize the empowerment of community in school is through the peer group approach so that it needs to choose the students who are trained as the’ little dentist’ in order to have the cognitive and skills to participate in the school dental health effort (UKGS) program, such as providing oral health education to the other students. Aim: To assessed the effectiveness of peer group approach to enhance the oral health knowledge level of schoolchildren at primary school in Klungkung, Bali. Methods: Experimental study using the pre-post test without control group design. The differences of knowledge levels, tooth brushing behavior and oral hygiene status (using PHP-M index) of 10 students before and after trained as the little dentists were analyzed using paired t-test. The correlations between knowledge level and tooth brushing behavior and correlations between tooth brushing behavior and oral hygiene before and after trained as the little dentists were analyzed using Spearman. Furthermore, the trained little dentists provide oral health education to 102 students of grade 1 to 5 at their school once a week for 3 months. The students’ knowledge level scores of each grade were taken every 21 days as many as three times The difference of it was analyzed using Repeated Measured. Result: The mean scores among all little dentists before and after training for each of knowledge level were each 63.05 + 5.62 and 85.00 + 7.81, tooth brushing behavior were each 31.00 + 14.49 and 100.00 + 0.00 and oral hygiene status using PHP-M index were each 32.80 + 10.17 and 11.40 + 8.01. The knowledge level, tooth brushing behavior and oral hygiene status of 10 students before and after trained as the little dentists were different significantly (p<0.05). Before and after trained as the little dentists it showed that significant correlations between knowledge level with tooth brushing behavior (p<0.05) and significant correlations between tooth brushing behavior and oral hygiene (p<0.05). The mean scores of knowledge level among all students before (pre-test) and after (post-test (1),(2),(3)) getting oral health education from little dentists for each, of grade 1 were 40.00 + 17.97; 67.85 + 18.88; 81.72 +26.48 and 70.00 + 22.87, grade 2 were 40.00 + 17.97; 67.85 + 18.88; 81.72 + 26.48 and 70.00 + 22.87, grade 3 were 65.83 + 23.94; 72.50 + 26.08; 80.41 + 24.93 and 83.75 + 19.74, grade 4 were 88.57 + 12.92; 90.71 + 9.97; 92.85 + 10.69 and 93.57 + 6.33 and grade 5 were 86.66 + 13.40; 93.33 + 9.16; 94.16 + 10.17 and 98.33 + 4.81. The students’ knowledge level of grade 1,2 and 3 before and after getting oral health education from little dentists showed significant different (p<0.05), meanwhile there was no significant different on grade 4 and 5 (p<0.05) although mean scores showed an increase. Conclusion: Peer group approach can be used to enhance the oral health knowledge level of schoolchildren at primary school in Klungkung, Bali.

Keywords: small dentists, oral health, peer group approach, school children

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Authors: Lara Alam, Laetitia Van-Schoors, Olivier Sicot, Benoit Piezel, Shahram Aivazzadeh

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Over the last decades, worldwide environmental awareness has grown due to the depletion of raw material resources and global warming. This awareness has prompted the development of new products more environmentally friendly. Among these products are biocomposite materials reinforced with natural fibers. The main challenge in developing the use of biocomposites in exterior applications is the lack of knowledge about their durability and the evolution of their mechanical and physico-chemical properties in the long term. Few studies have been carried out on the photooxidation of unidirectional (UD) composites based on recycled matrix, which is the aim of this work. For this purpose, UD flax fiber composites based on recycled polypropylene were prepared by thermocompression. An accelerated aging test was carried out using a xenon arc WeatherOmeter. The consequences of UV exposure on the chemical composition and morphology of the surface of composites as well as on their tensile mechanical properties have been reported. The results showed that accelerated aging had a significant effect on the surface of these composites while it had little impact on their mechanical properties.

Keywords: flax fiber, photooxidation, physico-chemical properties, recycled polypropylene, tensile properties

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Authors: A. C. Facin, M. C. Maronezi , M. P. Menezes, G. L. Montanhim, L. Pavan, M. A. R. Feliciano, R. P. Nociti, R. A. R. Uscategui, P. C. Moraes

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The incidence of brachycephalic syndrome (BS) in the clinical routine of small animals has increased significantly giving the higher proportion of brachycephalic pets in the last years and has been considered as an animal welfare problem. The treatment of BS is surgical and the clinical signs related can be considerably attenuated. Nevertheless, the systemic effects of the BS are still poorly reported and little is known about these when the surgical correction is not performed early. Affected dogs are more likely to develop cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal and sleep disorders in which the chronic hypoxemia plays a major role. This syndrome is compared with the obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in humans, both considered as causes of systemic and metabolic dysfunction. Among the several consequences of the BS little is known if the syndrome also affects the hepatic tissue of brachycephalic patients. Elastography is a promising ultrasound technique that evaluates tissue elasticity and has been recently used with the purpose of diagnosis of liver fibrosis. In medicine, it is a growing concern regarding the hepatic injury of patients affected by OSA. This prospective study hypothesizes if there is any consequence of BS in the hepatic parenchyma of brachycephalic dogs that don’t receive any surgical treatment. This study was conducted following the approval of the Animal Ethics and Welfare Committee of the Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias, UNESP, Campus Jaboticabal, Brazil (protocol no 17944/2017) and funded by Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, process no 2017/24809-4). The methodology was based in ARFI elastography using the ACUSON S2000/SIEMENS device, with convex multifrequential transducer and specific software as well as clinical evaluation of the syndrome, in order to determine if they can be used as a prognostic non-invasive tool. On quantitative elastography, it was collected three measures of shear wave velocity (meters per second) and depth in centimeters in the left lateral, left medial, right lateral, right medial and caudate lobe of the liver. The brachycephalic patients, 16 pugs and 30 french bulldogs, were classified using a previously established 4-point functional grading system based on clinical evaluation before and after a 3-minute exercise tolerance test already established and validated. The control group was based on the same features collected in 22 beagles. The software R version 3.3.0 was used for the analysis and the significance level was set at 0.05. The data were analysed for normality of residuals and homogeneity of variances by Shapiro-Wilks test. Comparisons of parametric continuous variables between breeds were performed by using ANOVA with a post hoc test for pair wise comparison. The preliminary results show significant statistic differences between the brachycephalic groups and the control group in all lobes analysed (p ≤ 0,05), with higher values of shear wave velocities in the hepatic tissue of brachycephalic dogs. In this context, the results obtained in this study contributes to the understanding of BS as well as its consequences in our patients, reflecting in evidence that one more systemic consequence of the syndrome may occur in brachycephalic patients, which was not related in the veterinary literature yet.

Keywords: airway obstruction, brachycephalic airway obstructive syndrome, hepatic injury, obstructive sleep apnea

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Authors: Alexander Suuk Laar, Emmanuel Bekyieriya, Sylvester Isang, Benjamin Baguune

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Introduction: In Ghana, despite the implementation of strategies and initiatives to ensure universal access to reproductive health and family planning (FP) services for the past two decades, interventions have not adequately addressed the access and utilization needs of women of reproductive age, especially in rural Ghana. To improve access and use of reproductive and maternal health services in Ghana, a free maternal care exemption policy under the universal health coverage of the National Health Insurance Scheme was implemented in 2005. Despite the importance of FP, this service was left out of the benefit package of the policy. Low or no use of FP services is often associated with poor health among women. However, to date, there has been limited research on perspectives of women for not making FP services as part of the benefit package of the free maternal health services. This qualitative study explored perceptions of women on the comprehensiveness of the free maternal health benefit package and the effects on utilisation of services in the rural Upper West region of Ghana to improve services. Methods: This exploratory qualitative study used focus group discussions with pregnant and lactating women in three rural districts in the Upper West region of Ghana. Six focus groups were held with both pregnant women and lactating mothers at the time of the interview. Three focus group discussions were organised with the same category of women in each district. We used a purposive sampling procedure to select the participants from the districts. The interviews with the written consent of the participants lasted between 60 minutes and 120 minutes. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke thematic framework guidelines. Results: This research presents an in-depth account of women's perceptions on the effects associated with the uptake of FP services and its exclusion from the benefit package of the free maternal health policy. Our study found that participants did not support the exclusion of FP services in the benefit package. Participants mentioned factors hampering their access to and use of FP and contraceptive services to include the cost of services, distance and cost of transport to health facilities, lack of knowledge about FP services, socio-cultural norms and negative attitude of healthcare professionals. Participants are of the view that making FP services part of the benefit package could have addressed the cost aspect of services which act as the main barrier to improve the use of services by poor rural women. Conclusion: Women of reproductive age face cost barriers that limit their access to and use of FP and contraception services in the rural Upper West region of Ghana and need health policymakers to revise the free maternal health package to include FP services. It is essential for policymakers to begin considering revising the free maternal health policy benefit package to include FP services to help address the cost barrier for rural poor women to use services.

Keywords: benefit package, free maternal policy, women, Ghana, rural Upper West Region, Universal Health Coverage.

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Authors: Mansour Hadji Hosseinlou, Alireza Mahdavi

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Transportation is one of any society's needs which have developed after improving economically and socially and is one of civilization symbols today. Although it is so useful for human, it leads to many serious harms and injuries. The development of communication system and building new roads has resulted in increasing the rate of accidents; therefore, in practice, this increasing rate has decreased the advantages of transportation. Traffic accidents are one of the causes of death, serious financial and bodily harms and its significant social, economic and cultural consequences threatens the societies seriously. Iran's ground transportation system is one of the most eventful transportation systems in the world and mortality rate and financial harms cost too much for the country in national aspect. Therefore, we have presented a data collection by referring to recorded statistics of the accidents occurred in freeways from 2013 to 2015. These statistics are recorded in different related databases, generally police and road transportation system. The data is separated and arranged in tables and after preparing, processing and prioritizing the factors, the achieved collection is presented to the departments, managers and researchers to help them suggest practical solutions.

Keywords: freeways’ accidents, humane causes, death, tiredness, drowsiness

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Authors: Ammal M. Metwally, Ghada A. Abdel-Latif, Walaa A. Fouad, Thanaa M. Rabah, Amira Mohsen, Fatma A. Shaaban, Iman I. Salama

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The study aimed at determining the impact of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection on patients’ Quality of Life (QoL) , its relation to geographical characteristics of patients, awareness of the disease, treatment regimen, co-morbid psychiatric or other diseases. 457 patients were randomly selected from ten National Treatment Reference Centers of Ministry of Health hospitals from four community locations representing Egypt. Health related QoL assessment questionnaire with the 36-item Short Form used for assessment of the enrolled patients. The study showed no significant difference between HCV patients in different governorates as regards total QoL. Females, illiterate patients and those had bilharziasis, diabetes mellitus, hypertension or were depressed had significantly the lowest QoL score. HCV patients who knew the danger of the disease had significant lower mean score of physical and mental health components. Optimal care of overall well-being of HCV patients requires adequate knowledge of their neurological and psychological status. It is important to know that any patient will need to take the time to know that his new physical limitations do not limit him as a person, as soul, no matter what other people are thinking as a positive hopeful attitude is essential for combating HCV.

Keywords: hepatitis C virus chronic infection - physical health component and mental health component of QoL– total quality of life

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Authors: Ali Soroush, Mehdi Mirzaei Alavijeh, Touraj Ahmadi Jouybari, Fazel Zinat-Motlagh, Abbas Aghaei, Mari Ataee

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Diabetes is a disease with long cardiovascular, renal, ophthalmic and neural complications. It is prevalent all around the world including Iran, and its prevalence is increasing. The aim of this study was to determine the factors related to self-care behavior based on health belief model among sample of Iranian diabetic patients. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 301 type 2 diabetic patients in Gachsaran, Iran. Data collection was based on an interview and the data were analyzed by SPSS version 20 using ANOVA, t-tests, Pearson correlation, and linear regression statistical tests at 95% significant level. Linear regression analyses showed the health belief model variables accounted for 29% of the variation in self-care behavior; and perceived severity and perceived self-efficacy are more influential predictors on self-care behavior among diabetic patients.

Keywords: diabetes, patients, self-care behaviors, health belief model

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Authors: Maciej Bialorudzki, Zbigniew Izdebski, Alicja Kozakiewicz, Joanna Mazur

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The quality of sleep is extremely important for physical and mental health, especially among professional groups exposed to the suffering of the people they serve. The aim of the study is to assess sleep quality and various aspects of physical and mental health. A nationwide cross-sectional survey conducted in the first quarter of 2022 included 2227 healthcare professionals from 114 Polish hospitals and specialized outpatient clinics. The following distribution for each professional group was obtained (22% doctors; 52.6% nurses; 7.3% paramedics; 10.1% other medical professionals; 7.9% other non-medical professionals). The mean age of the respondents was 46.24 (SD=11.53). The Jenkins Sleep Scale with four items (JSS-4) was used to assess sleep quality, yielding a mean value of 5.35 (SD=5.20) in the study group and 13.7% of subjects with poor sleep quality using the cutoff point of the mean JSS-4 sum score as >11. More often, women than men reported poorer sleep quality (14,8% vs. 9,1% p=0,002). Respondents with poor sleep quality were more likely to report occupational burnout as measured by the BAT-12 (43.1% vs. 12.9% p<0.001) and high levels of stress as measured by the PSS-4 (72.5% vs. 27.5% p<0.001). In addition, those who declare experiencing a traumatic event compared to those who have not experienced it has an almost two times higher risk of poorer sleep quality (OR:1.958; 95% CI:1.509-2.542; p<0.001). In contrast, those with occupational burnout had more than five times the risk of those without occupational burnout (OR:5.092; 95% CI: 3.763-6.889; p<0.001). Sleep quality remains an important predictor of stress levels, job burnout, and quality of life assessment.

Keywords: quality of sleep, medical staff, mental health, physical health, occupational burnout, stress

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Authors: Takeo Shibata, Arihito Endo, Akemi Kunimatsu, Chika Hiraga, Yoko Shimizu

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Introduction: Yuzawa Town, located in the Niigata prefecture of Japan, is famous for its hot springs. A health promotion program, Yuzawa family health plan, was initiated in 2002. It has been held for fifteen years. We evaluated the profiles of brushing teeth in adults. Subjects: 368 questionnaires were corrected from people who live in Yuzawa town. The range of age was between nineteen and sixty-four years old. Methods: Mann-Whitney’s U test and Kruskal-Wallis test were used to evaluate significant differences in frequencies of brushing teeth per a day. Chi-square test and the adjusted residuals were used to evaluate when they brush their teeth. Results: Women showed greater frequencies of brushing teeth per a day than men. No difference was shown by age. Construction workers showed fewer frequencies of brushing teeth. Specialized technicians, clerical workers, and housewives showed greater frequencies. People who know Yuzawa family health plan, take a regular life, or take a breakfast every day showed greater frequencies. People who think not healthy, don’t care a balance of foods, don’t take yearly health check-up, or smoke showed fewer frequencies. After breakfast, women and specialized technicians showed greater frequencies, and construction workers and self-employed workers showed fewer frequencies. After lunch, clerical workers and specialized technicians showed greater frequencies. There was no significant difference at after waking up, after dinner, and before going to bed. Construction workers showed a lower rate of having a marital partner and having information of health. Conclusion: Gender and occupational differences were shown in frequencies of brushing teeth per a day. A promotion of teeth brushing for male, especially construction workers and self-employed workers, is needed.

Keywords: health promotion, Yuzawa family health plan, brushing teeth, occupational difference

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Authors: Bibhuti Bhusan Sahoo, Ramakar Jha

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Mapping of the extreme events (droughts) is one of the adaptation strategies to consequences of increasing climatic inconsistency and climate alterations. There is no operational practice to forecast the drought. One of the suggestions is to update mapping of drought prone areas for developmental planning. Drought indices play a significant role in drought mitigation. Many scientists have worked on different statistical analysis in drought and other climatological hazards. Many researchers have studied droughts individually for different sub-divisions or for India. Very few workers have studied district wise probabilities over large scale. In the present study, district wise drought probabilities over KBK (Kalahandi-Balangir-Koraput) districts of Odisha, India, Which are seriously prone to droughts, has been established using Hydrological drought index and Meteorological drought index along with the remote sensing drought indices to develop a multidirectional approach in the field of drought mitigation. Mapping for moderate and severe drought probabilities for KBK districts has been done and regions belonging different class intervals of probabilities of drought have been demarcated. Such type of information would be a good tool for planning purposes, for input in modelling and better promising results can be achieved.

Keywords: drought indices, KBK districts, proposed drought severity index, SPI

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Authors: Islah Ud Din, Amna Bibi

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The current study was carried out to examine the perceived social support, resilience and relapse risk in recovered addicts. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from recovered addicts. A multidimensional scale of perceived social support by was used to measure the perceived social support. The brief Resilience Scale (BRS) was used to assess resilience. The Stimulant Relapse Risk Scale (SRRS) was used to examine the relapse risk. Resilience and Perceived social support have substantial positive correlations, whereas relapse risk and perceived social support have significant negative associations. Relapse risk and resilience have a strong inverse connection. Regression analysis was used to check the mediating effect of resilience between perceived social support and relapse risk. The findings revealed that perceived social support negatively predicted relapse risk. Results showed that Resilience plays a role as partial mediation between perceived social support and relapse risk. This Research will allow us to explore and understand the relapse risk factor and the role of perceived social support and resilience in recovered addicts. The study's findings have immediate consequences in the prevention of relapse. The study will play a significant part in drug rehabilitation centers, clinical settings and further research.

Keywords: perceived social support, resilience, relapse risk, recovered addicts, drugs addiction

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Authors: Abbas Sheikhtaheri, Nasim Hashemi

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Health information systems have great benefits for clinical and managerial processes of health care organizations. However, identifying and removing constraints and barriers of implementing and using health information systems before any implementation is essential. Physicians are one of the main users of health information systems, therefore, identifying the causes of their resistance and concerns about the barriers of the implementation of these systems is very important. So the purpose of this study was to determine the barriers of the development and implementation of health information systems in terms of the Iranian physicians’ perspectives. In this study conducted in 8 selected hospitals affiliated to Tehran and Iran Universities of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran in 2014, physicians (GPs, residents, interns, specialists) in these hospitals were surveyed. In order to collect data, a research made questionnaire was used (Cronbach’s α = 0.95). The instrument included 25 about organizational (9), personal (4), moral and legal (3) and technical barriers (9). Participants were asked to answer the questions using 5 point scale Likert (completely disagree=1 to completely agree=5). By using a simple random sampling method, 200 physicians (from 600) were invited to study that eventually 163 questionnaires were returned. We used mean score and t-test and ANOVA to analyze the data using SPSS software version 17. 52.1% of respondents were female. The mean age was 30.18 ± 7.29. The work experience years for most of them were between 1 to 5 years (80.4 percent). The most important barriers were organizational ones (3.4 ± 0.89), followed by ethical (3.18 ± 0.98), technical (3.06 ± 0.8) and personal (3.04 ± 1.2). Lack of easy access to a fast Internet (3.67±1.91) and the lack of exchanging information (3.61±1.2) were the most important technical barriers. Among organizational barriers, the lack of efficient planning for the development and implementation systems (3.56±1.32) and was the most important ones. Lack of awareness and knowledge of health care providers about the health information systems features (3.33±1.28) and the lack of physician participation in planning phase (3.27±1.2) as well as concerns regarding the security and confidentiality of health information (3.15 ± 1.31) were the most important personal and ethical barriers, respectively. Women (P = 0.02) and those with less experience (P = 0.002) were more concerned about personal barriers. GPs also were more concerned about technical barriers (P = 0.02). According to the study, technical and ethics barriers were considered as the most important barriers however, lack of awareness in target population is also considered as one of the main barriers. Ignoring issues such as personal and ethical barriers, even if the necessary infrastructure and technical requirements were provided, may result in failure. Therefore, along with the creating infrastructure and resolving organizational barriers, special attention to education and awareness of physicians and providing solution for ethics concerns are necessary.

Keywords: barriers, development health information systems, implementation, physicians

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Authors: Olivia Meeschaert

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The Conference of the Parties (COP) refers to the countries that signed on to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This annual conference provides a platform for countries to voice their major climate concerns, negotiate on a number of global issues, and come to agreements with the world’s largest emitters on how to make incremental changes that will achieve global climate goals. Historically, the outcome of COP includes major climate pledges and international agreements. COP27 will take place in Egypt at the beginning of November 2022. The 197 parties will come together to develop solutions to the dire consequences of climate change that many people around the world are already experiencing. The war in Ukraine will require a different tone from last year’s COP, particularly given that major impacts of the war are being felt throughout Europe and have had a detrimental effect on the region’s progress in achieving the benchmarks set in their climate pledges. Last year’s COP opened with many climate advocates feeling optimistic but the commitments made in Glasgow have so far remained empty promises, and the main contributors to climate change – China, the European Union, and the United States of America – have not moved fast enough.

Keywords: environment, law and policy, climate change, greenhouse gas, conference of the parties, China, United States, European Union

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Authors: Xing Lyu

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Multimodal metaphor promotes the further development and refinement of multimodal discourse study. Cultural aspects matter a lot not only in creating but also in comprehending multimodal metaphor. By analyzing the target domain and the source domain in 10 public service advertisements of China and Germany about environmental protection, this paper compares the source when the target is alike in each multimodal metaphor in order to seek similarities and differences across cultures. The findings are as follows: first, the multimodal metaphors center around three major topics: the earth crisis, consequences of environmental damage, and appeal for environmental protection; second, the multimodal metaphors mainly grounded in three universal conceptual metaphors which focused on high level is up; earth is mother and all lives are precious. However, there are five Chinese culture-specific multimodal metaphors which are not discovered in Germany ads: east is high leve; a purposeful life is a journey; a nation is a person; good is clean, and water is mother. Since metaphors are excellent instruments on studying ideology, this study can be helpful on intercultural/cross-cultural communication.

Keywords: multimodal metaphor, cultural aspects, public service advertising, cross-cultural communication

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Authors: Asifa Fitriani, Galih Prakoso

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This study aims to improve the design layout of a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to minimize material handling and redesigning the layout of production facilities based on the safety and health and standards of food production facilities. Problems layout in the one of chip making industry mushrooms in Indonesia is cross movement between work stations, work accidents, and the standard of facilities that do not conform with the standards of the food industry. Improvement layout design using CORELAP and 5S method to give recommendation and implementation of occupational health and safety standards of food production facilities. From the analysis, improved layout using CORELAP provide a smaller displacement distance is 155.84 meters from the initial displacement distance of 335.9 meters, and providing a shorter processing time than the original 112.726 seconds to 102.831 seconds. 5S method also has recommended the completion of occupational health and safety issues as well as the standard means of food production by changing the working environment better.

Keywords: Layout Design, Corelap, 5S

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Authors: Tinu Rose Francis, S. Wilkinson, Y. Chang-Richards, S. Mannakkara

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The objective of this paper is to assess the implementation of Build Back Better (BBB) propositions for disaster risk reduction in the natural environment with regard to greater Christchurch, New Zealand, after the 2010–2011 earthquakes in the region. A set of indicators was established to analyse the extent of recovery attained in Christchurch. Disaster recovery in the region is an ongoing process, which gives us the opportunity to rate the progress made so far. Disasters cause significant damage to the built, social and economic environments and also have severe consequences for the natural environment. Findings show that greater Christchurch has made important progress and implemented a comprehensive natural environment recovery plan. The plan addresses the restoration of biodiversity, natural resources, disaster waste management and amenity values in greater Christchurch. This paper also surveys the risk reduction actions being implemented with regard to the natural environment. The findings of this study will help governing bodies to identify and fill the gaps in their natural environment recovery plans.

Keywords: build back better (BBB), natural environment, planning, recovery, reconstruction, resilience, risk reduction

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Authors: Erica Siqueira, Adriana Bin, Rachel Stefanuto

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The paper aims to identify and to discuss the impact and results of ex-ante, mid-term and ex-post evaluation initiatives in Brazilian Social Enterprises from the point of view of the entrepreneurs and investors, highlighting the processes involved in these activities and their aftereffects. The study was conducted using a descriptive methodology, primarily qualitative. A multiple-case study was used, and, for that, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten entrepreneurs in the (i) social finance, (ii) education, (iii) health, (iv) citizenship and (v) green tech fields, as well as three representatives of various impact investments, which are (i) venture capital, (ii) loan and (iii) equity interest areas. Convenience (non-probabilistic) sampling was adopted to select both businesses and investors, who voluntarily contributed to the research. The evaluation is still incipient in most of the studied business cases. Some stand out by adopting well-known methodologies like Global Impact Investing Report System (GIIRS), but still, have a lot to improve in several aspects. Most of these enterprises use nonexperimental research conducted by their own employees, which is ordinarily not understood as 'golden standard' to some authors in the area. Nevertheless, from the entrepreneur point of view, it is possible to identify that most of them including those routines in some extent in their day-by-day activities, despite the difficulty they have of the business in general. In turn, the investors do not have overall directions to establish evaluation initiatives in respective enterprises; they are funding. There is a mechanism of trust, and this is, usually, enough to prove the impact for all stakeholders. The work concludes that there is a large gap between what the literature states in regard to what should be the best practices in these businesses and what the enterprises really do. The evaluation initiatives must be included in some extension in all enterprises in order to confirm social impact that they realize. Here it is recommended the development and adoption of more flexible evaluation mechanisms that consider the complexity involved in these businesses’ routines. The reflections of the research also suggest important implications for the field of Social Enterprises, whose practices are far from what the theory preaches. It highlights the risk of the legitimacy of these enterprises that identify themselves as 'social impact', sometimes without the proper proof based on causality data. Consequently, this makes the field of social entrepreneurship fragile and susceptible to questioning, weakening the ecosystem as a whole. In this way, the top priorities of these enterprises must be handled together with the results and impact measurement activities. Likewise, it is recommended to perform further investigations that consider the trade-offs between impact versus profit. In addition, research about gender, the entrepreneur motivation to call themselves as Social Enterprises, and the possible unintended consequences from these businesses also should be investigated.

Keywords: evaluation practices, impact, results, social enterprise, social entrepreneurship ecosystem

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Authors: Mohammad H. Yarmohamadian, Reza Safdari, Nahid Tavakoli

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In recent years, many countries have suffered various natural disasters. Disaster response continues to face the challenges in health care sector in all countries. Information and communication management is a significant challenge in disaster scene. During the last decades, rapid advances in information technology have led to manage information effectively and improve communication in health care setting. Information technology is a vital solution for effective response to disasters and emergencies so that if an efficient ICT-based health information system is available, it will be highly valuable in such situation. Of that, mobile technology represents a nearly computing technology infrastructure that is accessible, convenient, inexpensive and easy to use. Most projects have not yet reached the deployment stage, but evaluation exercises show that mHealth should allow faster processing and transport of patients, improved accuracy of triage and better monitoring of unattended patients at a disaster scene. Since there is a high prevalence of cell phones among world population, it is expected the health care providers and managers to take measures for applying this technology for improvement patient safety and public health in disasters. At present there are challenges in the utilization of mhealth in disasters such as lack of structural and financial issues in our country. In this paper we will discuss about benefits and challenges of mhealth technology in disaster setting considering connectivity, usability, intelligibility, communication and teaching for implementing this technology for disaster response.

Keywords: information technology, mhealth, disaster, effective response

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Authors: Ebenezer Kwesi Armah-Ansah, Kenneth Fosu Oteng, Esther Selasi Avinu, Eugene Budu, Edward Kwabena Ameyaw

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Background: Maternal mortality, particularly in Benin, is a major public health concern in Sub-Saharan Africa. To provide a positive pregnancy experience and reduce maternal morbidities, all pregnant women must get appropriate and timely prenatal support. However, many pregnant women in developing countries, including Benin, begin antenatal care late. There is a paucity of empirical literature on the prevalence and predictors of early antenatal care visits in Benin. As a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence and predictors of early antenatal care visits among women of productive age in Benin. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of the 2017/2018 Benin Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) data. The study involved 6,919 eligible women. Data analysis was conducted using Stata version 14.2 for Mac OS. We adopted a multilevel logistic regression to examine the predictors of early ANC visits in Benin. The results were presented as odds ratios (ORs) associated with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and p-value <0.05 to determine the significant associations. Results: The prevalence of early ANC visits among pregnant women in Benin was 57.03% [95% CI: 55.41-58.64]. In the final multilevel logistic regression, early ANC visit was higher among women aged 30-34 [aOR=1.60, 95% CI=1.17-2.18] compared to those aged 15-19, women with primary education [aOR=1.22, 95% CI=1.06-142] compared to the non-educated women, women who were covered by health insurance [aOR=3.03, 95% CI=1.35-6.76], women without a big problem in getting the money needed for treatment [aOR=1.31, 95% CI=1.16-1.49], distance to the health facility, not a big problem [aOR=1.23, 95% CI=1.08-1.41], and women whose partners had secondary/higher education [aOR=1.35, 95% CI=1.15-1.57] compared with those who were not covered by health insurance, had big problem in getting money needed for treatment, distance to health facility is a big problem and whose partners had no education respectively. However, women who had four or more births [aOR=0.60, 95% CI=0.48-0.74] and those in Atacora Region [aOR=0.50, 95% CI=0.37-0.68] had lower odds of early ANC visit. Conclusion: This study revealed a relatively high prevalence of early ANC visits among women of reproductive age in Benin. Women's age, educational status of women and their partners, parity, health insurance coverage, distance to health facilities, and region were all associated with early ANC visits among women of reproductive in Benin. These factors ought to be taken into account when developing ANC policies and strategies in order to boost early ANC visits among women in Benin. This will significantly reduce maternal and newborn mortality and help achieve the World Health Organization’s recommendation that all pregnant women should initiate early ANC visits within the first three months of pregnancy.

Keywords: antenatal care, Benin, maternal health, pregnancy, DHS, public health

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Authors: Yakubu Bala Mohammed, Nadire Chavus, Mohammed Bulama

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Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) represents an artificial intelligence (AI) tool capable of swiftly generating comprehensive responses to prompts and follow-up inquiries. This emerging AI tool was introduced in November 2022 by OpenAI firm, an American AI research laboratory, utilizing substantial language models. This present study aims to delve into the potential future consequences of ChatGPT usage in education using AI-based algorithms. The paper will bring forth the likely potential risks of ChatGBT utilization, such as academic integrity concerns, unfair learning assessments, excessive reliance on AI, and dissemination of inaccurate information using four machine learning algorithms: eXtreme-Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), Support vector machine (SVM), Emotional artificial neural network (EANN), and Random forest (RF) would be used to analyze the study collected data due to their robustness. Finally, the findings of the study will assist education stakeholders in understanding the future implications of ChatGPT usage in education and propose solutions and directions for upcoming studies.

Keywords: machine learning, ChatGPT, education, learning, implications

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Authors: Mohsen Ehsanpour, Maryam Ehsanpour, ‎Majid Afkhami, Fatemeh Afkhami ‎

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Heavy metals are increasingly being released into natural waters from geological and anthropogenic sources. The distribution of several heavy metals (Cd, Pb) was investigated in muscle, liver in six different fish species seasonally collected in Persian Gulf (autumn 2009-summer 2010). The concentrations of all metals were lower in flesh than those recorded in liver due to their physiological roles. The THQ index for fish was calculated. Estimation of target hazard quotients calculations for the contaminated fish consumption was calculated to evaluate the effect of pollution on health. Total metal THQs values (Pb and Cd) for adults were 0.05 and 0.04 in Bushehr and Bandar-Genaveh, respectively, and for children they were 0.08 and 0.05 in Bandar-Abbas and Bandar-Lengeh, respectively.

Keywords: Persian Gulf, heavy metals, health risks, THQ index

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Authors: Anna Romanova, Mojtaba Mahmoodian, Upul Chandrasekara, Morteza A. Alani

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Corrosion of concrete sewer pipes induced by sulphuric acid attack is a recognised problem worldwide, which is not only an attribute of countries with hot climate conditions as thought before. The significance of this problem is by far only realised when the pipe collapses causing surface flooding and other severe consequences. To change the existing post-reactive attitude of managing companies, easy to use and robust models are required to be developed which currently lack reliable data to be correctly calibrated. This paper focuses on laboratory experiments of establishing concrete pipe corrosion rate by submerging samples in to 0.5 pH sulphuric acid solution for 56 days under 10ºC, 20ºC and 30ºC temperature regimes. The result showed that at very early stage of the corrosion process the samples gained overall mass, at 30ºC the corrosion progressed quicker than for other temperature regimes, however with time the corrosion level for 10ºC and 20ºC regimes tended towards those at 30ºC. Overall, at these conditions the corrosion rates of 10 mm/year, 13,5 mm/year, and 17 mm/year were observed.

Keywords: sewer pipes, concrete corrosion, sulphuric acid, concrete coupons, corrosion rate

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Authors: Nana Yaw Ofori Gyasi

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Under the Common Law, there was a procedure called pleading the belly which allowed a woman who had reached the advanced stage of pregnancy to receive a reprieve of her death sentence until after she had put to bed. The plea was replaced with a legislation, which provides that a pregnant woman would automatically have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour. This Common Law principle has been continued and enacted into law by the various countries where the Common Law is practiced. This paper takes a look at what it terms as Pregnancy Legislations in some selected Common Law countries such as United States of America, Canada, England and Wales, Ghana and India to examine the scope, procedure and effect of such legislations. The paper adopts a comparative study approach to ascertain the country with the widest scope, non-complicated procedure and far-reaching effects of the Pregnancy Legislations. It is observed that some legislations make provision for the conversion of death penalty to life imprisonment for capital offences and also prescribe non-custodial sentence for non-capital offences. There are other legislations that merely suspend the death penalty while the convict is found to be pregnant. In terms of the procedure, some of the legislations make the issue of pregnancy a question of fact to be determined by a jury and in other legislations, the trial judge makes that determination after the judge is satisfied on the question of the convict being pregnant. The effects of the Pregnancy Legislation are observed to be varying. Women who give birth in prison are highly at risk of having stillbirth. Most of the prisons do not have adequate facilities to support expectant and lactating mothers while in prison. It has also been observed that with the number of female prisoners increasing over the years, custodial sentence for convicted pregnant women has a wider societal effect. The paper identifies certain gaps left in some of the legislations which relate to the procedure to be followed after custodial sentence is suspended for a convicted pregnant woman. The time the accused person got pregnant- whether before her arrest or during trial- and the effect of the timing of the pregnancy are gaps left in some of the legislations. The paper argues that such gaps should be filled by the legislator to prevent accused persons taking undue advantage of the Pregnancy Legislations. It is further argued that if convicted pregnant women will have to spend time in prison at all for very heinous crimes, the prison facilities should be improved so that expectant and lactating mothers can comfortably care for their babies and themselves to prevent dire health consequences for such mothers and the society at a whole.

Keywords: sentence of pregnant women, custodial sentence, , pregnant women, , common law

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Authors: Dong Zhan

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China sports science is the core periodical of scientific research in the field of sports in China at present. It is the first academic periodical ranked in China. The author has studied the characteristics and trends of articles on sports medicine and physical fitness published in the journal since it founded. Now, the articles on sports medicine and physical fitness published in the Journal of Sports Science from 2013 to 2017 are reviewed. The results show that 1) The characteristics of previous sports medicine articles showed that there were more articles on the basis of sports medicine than that on the application. The research on animal experiments was far more than that on the human body. Moreover, the trend was getting worse and worse as time goes on. But in the past five years, there had been a marked improvement. The basic/application has been improved from 2.1/1 to 1.3/1. This shows that sports medicine researchers have been paid more attention to the application research in sports medicine. 2) There are few articles on sports injury, because the state put the sports injury specialty into the medical colleges, and the research scope of sports research institutes does not include sports injury. It cannot meet the need for the development of sports medicine, and it should change sooner or later. 3) In the past, researchers’ effort was on athletes' physical health, not on ordinary people. Now, there is a great change, they not only research on the sportsmen’s health but also research on the health of the ordinary people. 4) Researchers mainly studied on the young people’s physical fitness in the past; now, it has been greatly improved. Researchers study on the physical health of the elderly, especially those over the age of 60. Numbers of paper researching on the young were much more than those on the old. In the past 10 years, the ratio of number of paper researching on the young to the old people was (young/old) 16.6/1, while in the past 5 years, this ratio was 6.3/1. However, this is not enough. China has a large population and needs to focus on promoting the health of the people. Conclusion: It is important to pay more attention to the application research on sports medicine and on the physical fitness, and it is also important to make a research on physical health of the elderly.

Keywords: sports medicine, people's health, the young, the old

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Authors: Janeth Chepkemoi, Richard Onwonga, Noel Templer, Elkana Kipkoech, Angela Gitau

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Conventional agriculture is one of the leading causes of land degradation, threatening the sustainability of food production. Organic farming promotes practices that have the potential of feeding the world while also promoting ecological health. A study was therefore carried out with the aim of conceptualizing how such farming systems are contributing to ecological health in Trans Nzoia County. 71 farmers were interviewed and data was collected on parameters such as land preparation, agroforestry, soil fertility management, soil and water conservation, and pests and diseases. A soil sample was also collected from each farm for laboratory analysis. Data collected were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS version 21. Results showed that 66% of the respondents practiced organic farming whereas 34% practiced conventional farming. Intercropping and crop rotations were the most common cropping systems and the most preferred land preparation tools among both organic and conventional farmers were tractors and hand hoes. Organic farms fared better in agroforestry, organic soil amendments, land and water conservation, and soil chemical properties. Pests and disease, however, affected organic farms more than conventional. The average nitrogen (%), K (Cmol/ kg and P (ppm) of organic soils were 0.26, 0.7 and 26.18 respectively, conventional soils were 0.21, 0.66 and 22.85. Soil organic carbon content of organic farms averaged a higher percentage of 2.07% as compared to 1.91 for the conventional. In conclusion, most farmers in Trans Nzoia County had transitioned into ecologically friendly farming practices that improved the quality and health of the soil and therefore promoted its sustainability.

Keywords: organic farming, conventional farming, ecological health, soil health

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Authors: Ramu Rawat

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Background: This paper is an effort to analyze the role of education and occupation as critical determinants in using smokeless tobacco among male adults in India and its selected states. Methodology: Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) India 2009-10 data have been used for this study. Bivariate and Multivariate (Cox proportion hazards model) analyses are carried out to measure the impact of education and occupation on use of smokeless tobacco among male adults in India. Results and Conclusion: The study evidently suggests that, majority of Indian male adults are using Khaini and Gutkha (local names for smokeless tobacco). The analysis also shows that education and occupation are two important critical predictors of use of smokeless tobacco. The males at younger age with no or little education from rural area use smokeless tobacco more than their counterpart group from urban areas. This distinction can be attributable to their lack of knowledge or ignorance about the consequences of tobacco consumption. Place of residence played significant role for declining use of smokeless tobacco along with the effect of society. Society awareness about harmful effects of smokeless tobacco with local level government may play important role for controlling the use of any type of tobacco or tobacco products in India.

Keywords: smokeless tobacco, male, Khaini, education, occupation

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Authors: Jemima C. A. Sumboh

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Given the urgency and consensus for countries to move towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC), health financing systems need to be accurately and consistently monitored to provide valuable data to inform policy and practice. Most of the indicators for monitoring UHC, particularly catastrophe and impoverishment, are established based on the impact of out-of-pocket health payments (OOPHP) on households’ living standards, collected through varied household surveys. These surveys, however, vary substantially in survey methods such as the length of the recall period or the number of items included in the survey questionnaire or the farming of questions, potentially influencing the level of OOPHP. Using different survey instruments can provide inaccurate, inconsistent, erroneous and misleading estimates of UHC, subsequently influencing wrong policy decisions. Using data from a household budget survey conducted by the Navrongo Health Research Center in Ghana from May 2017 to December 2018, this study intends to explore the potential implications of using surveys with varied levels of disaggregation of OOPHP data on estimates of financial risk protection. The household budget survey, structured around food and non-food expenditure, compared three OOPHP measuring instruments: Version I (existing questions used to measure OOPHP in household budget surveys), Version II (new questions developed through benchmarking the existing Classification of the Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) OOPHP questions in household surveys) and Version III (existing questions used to measure OOPHP in health surveys integrated into household budget surveys- for this, the demographic and health surveillance (DHS) health survey was used). Version I, II and III contained 11, 44, and 56 health items, respectively. However, the choice of recall periods was held constant across versions. The sample size for Version I, II and III were 930, 1032 and 1068 households, respectively. Financial risk protection will be measured based on the catastrophic and impoverishment methodologies using STATA 15 and Adept Software for each version. It is expected that findings from this study will present valuable contributions to the repository of knowledge on standardizing survey instruments to obtain estimates of financial risk protection that are valid and consistent.

Keywords: Ghana, household budget surveys, measuring financial risk protection, out-of-pocket health payments, survey instruments, universal health coverage

Procedia PDF Downloads 132