Search results for: safety training

Authors: Ema Vitória Fonseca Lavrador

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In this work, we intend to explore the impact that the film "Lightyear" (2022) had on the social context of its production, distribution, and reception. This film, produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, depicts the story of Buzz Lightyear, a Space Ranger from which the character of the same name in the "Toy Story" film franchise is based. This prequel was predicted to be the blockbuster of the year, but it was a financial fiasco and the subject of numerous controversies, which also caused it to be drowned out by the film "Minions: The Rise of Gru" (2022). The reason for its failure is not based on the film's narrative or quality but on its controversial context for being a commitment to LGBTQIA+ representation in an unexpected way, by featuring a same-sex couple and showing a kiss shared by them. This representation cost Disney distribution in countries against LGBTQIA+ representation in media and involved Disney in major disagreements with fans and politicians, especially for being a direct opposition to the Florida House Bill 1557, also called the “Don't Say Gay” bill. Many major companies have taken a stand against this law because it jeopardizes the safety of the LGBTQIA+ community, and, although Disney initially cut the kiss off the film, pressure from the staff and audience resulted in unprecedented progress. For featuring a brief homosexual kiss, its exhibition was banned in several countries and discouraged by the same public that was previously the focus of Disney's attention, as this is a conservative “family-friendly” branded company. We believe it is relevant to study the case of "Lightyear" because it is a work that raises awareness and promotes representation of communities affected during the dark times while less legislation is being approved to protect the rights and safety of queer people.

Keywords: Don’t Say Gay” bill, gender stereotypes, LGBTQIA+ representation, lightyear, Disney/Pixar

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Authors: Byung Keun Yang, Jae Eun Ku, Young Seon Joo, Je Sung You, Sung Phil Chung, Hahn Shick Lee

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The purpose of this study is to review the evidence comparing the efficacy and safety between L-carnitine and extracorporeal elimination therapy in the management of acute valproic acid L-carnitine vs Extracorporeal Elimination for Acute Valproic acid Intoxication. PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library, Web of Science, KoreaMed, KMbase, and KISS were searched, using the terms carnitine and valproic acid. All studies, regardless of design, reporting efficacy or safety endpoints were included. Reference citations from identified publications were reviewed. Both English and Korean languages were included. Two authors extracted primary data elements including poisoning severity, presenting features, clinical management, and outcomes. Thirty two articles including 33 cases were identified. Poisoning severity was classified as 3 mild, 11 moderate, and 19 severe cases. Nine cases were treated with L-carnitine while 24 cases received extracorporeal therapy without L-carnitine. All patients except one expired patient treated with hemodialysis recovered clinically and no adverse effects were noted. A case report comparing two patients who ingested the same amount of valproic acid showed increased ICU stay (3 vs. 11 days) in case of delayed extracorporeal therapy. Published evidence comparing L-carnitine with extracorporeal therapy is limited. Based on the available evidence, it is reasonable to consider L-carnitine for patients with acute valproic acid overdose. In case of severe poisoning, extracorporeal therapy would also be considered in the early phase of treatment.

Keywords: carnitine, overdose, poisoning, renal dialysis, valproic acid

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Authors: Ande Nesmith

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There is an ongoing shortage of foster parents worldwide to take on a growing population of children in need of out-of-home care. Currently, resources are primarily aimed at recruitment rather than retention. Retention rates are extraordinarily low, especially in the first two years of fostering. Qualitative interviews with 19 foster parents averaging 20 years of service provided insight into the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts identified sources of stress and resiliency. Key stressors included lack of support and responsiveness from the children’s social workers, false maltreatment allegations, and secondary trauma from children’s destructive behaviors and emotional dysregulation. Resilient parents connected with other foster parents for support, engaged in creative problem-solving, recognized that positive feedback from children usually arrives years later, and through training, understood the neurobiological impact of trauma on child behavior. Recommendations include coordinating communication between the foster parent licensing agency social workers and the children’s social workers, creating foster parent support networks and mentoring, and continuous training on trauma including effective parenting strategies. Research is needed to determine whether these resilience indicators in fact lead to long-term retention. Policies should include a mechanism to develop a cohesive line of communication and connection between foster parents and the children’s social workers as well as their respective agencies.

Keywords: foster care stability, foster parent burnout, foster parent resiliency, foster parent retention, trauma-informed fostering

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Authors: Sonja Goegele, Petra Kletzenbauer

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The FH JOANNEUM- a university of applied sciences based in Austria - cooperates in teaching and research with well-known international universities and thus aims to foster so-called strategic partnerships. The exchange of university lecturers and other faculty members is a way to achieve and secure strategic company goals, in which excellent research and teaching play a central role in order to improve both the development of academics and administration. Thanks to mobility not only the university but also the involved people truly benefit in their professional development which can be seen on several levels: increased foreign language proficiency, excellent networking possibilities within the scientific community as well as reinforced didactic competencies in the form of different teaching and learning methodologies. The paper discusses mobility in the light of the university’s strategic paper entitled ‘Hands on 2022’ by presenting results from an empirical research study among faculty members who participate in exchange programmes on a regular basis. In the form of an online questionnaire, mobility was discussed from different angles such as networking, collaborative research, professional training for academics and the overall impact of the exchange within and outside the organization. From the findings, it can be concluded that mobility is an asset for any university. However, keeping in constant dialogue with partner universities requires more than the purpose of the exchange itself. Building rapport and keeping a relationship of trust are challenges that need to be addressed more closely in order to run successful mobility programmes. Best Practice examples should highlight the importance of mobility as a vital initiative to transfer disciplines.

Keywords: higher education, internationalization, mobility, strategic partnerships

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Authors: Rafat Alwazna

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Translation teaching is a particular activity that includes translators and interpreters training either inside or outside institutionalised settings, such as universities. It can also serve as a means of teaching other fields, such as foreign languages. Translation teaching began in the twentieth century. Teachers of translation hold the responsibilities of educating students, developing their translation competence and training them to be professional translators. The activity of translation teaching involves various tasks, including curriculum design, course delivery, material writing as well as application and implementation. The present paper addresses translation teaching during COVID-19 outbreak, seeking to find out the challenges encountered by translation teachers in online translation teaching and the discoveries/solutions arrived at to resolve them. The paper makes use of a comprehensive questionnaire, containing closed-ended and open-ended questions to elicit both quantitative as well as qualitative data from about sixty translation teachers who have been teaching translation at BA and MA levels during COVID-19 outbreak. The data shows that about 40% of the participants evaluate their online translation teaching experience during COVID-19 outbreak as enjoyable and exhilarating. On the contrary, no participant has evaluated his/her online translation teaching experience as being not good, nor has any participant evaluated his/her online translation teaching experience as being terrible. The data also presents that about 23.33% of the participants evaluate their online translation teaching experience as very good, and the same percentage applies to those who evaluate their online translation teaching experience as good to some extent. Moreover, the data indicates that around 13.33% of the participants evaluate their online translation teaching experience as good. The data also demonstrates that the majority of the participants have encountered obstacles in online translation teaching and have concurrently proposed solutions to resolve them.

Keywords: online translation teaching, electronic learning platform, COVID-19 outbreak, challenges, solutions

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Authors: Ru-Yin Yang, Chi Wu, Cheng-Yu Tsai, Yin-Tzu Lin, Wen-Te Liu

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Background: Sleep breathing disorder (SDB) is a condition demonstrated by recurrent episodes of the airway obstruction leading to intermittent hypoxia and quality fragmentation during sleep time. However, the procedures for SDB severity examination remain complicated and costly. Objective: The objective of this study is to establish a simplified examination method for SDB by the respiratory impendence pattern sensor combining the signal processing and machine learning model. Methodologies: We records heart rate variability by the electrocardiogram and respiratory pattern by impendence. After the polysomnography (PSG) been done with the diagnosis of SDB by the apnea and hypopnea index (AHI), we calculate the episodes with the absence of flow and arousal index (AI) from device record. Subjects were divided into training and testing groups. Neuron network was used to establish a prediction model to classify the severity of the SDB by the AI, episodes, and body profiles. The performance was evaluated by classification in the testing group compared with PSG. Results: In this study, we enrolled 66 subjects (Male/Female: 37/29; Age:49.9±13.2) with the diagnosis of SDB in a sleep center in Taipei city, Taiwan, from 2015 to 2016. The accuracy from the confusion matrix on the test group by NN is 71.94 %. Conclusion: Based on the models, we established a prediction model for SDB by means of the wearable sensor. With more cases incoming and training, this system may be used to rapidly and automatically screen the risk of SDB in the future.

Keywords: sleep breathing disorder, apnea and hypopnea index, body parameters, neuron network

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Authors: I. Szer, J. Szer, K. Czarnocki, E. Błazik-Borowa

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People on construction scaffoldings work in dynamically changing, often unfavourable climate. Additionally, this kind of work is performed on low stiffness structures at high altitude, which increases the risk of accidents. It is therefore desirable to define the parameters of the work environment that contribute to increasing the construction worker occupational safety level. The aim of this article is to present how changes in microclimate parameters on scaffolding can impact the development of dangerous situations and accidents. For this purpose, indicators based on the human thermal balance were used. However, use of this model under construction conditions is often burdened by significant errors or even impossible to implement due to the lack of precise data. Thus, in the target model, the modified parameter was used – apparent environmental temperature. Apparent temperature in the proposed Scaffold Use Risk Assessment Model has been a perceived outdoor temperature, caused by the combined effects of air temperature, radiative temperature, relative humidity and wind speed (wind chill index, heat index). In the paper, correlations between component factors and apparent temperature for facade scaffolding with a width of 24.5 m and a height of 42.3 m, located at south-west side of building are presented. The distribution of factors on the scaffolding has been used to evaluate fitting of the microclimate model. The results of the studies indicate that observed ranges of apparent temperature on the scaffolds frequently results in a worker’s inability to adapt. This leads to reduced concentration and increased fatigue, adversely affects health, and consequently increases the risk of dangerous situations and accidental injuries

Keywords: apparent temperature, health, safety work, scaffoldings

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Authors: Yehjune Heo

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Fingerprint Anti-Spoofing approaches have been actively developed and applied in real-world applications. One of the main problems for Fingerprint Anti-Spoofing is not robust to unseen samples, especially in real-world scenarios. A possible solution will be to generate artificial, but realistic fingerprint samples and use them for training in order to achieve good generalization. This paper contains experimental and comparative results with currently popular GAN based methods and uses realistic synthesis of fingerprints in training in order to increase the performance. Among various GAN models, the most popular StyleGAN is used for the experiments. The CNN models were first trained with the dataset that did not contain generated fake images and the accuracy along with the mean average error rate were recorded. Then, the fake generated images (fake images of live fingerprints and fake images of spoof fingerprints) were each combined with the original images (real images of live fingerprints and real images of spoof fingerprints), and various CNN models were trained. The best performances for each CNN model, trained with the dataset of generated fake images and each time the accuracy and the mean average error rate, were recorded. We observe that current GAN based approaches need significant improvements for the Anti-Spoofing performance, although the overall quality of the synthesized fingerprints seems to be reasonable. We include the analysis of this performance degradation, especially with a small number of samples. In addition, we suggest several approaches towards improved generalization with a small number of samples, by focusing on what GAN based approaches should learn and should not learn.

Keywords: anti-spoofing, CNN, fingerprint recognition, GAN

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Authors: Tracey Bone

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Deaf inmates, whose first or preferred language is a Signed Language, experience barriers to accessing the necessary two-way communication with correctional staff, and the educational and social programs that will enhance their eligibility for conditional release from the federal prison system in Canada. The development of visual content to enhance the knowledge and skill development of correctional staff is a contemporary strategy intended to significantly improve the correctional experience for deaf inmates. This presentation reports on the development of two distinct training videos created to enhance staff’s understanding of the needs of deaf inmates; one a two-part simulation of an interaction with a deaf inmate, the second an interview with a deaf academic. Part one of video one demonstrates the challenges and misunderstandings inherent in communicating across languages without a qualified sign language interpreter; the second part demonstrates the ease of communication when communication needs are met. Video two incorporates the experiences of a deaf academic to provide the cultural grounding necessary to educate staff in the unique experiences associated with being a visual language user. Lack of staff understanding or awareness of deaf culture and language must not be acceptable reasons for the inadequate treatment of deaf visual language users in federal prisons. This paper demonstrates a contemporary approach to meeting the human rights and needs of this unique and often ignored inmate subpopulation. The deaf community supports this visual approach to enhancing staff understanding of the unique needs of this population. A study of its effectiveness is currently underway.

Keywords: accommodations, American Sign Language (ASL), deaf inmates, sensory deprivation

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Authors: Erva Akin

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– The use of copyrighted material for machine learning purposes is a challenging issue in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). While machine learning algorithms require large amounts of data to train and improve their accuracy and creativity, the use of copyrighted material without permission from the authors may infringe on their intellectual property rights. In order to overcome copyright legal hurdle against the data sharing, access and re-use of data, the use of copyrighted material for machine learning purposes may be considered permissible under certain circumstances. For example, if the copyright holder has given permission to use the data through a licensing agreement, then the use for machine learning purposes may be lawful. It is also argued that copying for non-expressive purposes that do not involve conveying expressive elements to the public, such as automated data extraction, should not be seen as infringing. The focus of such ‘copy-reliant technologies’ is on understanding language rules, styles, and syntax and no creative ideas are being used. However, the non-expressive use defense is within the framework of the fair use doctrine, which allows the use of copyrighted material for research or educational purposes. The questions arise because the fair use doctrine is not available in EU law, instead, the InfoSoc Directive provides for a rigid system of exclusive rights with a list of exceptions and limitations. One could only argue that non-expressive uses of copyrighted material for machine learning purposes do not constitute a ‘reproduction’ in the first place. Nevertheless, the use of machine learning with copyrighted material is difficult because EU copyright law applies to the mere use of the works. Two solutions can be proposed to address the problem of copyright clearance for AI training data. The first is to introduce a broad exception for text and data mining, either mandatorily or for commercial and scientific purposes, or to permit the reproduction of works for non-expressive purposes. The second is that copyright laws should permit the reproduction of works for non-expressive purposes, which opens the door to discussions regarding the transposition of the fair use principle from the US into EU law. Both solutions aim to provide more space for AI developers to operate and encourage greater freedom, which could lead to more rapid innovation in the field. The Data Governance Act presents a significant opportunity to advance these debates. Finally, issues concerning the balance of general public interests and legitimate private interests in machine learning training data must be addressed. In my opinion, it is crucial that robot-creation output should fall into the public domain. Machines depend on human creativity, innovation, and expression. To encourage technological advancement and innovation, freedom of expression and business operation must be prioritised.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, copyright, data governance, machine learning

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Authors: Raad Nari, Maura Moriaty, Maha T. Barakat

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Introduction: Sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors are a new class of oral anti-diabetic drugs with a unique mechanism of action. They are used to improve glycaemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes by enhancing urinary glucose excretion. In the UAE, there has been certainly an increased use of these medications. As with any new medication, there are safety considerations related to their use in patients with type two diabetes. A retrospective study was conducted at the three main centres of the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre. Methodology: All patients in electronic database (Diamond) from October 2014 to October 2017 were included with a minimum of six months usage of sodium glucose co-transporter inhibitors that comprise canagliflozin, dapagliflozin and empagliflozin. There were 15 paired sample biochemical and clinical correlations. The analysis was done at the start of the study, three months and six months apart. SPSS version 24 was used for this study. Conclusion: This study of sodium glucose co-transporter-2 inhibitors used showed significant reductions in weight, glycated haemoglobin A1C, systolic and diastolic blood pressures. As the case with systematic reviews, there were similar changes in liver enzymes, raised total cholesterol, low density lipopoptein and high density lipoprotein. There was slight improvement in estimated glomerular filtration rate too. Our analysis also showed that they increased in the incidence of urinary tract symptoms and incidence of urinary tract infections.

Keywords: SGLT2 inhibitors dapagliflozin empagliflozin canagliflozin, adverse effects, amputation diabetic ketoacidosis DKA, urinary tract infection

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Authors: Stephens Oluyemi Adetunji, Nel Norma Margaret, Naidu Narainsamy

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Empathy has been identified by researchers to be a crucial factor in helping adolescents to refrain from delinquent behavior. Adolescent delinquent behavior is a social problem that has become a source of concern to parents, psychologists, educators, correctional services, researchers as well as governments of nations. Empathy is a social skill that enables an individual to understand and to share another’s emotional state. An individual with a high level of empathy will avoid any act or behavior that will affect another person negatively. The need for this study is predicated on the fact that delinquent adolescent behavior could lead to adult criminality. This, in the long run, has the potential of resulting in an increase in crime rate thereby threatening public safety. It has therefore become imperative to explore the level of empathy of delinquent adolescents who have committed crime and are awaiting trial. It is the conjecture of this study that knowledge of the empathy level of delinquent adolescents will provide an opportunity to design an intervention strategy to remediate the deficit. This study was therefore designed to determine the level of empathy of delinquent adolescents. In addition, this study provides a better understanding of factors that may prevent adolescents from developing delinquent behavior, in this case, delinquents’ empathy levels. In the case of participants who have a low level of empathy, remediation strategies to improve their empathy level would be designed. Two research questions were raised to guide this study. A mixed methods research design was employed for the study. The sample consists of fifteen male adolescents who are between 13-18 years old with a mean age of 16.5 years old. The participants are adolescents who are awaiting trial. The non-probability sampling technique was used to obtain the sample for the quantitative study while purposive sampling was used in the case of the qualitative study. A self–report questionnaire and structured interview were used to assess the level of empathy of participants. The data obtained was analysed using the simple percentages for the quantitative data and transcribing the qualitative data. The result indicates that most of the participants have low level of empathy. It is also revealed that there is a difference in the empathy level on the basis of whether they are from parents living together and those whose parents are separated. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that the level of empathy of participants be improved through training and emphasizing the importance of stimulating family environment for children. It is also recommended that programs such as youth mentoring and youth sheltering be established by the government of South Africa to address the menace of delinquent adolescents.

Keywords: adolescents, behavior, delinquents, empathy

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Authors: Kyu Jin Kim, Byung Kwan Oh, Hyo Seon Park

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The seismic responses-based structural health monitoring system has been performed to prevent seismic damage. Structural seismic damage of building is caused by the instantaneous stress concentration which is related with dynamic characteristic of earthquake. Meanwhile, seismic response analysis to estimate the dynamic responses of building demands significantly high computational cost. To prevent the failure of structural members from the characteristic of the earthquake and the significantly high computational cost for seismic response analysis, this paper presents an artificial neural network (ANN) based prediction model for dynamic responses of building considering specific time length. Through the measured dynamic responses, input and output node of the ANN are formed by the length of specific time, and adopted for the training. In the model, evolutionary radial basis function neural network (ERBFNN), that radial basis function network (RBFN) is integrated with evolutionary optimization algorithm to find variables in RBF, is implemented. The effectiveness of the proposed model is verified through an analytical study applying responses from dynamic analysis for multi-degree of freedom system to training data in ERBFNN.

Keywords: structural health monitoring, dynamic response, artificial neural network, radial basis function network, genetic algorithm

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Authors: Sonia Arradaza-Pajaron

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College students are expected to engage in an on-the-job training or internship for completion of a course requirement prior to graduation. In this scenario, they are exposed to the real world of work outside their training institution. To find out their readiness both emotionally and academically, this study has been conducted. A descriptive-correlational research design was employed and random sampling technique method was utilized among 265 randomly selected third year college students of PIT, SY 2014-15. A questionnaire on Emotional Intelligence (bearing the four components namely; emotional literacy, emotional quotient competence, values and beliefs and emotional quotient outcomes) was fielded to the respondents and GWA was extracted from the school automate. Data collected were statistically treated using percentage, weighted mean and Pearson-r for correlation. Results revealed that respondents’ emotional intelligence level is moderately high while their academic performance is good. A high significant relationship was found between the EI component; Emotional Literacy and their academic performance while only significant relationship was found between Emotional Quotient Outcomes and their academic performance. Therefore, if EI influences academic performance significantly when correlated, a possibility that their OJT performance can also be affected either positively or negatively. Thus, EI can be considered predictor of their academic and academic-related performance. Based on the result, it is then recommended that the institution would try to look deeply into the consideration of embedding emotional intelligence as part of the (especially on Emotional Literacy and Emotional Quotient Outcomes of the students) college curriculum. It can be done if the school shall have an effective Emotional Intelligence framework or program manned by qualified and competent teachers, guidance counselors in different colleges in its implementation.

Keywords: academic performance, emotional intelligence, college students, academic success

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Authors: A. Sekhar, N. Ramakrishna Raju

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This paper is a result of ground improvement using deep vibro techniques with combination of sand and stone columns performed on a highly liquefaction susceptible site (70 to 80% sand strata and balance silt) with low bearing capacities due to high settlements located (earth quake zone V as per IS code) at Madhepura, Bihar state in northern part of India. Initially, it was envisaged with bored cast in-situ/precast piles, stone/sand columns. However, after detail analysis to address both liquefaction and improve bearing capacities simultaneously, it was analyzed the deep vibro techniques with combination of sand and stone columns is excellent solution for given site condition which may be first time in India. First after detail soil investigation, pre eCPT test was conducted to evaluate the potential depth of liquefaction to densify silty sandy soils to improve factor of safety against liquefaction. Then trail test were being carried out at site by deep vibro compaction technique with sand and stone columns combination with different spacings of columns in triangular shape with different timings during each lift of vibro up to ground level. Different spacings and timing was done to obtain the most effective spacing and timing with vibro compaction technique to achieve maximum densification of saturated loose silty sandy soils uniformly for complete treated area. Then again, post eCPT test and plate load tests were conducted at all trail locations of different spacings and timing of sand and stone columns to evaluate the best results for obtaining the required factor of safety against liquefaction and the desired bearing capacities with reduced settlements for construction of industrial structures. After reviewing these results, it was noticed that the ground layers are densified more than the expected with improved factor of safety against liquefaction and achieved good bearing capacities for a given settlements as per IS codal provisions. It was also worked out for cost-effectiveness of lightly loaded single storied structures by using deep vibro technique with sand column avoiding stone. The results were observed satisfactory for resting the lightly loaded foundations. In this technique, the most important is to mitigating liquefaction with improved bearing capacities and reduced settlements to acceptable limits as per IS: 1904-1986 simultaneously up to a depth of 19M. To our best knowledge it was executed first time in India.

Keywords: ground improvement, deep vibro techniques, liquefaction, bearing capacity, settlement

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Authors: M. Saard, A. Kolk, K. Sepp, L. Pertens, L. Reinart, C. Kööp

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Introduction: Social competence is often impaired in children with acquired brain injury (ABI), but evidence-based rehabilitation for social skills has remained undeveloped. Modern technology-based methods create effective and safe learning environments for pediatric social skills remediation. The aim of the study was to implement our structured model of neuro rehab for socio-cognitive deficit using multitouch-multiuser tabletop (MMT) computer-based platforms and virtual reality (VR) technology. Methods: 40 children aged 8-13 years (yrs) have participated in the pilot study: 30 with ABI -epilepsy, traumatic brain injury and/or tic disorder- and 10 healthy age-matched controls. From the patients, 12 have completed the training (M = 11.10 yrs, SD = 1.543) and 20 are still in training or in the waiting-list group (M = 10.69 yrs, SD = 1.704). All children performed the first individual and paired assessments. For patients, second evaluations were performed after the intervention period. Two interactive applications were implemented into rehabilitation design: Snowflake software on MMT tabletop and NoProblem on DiamondTouch Table (DTT), which allowed paired training (2 children at once). Also, in individual training sessions, HTC Vive VR device was used with VR metaphors of difficult social situations to treat social anxiety and train social skills. Results: At baseline (B) evaluations, patients had higher deficits in executive functions on the BRIEF parents’ questionnaire (M = 117, SD = 23.594) compared to healthy controls (M = 22, SD = 18.385). The most impaired components of social competence were emotion recognition, Theory of Mind skills (ToM), cooperation, verbal/non-verbal communication, and pragmatics (Friendship Observation Scale scores only 25-50% out of 100% for patients). In Sentence Completion Task and Spence Anxiety Scale, the patients reported a lack of friends, behavioral problems, bullying in school, and social anxiety. Outcome evaluations: Snowflake on MMT improved executive and cooperation skills and DTT developed communication skills, metacognitive skills, and coping. VR, video modelling and role-plays improved social attention, emotional attitude, gestural behaviors, and decreased social anxiety. NEPSY-II showed improvement in Affect Recognition [B = 7, SD = 5.01 vs outcome (O) = 10, SD = 5.85], Verbal ToM (B = 8, SD = 3.06 vs O = 10, SD = 4.08), Contextual ToM (B = 8, SD = 3.15 vs O = 11, SD = 2.87). ToM Stories test showed an improved understanding of Intentional Lying (B = 7, SD = 2.20 vs O = 10, SD = 0.50), and Sarcasm (B=6, SD = 2.20 vs O = 7, SD = 2.50). Conclusion: Neurorehabilitation based on the Structured Model of Neurorehab for Socio-Cognitive Deficit in children with ABI were effective in social skills remediation. The model helps to understand theoretical connections between components of social competence and modern interactive computerized platforms. We encourage therapists to implement these next-generation devices into the rehabilitation process as MMT and VR interfaces are motivating for children, thus ensuring good compliance. Improving children’s social skills is important for their and their families’ quality of life and social capital.

Keywords: acquired brain injury, children, social skills deficit, technology-based neurorehabilitation

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Authors: Mareen Brosterhaus, Antje Hammer, Steffen Kalina, Stefan Grau, Anjali A. Roeth, Hany Ashmawy, Thomas Gross, Marcel Binnebosel, Wolfram T. Knoefel, Tanja Manser

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Background: The identification of critical incidents in hospitals is an essential component of improving patient safety. To date, various methods have been used to measure and characterize such critical incidents. These methods are often viewed by physicians and nurses as external quality assurance, and this creates obstacles to the reporting events and the implementation of recommendations in practice. One way to overcome this problem is to use tools that directly involve staff in measuring indicators of quality and safety of care in the department. One such instrument is the global trigger tool (GTT), which helps physicians and nurses identify adverse events by systematically reviewing randomly selected patient records. Based on so-called ‘triggers’ (warning signals), indications of adverse events can be given. While the tool is already used internationally, its implementation in German hospitals has been very limited. Objectives: This study aimed to assess the feasibility and potential of the global trigger tool for identifying adverse events in German hospitals. Methods: A total of 120 patient records were randomly selected from two surgical, and one neurosurgery, departments of three university hospitals in Germany over a period of two months per department between January and July, 2017. The records were reviewed using an adaptation of the German version of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Global Trigger Tool to identify triggers and adverse event rates per 1000 patient days and per 100 admissions. The severity of adverse events was classified using the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention. Results: A total of 53 adverse events were detected in the three departments. This corresponded to adverse event rates of 25.5-72.1 per 1000 patient-days and from 25.0 to 60.0 per 100 admissions across the three departments. 98.1% of identified adverse events were associated with non-permanent harm without (Category E–71.7%) or with (Category F–26.4%) the need for prolonged hospitalization. One adverse event (1.9%) was associated with potentially permanent harm to the patient. We also identified practical challenges in the implementation of the tool, such as the need for adaptation of the global trigger tool to the respective department. Conclusions: The global trigger tool is feasible and an effective instrument for quality measurement when adapted to the departmental specifics. Based on our experience, we recommend a continuous use of the tool thereby directly involving clinicians in quality improvement.

Keywords: adverse events, global trigger tool, patient safety, record review

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Authors: Priyajeet Kaur Kaleka

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Introduction: A dentist is often the first responder in the battle for a patient’s healthy body and maybe the first health professional to observe signs of child abuse, be it physical, emotional, and/or sexual mistreatment. Therefore, it is an ethical responsibility for the dental clinician to detect and report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect (CAN). The main reasons for not reporting suspected cases of CAN, with special emphasis on the third: 1) Uncertainty of the diagnosis, 2) Lack of knowledge of the reporting procedure, and 3) Child abuse and neglect somewhat remained the subject of ignorance among dental professionals because of a lack of advance clinical training. Given these epidemic proportions, there is a scope of further research about dental school curriculum design. Purpose: This study aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude of dentists in Canada regarding signs and symptoms of child abuse and neglect (CAN), reporting procedures, and whether educational strategies followed by dental schools address this sensitive issue. In pursuit of that aim, this abstract summarizes the evidence related to this question. Materials and Methods: Data was collected through a specially designed questionnaire adapted and modified from the author’s previous cross-sectional study on (CAN), which was conducted in Pune, India, in 2016 and is available on the database of PubMed. Design: A random sample was drawn from the targeted population of registered dentists and dental students in Canada regarding their knowledge, professional responsibilities, and behavior concerning child abuse. Questionnaire data were distributed to 200 members. Out of which, a total number of 157 subjects were in the final sample for statistical analysis, yielding response of 78.5%. Results: Despite having theoretical information on signs and symptoms, 55% of the participants indicated they are not confident to detect child physical abuse cases. 90% of respondents believed that recognition and handling the CAN cases should be a part of undergraduate training. Only 4.5% of the participants have correctly identified all signs of abuse due to inadequate formal training in dental schools and workplaces. Although nearly 96.3% agreed that it is a dentist’s legal responsibility to report CAN, only a small percentage of the participants reported an abuse case in the past. While 72% stated that the most common factor that might prevent a dentist from reporting a case was doubt over the diagnosis. Conclusion: The goal is to motivate dental schools to deal with this critical issue and provide their students with consummate training to strengthen their capability to care for and protect children. The educational institutions should make efforts to spread awareness among dental students regarding the management and tackling of CAN. Clinical Significance: There should be modifications in the dental school curriculum focusing on problem-based learning models to assist graduates to fulfill their legal and professional responsibilities. CAN literacy should be incorporated into the dental curriculum, which will eventually benefit future dentists to break this intergenerational cycle of violence.

Keywords: abuse, child abuse and neglect, dentist knowledge, dental school curriculum, problem-based learning

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Authors: Bi Xiao Fang, Tan Bao Zhen

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Soft skills, core competencies, and generic competencies are exchangeable terminologies often used to represent a similar concept. In the Singapore context, such skills are currently being referred to as Critical Core Skills (CCS). In 2019, SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG) reviewed the Generic Skills and Competencies (GSC) framework that was first introduced in 2016, culminating in the development of the Critical Core Skills (CCS) framework comprising 16 soft skills classified into three clusters. The CCS framework is part of the Skills Framework, and whose stated purpose is to create a common skills language for individuals, employers and training providers. It is also developed with the objectives of building deep skills for a lean workforce, enhance business competitiveness and support employment and employability. This further helps to facilitate skills recognition and support the design of training programs for skills and career development. According to SSG, every job role requires a set of technical skills and a set of Critical Core Skills to perform well at work, whereby technical skills refer to skills required to perform key tasks of the job. There has been an increasing emphasis on soft skills for the future of work. A recent study involving approximately 80 organizations across 28 sectors in Singapore revealed that more enterprises are beginning to recognize that soft skills support their employees’ performance and business competitiveness. Though CCS is of high importance for the development of the workforce’s employability, there is little attention paid to the CCS use and profiling across occupations. A better understanding of how CCS is distributed across the economy will thus significantly enhance SSG’s career guidance services as well as training providers’ services to graduates and workers and guide organizations in their hiring for soft skills. This CCS profiling study sought to understand how CCS is demanded in different occupations. To achieve its research objectives, this study adopted a quantitative method to measure CCS use across different occupations in the Singaporean workforce. Based on the CCS framework developed by SSG, the research team adopted a formative approach to developing the CCS profiling tool to measure the importance of and self-efficacy in the use of CCS among the Singaporean workforce. Drawing on the survey results from 2500 participants, this study managed to profile them into seven occupation groups based on the different patterns of importance and confidence levels of the use of CCS. Each occupation group is labeled according to the most salient and demanded CCS. In the meantime, the CCS in each occupation group, which may need some further strengthening, were also identified. The profiling of CCS use has significant implications for different stakeholders, e.g., employers could leverage the profiling results to hire the staff with the soft skills demanded by the job.

Keywords: employability, skills profiling, skills measurement, soft skills

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Authors: Lian Zeng

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Double-Spear 1-H2-1 (DS1-H2-1) is an oncolytic virus and an innovative biological drug candidate. The chemical composition of the drug product is a live attenuated West Nile virus (WNV) containing the human T cell costimulator (CD86) gene. After intratumoral injection, the virus can rapidly self-replicate in the injected site and lyse/kill the tumor by repeated infection among tumor cells. We also established xenograft tumor models in mice to evaluate the drug candidate's efficacy on those tumors. The results from preclinical studies on transplanted tumors in immunodeficient mice showed that DS1-H2-1 had significant oncolytic effects on human-origin cancers: it completely (100%) shrieked human glioma; limited human neuroblastoma growth reached as high as 95% growth inhibition rate (%TGITW). The safety data of preclinical animal experiments confirmed that DS1-H2-1 is safe as a biological drug for clinical use. In the preclinical drug efficacy experiment, virus-drug administration with different doses did not show abnormal signs and disease symptoms in more than 300 tested mice, and no side effects or death occurred through various administration routes. Intravenous administration did not cause acute infectious disease or other side effects. However, the replication capacity of the virus in tumor tissue via intravenous administration is only 1% of that of direct intratumoral administration. The direct intratumoral administration of DS1-H2-1 had a higher rate of viral replication. Therefore, choosing direct intratumoral injection can ensure both efficacy and safety.

Keywords: oncolytic virus, WNV-CD86, immunotherapy drugs, glioma, neuroblastoma

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Authors: Ahmed Ali Torad

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Background: Breast feeding maintains the maternal fetal immunological link, favours the transmission of immune-competence from the mother to her infant and is considered an important contributory factor to the neo natal immune defense system. Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of relaxation techniques on immunological properties of breast milk. Subjects and Methods: Thirty breast feeding mothers with a single, mature infant without any complications participated in the study. Subjects will be recruited from outpatient clinic of obstetric department of El Kasr El-Aini university hospital in Cairo. Mothers were randomly divided into two equal groups using coin toss method: Group (A) (relaxation training group) (experimental group): It will be composed of 15 women who received relaxation training program in addition to breast feeding and nutritional advices and Group (B) (control group): It will be composed of 15 women who received breast feeding and nutritional advices only. Results: The results showed that mean mother’s age was 28.4 ± 3.68 and 28.07 ± 4.09 for group A and B respectively, there were statistically significant differences between pre and post values regarding cortisol level, IgA level, leucocyte count and infant’s weight and height and there is only statistically significant differences between both groups regarding post values of all immunological variables (cortisol – IgA – leucocyte count). Conclusion: We could conclude that there is a statistically significant effect of relaxation techniques on immunological properties of breast milk.

Keywords: relaxation, breast, milk, immunology, lactation

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Authors: Arindam Chaudhuri

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Classification of data has been actively used for most effective and efficient means of conveying knowledge and information to users. The prima face has always been upon techniques for extracting useful knowledge from data such that returns are maximized. With emergence of huge datasets the existing classification techniques often fail to produce desirable results. The challenge lies in analyzing and understanding characteristics of massive data sets by retrieving useful geometric and statistical patterns. We propose a supervised parallel fuzzy rough support vector machine (PFRSVM) for data classification in cloud environment. The classification is performed by PFRSVM using hyperbolic tangent kernel. The fuzzy rough set model takes care of sensitiveness of noisy samples and handles impreciseness in training samples bringing robustness to results. The membership function is function of center and radius of each class in feature space and is represented with kernel. It plays an important role towards sampling the decision surface. The success of PFRSVM is governed by choosing appropriate parameter values. The training samples are either linear or nonlinear separable. The different input points make unique contributions to decision surface. The algorithm is parallelized with a view to reduce training times. The system is built on support vector machine library using Hadoop implementation of MapReduce. The algorithm is tested on large data sets to check its feasibility and convergence. The performance of classifier is also assessed in terms of number of support vectors. The challenges encountered towards implementing big data classification in machine learning frameworks are also discussed. The experiments are done on the cloud environment available at University of Technology and Management, India. The results are illustrated for Gaussian RBF and Bayesian kernels. The effect of variability in prediction and generalization of PFRSVM is examined with respect to values of parameter C. It effectively resolves outliers’ effects, imbalance and overlapping class problems, normalizes to unseen data and relaxes dependency between features and labels. The average classification accuracy for PFRSVM is better than other classifiers for both Gaussian RBF and Bayesian kernels. The experimental results on both synthetic and real data sets clearly demonstrate the superiority of the proposed technique.

Keywords: FRSVM, Hadoop, MapReduce, PFRSVM

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Authors: Abdulkader Helwan

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Iris cancer, so called intraocular melanoma is a cancer that starts in the iris; the colored part of the eye that surrounds the pupil. There is a need for an accurate and cost-effective iris cancer detection system since the available techniques used currently are still not efficient. The combination of the image processing and artificial neural networks has a great efficiency for the diagnosis and detection of the iris cancer. Image processing techniques improve the diagnosis of the cancer by enhancing the quality of the images, so the physicians diagnose properly. However, neural networks can help in making decision; whether the eye is cancerous or not. This paper aims to develop an intelligent system that stimulates a human visual detection of the intraocular melanoma, so called iris cancer. The suggested system combines both image processing techniques and neural networks. The images are first converted to grayscale, filtered, and then segmented using prewitt edge detection algorithm to detect the iris, sclera circles and the cancer. The principal component analysis is used to reduce the image size and for extracting features. Those features are considered then as inputs for a neural network which is capable of deciding if the eye is cancerous or not, throughout its experience adopted by many training iterations of different normal and abnormal eye images during the training phase. Normal images are obtained from a public database available on the internet, “Mile Research”, while the abnormal ones are obtained from another database which is the “eyecancer”. The experimental results for the proposed system show high accuracy 100% for detecting cancer and making the right decision.

Keywords: iris cancer, intraocular melanoma, cancerous, prewitt edge detection algorithm, sclera

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Authors: Abubakar-Zagoon Adams, Emmanuel Intsiful, Haruna Zagoon-Sayeed

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Within the Ghanaian context, the promotion of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has been faced with many obstacles which are of great concern to national development. One of the obstacles that have been identified as having some negative impact on TVET promotion is the poor public perception of TVET. Poor public perception, as identified in the sub-sectors report in a number of Ghana Education Service reports, has received little attention in both research and the government’s effort to address the poor performance of the TVET sub-sector. This study investigated TVET stakeholders in the Ayawaso-West Municipality in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana to ascertain knowledge of technical and vocational education in Ghana. This study explored parents’ and students’ views and knowledge about technical and vocational education. The study adopted an exploratory research design and a qualitative research approach. Thirty-six (36) participants were selected by employing a purposive sampling technique. Twelve (ten parents and two school personnel) out of the total sample were engaged in key informant interviews, whereas three focus group discussions were conducted with students, eight in each group. The study found that the public has fair knowledge (positive) about TVET, and the other side of the coin knows that TVET is only meant for school dropouts, underprivileged students, and weak academic students. The study recommended that the government should intensify public education on TVET, deliberate investment should be made in TVET infrastructure, as well as proper regulation of the sub-sector.

Keywords: public perception, TVET promotion, socioeconomic, self-employment

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Authors: Innocent Atuhe, Babra Nalwadda, Grace Mulyowa, Annabella Habinka Ejiri

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Background: Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is one of the most prevalent and growing chronic inflammatory skin diseases in African prisons. AD care is limited in African due to a lack of information about the disease amongst primary care workers, limited access to dermatologists, lack of proper training of healthcare workers, and shortage of appropriate treatments. We designed and implemented the Prisons Telederma project based on the recommendations of the International Society of Atopic Dermatitis. We aimed at; i) increase awareness and understanding of teledermatology among prison health workers and ii) improve treatment outcomes of prisoners with atopic dermatitis through increased access to and utilization of consultant dermatologists through teledermatology in Uganda prisons. Approach: We used Store-and-forward Teledermatology (SAF-TD) to increase access to dermatologist-led care for prisoners and prison staff with AD. We conducted five days of training for prison health workers using an adapted WHO training guide on recognizing neglected tropical diseases through changes on the skin together with an adapted American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Childhood AD Basic Dermatology Curriculum designed to help trainees develop a clinical approach to the evaluation and initial management of patients with AD. This training was followed by blended e-learning, webinars facilitated by consultant Dermatologists with local knowledge of medication and local practices, apps adjusted for pigmented skin, WhatsApp group discussions, and sharing pigmented skin AD pictures and treatment via zoom meetings. We hired a team of Ugandan Senior Consultant dermatologists to draft an iconographic atlas of the main dermatoses in pigmented African skin and shared this atlas with prison health staff for use as a job aid. We had planned to use MySkinSelfie mobile phone application to take and share skin pictures of prisoners with AD with Consultant Dermatologists, who would review the pictures and prescribe appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, the National Health Service withdrew the app from the market due to technical issues. We monitored and evaluated treatment outcomes using the Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) tool. We held four advocacy meetings to persuade relevant stakeholders to increase supplies and availability of first-line AD treatments such as emollients in prison health facilities. Results: We have the very first iconographic atlas of the main dermatoses in pigmented African skin. We increased; i) the proportion of prison health staff with adequate knowledge of AD and teledermatology from 20% to 80%; ii) the proportion of prisoners with AD reporting improvement in disease severity (POEM scores) from 25% to 35% in one year; iii) increased proportion of prisoners with AD seen by consultant dermatologist through teledermatology from 0% to 20% in one year and iv)Increased the availability of AD recommended treatments in prisons health facilities from 5% to 10% in one year. Our study contributes to the use, evaluation, and verification of the use of teledermatology to increase access to specialist dermatology services to the most hard to reach areas and vulnerable populations such as that of prisoners.

Keywords: teledermatology, prisoners, reaching, un-reachable

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Authors: Sylvie Michel, Emmanuelle Gagnou, Joanne Hamet

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New major ethical dilemmas are posed by artificial intelligence. This article identifies an existing gap between the ethical questions that AI/robotics researchers grapple with in their research practice and those identified by literature review. The objective is to understand which ethical dilemmas are identified or concern AI researchers in order to compare them with the existing literature. This will enable to conduct training and awareness initiatives for AI researchers, encouraging them to consider these questions during the development of AI. Qualitative analyses were conducted based on direct observation of an AI/Robotics research team focused on collaborative robotics over several months. Subsequently, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 members of the team. The entire process took place during the first semester of 2023. The observations were analyzed using an analytical framework, and the interviews were thematically analyzed using Nvivo software. While the literature identifies three primary ethical concerns regarding AI—transparency, bias, and responsibility—the results firstly demonstrate that AI researchers are primarily concerned with the publication and valorization of their work, with the initial ethical concerns revolving around this matter. Questions arise regarding the extent to which to "market" publications and the usefulness of some publications. Research ethics are a central consideration for these teams. Secondly, another result shows that the researchers studied adopt a consequentialist ethics (though not explicitly formulated as such). They ponder the consequences of their development in terms of safety (for humans in relation to Robots/AI), worker autonomy in relation to the robot, and the role of work in society (can robots take over jobs?). Lastly, results indicate that the ethical dilemmas highlighted in the literature (responsibility, transparency, bias) do not explicitly appear in AI/Robotics research. AI/robotics researchers raise specific and pragmatic ethical questions, primarily concerning publications initially and consequentialist considerations afterward. Results demonstrate that these concerns are distant from the existing literature. However, the dilemmas highlighted in the literature also deserve to be explicitly contemplated by researchers. This article proposes that the journals these researchers target should mandate ethical reflection for all presented works. Furthermore, results suggest offering awareness programs in the form of short educational sessions for researchers.

Keywords: ethics, artificial intelligence, research, robotics

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Authors: Anam Layla, Qamar Abbas Syed, Tahir Zahoor, Muhammad Shahid

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Brassicaceae sprouts are promising candidates for functional food because of their unique phytochemistry and high nutrient density compared to their seeds and matured vegetables. Despite being admired for their health-promoting properties, white cabbage sprouts have been least explored for their nutritional significance and behavior to lactic acid fermentation. This study aimed to investigate the role of lactic acid fermentation i.e., inoculum vs. spontaneous, in reducing intrinsic toxicants load and improving nutrients delivering potential of the white cabbage sprouts. White cabbage sprouts with a 5 – 7 cm average size were processed as raw, blanched, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum inoculated fermentation and spontaneous fermentation. Plant material was dehydrated at 40˚C and evaluated for microbiological quality, macronutrients, minerals, and anti-nutrient contents. The results indicate L. plantarum inoculum fermentation of blanched cabbage sprouts (IF-BCS) to increase lactic acid bacteria count of the sprouts from 0.97 to 8.47 log CFU/g. Compared with the raw cabbage sprouts (RCS), inoculum fermented-raw cabbage sprouts (IF-RCS), and spontaneous fermented-raw cabbage sprouts (SF-RCS), the highest content of Ca (447 mg/ 100g d.w.), Mg (204 mg/100g d.w.), Fe (9.3 mg/100g d.w.), Zn (5 mg/100g d.w.) and Cu (0.5 mg/100g d.w.) were recorded in IF-BCS. L. plantarum led fermentation of BCS demonstrated a reduction in phytates, tannins, and oxalates contents at a rate of 42%, 66%, and 53%, respectively, while standalone lactic acid fermentation of the raw sprouts reduced the burden of anti-nutrients in a range between 32 to 56%. The results suggest L. plantarum led lactic acid fermentation coupled with sprouts blanching is the most promising way to improve the nutritional quality and safety of the white cabbage sprouts.

Keywords: lactic acid fermentation, anti-nutrients, mineral content, nutritional quality

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Authors: Chen Chan Wei

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of swim 1500m, 10000m run, VO2 max, and body fat on Olympic distance triathlon competition performance. The subjects were thirteen college triathletes with endurance training, with an average age, height and weight of 20.61±1.04 years (mean ± SD), 171.76±8.54 cm and 65.32±8.14 kg respectively. All subjects were required to take the tests of swim 1500m, run 10000m, VO2 max, body fat, and participate in the Olympic distance triathlon competition. First, the swim 1500m test was taken in the standardized 50m pool, with a depth of 2m, and the 10000m run test on the standardized 400m track. After three days, VO2 max was tested with the MetaMax 3B and body fat was measured with the DEXA machine. After two weeks, all 13 subjects joined the Olympic distance triathlon competition at the 2016 New Taipei City Asian Cup. The relationships between swim 1500m, 10000m run, VO2 max, body fat test, and Olympic distance triathlon competition performance were evaluated using Pearson's product-moment correlation. The results show that 10000m run and body fat had a significant positive correlation with Olympic distance triathlon performance (r=.830, .768), but VO2 max has a significant negative correlation with Olympic distance triathlon performance (r=-.735). In conclusion, for improved non-draft Olympic distance triathlon performance, triathletes should focus on running than swimming training and can be measure VO2 max to prediction triathlon performance. Also, managing body fat can improve Olympic distance triathlon performance. In addition, swimming performance was not significantly correlated to Olympic distance triathlon performance, possibly because the 2016 New Taipei City Asian Cup age group was not a drafting competition. The swimming race is the shortest component of Olympic distance triathlons. Therefore, in a non-draft competition, swimming ability is not significantly correlated with overall performance.

Keywords: triathletes, olympic, non-drafting, correlation

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Authors: Kevin Giraldo, Juan A. Gallego, Uriel Zapata, Fanny L. Casado

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Compliant mechanisms are designed to deform in a controlled manner in response to external forces, utilizing the flexibility of their components to store potential elastic energy during deformation, gradually releasing it upon returning to its original form. This article explores the design of a knee orthosis intended to assist users during stand-up motion. The orthosis makes use of a compliant mechanism to balance the user’s weight, thereby minimizing the strain on leg muscles during standup motion. The primary function of the compliant mechanism is to store and exchange potential energy, so when coupled with the gravitational potential of the user, the total potential energy variation is minimized. The design process for the semi-rigid knee orthosis involved material selection and the development of a numerical model for the compliant mechanism seen as a spring. Geometric properties are obtained through the numerical modeling of the spring once the desired stiffness and safety factor values have been attained. Subsequently, a 3D finite element analysis was conducted. The study demonstrates a strong correlation between the maximum stress in the mathematical model (250.22 MPa) and the simulation (239.8 MPa), with a 4.16% error. Both analyses safety factors: 1.02 for the mathematical approach and 1.1 for the simulation, with a consistent 7.84% margin of error. The spring’s stiffness, calculated at 90.82 Nm/rad analytically and 85.71 Nm/rad in the simulation, exhibits a 5.62% difference. These results suggest significant potential for the proposed device in assisting patients with knee orthopedic restrictions, contributing to ongoing efforts in advancing the understanding and treatment of knee osteoarthritis.

Keywords: biomechanics, complaint mechanisms, gonarthrosis, orthoses

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Authors: Jocelyn Solomons, Kraak

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Rhythmic movement, also referred to as “dance”, involves the execution of different motor skills as well as the integration and sequencing of actions between limbs, timing and spatial precision. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate and compare the effect of a 16-week rhythmic movement intervention on flexibility, dynamic balance, agility, power and local muscular endurance of academy rugby players in the Western Cape, according to positional groups. Players (N ¼ 54) (age 18.66 0.81 years; height 1.76 0.69 cm; weight 76.77 10.69 kg), were randomly divided into a treatment-control [TCA] (n ¼ 28) and a control-treatment [CTB] (n ¼ 26) group. In this crossover experimental design, the interaction effect of the treatment order and the treatment time between the TCA and CTB group, was determined. Results indicated a statistically significant improvement (p < 0.05) in agility2 (p ¼ 0.06), power2 (p ¼ 0.05), local muscular endurance1 (p ¼ 0.01) & 3 (p ¼ 0.01) and dynamic balance (p < 0.01). Likewise, forwards and backs also showed statistically significant improvements (p < 0.05) per positional groups. Therefore, a rhythmic movement intervention has the potential to improve rugby-specific bio-motor skills and furthermore, improve positional specific skills should it be designed with positional groups in mind. Future studies should investigate, not only the effect of rhythmic movement on improving specific rugby bio-motor skills, but the potential of its application as an alternative training method during off- season (or detraining phases) or as a recovery method.

Keywords: agility, dance, dynamic balance, flexibility, local muscular endurance, power, training

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