GSTF Digital Library (GSTF-DL): Open Journal Systems (Global Science and Technology Forum)
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Knowledge, practices, compliance and beliefs of university nursing students’ toward hand hygiene: A cross-sectional survey
Full text linkNursing students can contribute to healthcareassociated infections if having inadequate knowledge and noncompliance of hand hygiene. Effective hand hygiene is considered the most effective measure for preventing healthcare-associated infections. This study investigated the knowledge, practices, compliance, and beliefs of university nursing students toward hand hygiene. By using a well-validated, self-report hand hygiene questionnaire, a cross-sectional survey was performed. In the convenience sampling, 421 out of 506 questionnaires were returned (83.2%). There were 169 (40.14%), 170 (40.38%) and 82 (19.48%) nursing students from Years 1, 2 and 3, respectively. The respondents’ overall mean score for hand hygiene knowledge was 7.33/10 (SD = 1.52) with an increasing trend of knowledge performance along study year was observed. The hand hygiene practice inventory was 4.76/5 (SD = 0.303). The mean scores for respondents from Years 1, 2 and 3 were 4.75 (SD = 0.367), 4.82 (SD = 0.20) and 4.69 (SD = 0.290), respectively. The self-reported hand hygiene compliance rate was 88.17% (SD = 11.922) and the mean score on the health beliefs scale was 4.03/5 (SD = 0.34). The university nursing students demonstrated moderate knowledge, good practices, a high compliance rate and positive beliefs toward hand hygiene. More effort on educating healthcare professionals about alcohol-based hand rubs and the promotion of hand cream usage to prevent hand-hygiene-induced skin irritations are suggested. Regular training workshops or seminars could be arranged to maintain knowledge levels and cultivate a positive attitude toward hand hygiene
Is surrogacy morally acceptable in Hong Kong?
Full text linkSurrogacy is always a controversial topic in the world, especially when it is with payment. In this article, the issues about the surrogacy and its risks the women’s health, treating women as a commodity, constitutes babies-selling, changes the traditional family structure and values, degrades women productive dignity and exploits women from lower social stratum have been discussed. In Hong Kong, surrogacy is not against the law. However, using it for commercial surrogacy is prohibited. Surrogacy is gaining popularity in the West. However, it is still not widely accepted because of the strong sense of blood ties within the family in Chinese society. The non-commercialization and non-enforcement approaches of surrogacy are adopted in Hong Kong to protect the welfare of the child and the surrogate mother to uphold family values and family integrity, as well as to keep the commercial market out of family relationships
USING VIRTUAL REALITY TO REDUCE STATE ANXIETY AND STRESS IN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: AN EXPERIMENT
Full text linkBackground/Objectives: Anxiety is common in the general population and also among university students, affecting their performance. Virtual reality (VR) devices can theoretically help alleviate anxiety pressures faced, by immersing participants in an interactive synthetic environment that is calming. The current study examined whether using a mobile VR device would support this theoretical position and help reduce anxiety levels in university studentsMethods: The study randomly assigned 30 participating university students to two groups: one experimental (VR) group and the other a control (reading task – RT) group. All participants first completed initial surveys (demographics, depression anxiety and stress scale –DASS-21 and a social desirability scale – SDS) and then were administered in turn the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) to increase stress levels and the State – trait anxiety inventory (STAI-Y) scale to assess the anxiety-stress levels); followed by random allocation into either the VR experimental group engaged in a virtual tour of Hawaii or the RT group which read neutral extracts from a magazine). Following this, STAI-Y was again administered. Results: There was a significant difference between the VR and the RT groups with highly significant reductions in stress levels being associated with the VR group Conclusion: The study demonstrated that anxiety levels could be reduced significantly through the use of VR technology. Further studies are needed in terms of suitable intervention scenarios, equipment quality, and in application to other mental health areas and to different community groups
The Big Five, Mindfulness, and Psychological Well-being
Full text linkHow do personality variables and mindfulness relate to psychological well-being? Research relates personality variables and psychological well-being and distress (as in depression, anxiety and stress); and mindfulness and psychological well-being - especially since mindfulness became a fashionable area to study from the 2000s. However, few studies have linked personality (the Big Five), mindfulness and psychological well-being though they would appear to be related. We examined the relationships in our study which used a community sample of 286 participants who completed biographical details, Ryff’s Psychological Well-being scale, the International Personality Item Pool- Big Five Scale, an adaptation of the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire-Short Form, and a Social Desirability Scale. Hierarchical multiple regression indicated that both mindfulness and personality predicted psychological well-being and that both together contributed significantly increased levels of variance to psychological well-being. This pilot study appears to be one of the first to show that mindfulness significantly adds to personality in predicting psychological well-being and supports attention to developing programs in mindfulness to help increase psychological well-being
Defining Exploratory-Descriptive Qualitative (EDQ) research and considering its application to healthcare.
Full text linkThis article aims to introduce readers to a distinctive approach to health research when the topic under investigation has received little previous attention. It provides details of the theoretical underpinnings of the methodology, as well as providing recommendations regarding the practicalities of its use. To address a specific research aim, the primary author believed that an exploratory descriptive qualitative approach was the most suitable. A subsequent review of the relevant literature identified a number of published research articles, which claimed to use an "exploratory descriptive qualitative" design. Closer inspection revealed that these papers lacked theoretical underpinning. As a result, the authors created a conceptual framework, underpinned by appropriate theory, to support the use of an exploratory descriptive qualitative approach. We refer to this approach as EDQ and argue that there is a place in health research when it is deemed the most appropriate methodology to achieve the aims of a study
Gender differences in sleeping hours and recovery experience among psychiatric nurses in Japan
Full text linkIn their attempts to balance sleep routines with service schedules, nurses working in shifts are at risk for developing sleep disorders. Furthermore, nurses often experience considerable stress. In recent years, research has acknowledged the importance of activities other than work, and in particular recovery experiences. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore gender differences in sleeping hours and recovery experience of psychiatric nurses from a 16-hour shift to two days off duty. We found that males went to bed late and that females rose slightly early on days where they worked night shifts. On average, the sleeping hours of males were about 2 hours longer than were those of females. Furthermore, sleeping hours was positively related to mastery in males, while in females working hours was negatively related to psychological detachment and relaxation. Before the night shift, females engaged more housekeeping and used short sleeping hours during rest to compensate for the lack of sleep. Thus, recovery experience had different relationships with various life activities between male and female nurses. The results highlighted the need for health management intervention
HadoopSec: Sensitivity-aware Secure Data Placement Strategy for Big Data/Hadoop Platform using Prescriptive Analytics
Full text linkHadoop has become one of the key player in offeringdata analytics and data processing support for any organizationthat handles different shades of data management. Consideringthe current security offerings of Hadoop, companies areconcerned of building a single large cluster and onboardingmultiple projects on to the same common Hadoop cluster.Security vulnerability and privacy invasion due to maliciousattackers or inner users are the main argument points in anyHadoop implementation. In particular, various types of securityvulnerability occur due to the mode of data placement in HadoopCluster. When sensitive information is accessed by anunauthorized user or misused by an authorized person, they cancompromise privacy. In this paper, we intend to address theapproach of data placement across distributed DataNodes in asecure way by considering the sensitivity and security of theunderlying data. Our data placement strategy aims to adaptivelydistribute the data across the cluster using advanced machinelearning techniques to realize a more secured data/infrastructure.The data placement strategy discussed in this paper is highlyextensible and scalable to suit different sort of sensitivity/securityrequirements
A study of the Causes of Schedule overrun in Indian High-rise construction using Relative Importance Index
Full text linkConstruction projects across the world are plagued with time and schedule overruns. Schedule overruns are caused due to a wide range of factors associated to site-related issues to the issues related to payment. Although the principal reasons for construction delays are comparable across different locations within a country, several factors pertaining to local industry, socio-economic issues, cultural effects and project characteristics also contribute to construction delays. Through a series of studies performed across the past few decades, it has been seen that the causes and extent of schedule overruns varies across different countries and no universal causes of delay have been identified. On these grounds, it can also be hypothesised that in a country as diverse as India, the causes of delay may vary across different states and regions. This research tries to ascertain the causes of schedule overrun associated to the various construction project locations in India, identified through a questionnaire survey and analysed using statistical methods. The findings of this study suggest that though there are certain similarities in the delay causes, but there is a difference between their relative importances. There are certain unique causes specific to some location
Comparison of Flow Cytometry and Quantitative PCR Assays for Cyanobacteria Quantification
Full text linkCyanobacterial blooms deteriorate water quality and some species produce cyanotoxins, posing a potential risk to human health. As such, rapid and accurate quantification of cyanobacteria is of growing interest worldwide. In this study, two conventional methods, flow cytometry (FCM) and real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) were compared in terms of quantification of the total cyanobacteria species in a lab-cultured Microcystis aeruginosa and 10 tropical freshwater samples. Results showed that these two methods have high linearity and strong association (P<0.01), although qPCR has higher sensitivity for low concentrations, while FCM approach has much shorter analysis time for a comparable detection range. The 16S rRNA gene copies/cell ranged from 2.31 to 4.07 in natural freshwater samples. The results showed that the FCM method was preferred for routine cyanobacteria monitoring in the picoplankton rang
Energy Consumption Towards a Better Future: Knowledge Practice and Attitude of college students in UAEU
Full text linkEnergy exists in many different forms such as light energy, heat energy, mechanical energy, gravitational energy, electrical energy, sound energy, chemical energy, Nuclear or atomic energy and so on. These forms of energy can be relocated and converted between one another. When source of energy end up as electricity, it moves with many Transformations before it can power the light bulb. The aim of this study was to explore the level of student’s awareness on the importance of saving energy as well as to investigate knowledge practice and attitude towards energy consumption.Quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect the data through interview among students of the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) in Al Ain. Secondary data’s were collected from Al Ain Municipality. The first outcome of the research was the key cause of overuse of energy consumption is a lack of awareness. The second was that consumers are unable to assess whether their consumption is low, average or high and lastly most of the respondents understand how the energy consumption effects the environment and they will try their best to help manage and control this issue. Overall the results show the negative effects of overuse of energy consumption to our environment and suggest that to bridge the gap; human beings should change their behavior to save our environment. Therefore, major challenge will be to introduce a set of uniform energy policies to address specific constraints to the household adoption of energy conservation practices