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Investigating time to first birth among women of reproductive age in Bangladesh: a survival analysis of nationwide cross-sectional survey data
Get PDFBackground
The birth of the first child is an important turning point in a woman’s life as it is the starting point of the demanding responsibilities of motherhood and childcare. This study aimed to explore the waiting time and the significant indicators of time to the first birth of aged 15–49 years of ever-married women in Bangladesh.
Methods
The study considered the most recent country-representative data collected from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) in 2017/18. The log-rank test was used to assess the statistical significance of the observed difference between waiting time to first birth and various socio-economic and demographic factors. The Cox proportional hazard model is applied to identify the influential factors for waiting time to first birth.
Results
About 55% of the respondents’ age at their first birth was less than 18 years. More than 21% of them were 20 years and above at their first birth. Findings revealed a higher mean age at first birth in urban areas than in rural areas. Also, in Dhaka and Sylhet region, women have a higher age at first than in other regions of Bangladesh. Results show that the place of residence, region, age at first marriage, age at first sex, respondent’s education, employment status, contraceptive use, and mass media exposure were found to be statistically significant determinants of the age of respondents at the time of first birth. Findings also show that a woman from rural areas was likely to be 5% smaller in age at the time of first birth than their counterpart (aHR 1.05; 95% CI 1.01–1.10). The age at first birth of a woman in Chattogram was 24% shorter, while in Rangpur and Barishal, that age was increased by 14% and 8%, respectively. A woman with no education, primary, and secondary education had 28%, 38%, and 29%, respectively, shorter age at first birth than that of the higher educated women. Mass media unexposed women were shorter aged at first birth by 27% (aHR 1.27; 95% CI 1.10–1.47) compared to the women who were mass media exposed.
Conclusion
It is necessary to increase the age of mothers at first birth which may help to reduce the prevalence of child marriage in Bangladesh. The study findings will be helpful to the policymakers in identifying the gap and designing the programmes targeting the early timing of first birth to reduce child mortality as well as poor maternal outcomes which will be beneficial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal-3 in Bangladesh
What’s The Story: Adapting Mike Leigh’s Improvisational Approach to Character, Narrative and Text for the Development of Comedy Film Scripts Online.
Get PDFThis thesis aimed to ascertain if British film director Mike Leigh’s improvisatory approach to the development of character, narrative and text could be adopted and adapted to create comedic film scripts in an online environment.
The research hoped to address gaps in knowledge around Leigh’s working methods and the fact that no approach was available to utilise improvisation on existing online video conferencing platforms such as Zoom. Therefore, the research aimed to develop such a method to facilitate improvisation online. Thereafter, the newly established process was evaluated in terms of its efficacy in other scriptwriting forms, namely monologue writing.
Leigh’s process was applied in practice as part of an Online Ensemble Project. In pursuing this research-through-practice, I also examined and reflected upon my own emerging praxis as I adapted Leigh’s method for the same online project. Further insights into my praxis were then unearthed through a second application of the new method in an exercise involving the writing of comic monologues.
The thesis makes its original contribution to knowledge in the field of scriptwriting by developing an approach to improvising comedy film scripts entirely online
Secret Scenario: Engaging with Mental Health Stigma in Young Adult Dystopia
No full textThis thesis is composed of a seventy-five thousand word novel entitled Secret Scenario, which is a young adult dystopian novel exploring themes of mental health and stigma, and an accompanying twenty-four thousand word critical essay that reflects on the writing process of the novel.
Secret Scenario is the second novel in a young adult trilogy, following on from Nightmare Scenario. In Secret Scenario, Gracie finds Kai, the real version of one of her
hallucinations, and together they decide to expose IrukaTech, the technology giant of their world. However, Gracie and Kai are both powerless in this situation. The world is a dystopia, with IrukaTech controlling the government and the citizens of the United Kingdom with their devices, and eventually, their drugs. Once Gracie and Kai realise that IrukaTech may know what they are doing, they run away, spending time in the disused London Underground which the Irukians now inhabit: the people who refuse to submit to IrukaTech’s surveillance methods. While down there, Gracie and Kai grow closer. Their relationship develops in tandem with Kai’s slow revelations about his psychosis and how he views the stigma surrounding it, which has been especially influenced by his Japanese heritage. They try to come up with a plan, but ultimately decide to flee the country to save themselves.
The accompanying critical thesis covers several topics that explore how I portrayed stigma around psychosis, schizophrenia, and suicide ideation in Secret Scenario. It discusses
how I drew on Ursula Le Guin’s theory on the Literalisation of Metaphor to show how experiencing psychosis may feel. I explore how hard it can be for someone to conceptualise
this if they have never experienced it, and this lack of understanding can cause more stigma. I also show how I attempted to use strategic empathy to engage with the reader’s emotions.
I also explore the challenges and opportunities of portraying a character from a different culture, including issues of dialogue and the contrast between how Kai and Gracie
experience mental health stigma. I use Golay’s self-stigma model to showcase how I portrayed stigma in Kai’s character.
Additionally, there is some discussion on how I wrote Secret Scenario for a young adult reader. Writing about psychosis, schizophrenia, and suicidal ideation raises ethical
issues, as this target audience is prone to suicidal ideation and suicide contagion. I outline my approach to these issues and draw on relevant texts to inform my practice
Moral Judgment as a Pivotal Modulator in Entrepreneurial Cognition Frameworks
Get PDFThis study aims to reconstruct the adoption of the theory of planned behaviour for predicting entrepreneurial intentions by examining moral judgement as an intervening variable. This study is significant in the present times since there is flawed reasoning when analysing entrepreneurial intentions. Most people believe that entrepreneurial intention is a manifestation of social aspects or favourable or unfavourable evaluation of the behaviour of interest. As such, they formulate that those aspects directly affect entrepreneurial intentions. Within the current study, our analyses do not provide strong empirical evidence for such claims. It is documented that moral judgment becomes a mediator for the use of social aspects to predict entrepreneurial intentions. Then, this study also found that moral judgment is the best and closest predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. Therefore, our study proposes different directions to understand and predict entrepreneurial intentions
The development and characterization of a vancomycin nanostructured lipid carrier and evaluation of their antimicrobial properties on Staphylococcus aureus
Get PDFVancomycin is a glycopeptide antibioticc which acts upon the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria, causing
cell death by cell wall damage and compounding cell membrane leakage. Nanostructured lipid carriers
(NLCs) are second-generation lipidic drug delivery vehicles made from solid and liquid lipids and
stabilised with surfactants and co-surfactants. NLCs provide better clinical outcomes by increasing cell
permeation and tissue absorption and allow drugs to bypass biological barriers. Blank and vancomycin
loaded NLCs were formulated by hot homogenisation and probe sonication and optimised for
hydrodynamic size (PS), polydispersity index (PDI), zeta potential. Entrapment efficiency (%EE) was
investigated by HPLC, and drug-lipid interactions were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry
(DSC) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). This project achieved an optimised
vancomycin NLC formulation with HDS of 153.5nm ± 22.5 a PDI of 0.162 ± 0.058 and a zeta potential
of -47mV ± 3.3, and drug percentage entrapment efficiency (%EE) of 84.04% ± 3.41. DSC and FTIR did
show some potential for drug-lipid interaction due to the presence of a C=C bond and an increase in
melting point for drug encapsulated NLCs compared against blank NLCs. Bacterial testing was
conducted on S. aureus ATCC 29213 a vancomycin sensitive strain of Staphylococcus aureus.
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing highlighted that vancomycin encapsulated in NLCs showed similar
inhibitory effect as compared to free vancomycin on S. aureus culture, however, the inhibitory effect
of vancomycin was prolonged from two to four hours showing potential for a local and consistent
prolonged release at target sites, potentially alleviating rapid elimination. This project demonstrates
the potential for vancomycin embedded NLCs to effectively treat S. aureus infections showing the
possibility of maintaining the drug levels within therapeutic window for a longer period of time
IoT: Understanding from a Management Perspective for the Railway Sector
Get PDFThe railway industry is a key part of any country’s transportation infrastructure. The railway industry supports the
competitive advantage of the country’s economy, providing a vital link in the supply chain of most manufacturing, agriculture, and
other allied industries. However, in many countries, the railway needs an upgrade, concerning maintenance. In most countries their
railways still run on old architecture and are in vital need of improvement into the 21st century technological marvels. To meet the
myriad of the industry’s problems, it is proposed in this paper that it is ripe to introduce IoT (Internet of Things) for the competitive
advantage of the industry. A qualitative analysis of the issues was conducted through a thematic approach. The results obtained have
shown that there is a gap within the industry’s knowhow and modern forms of management perspectives using assisted smart
technological. From the findings of the analysis, it is proposed that a rethink of how issues of moving forward should include aspects
of smart technology that include IoT and smart systems using some form of AI (artificial intelligence) approach. The proposed approach
in this paper will help modernise the railway sector and finally set it on a better roadmap for future improvement to the entire rail
network and its trains
A Study on Self-Supervised Pretraining for Vision Problems in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy
Get PDFSolutions to vision tasks in gastrointestinal endoscopy (GIE) conventionally use image encoders pretrained in a supervised manner with ImageNet-1k as backbones. However, the use of modern self-supervised pretraining algorithms and a recent dataset of 100k unlabelled GIE images (Hyperkvasir-unlabelled) may allow for improvements. In this work, we study the fine-tuned performance of models with ResNet50 and ViT-B backbones pretrained in self-supervised and supervised manners with ImageNet-1k and Hyperkvasir-unlabelled (self-supervised only) in a range of GIE vision tasks. In addition to identifying the most suitable pretraining pipeline and backbone architecture for each task, out of those considered, our results suggest: that self-supervised pretraining generally produces more suitable backbones for GIE vision tasks than supervised pretraining; that self-supervised pretraining with ImageNet-1k is typically more suitable than pretraining with Hyperkvasir-unlabelled, with the notable exception of monocular depth estimation in colonoscopy; and that ViT-Bs are more suitable in polyp segmentation and monocular depth estimation in colonoscopy, ResNet50s are more suitable in polyp detection, and both architectures perform similarly in anatomical landmark recognition and pathological finding characterisation. We hope this work draws attention to the complexity of pretraining for GIE vision tasks, informs this development of more suitable approaches than the convention, and inspires further research on this topic to help advance this development
Does an alternative breast support garment provide symptomatic relief for larger breasted women with chronic non-specific back pain?
Get PDFBackground: Non-surgical guidelines recommend implementing a correctly fitted bra when managing back pain amongst larger breasted women. Achieving this is challenging with current bra solutions, sizing principles and fitting approaches. Persistent wearing of an ill-fitting bra can cause negative health implications, including Non-Specific Back Pain (NSBP). Objectives: This study investigated immediate and short-term biomechanical and pain responses to changing breast support garment amongst larger breasted women with NSBP. Methods: Participants (n=24) performed a standing task, drop jumps and seated typing tasks whilst bra and spinal kinematic data were recorded. Five breast support conditions were assessed: participants’ usual bra (Control), a professionally fitted bra in the immediate term (Standard), and after four weeks wear (Standard28), and a bra with an alternative design, measurement, and fitting approach in both the immediate term (Alternative) and after four weeks wear (Alternative28). A bra fit assessment and clinical pain / disability questionnaires were included. Results: All participants failed the bra fit assessment in the control bra, compared to 87.5% (n=21) in the standard and 4.2% (n=1) in the alternative bras. The standard28 and alternative28 bras provided symptomatic relief, with the alternative28 bra improving a greater number of outcome measures. Reduced nipple-sternal-notch distance was observed only in the alternative28 bra condition. Conclusions: Symptomatic relief may be associated with the resting position of the breast tissue on the anterior chest wall. The alternative bra may provide potential clinical benefit if implemented as part of a non-surgical, or conservative pain management strategy. Alternative breast support garments should be considered to provide solutions to the problems associated with traditional bras
