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Compliance with the NATO Standards in the Field of Psychological Assistance for the Servicemen with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Get PDFThe increasing number of the servicemen with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of the war raises the problem of providing them with psychological assistance among the top priorities at the national level. The aim of the study is to identify the effectiveness of using NATO standards in the system of psychological assistance to the servicemen with PTSD.
Methods: The study employed the Mississippi Scale, Impact of Event Scale (IES-R), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The statistics were processed using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Student’s t-test for independent samples.
Results: The study showed that 20.28% of the servicemen had a high level of PTSD. They have pronounced symptoms of intrusion, avoidance, hyperarousal, high anxiety, and depression. It was established that the use of NATO standards of psychological assistance to the servicemen with PTSD is reliably effective in reducing symptoms of intrusion (t=2.53, p≤0.01), avoidance (t=3.22, p≤0.01), excitability (t =4.18, p≤0.01), anxiety (t=4.56, p≤0.01), and depression (t=3.87, p≤0.01).Conclusions. The problem of the occurrence of PTSD and symptoms of the disorder among the servicemen participating in military operations was confirmed. It was proved that the use of NATO standards in the training and psychological assistance to service men is effective in reducing the PTSD level and its symptoms.
Prospects: The obtained results are significant for military psychologists who work directly with the servicemen in warfare and can use the obtained data for early intervention to prevent the occurrence of PTSD
The Chronic Progressive Repeated Measures (CPRM) Model for Clinical Trials Comparing Change Over Time in Quantitative Trait Outcomes
Get PDFRepeated measures analysis is a common analysis plan for clinical trials comparing change over time in quantitative trait outcomes in treatment versus control. Mixed model for repeated measures (MMRM) assuming an unstructured covariance of repeated measures is the default statistical analysis plan, with alternative covariance structures specified in the event that the MMRM model with unstructured covariance does not converge. We here describe a parsimonious covariance structure for repeated measures analysis that is specifically appropriate for longitudinal repeated measures of chronic progressive conditions. This model has the parsimonious features of the mixed effects model with random slopes and intercepts, but without restricting the repeated measure means to be linear with time. We demonstrate with data from completed trials that this pattern of longitudinal trajectories spreading apart over time is typical of Alzheimer’s disease. We further demonstrate that alternative covariance structures typically specified in statistical analysis plans using MMRM perform poorly for chronic progressive conditions, with the compound symmetry model being anticonservative, and the autoregressive model being poorly powered. Finally, we derive power calculation formulas for the chronic progressive repeated measures model that have the advantage of being independent of the design of the pilot studies informing the power calculations. When data follow the pattern of a chronic progressive condition. These power formulas are also appropriate for sizing clinical trials using MMRM analysis with unstructured covariance of repeated measures
Special Education Teachers' Perceptions of Using Artificial Intelligence in Educating Students with Disabilities
No full textBackground: Artificial intelligence technologies improve the learning environment; in the near future, they are expected to provide great benefits for students and teachers, in general, and for those with disabilities and their teachers, in particular.
Objective: This research has aimed at identifying the perceptions of special education teachers about the use of artificial intelligence in teaching students with disabilities as well as identifying the impact of some variables, such as the number of years of experience, disability category, or the school stage, on these perceptions.
Methods and Participants: The research was based on the descriptive approach. The research sample consists of 301 male and female teachers of students with disabilities from Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It includes 138 males and 163 females, divided into a group of special education programs. The research used a questionnaire on the perceptions of special education teachers about the use of artificial intelligence in educating students with disabilities.
Results: The research findings showed that these teachers' perceptions were mostly neutral, that there are differences in their perceptions due to the number of years of experience, and that there are no differences in their perceptions due to the disability category or school stage variable.
Conclusions: As artificial intelligence is considered one of the modern variables in the field of education for people with disabilities in the Arab environment, it is expected to support personal education, assistive technologies, data-based decision-making when teaching people with disabilities, and promoting inclusion. The research also presented a questionnaire identifying special education teachers' perceptions of artificial intelligence
Political Ecology in Transition in the Global South: Examining the Interplay of Environment, State, and Society in Colonial India (1800-1947)
Get PDFThis paper presents an analysis of how historical transitions occurred, emphasising human actions and their interactions with the natural world, geography, climate, and the planet Earth. Anthropogenic actions have influenced changes in ecology and the environment throughout history. This impact intensified since the Industrial Revolution in England during the nineteenth century, spreading across the globe through the colonial and imperial pursuits of Western European nations. The paper adopts a methodological framework for understanding how historical transitions unfolded within the realm of political ecology in the Global South, drawing examples from colonial India under British rule. British colonial rule and its politically and economically driven ideologies drastically affected India’s natural environment, including its flora and fauna. This led to a reduction in ecological biodiversity from the latter part of the nineteenth century until the end of their rule in 1947. By employing transition theory as the primary method of historical investigation, this study aims to illustrate how the colonial state and its ideologues and officials influenced the Indian environment and society and how the transition framework can inform significant ecological changes in the Indian subcontinent during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
The Monumental Kurgans in Bronze Age in River Kura Basin
Get PDFThe article contains with the archaeological excavations of the Deller Jayir kurgans at 322.700 km of the SCPX (South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion Project) pipeline corridor. These kurgans are located in the territory of Deller Jayir village of Shamkir district of Azerbaijan Republic. About 10 kurgans were recorded in the kurgan field located on a relatively high hill on the right bank of the river, about 100-150 m away from the Jayir River, only 2 of them fell into the pipeline corridor, excavated and explored.
The surface of the Deller Jayir kurgans consists of stone formations with a clearly visible circular shape and a relatively concave center. They are located close to each other at a distance of 5-6 m. Preliminary analysis of the structures and burial rites in the Deller Jayir kurgans and the forms of the few pottery fragments found in these kurgans show that these kurgans date the transition stage from Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age, to be precisely, to the 15th-14th centuries BC
Bovine Tuberculosis Testing in Colombia: Comparative Histopathological, Microbiological, and Molecular Biology Findings
Get PDFIntroduction: Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a zoonotic infectious disease present in Colombia, caused by Mycobacterium bovis, and causes tuberculosis in water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). Diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis through the intradermal test is difficult; evaluating and understanding the behavior of other diagnostic tests is necessary.
Objective: To describe the behavior and results of different diagnostic methods for bovine tuberculosis in water buffalo positive for the Purifed Proteic Derivate (DPP) intradermal test.
Methodology: In water buffaloes positive for comparative cervical tuberculin test, different diagnostic methods were applied, described, and compared: Ziehl-Neelsen staining, microbiological culture, histopathological analysis, and PCR-HRM.
Results: Histopathological tests showed that 26 water buffalo positive for DPP (52%) had histological lesions compatible with bovine tuberculosis. 37% of the evaluated samples from tuberculin-positive Buffalo's lungs and secondary lymph nodes showed acid-alcohol-resistant bacillus with Ziehl-Neelsen staining. Four samples of Mycobacterium bovis from tuberculin-positive buffalo were isolated and identified, with two of these isolates confirmed from tissues with PCR-HRM, and three buffalo with microbiological isolates presented granulomatous lesions through histological analysis. Seventeen tuberculin-positive buffalo (34%) tested positive for real-time PCR HRM, and nine of these buffalo did not have histological lesions compatible with bTB and were confirmed with the molecular test.
Conclusion: Our results provide positive evidence of histological findings, microbiological isolation, and molecular diagnosis of tuberculin-positive water buffalo in the lowlands of Colombia. None of the complementary tests performed showed 100% concordance with the comparative cervical tuberculin test results for bTB
Gender Differences in Facebook Addiction as a Coping Response to Social Stressors and Poor Self-Confidence
Get PDFThe Threat Appraisal and Coping Theory suggests that when individuals perceive social stressors from important interpersonal relationships (family, friends, romance), and when they have poor self-confidence, they may display the coping behavior of seeking social support, including that provided by social media platforms such as Facebook. However, individuals who perceive intense social stressors and have poor self-confidence may use Facebook to the extent that it interferes with other areas of their lives. The present study examined this cognitive sequence that could lead to such Facebook addiction: SOCIAL STRESSORS à POOR SELF-CONFIDENCE à EXCESSIVE FACEBOOK. Because of past research showing gender differences in each of these variables, we hypothesized that women would be more likely to show the proposed cognitive sequence leading to Facebook addiction. Participants were 243 women and 209 men from a paid online Survey Monkey sample who reported demographics, three social stressors (family, friends, romance), self-confidence with Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale, and excessive Facebook use with the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale. Unlike our hypothesized results, moderated mediational analyses with 5000 bootstrapped samples found significantly higher indirect effect sizes for the three-variable sequence in men than in women, specifically when the social stressor was from family or romantic partners. One interpretation would be that when conflicts occur in intimate personal relationships (family, romance), women may have a wider network of real-life relationships in which they share their emotional concerns, whereas men are more likely to rely on online social media to vent concerns about intimate relationships
Local Self-Governance and State Power in the Russian Federation: In the Search for a Way Out of the Institutional Trap
Get PDFThe subject of the study is the causes of the contradiction that have arisen in the legal and political field of modern Russia, related to the status of the institution of local self-government. On the one hand, local self-government, in fact, acts as a lower level of public administration, both in political practice and in mass consciousness. But legally, its bodies are not part of the system of state power. The author explains this situation by the institutional trap into which the state power has fallen.
The author sees the reasons for the emergence of this collision between the needs of political practice and legislative requirements in the coincidence of circumstances caused by the struggle of actors during the political confrontation between the legislative and executive powers in October 1993. The lack of socio-economic support, necessary for the full functioning of the institution, made it inevi that in the future that institution would turn into a "lower floor" of the system of state administration, with the simultaneous camouflaging municipal bodies as a non-governmental organization.
It is shown that throughout the entire subsequent history of local self-government existence attempts were made to resolve this contradiction. The latest attempt was made in the latest version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation by including state and local self-government bodies into the system of unified public power.
It is noted that the functioning of nominally self-governing, but basically - state bodies at the local level has a number of negative consequences. Organizational and legal ways out of the "institutional trap" are suggested
Fetal Outcome Associated with COVID-19; Correlation between Ultrasound and Birth Measures in COVID-19 Pregnant Women
No full textBackground: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2, was declared a global pandemic in March 2020. Pregnant women might be especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because the physiological changes in their cardiorespiratory and immune systems during pregnancy could alter their response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Objective: to determine the association between SARS-CoV-2 infection and fetal outcomes, including SGA, FGR, preterm birth, and stillbirth.
Methods: This prospective study was conducted at the Ultrasound and Fetal Medicine Unit of Ain Shams University Maternity Hospital, a tertiary care center, from October 2021 to January 2023. The study included 45 pregnant women diagnosed with COVID-19 during the first or second trimester of their current pregnancy. Additionally, a control group of 45 pregnant women who were not infected with COVID-19 was included. Both groups were selected based on predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Results: There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding demographic characteristics, including age, body mass index, and parity. The timing of COVID-19 infection was nearly evenly distributed between the first and second trimesters. All cases in the infected group were non-hospitalized. No statistically significant differences were found between the groups regarding the need for induction or mode of delivery. Additionally, there were no significant differences in gestational age, estimated fetal weight, birth weight, or NICU admission rates. Stillbirth, prematurity, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), macrosomia, and neonatal mortality did not occur in either group.
Conclusion: As evident from the current study, there were no differences between first and second-trimester COVID-19-infected and non-infected pregnant women according to maternal and neonatal outcomes regarding fetal growth complications, APGAR score, preterm Labour, NICU admission, Placental abnormalities, and Liquor abnormalities. Consequently, clinical characteristics of first and second-trimester COVID-19 in pregnant patients and neonates seem to be similar to those in non-pregnant infected adults
Experimental Investigations of the Influence of Spent Coffee Grounds Content on PLA Based Composite for 3D Printing
Get PDFNowadays Fused Deposition Modeling, a widely utilized additive manufacturing technology, is significantly transforming as modern production processes. Beyond basic uses to it role in sustainability, Fused Deposition Modeling offers processing potential for implanting circular economy by reducing virgin materials consumption and enhance the integration of waste food for sustainable 3D printing. This research paper investigated the production of new composite materials based on spent coffee grounds. In addition, PLA and SCG at various contents (0, 3, 5, 10, and 15 wt%) were dried and premixed, then processed into PLA/SCG composite pellets using twin-screw extrusion. These pellets were successfully converted into filaments and subsequently used for 3D printing. The effect of spent coffee grounds in PLA composites was investigated via physical and mechanical analysis of 3D printed samples. Regarding density measurements, results revealed that adding up to 5 wt% of spent coffee grounds increased the density while further additions led to a decrease which due to the printing parameters such as extrusion temperature and nozzle diameter. Considering the mechanical properties, the Young’s modulus increased once the spent coffee grounds content reached 3 wt% and then decreased. In the other hand, there was no enhancement in tensile strength and elongation at break which corroborating with density measurements. This mainly contributed to the changes in mechanical properties caused by printing parameters. This study demonstrates that coffee waste can be used as a filler in environmentally friendly composites for 3D printing, with a maximum SCG content of 15 wt%. This approach not only promotes the reuse of coffee waste but also reduces the cost of traditional PLA filaments