bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Internet addiction, depression, anxiety and stress among first year medical students after COVID-19 lockdown: A cross sectional study in West Bengal, India
Authors: Deb Novonil , Roy Poulami 
Published: November 2022

ABSTRACT

Objectives:
1. To assess the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on Internet addiction on first year medical students. 2. To evaluate the associations, if any, between internet addiction, anxiety, depression and stress.

Methods:
Internet addiction, depression, anxiety and stress among medical students across West Bengal have been studied using Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT) scale and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). A web-based questionnaire was made and circulated via different social media platforms. All interested candidates who gave consent were included in the study. All statistical analyses were done using SPSS version 25.0.

Results:
The study population consisted of 37.2% of males and 63.8% of females. 80.23% of the participants showed moderate levels of internet addiction. Strong positive correlation was found between anxiety and stress (r = 0.83, P < 0.05), depression and anxiety (r = 0.92, P < 0.05) and between depression and stress (r = 0.86, P < 0.05).

Conclusion:
The unprecedented ramifications of lockdown are incessant, with internet addiction, magnification in depression, anxiety and stress to name a few. Internet addiction coupled with psychological disorders still remains a matter of concern for medical students.
Antenatal anxiety and depression: Frequency and correlates during the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan
Authors: Ahmed Marium , Amin Faridah , Taj Aisha , Durrani Noureen 
Published: November 2022

ABSTRACT

Context:
Mental health ailments like anxiety and depression are common during the antenatal period. Uncertainty during COVID-19 pandemic has markedly increased its prevalence in the general population. Pregnancy, being emotionally and physically exhausting, makes mothers more susceptible to developing mental disorders like anxiety and depression.

Aims:
To investigate prevalence and associated risk factors of antenatal anxiety and depression among women in Karachi, Pakistan.

Settings and Design:
This cross-sectional study was conducted in the department of obstetrics and gynecology during May 2020 till May 2021.

Methods and Material:
The study explored anxiety, depression, and associated factors in pregnant women attending antenatal clinics at a tertiary care hospital located in Karachi, Pakistan, during the COVID-19 pandemic by using the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS) as a screening tool. Statistical Analysis: Data was entered in SPSS version 21 for statistical analysis.

Results:
A total of 390 patients were enrolled in the study with mean age of 28.06 ± 4.52 years. Mean week of pregnancy at the time of enrolment into the study was 32.7 ± 3.1. Prevalence of anxiety and depression was 46.7% and 33.1%, respectively. On multivariable analysis, polyhydramnios was a risk factor of anxiety, whereas low income and unplanned pregnancy were substantially linked to depression. Fear of visiting doctor was a common risk factor for both anxiety and depression.

Conclusion:
In a catastrophe like the COVID-19 pandemic, attempts to address heightened anxiety during antenatal visits will undoubtedly benefit maternal and fetal mental health. As a response, strategies to manage high anxiety symptoms should be taken into consideration.
Liver Function Test Abnormalities: Do They Correlate with Severity in Dengue Infection? An Indian Perspective
Authors: Ravilla Sreegeetha , Padmaprakash K. V. , Arun N. , Kanth Ravi 
Published: November 2022

Introduction:
Involvement of the liver is frequently reported among patients with dengue infection, and liver enzymes are commonly deranged in dengue infection. Raised levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in dengue infection were linked to worse outcomes. The present study was an attempt to study the liver function test abnormalities in dengue fever (DF) and its correlation with the severity of the disease.

Methods:
The present study was undertaken as a hospital-based retrospective study of DF patients in the age group of 15–60 years. Five hundred and thirty patients who met the eligibility criteria and were admitted to the study hospital during the duration of data collection period (July 2018 to July 2021), comprised the study sample. Differences in means were tested using ANOVA or Kruskal–Wallis test. The difference in proportions was tested using the Chi-square test.

Results:
Majority of the patients were males (73.4%) with a mean of 30.3 ± 9.7 years. A significant association was observed between clinical features of jaundice, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, ascites, effusion, bleeding, organ failure, and severe forms of DF. There was a significant positive correlation between aspartate aminotransferase, ALT, and serum bilirubin values among patients with severe forms of DF.

Conclusion:
Significant proportions of patients with DF without warning signs and severe DF had deranged liver function parameters. A statistically significant association was observed between liver function parameters and the severity of dengue disease.
Factors related to sugar consumption by young people in Portugal: public policies and nutritional literacy
Authors: Martinho Inês , Bárrios Maria João , Catarino João Ricardo 
Published: November 2022

To reduce the burden of diet-related non-communicable diseases, promoting healthy eating habits has become a concern of modern societies. In this vein, in addition to trying to improve the health literacy of its population, the Portuguese authorities have recently levied taxes on food products that are deleterious to health. Despite the young exhibiting better health literacy, they also tend to overconsume these products. This research analyses the influence of public policies on healthy eating and of health literacy on the health management of young adults. We applied an online survey to young adults who were attending a university degree at Universidade de Lisboa. The collected data were processed by statistical analysis, using SPSS software. Although most of the young respondents recognize their importance in managing their individual health, a large majority are unaware of the public policies in place and frequently over consume sugar. Public policies on healthy eating thus need to reconsider the role of young people as agents of participation, promoting knowledge about the measures and providing them with tools to manage their own health.
Wet season rainfall characteristics and temporal changes for Cape Town, South Africa, 1841–2018
Authors: Ndebele Nothabo Elizabeth , Grab Stefan , Hove Herbert 
Published: November 2022

Abstract. Wet seasons may be characterized by the frequency of wet–dry days, duration of wet–dry spells and season length. These properties are investigated for Cape Town using rainfall data from four weather stations in the Cape Town metropolitan area located at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), Maitland, Kirstenbosch and Cape Town International airport. The primary focus is on the long SAAO daily rainfall record dating back to 1841, with the specific aim to statistically assess attributes of
the wet season (April to October) and its temporal variability over the
period 1841–2018. The decade 1950–1959 had significantly high frequencies of wet days, but there was a subsequent significant decline in wet days at the SAAO (−1 d per decade) and Maitland (−1.1 d per decade) during the period 1950–2018. A significant decline in wet days also occurred at the SAAO between 1880 and 1940 (−3.3 d per decade, p=0.005). Dry spells longer than 5 d have become more prevalent since the beginning of the 20th century. A rain-based definition for the onset and termination of the wet season is presented using 5 d running sums and pentad means; these were applied to each year containing adequate daily data, so as to track changes
during the wet season. We identify a recent decadal decline in mean wet
season length (−1.4 d per decade) since ca. 1940, particularly between
1941–1994 (−4.2 d per decade), such that wet seasons since 2000 have only averaged 182 d in length while the long-term (1841–2018) average is 188 d. This decline is attributed to an increased incidence of late onsets
(after 15 April) and early terminations (earlier than 18 October) of the wet season, or a combination of both, particularly since the year 2000.
Interannual variability in wet season characteristics is associated with
solar (sunspot) cycles and fluctuations in the Southern Oscillation Index
and Southern Annular Mode.
Keep the physics in the model if you can: Data assimilation in Fluid Mechanics
Authors: Juniper Matthew 
Published: November 2022

This talk will show how to assimilate data rigorously into physics-based models using Bayesian inference accelerated with adjoint methods. Adjoint methods are crucial because they provide the derivatives of the model's predictions with respect to the model's parameters. This (i) accelerates data assimilation and (ii) allows uncertainties to be propagated through the model such that posterior uncertainties in parameters are calculated by combining prior uncertainties with measurement uncertainties. Quantification of the uncertainties allows candidate physics-based models to be compared rigorously against each other, allowing the best model to be selected. If the physics of the problem is known, this method is almost certainly better than assimilating data into a Neural Network because physics-based models require less training data, are interpretable, and can extrapolate to situations that share the same physics. This work is inspired by [David MacKay's book](https://www.inference.org.uk/itprnn/book.pdf) on information theory, inference, and learning algorithms. I will present applications in Magnetic Resonance Imaging of flows (flow-MRI) and thermoacoustic oscillations in rockets and aicraft engines. An overview of the talk can be found on my [website](https://mpj1001.user.srcf.net/MJ_inference.html).
Comparative Study of Some Numerical Schemes for a Fractional Order Model of HIV Infection Treatment
Authors: Ferrari A. J. , Lara L. P. , Olguin M. C. , Santillan Marcus E. A. 
Published: November 2022

A fractional order mathematical model that already exists in the literature, was considered. This model was established to study the effects of medicinal treatment in people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The importance of this study is that the model evaluates, among other parameters, the density of healthy and HIV-infected CD4+ T cells. These data are very necessary for the subject infected by the virus given the effects that an antiretroviral treatment causes in it. The objective of this work is to consider several numerical schemes that involve fractional derivatives in order to compare their behaviors and to obtain a good approximation of the mentioned model solution. Convergence of these schemes will be studied as well as sensitivity with respect to the variation of the parameters η (drug efficacy) and α (fractional derivative order). Furthermore, through the collection of medical records of people living with HIV, it is intended to determine the optimal fractional derivative order for the model and to compare it with the classical model.
"My Sculpture, My Life": An iconographic study of the contemporary Ghanaian sculptor, Isaac Opoku-Mensah
Authors: Azaglo Alex Kwasi , Adom Dickson , Adu-Agyem Joe , Opoku-Mensah Kofi 
Published: November 2022

There is little information on Contemporary Ghanaian artists in the form of literary presentations and documentation. Isaac Opoku-Mensah is one great personality whose contribution to the development of Ghanaian sculpture and the field of bust sculpture deserves to be recognized, celebrated, and studied. This is a biographic study that focuses on his profile and contributions to academia as well as his sculptural art technique. It looks at some of his creative works, the techniques he used, and his influence on his students and the next generation of sculptural artists. The qualitative research design was used to conduct an iconographic analysis of three specific sculptural pieces as part of an empirical artistic study. Research instruments such as in-depth interviews, observation, and photography were utilised to gather the required data for the study. The paper also appreciates Isaac Opoku-Mensah's sculptural pieces through Erwin Panofsky's iconographic analysis, which has three levels: pre-iconographical description, iconographical analysis, and iconological interpretation. The findings among others indicated that there were detailed interpretations of the busts of three murdered Judges, a cocoa farmer, and academic graduands which aimed at comprehending the images’ visual elements and performing a formal analysis of its physical manifestation, followed by an iconographic analysis in which the images were linked to a known story or recognizable character, and finally, an iconological analysis in which the meaning of the artefacts was determined in relation to its social, cultural, and historical contexts.
Blended pedagogies: The challenges of Visual Arts education
Authors: Quarshie Benjamin , Amponsah Akwasi , Boakye-Ansah Doris 
Published: November 2022

This paper exposes, through qualitative inquiry, the effects of blended learning on training and acquisition of hard and soft skills among Visual Arts students at Mampong Technical College of Education. Two weeks of unobtrusive observation of blended learning lessons were done. Three focus group interviews involving 15 level 300 Visual Arts students to assess the level of impact blended learning exerts on their training and skill acquisition. Findings reveal that the WhatsApp platform was the most used for the online component of the blended learning whereas traditional face-to-to lessons were coupled with OERs and YouTube videos. Students’ enthusiasm for personal learning through exploration using OERs has increased and able to produce end of semester group Visual Art project works despite the challenges due to the blended and learner-centred pedagogies implemented deployed by their tutors. There is a need for further studies to investigate the pedagogic competencies of the MTCE student-teachers in their teaching practices to ascertain their level of skills acquired through the blended learning since their success would impact the national agenda of raising critical and creative thinkers through the standard-based curriculum.
Las extensiones del cuerpo
Authors: Pérez Sánchez Joaquín , Farreny Morancho Jaume , Ferré Pueyo Gemma , Toldrà Domingo Josep Maria 
Published: November 2022

If we think of the human body as the origin and end of architecture (origin as the starting point of the needs that we have to cover in our relationship with the environment, and end as the receiver of the environmental and functional conditions that we create in response to these needs) , we cannot ignore the need to project from our bodies (project from the fact of living). That is why we proposed to the students of introduction to architectural projects an exercise initially planned in two phases: a first work of recognition, learning and drawing of the body, to then ask them to build an intermediary artifact between their body -any part of it- and the environment in which they live, based on a function, invented or not, and if possible not exempt from playful aspects, where the designer himself would be the user. The question to answer was: how do we complete our body in response to a new need?
Si pensamos en el cuerpo humano como origen y final de la arquitectura (origen como punto de partida de necesidades que hemos de cubrir en nuestra relación con el entorno, y final como receptor de las condiciones ambientales y funcionales que creamos en respuesta a dichas necesidades), no podemos dejar de lado la exigencia de proyectar desde nuestros cuerpos (proyectar desde el hecho de habitar). Es por ello que propusimos a los estudiantes de introducción a proyectos arquitectónicos un ejercicio inicialmente planteado en dos fases: un primer trabajo de reconocimiento, aprendizaje y dibujo del cuerpo, para luego pedirles que construyesen un artefacto intermediario entre su cuerpo –cualquier parte del mismo– y el entorno en que habitan a partir de una función, inventada o no, y a ser posible no exenta de aspectos lúdicos, donde el propio proyectista sería el usuario. La pregunta a responder era: ¿cómo completamos nuestro cuerpo ante una nueva necesidad?
Four new species of Hecabolus Curtis, 1834 (Braconidae, Doryctinae) from south and southwestern Brazil, with notes on the morphological variation and geographic distribution of H. mexicanus Zaldívar-Riverón & Belokobylskij, 2009
Authors: Castañeda-Osorio Rubén , Belokobylskij Sergey A. , Zaldívar-Riverón Alejandro 
Published: November 2022

Four new species of the braconid wasp genus Hecabolus Curtis, 1834 (Doryctinae Foerster, 1863) are described for the Neotropical region in south and southwestern Brazil: H. acutus sp. nov., H. chrisaxeli sp. nov., H. gavinbroadi sp. nov., and H. transversalis sp. nov. We also report the morphological variation of females and males of H. mexicanus Zaldívar-Riverón & Belokobylskij, 2009, originally described based on a single female, and provide its first precise geographical distribution records. An updated key to the 13 described species of Hecabolus is provided.
Age, adrenal steroids, and cognitive functioning in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
Authors: Takeshita Rafaela S.C. , Edler Melissa K. , Meindl Richard S. , Sherwood Chet C. , Hopkins William D. , Raghanti Mary Ann 
Published: November 2022

BackgroundDehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate is the most abundant circulating androgen in humans and other catarrhines. It is involved in several biological functions, such as testosterone production, glucocorticoid antagonist actions, neurogenesis and neuroplasticty. Although the role of dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEAS) in cognition remains elusive, the DHEAS/cortisol ratio has been positively associated with a slower cognitive age-decline and improved mood in humans. Whether this relationship is found in nonhuman primates remains unknown.MethodsWe measured DHEAS and cortisol levels in serum of 107 adult chimpanzees to investigate the relationship between DHEAS levels and age. A subset of 21 chimpanzees was used to test the potential associations between DHEAS, cortisol, and DHEAS/cortisol ratio in cognitive function, taking into account age, sex, and their interactions. We tested for cognitive function using the primate cognitive test battery (PCTB) and principal component analyses to categorize cognition into three components:spatial relationshiptasks,tool use and social communicationtasks, andauditory-visual sensory perceptiontasks.ResultsDHEAS levels, but not the DHEAS/cortisol ratio, declined with age in chimpanzees. Our analyses forspatial relationshipstasks revealed a significant, positive correlation with the DHEAS/cortisol ratio.Tool use and social communicationhad a negative relationship with age. Our data show that the DHEAS/cortisol ratio, but not DHEAS individually, is a promising predictor of spatial cognition in chimpanzees.
Identification of quantitative trait loci of agronomic traits in bread wheat using a Pamyati Azieva × Paragon mapping population harvested in three regions of Kazakhstan
Authors: Amalova Akerke , Yermekbayev Kanat , Griffiths Simon , Abugalieva Saule , Babkenov Adylkhan , Fedorenko Elena , Abugalieva Aigul , Turuspekov Yerlan 
Published: November 2022

Background
Although genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are an increasingly informative tool in the mining of new quantitative trait loci (QTLs), a classical biparental mapping approach is still a powerful, widely used method to search the unique genetic factors associated with important agronomic traits in bread wheat.

Methods
In this study, a newly constructed mapping population of Pamyati Azieva (Russian Federation) × Paragon (UK), consisting of 94 recombinant inbred lines (RILs), was tested in three different regions of Kazakhstan with the purpose of QTL identification for key agronomic traits. The RILs were tested in 11 environments of two northern breeding stations (Petropavlovsk, North Kazakhstan region, and Shortandy, Aqmola region) and one southeastern station (Almalybak, Almaty region). The following eight agronomic traits were studied: heading days, seed maturation days, plant height, spike length, number of productive spikes, number of kernels per spike, thousand kernel weight, and yield per square meter. The 94 RILs of the PAxP cross were genotyped using Illumina’s iSelect 20K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array and resulted in the identification of 4595 polymorphic SNP markers.

Results
The application of the QTL Cartographer statistical package allowed the identification of 53 stable QTLs for the studied traits. A survey of published studies related to common wheat QTL identification suggested that 28 of those 53 QTLs were presumably novel genetic factors. The SNP markers for the identified QTLs of the analyzed agronomic traits of common wheat can be efficiently applied in ongoing breeding activities in the wheat breeding community using a marker-assisted selection approach.
Preliminary Antibacterial Screening of the Whole Stem of Rothmannia whitfieldii
Authors: Okechim Joy O. , Nwogu Nkemakolam A. , Ezea Ifeanyi B. 
Published: November 2022

Aim: To assess the antibacterial activity of the crude ethanolic and water extracts of the stem of Rothmannia whitfieldii on clinically isolated and typed pathogenic bacterial strains.
Study Design: This experiment was performed in duplicates under aseptic condition.
Place and Duration of Study: Department of Microbiology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State, Nigeria between April 2005 to August, 2005.
Methodology: Whole dried stem specimen of Rothmannia whitfieldii was extracted by maceration and screened for antibacterial activity using agar well-diffusion technique. Five typed bacterial strains namely, Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 12600), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 10145), Escherichia coli (ATCC 11775), Salmonella kintambo (SSRL 113) and Bacillus subtilis (ATCC 6051), and six locally isolated clinical strains (Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, P. aeruginosa, S. aureus and two Proteus species designated as Proteus I and Proteus II), were tested for susceptibility to the plant extract.
Results: Phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of flavonoids, saponnins, tannins, carbohydrates and steroidal aglycone. Alkaloid was present in trace amount only in the ethanolic extract. The ethanolic extract exhibited a wider spectrum of activity, being effective against 81.8% of the test organisms compared with the cold-water extract (54.5%) or hot water extracts (27.3%). The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) varied not only with the test organisms but also with the various extracts of the plant.
Conclusion: All the extracts had bacteriostatic activity on the susceptible organisms and none was bactericidal. The screening test results authenticate the folkloric claims that Rothmannia whitfieldii is medicinal against gastrointestinal diseases and aid in wound healing.