Tag: nevin manimala

BMC Chem. 2023 Jun 8;17(1):50. doi: 10.1186/s13065-023-00972-9.

ABSTRACT

Teff [Eragrostis tef (Zuccagni) Trotter] is an indigenous crop in Ethiopia, and Amhara region is the predominant teff producing region in the country. This study was aimed at developing an analytical methodology useful to determine the geographical origin of teff produced in the Amhara Region, based on multielement analysis combined with multivariate statistical techniques. For this, a total of 72 teff grain samples were collected from three zones (West Gojjam, East Gojjam, and Awi) and analysed for K, Na, Mg, Ca, Mn, Cu, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn, Cr, and Cd contents using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The digestion and ICP-OES analysis method were accurate, with percentage recovery ranging 85.5 to 109% across the different metals analysed. Principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) were applied to discriminate samples based on their production regions. Magnesium, Ca, Fe, Mn, and Zn were the most discriminating elements among the samples. The LDA model provided 96% correct classification of samples into production regions and varietal types, with an average prediction ability of 92%. Hence, the multielement analysis combined with statistical modeling can be used in the authentication of the geographical origin and varietal type of teff from Amhara region.

PMID:37291660 | DOI:10.1186/s13065-023-00972-9

Angiology. 2023 Jun 8:33197231183087. doi: 10.1177/00033197231183087. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Endocan, as an endothelial cell damage marker, plays role in several cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular diseases. This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the role of endocan as a potential diagnostic or prognostic biomarker for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). International databases including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for relevant studies assessing endocan levels in OSA patients compared with healthy controls or within different severities or comorbidities of OSA. Random-effect meta-analysis was performed in order to calculate the standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI) of serum/plasma endocan in all comparisons. A total of 10 studies were included in our systematic review, among which seven were used in meta-analysis. Meta-analysis showed that endocan levels were significantly higher in patients with OSA compared with healthy controls (SMD 1.29, 95% CI 0.64-1.93, P < .001) and this was not different between serum and plasma subgroups. However, there was no statistical difference between severe and non-severe OSA patients (SMD .64, 95% CI -.22 to 1.50, P = .147). Considerably, higher endocan levels in patients with OSA in comparison with non-OSA individuals might have clinical implications. This association warrants further research due to its potential use as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker.

PMID:37290048 | DOI:10.1177/00033197231183087

Evol Comput. 2023 Jun 8:1-35. doi: 10.1162/evco_a_00335. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

We contribute to the efficient approximation of the Pareto-set for the classical NP-hard multi-objective minimum spanning tree problem (moMST) adopting evolutionary computation. More precisely, by building upon preliminary work, we analyse the neighborhood structure of Pareto-optimal spanning trees and design several highly biased sub-graph-based mutation operators founded on the gained insights. In a nutshell, these operators replace (un)connected sub-trees of candidate solutions with locally optimal sub-trees. The latter (biased) step is realized by applying Kruskal’s single-objective MST algorithm to a weighted sum scalarization of a sub-graph. We prove runtime complexity results for the introduced operators and investigate the desirable Pareto-beneficial property. This property states that mutants cannot be dominated by their parent. Moreover, we perform an extensive experimental benchmark study to showcase the operator’s practical suitability. Our results confirm that the subgraph based operators beat baseline algorithms from the literature even with severely restricted computational budget in terms of function evaluations on four different classes of complete graphs with different shapes of the Pareto-front.

PMID:37290030 | DOI:10.1162/evco_a_00335

J Am Coll Health. 2023 Jun 8:1-8. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2023.2222830. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Objective: College students experience stressors that can increase the risk for mental health concerns and negatively impact retention rates. It is crucial for practitioners working on college campuses to find creative ways to meet the needs of their students and cultivate a campus culture that is dedicated to bolstering mental health. The purpose of this study was to explore if implementing 1-h mental health workshops covering stress management, wellness, mindfulness, and SMART goals was feasible and advantageous for students. Participants: Researchers hosted 1-h workshops in 13 classrooms. Participants included 257 students who completed the pretest and 151 students who completed the post-test. Methods: A quasi-experimental 1-group pre- and post-test design was utilized. Results: Means and standard deviations were utilized to examine knowledge, attitudes, and intentions in each domain. Results indicated statistically significant improvements in each. Conclusion: Implications and interventions are provided for mental health practitioner working on college campuses.

PMID:37290001 | DOI:10.1080/07448481.2023.2222830

J Am Coll Health. 2023 Jun 8:1-5. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2023.2217725. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Objective: The primary goal of conducting this research was to gain insight into what characteristics of a community pharmacy college students may find appealing and how community pharmacies can tailor their services toward college students. Participants: The survey was distributed to 3,000 college students at The University of Mississippi from various schools and majors across campus. A total of 188 students participated by completing questions from the survey. Methods: The research was performed by using a cross-sectional online survey, and basic descriptive statistics, including frequency counts were used to characterize the findings. Statistical analyses, including crosstabs and chi-square analyses, were used to determine if there were any significant (p < 0.05) associations between characteristics such as pharmacy preferences and other variables. Results: Results of this survey indicated that the majority of respondents have used a community pharmacy in the past six months, and a small number of participants are interested in using a pharmacy for more than the sole reason of filling a prescription. Results also showed that insurance and convenience were the two most influential factors in choosing a community pharmacy. Conclusion: The findings presented in this study show a number of opportunities for community pharmacies to improve the health of college students and their communities.

PMID:37289988 | DOI:10.1080/07448481.2023.2217725

J Am Coll Health. 2023 Jun 8:1-14. doi: 10.1080/07448481.2023.2217717. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Limited research exists on the simultaneous effects of family functioning, social competence, and social support on the well-being and depression, anxiety, and stress of college students and the power of these effects. We examined these predictors in two models to determine each variable’s impact on students’ mental health.

PARTICIPANTS: From October 2018 to November 2018, 726 students from 18 institutions of varying sizes across the United States participated in an online survey.

METHODS: Stratified random sampling with institution size and setting as the strata; descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple linear regression to test study hypotheses.

RESULTS: Variables predicted mental well-being and symptoms across both models, with social competence being the largest predictor, followed by perceived social support and family functioning.

CONCLUSIONS: Practitioners should consider the impact of social influences on student mental health and design interventions to strengthen social competence and support.

PMID:37289975 | DOI:10.1080/07448481.2023.2217717

Adv Physiol Educ. 2023 Jun 8. doi: 10.1152/advan.00060.2022. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Online Flipped Classroom (OFC) differs from the traditional flipped classroom as it does not involve face-to-face interaction between teachers and students. Instead, the class meeting is conducted online, and it is focused on active and collaborative learning (e.g., discussion，rather than lecturing). To evaluate the effectiveness of the Physiology OFC, we compared it with online live teaching (OLT) offered in the same school and semester. We analyzed the exam scores of the Physiology course as well as the scores for other courses offered in the same semester and after the Physiology course. Our analysis found no statistically significant difference between OFC and OLT in terms of overall exam scores for all students. However, high-achieving students in OFC scored higher on the total exam score and short answer questions (SAQs) but the score of case study questions (CSQs) of low-achieving students was lower. Furthermore, students in OFC scored higher in Medical Immunology and courses dominated by logical thinking such as Pharmacology and Diagnostics than students in OLT. In conclusion, our findings suggest that OFC can achieve the same teaching effectiveness as OLT, with a more positive impact on high-achieving students. The positive impact extends beyond the Physiology course to other courses where logical thinking is critical. However, the lower performance of low-achieving students in CSQs highlights the need for further research to determine the reasons for their lower performance and potential strategies to improve their learning outcomes.

PMID:37289950 | DOI:10.1152/advan.00060.2022

J Cosmet Laser Ther. 2023 Jun 8:1-5. doi: 10.1080/14764172.2023.2222946. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Port-wine stains (PWS) are frequently refractory to laser treatments. The aim of this study is to evaluate the role of treatment interval time. From 1990, 216 patients underwent Pulsed Dye Laser sessions. The laser sessions were scheduled at a minimum interval of 4 weeks to a maximum of 48 weeks. Clinical outcomes were assessed 8 weeks after the last laser session. Better results were obtained with 8 weeks interval time between therapy session, and high efficacies were also found for intervals of 4, 6 and 10 weeks. For greater interval instead, the effectiveness is significantly lower.

PMID:37289942 | DOI:10.1080/14764172.2023.2222946

Lab Med. 2023 Jun 8:lmad046. doi: 10.1093/labmed/lmad046. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) can be used to detect pathogens in clinical infectious diseases through the sequencing analysis of microbial and host nucleic acids in clinical samples. This study aimed to assess the diagnostic performance of mNGS in patients with infections.

METHODS: In this study, 641 patients with infectious diseases were enrolled. These patients simultaneously underwent pathogen detection by both mNGS and microbial culture. Through statistical analysis, we judged the diagnostic performance of mNGS and microbial culture on different pathogens.

RESULTS: Among 641 patients, 276 cases of bacteria and 95 cases of fungi were detected by mNGS, whereas 108 cases of bacteria and 41 cases of fungi were detected by traditional cultures. Among all mixed infections, combined bacterial and viral infections were the highest (51%, 87/169), followed by combined bacterial with fungal infections (16.57%, 28/169) and mixed bacterial, fungal, and viral infections (13.61%, 23/169). Among all sample types, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) samples had the highest positive rate (87.8%, 144/164), followed by sputum (85.4%, 76/89) and blood samples (61.2%, 158/258). For the culture method, sputum samples had the highest positive rate (47.2%, 42/89), followed by BALF (37.2%, 61/164). The positive rate of mNGS was 69.89% (448/641), which was significantly higher than that of traditional cultures (22.31% [143/641]) (P < .05).

CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that mNGS is an effective tool for the rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases. Compared with traditional detection methods, mNGS also showed obvious advantages in mixed infections and infections with uncommon pathogens.

PMID:37289931 | DOI:10.1093/labmed/lmad046

Science. 2023 Jun 9;380(6649):1038-1042. doi: 10.1126/science.add5190. Epub 2023 Jun 8.

ABSTRACT

One of the foundational premises of ecology is that climate determines ecosystems. This has been challenged by alternative ecosystem state models, which illustrate that internal ecosystem dynamics acting on the initial ecosystem state can overwhelm the influence of climate, and by observations suggesting that climate cannot reliably discriminate forest and savanna ecosystem types. Using a novel phytoclimatic transform, which estimates the ability of climate to support different types of plants, we show that climatic suitability for evergreen trees and C4 grasses are sufficient to discriminate between forest and savanna in Africa. Our findings reassert the dominant influence of climate on ecosystems and suggest that the role of feedbacks causing alternative ecosystem states is less prevalent than has been suggested.

PMID:37289873 | DOI:10.1126/science.add5190