7 research outputs found

    Starting from scratch: building a new curriculum for faculty development program in emergency medicine by repurposing from a systemic review

    Get PDF
    Aim of the study: As we move towards globalization, health care professionals may find themselves working in a healthcare system that has a different patient population and disease epidemiology than their training. This study aims to develop a curriculum for a faculty development program for emergency medicine health care professionals in a private hospital in Kuwait who find themselves in such a situation. Material and methods: Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, the authors systematically searched PubMed, CINAHL and ERIC from the inception of the database until June 2018, for search terms that would capture curriculum development for faculty development programs in emergency medicine or trauma. Two independent reviewers for relevance reviewed abstracts; included studies were retrieved for full-text analysis. A curriculum was developed using the topics requested by the needs assessment using the recommendations from the systematic review. Results: A total of 92 papers meeting the search criteria were identified of which 5 were included in the analysis. All 5 articles had education as the main objective of the curriculum for the faculty development program. All 5 articles had a faculty development program that was in the classroom setting. Four articles (80%) included a target audience of senior staff. Four articles (80%) recommended mentoring as an effective method for faculty development. Conclusions: The most effective method of the faculty development program was through mentorship. Further research is needed to dictate faculty development focusing on non-educational objectives

    Physicochemical and Sensory Properties and Shelf Life of Block-Type Processed Cheeses Fortified with Date Seeds (Phoenix dactylifera L.) as a Functional Food

    No full text
    Processed cheese has rapidly been established as a commercial product in recent years. A new ingredient, a byproduct from date fruit seed (DFS), was obtained and tested as a fortified fiber from food industrial waste in block-type processed cheese. This is the first inclusive investigation to report such a test. Different concentrations of DFS (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) were added to block-type processed cheese as a partial substitution for butter. The current investigation was undertaken to estimate the impact of the partial substitution of butter by DFS and its effect on the product’s quality in terms of its shelf life and physicochemical, microstructure, color, and sensory properties. Quality was assessed over a 150-day storage period. The results indicate that adding DFS to cheese increased its nutritional value due to the addition of fiber. Additionally, the texture profile of cheese was decreased in terms of hardness, adhesion, springiness, and cohesiveness. The overall structure of cheeses became less compact and had a more open cheese network, which increased with increasing DFS% and duration of storage. Moreover, DFS exhibited the darkest color with increasing ratios of supplementary DFS and duration of storage. Based on the results found in the present investigation, it was concluded that an acceptable quality of block-type processed cheese could be achieved using DFS fiber at 5% and 10% levels of fortification

    A novel explanatory hybrid artificial bee colony algorithm for numerical function optimization

    No full text
    Over the past few decades, there has been a surge of interest of using swarm intelligence (SI) in computer-aided optimization. SI algorithms have demonstrated their efcacy in solving various types of real-world optimization problems. However, it is impossible to fnd an optimization algorithm that can obtain the global optimum for every optimization problem. Therefore, researchers extensively try to improve methods of solving complex optimization problems. Many SI search algorithms are widely applied to solve such problems. ABC is one of the most popular algorithms in solving diferent kinds of optimization problems. However, it has a weak local search performance where the equation of solution search in ABC performs good exploration, but poor exploitation. Besides, it has a fast convergence and can therefore be trapped in the local optima for some complex multimodal problems. In order to address such issues, this paper proposes a novel hybrid ABC with outstanding local search algorithm called ÎČ-hill climbing (ÎČHC) and denoted by ABC–ÎČHC. The aim is to improve the exploitation mechanism of the standard ABC. The proposed algorithm was experimentally tested with parameters tuning process and validated using selected benchmark functions with diferent characteristics, and it was also evaluated and compared with well-known state-of-the-art algorithms. The evaluation process was investigated using diferent common measurement metrics. The result showed that the proposed ABC–ÎČHC had faster convergence in most benchmark functions and outperformed eight algorithms including the original ABC in terms of all the selected measurement metrics. For more validation, Wilcoxon’s rank sum statistical test was conducted, and the p values were found to be mostly less than 0.05, which demonstrates that the superiority of the proposed ABC–ÎČHC is statistically signifcant

    Thymoquinone Potentiates the Effect of Phenytoin against Electroshock-Induced Convulsions in Rats by Reducing the Hyperactivation of m-TOR Pathway and Neuroinflammation: Evidence from In Vivo, In Vitro and Computational Studies

    No full text
    Epilepsy is a chronic neurodegenerative disease characterized by multiple seizures, hereto 35% of patients remain poor responders. Phenytoin (PHT; 20 and 40 mg/kg) and thymoquinone (THQ; 40 and 80 mg/kg) were given alone and as a low dose combination for 14 days (p.o), prior to challenge with maximal electroshock (MES; 180 mA, 220 V, 0.2 s). Apart from observing convulsions, hippocampal mTOR, IL-1ÎČ, IL-6 and TNF-α levels were measured. Hippocampal histomorphological analysis was also conducted. In vitro cell line studies and molecular docking studies were run in parallel. The results revealed the synergistic potential of the novel duo-drug combination regimen: PHT (20 mg/kg) and THQ (40 mg/kg) against MES-induced convulsions. MES amplified signaling through mTOR, and inflated the levels of proinflammatory markers (IL-1ÎČ, IL-6 and TNF-α), which was significantly averted (p < 0.001) with the said drug combination. The computational studies revealed that PHT and THQ cooperatively bind the active site on Akt (upstream target of m-TOR) and establish a good network of intermolecular interactions, which indicates the sequential inhibition of PI3K/Akt/m-TOR signaling with the combination. The combination also increased cell viability by 242.81% compared to 85.66% viability from the the toxic control. The results suggest that the PHT and THQ in combination possesses excellent anticonvulsant and neuroprotective effects

    Awareness level of parents toward antibiotics those are prescribed to their children in al-dammam city

    Get PDF
    Background: Misuse of antibiotics is worldwide problem and annoying pediatricians. This misuses result in the increase the prevalence of one of global health problem which is antibiotic Resistance. Many studies mentioned that misusing of antibiotics is related to antibiotic resistance. The main reason of antibiotics misuse is low public awareness towards antibiotics indications. Also, patient's knowledge and practice with the antibiotic like self-prescription is common in developing countries. The antibiotics prescribed from private pharmacies are given to parents and parents are responsible to give medications to their children. So, we need to increase parents' awareness toward antibiotics usage to decrease the incidence of antibiotic resistance. Objective: To evaluate the parents' level of awareness towards antibiotics those prescribed to their children in At Dammam city Saudi Arabia. Methods: Questionnaire based on cross-sectional study. Questionnaires filled by parents whom have children less than 12 years old in public places randomly in the period from October to November 2018. The questionnaires has two parts: the first part is containing social-demographic data. While the second part: LIP of parents towards antibiotics. Data entering and analysis by SPSS. Results: Questionnaires have been distributed to 450 parents, most in participants were aged 20-29 . years old, the vast majority of participants have misconception regarding the antibiotics indications and (40%) of participants chose that antibiotics use for fever, (22%) for cough and (21%) do not know. Regarding parents' attitude toward antibiotics, (71.3%) have used antibiotics for their children but fortunately, Majority of the participants believe that their children don't need to antibiotics every time when they are sick (70%). in addition, Most of the. participants believe that antibiotics may harm the children (60%) Conclusion: Level of awaraness of parents in Dammam city is moderately acceptable. We can expect antibiotics resistance to happen among new generation in Al-Dammam city if there is no enough campaigns to increase the awareness and to fill the gap

    SARS-CoV-2 vaccination modelling for safe surgery to save lives: data from an international prospective cohort study

    No full text
    Background: Preoperative SARS-CoV-2 vaccination could support safer elective surgery. Vaccine numbers are limited so this study aimed to inform their prioritization by modelling. Methods: The primary outcome was the number needed to vaccinate (NNV) to prevent one COVID-19-related death in 1 year. NNVs were based on postoperative SARS-CoV-2 rates and mortality in an international cohort study (surgical patients), and community SARS-CoV-2 incidence and case fatality data (general population). NNV estimates were stratified by age (18-49, 50-69, 70 or more years) and type of surgery. Best- and worst-case scenarios were used to describe uncertainty. Results: NNVs were more favourable in surgical patients than the general population. The most favourable NNVs were in patients aged 70 years or more needing cancer surgery (351; best case 196, worst case 816) or non-cancer surgery (733; best case 407, worst case 1664). Both exceeded the NNV in the general population (1840; best case 1196, worst case 3066). NNVs for surgical patients remained favourable at a range of SARS-CoV-2 incidence rates in sensitivity analysis modelling. Globally, prioritizing preoperative vaccination of patients needing elective surgery ahead of the general population could prevent an additional 58 687 (best case 115 007, worst case 20 177) COVID-19-related deaths in 1 year. Conclusion: As global roll out of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination proceeds, patients needing elective surgery should be prioritized ahead of the general population
    corecore