Strategic indicators of the role of government in developing Dubai as a medical tourism hub

Medhekar, A ORCiD: 0000-0002-6791-4056Medical tourism is a growing phenomenon in the Middle East. Dubai is strategically located to competitively attract patients from Islamic backgrounds given the cultural congruence with the Middle Eastern countries for medical tourism. Dubai is famous for its shopping, sightseeing, desert safaris, state-of-the art tourism facilities, and as a melting pot for Eastern and Western civilizations. The government of United Arab Emirates is playing a key role to support the development of Dubai as a medical tourism hub of the Middle East and diversify the oil-based economy in an innovative way. It is developing various niche tourism products and services embedded in the non-oil sectors of the economy by applying the five strategic indicators required to study the role of governments in planning and supporting sustainable tourism.Associated Grant:N/

An epidemiological analysis of yoga-related injury presentations to emergency departments in Australia

Sekendiz, B ORCiD: 0000-0002-5657-0008Objectives: Despite being considered a low-intensity exercise, concerns have been raised about the risk of injuries associated with yoga. This study aimed to analyse the characteristics and trend of yoga-related emergency department (ED) presentations from July 2009 to June 2016 in Victoria, Australia. Methods: The Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD) was used to collect the de-identified data. The data were first analysed using descriptive statistics and Spearman`s correlation. Further injury trend was analysed by calculating percentage change of the number of yoga-related injuries during the seven-year study period. Results: There were 118 yoga-related injury cases that significantly (p < .05) increased by 357% from July 2009 to June 2016. Most of the cases were female (n = 96; 81.4%) and between 20-39 years old (n = 68, 57.6%). Most common injuries comprised dislocations/sprains/strains (n = 60, 51.7%) followed by fractures (n = 17, 14.4%), and injury to muscle/tendon (n = 15, 12.7%). Conclusion: The findings warrant future nationwide research as well as an investigation into the risk management strategies of yoga service providers to minimize the risk of injury

Successes and challenges of an IT-based health behaviour change program to increase physical activity

Vandelanotte, CL ORCiD: 0000-0002-4445-8094Health behaviour change programs that utilise IT-based delivery have great potential to improve health. Whilst more static Web 1.0 technologies have been somewhat effective, they often failed to promote longer-term user engagement required for greater health promotion impact. With Web 2.0 technologies, however, there is potential for greater engagement and retention, through allowing individuals to determine how information is generated, modified, and shared collaboratively. The WALK 2.0 study utilised a Web 2.0-based platform to engage participants in health behaviour change aimed at increasing physical activity levels. The program included two trials: (1) a three-arm randomised controlled trial (RCT) that compared the effectiveness of Web 2.0, Web 1.0, and paper-based logbook interventions; and (2) a real-world randomised ecological trial (RET) that compared a Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 intervention. The aim of this paper is not to focus on the research trial results per se, but rather the success factors and challenges in both the RCT and RET. Both the RCT and RET demonstrated successful outcomes, with greater improvements in physical activity for the Web 2.0 groups. A range of challenges, however, were identified in designing, implementing, and evaluating such interventions. These include IT-based intervention development within a research context, the ability to establish a self-sustaining online community, the rapid pace of change in web-based technology and implications for trial design, the selection of best outcome measures for ecological trials, and managing engagement, non-usage and study attrition in real-world trials. Future research and developments in this area must look to broader research designs that allow for the ever-changing IT-user landscape and behaviour, and greater reliance on development and testing in real-world settings. © 2020 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved

Spillover trends of child labor during the coronavirus crisis: An unnoticed wake-up call

Willis, EM ORCiD: 0000-0001-7576-971XThe worldwide surge of Covid-19 pandemic threatens the lives of impoverished and vulnerable segments of society. Children, particularly, are at greater risk of maltreatment and neglect rather than disease contamination. Children in labor are the highly overlooked topic in research and national plans than other aspects of child abuse provoked by the Covid-19 outbreak

Sex differences in emotional insight after traumatic brain injury

Zupan, BA ORCiD: 0000-0002-4603-333XObjective: To compare sex differences in alexithymia (poor emotional processing) in males and females with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and uninjured controls. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: TBI rehabilitation facility in the United States and a university in Canada. Participants: Sixty adults with moderate to severe TBI (62% men) and 60 uninjured controls (63% men) (N=120). Interventions: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20). Results: Uninjured men had significantly higher (worse) alexithymia scores than uninjured female participants on the TAS-20 (P=.007), whereas, no sex differences were found in the TBI group (P=.698). Men and women with TBI had significantly higher alexithymia compared with uninjured same-sex controls (both P<.001). The prevalence of participants with scores exceeding alexithymia sex-based norms for men and women with TBI was 37.8% and 47.8%, respectively, compared with 7.9% and 0% for men and women without TBI. Conclusions: Contrary to most findings in the general population, men with TBI were not more alexithymic than their female counterparts with TBI. Both men and women with TBI have more severe alexithymia than their uninjured same-sex peers. Moreover, both are equally at risk for elevated alexithymia compared with the norms. Alexithymia should be evaluated and treated after TBI regardless of patient sex. © 2020 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicin

Exploring the role of nurses in after-hours telephone services in regional areas: A scoping review

Baldwin, AE ORCiD: 0000-0002-6325-4142; Harvey, CL ORCiD: 0000-0001-9016-8840; Hegney, DG ORCiD: 0000-0003-1267-1760; Willis, EM ORCiD: 0000-0001-7576-971XThis is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Introduction The management of patients who need chronic and complex care is a focus of attention internationally, brought about by an increase in chronic conditions, requiring significantly more care over longer periods of time. The increase in chronic conditions has placed pressure on health services, financially and physically, bringing about changes in the way care is delivered, with hospital avoidance and home-based care encouraged. In this environment, nurses play an important role in co-ordinating care across services. This review formed one part of a funded project that explored the nurse navigator role within a proposed 24-hour telephone-call service in one regional area that has a diverse population in terms of cultural identity and geographical location in relation to service access. Aim The review reports on the extant literature on the nurse’s role in the provision of afterhours telephone services for patients with chronic and complex conditions. The specific aim was to explore the effectiveness of services for patients in geographically isolated locations. Methods The methodological approach to the review followed the Preferred Reporting System for Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A thematic analysis was used to identify themes with chronic care models underpinning analysis. Results Three themes were identified; nurse-led decision making; consumer profile; and program outcomes. Each theme was divided into two sub-themes. The two sub-themes for decision making were: the experience of the staff who provided the service and the tool or protocol used. The two sub-themes for consumers profile were; the geographic/demographic identity of the consumers, and consumer satisfaction. The final theme of outcomes describes how the effectiveness of the service is measured, broken into two sub-themes: the economic/ workforce outcomes and the consumer outcomes. Discussion The provision of an after-hours telephone service, in whatever model used should align with a Chronic Care Model. In this way, after-hours telephone services provided by experienced nurses, supported by ongoing professional development and relevant protocols, form part of the ongoing improvement for chronic and complex care management as a health priority. © 2020 Baldwin et al

Effects of diet on sleep: A narrative review

Gupta, CC ORCiD: 0000-0003-2436-3327; Khalesi, S ORCiD: 0000-0002-8208-2518; Vincent, GE ORCiD: 0000-0002-7036-7823Many processes are involved in sleep regulation, including the ingestion of nutrients, suggesting a link between diet and sleep. Aside from studies investigating the effects of tryptophan, previous research on sleep and diet has primarily focused on the effects of sleep deprivation or sleep restriction on diet. Furthermore, previous reviews have included subjects with clinically diagnosed sleep-related disorders. The current narrative review aimed to clarify findings on sleep-promoting foods and outline the effects of diet on sleep in otherwise healthy adults. A search was undertaken in August 2019 from the Cochrane, MEDLINE (PubMed), and CINAHL databases using the population, intervention, control, outcome (PICO) method. Eligible studies were classified based on emerging themes and reviewed using narrative synthesis. Four themes emerged: tryptophan consumption and tryptophan depletion, dietary supplements, food items, and macronutrients. High carbohydrate diets, and foods containing tryptophan, melatonin, and phytonutrients (e.g., cherries), were linked to improved sleep outcomes. The authors posit that these effects may be due in part to dietary influences on serotonin and melatonin activity. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Maternal eroticism and female desire in Sue Miller's The good mother

Rooks, AL ORCiD: 0000-0002-8100-4497The Good Mother portrays a new kind of conflict for the growing number of single mothers in the Western world in the late twentieth century; tracking the fall from grace of newly divorced "good mother", Anna Dunlap. The struggles and adversities that Anna faces expose the persistent disavowal of mothers as sexual beings in the late twentieth century, despite the alleged freedoms won for women in the wake of the feminist and sexual liberation movements. In this essay, I argue that The Good Mother has continued relevance for modern readers, as it broadens the debates around the persistent ideology of asexual motherhood in its presentation of mothering as an erotic experience, one that shares a number of parallels with sexual eroticism and desire. I reveal how Miller’s novel provides a provocative disruption of the borders between mothering and sexuality in a way that brings to light the issues that silently sustain many of the cultural anxieties surrounding both of these aspects of female experience. I argue that in challenging the cultural requirement of suppressing the component of eroticism in the mothering role, Miller’s novel calls for an alternative, expanded understanding of both sexuality and motherhood—one that considers the difference in construction, representation, and experience that may occur if sexuality, eroticism, and motherhood were considered through a maternal lens

Losing sleep over it: Sleep in basketball players affected by game but not training workloads

Fox, J ORCiD: 0000-0001-8367-5297; O'Grady, CJ ORCiD: 0000-0003-1001-8725; Sargent, C ORCiD: 0000-0001-5340-4701; Scanlan, AT ORCiD: 0000-0002-0750-8697; Stanton, R ORCiD: 0000-0002-6684-5087Purpose: To examine the impact of workload volume during training sessions and games on subsequent sleep duration and sleep quality in basketball players. Methods: Seven semiprofessional male basketball players were monitored across preseason and inseason phases to determine training session and game workloads, sleep duration, and sleep quality. Training and game data were collected via accelerometers, heart-rate monitors, and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) and reported as PlayerLoad™ (PL), summated heart-rate zones, and session RPE (sRPE). Sleep duration and sleep quality were measured using wrist-worn activity monitors in conjunction with self-report sleep diaries. For daily training sessions and games, all workload data were independently sorted into tertiles representing low, medium, and high workload volumes. Sleep measures following low, medium, and high workloads and control nights (no training/games) were compared using linear mixed models. Results: Sleep onset time was significantly later following medium and high PL and sRPE game workloads compared with control nights (P .05). Conclusions: Following high PL and sRPE game workloads, basketball practitioners should consider strategies that facilitate longer time in bed, such as napping and/or adjusting travel or training schedules the following day. © 2020 Human Kinetics, Inc

Comparisons of the resilient moduli of asphalt mixes containing recycled materials through empirical and experimental methods

Mirzababaei, M ORCiD: 0000-0002-4801-8811; Tahmoorian, F ORCiD: 0000-0002-5158-2077The stiffness of asphalt mixes is a fundamental property that plays an important role in determining the performance of asphaltpavement under traffic loading. The resilient modulus (stiffness) of asphalt mixes can be either determined using laboratory experiments orpredicted through empirical methods based on asphalt components’properties. This paper characterized the effect of recycled materialsincluding recycled construction aggregate (RCA) and glass on the resilient modulus of asphalt mixes using both an empirical methodand a series of laboratory experiments. In addition, the resilient moduli obtained from different methods for different asphalt mixes werecompared, and the accuracy and reliability of different empirical methods were discussed accordingly. The outcomes indicated that in cases inwhich the value of resilient modulus cannot be obtained experimentally, empirical equations cannot well predict the actual resilient modulus.Furthermore, the addition of RCA and glass at a certain amount was shown to improve the resilient modulus of the asphalt mix. This may beattributed to the basic properties of RCA due to its smaller flakiness index and particle shape compared with virgin aggregates. These twoparameters significantly affected the final performance of asphalt mixes