A Review of Ethnopsychiatric Studies of Depression

One of the common goals in medical anthropology is to elucidate the significance of culture in determining health and thus clarify the complex biopsychosocial model to provide better, more appropriate care (I). Prominent among environmental influences is the society in which a person develops: and it is his position in this constellation of people, with their shared ethos and world view, which molds experience, cognition, and affect (2). Cultural meanings, norms, and power arrangements shape illness to a great degree by defining the sick role and consequent illness behaviors. Medical anthropology, as a discipline, has among its concerns the cultural content of health and illness behaviors: it includes studies of how social experiences define sickness and shape ideas of disease recognition and therapy (3) . Both physician and patient offer, either unconsciously or consciously, explanatory models of disease and expectations of the health care system which form a continuum ranging from full agreement to mutual disregard (4). These observations spring from a cursory glance at even a single society and accumulate greater power when comparative cultural studies are involved, as is the case in cross-cultural psychiatry

Pediatric maxillofacial injuries at a Nigerian teaching hospital: A three-year review

Aim: To determine the nature of pediatric maxillofacial injuries, according to etiology and characteristics of patients.Materials and Methods: The records of patients aged 15 years and below who presented with maxillofacial trauma to the Maxillofacial Clinic of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Kano, Nigeria over a 3-year period were retrospectively examined. Patients’ demographic and etiologic factors were obtained and analyzed. A P value of <0.05 was considered significant.Results: A total of 160 patients comprising males, 102 (63.8%) and females 58 (36.2%), were seen over the period of study. The age of patients range from 4 months to 15 years, mean 7.07 ± 4.52 years. There was no gender difference in terms of age (P < 0.05). Road traffic accident (RTA) was the most common etiologic factor accounting for 45.0% ofcases. This was followed by fall (40.6%). Animal related injury and violence accounted equally for 3.8%. Soft tissue injuries in the form of abrasion, laceration and avulsion accounted for 70.0% of cases. Other anatomical sites included the mandible (16.3%), dento-alveolar fractures(12.5%), and midface (1.3%).Conclusion: Road traffic accident and falls still remains the leading cause of maxillofacial injuries in children in this part of the globe. There is a need to reinforce existing traffic laws that aimed at minimizing the menace of RTA-related accidents.Key words: Maxillofacial injuries, Nigeria, pediatri

Towards Sustainable Development in Road Safety: Assessing Public Awareness on Basic Road Traffic Practices in Batu Pahat, Johor

Road accident contributes to high fatality rate around the world and being the 8th leading cause of death of all ages worldwide. Thus, road safety is essential for ensuring the safety and security of individuals of all ages, as well as reducing the number of traffic accidents and injuries as a one way to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 2030. This study aims to assess the level of road safety awareness in terms of basic road traffic practices among public who use Jalan Kluang Federal Route 50 (FT050). The level of knowledge on basic road traffic practices, the level of perceived real practice on basic road traffic practices, and the relationship between their level of knowledge and perceived real practice on basic road traffic practices were investigated. A survey method via questionnaire was distributed randomly to 200 respondents who are adults aged 18 and above and who live around Batu Pahat areas using Google Form online platform. Relevant statistical methods via Statistical Package for the Social Science Software version 26.0 (SPSS) such as descriptive, Mean Score Method, Correlation and Regression analyses were used to analyse the data.  It is found that the level of knowledge on basic road traffic practices among public is high.  Meanwhile, the level of perceived real practice on basic road traffic practices among public is low. Regression analysis results show that the awareness on knowledge of basic road traffic practices variable (β = 0.624, t = 11.229, p < 0.05) demonstrate a statistically significant relationship with perceived real practices, indicating that, the better an individual’s awareness on knowledge of basic road traffic practices (e.g. importance of safety belt, safety helmet, child restraint system (CRS) and speeding) the better the individual to actually apply the basic road traffic practices (e.g. the use of seat belt, safety helmet, CRS and speeding)

Stochastic Electrical Detection of Single Ion-Gated Semiconducting Polymers

Semiconducting polymer chains constitute the building blocks for a wide range of electronic materials and devices. However, most of their electrical characteristics at the single-molecule level have received little attention. Elucidating these properties can help understanding performance limits and enable new applications. Here, coupled ionic–electronic charge transport is exploited to measure the quasi-1D electrical current through long single conjugated polymer chains as they form transient contacts with electrodes separated by ≈10 nm. Fluctuations between internal conformations of the individual polymers are resolved as abrupt, multilevel switches in the electrical current. This behavior is consistent with the theoretical simulations based on the worm-like-chain (WLC) model for semiflexible polymers. In addition to probing the intrinsic properties of single semiconducting polymer chains, the results provide an unprecedented window into the dynamics of random-coil polymers and enable the use of semiconducting polymers as electrical labels for single-molecule (bio)sensing assays.</p

Energy Management in Public Higher Education Institutions in Ghana

This paper investigates the implementation of energy management key practices in six public higher education institutions in Ghana in order to identify the existence of potential to save energy. Data for this research was obtained through questionnaire based on an energy management assessment measurement tool involving heads of estates/property and maintenance departments of the studied institutions. Total of 45 key practices adapted from previous studies has been used to assess the implementation of energy management in the respective institutions in Ghana. The study revealed that implementation of energy management key practices was generally low across all the phases. Six key practices - informing of the reasons/need for energy management, motivation, conducting economic analyses, tracking and targeting energy usage and key energy use groups, and reviewing building drawings and equipment specification - were not implementad by any institution. The key practices that were implemented quite well in the planning, implementation and monitoring phase respectively were: ‘gaining top management commitment’ and ‘providing sufficient tools’; improving sufficiency of electrical appliances’; and ‘advising on energy matters’. The findings from the study has shown that energy management is an untapped potential to reduce electricity cost in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Ghana. Keywords: Energy, energy management; energy management key practices; higher education institutions, Ghana

Towards Sustainable Development in Road Safety: Assessing Public Awareness on Basic Road Traffic Practices in Batu Pahat, Johor

Road accident contributes to high fatality rate around the world and being the 8th leading cause of death of all ages worldwide. Thus, road safety is essential for ensuring the safety and security of individuals of all ages, as well as reducing the number of traffic accidents and injuries as a one way to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 2030. This study aims to assess the level of road safety awareness in terms of basic road traffic practices among public who use Jalan Kluang Federal Route 50 (FT050). The level of knowledge on basic road traffic practices, the level of perceived real practice on basic road traffic practices, and the relationship between their level of knowledge and perceived real practice on basic road traffic practices were investigated. A survey method via questionnaire was distributed randomly to 200 respondents who are adults aged 18 and above and who live around Batu Pahat areas using Google Form online platform. Relevant statistical methods via Statistical Package for the Social Science Software version 26.0 (SPSS) such as descriptive, Mean Score Method, Correlation and Regression analyses were used to analyse the data.&nbsp; It is found that the level of knowledge on basic road traffic practices among public is high.&nbsp; Meanwhile, the level of perceived real practice on basic road traffic practices among public is low. Regression analysis results show that the awareness on knowledge of basic road traffic practices variable (β = 0.624, t = 11.229, p &lt; 0.05) demonstrate a statistically significant relationship with perceived real practices, indicating that, the better an individual’s awareness on knowledge of basic road traffic practices (e.g. importance of safety belt, safety helmet, child restraint system (CRS) and speeding) the better the individual to actually apply the basic road traffic practices (e.g. the use of seat belt, safety helmet, CRS and speeding)

Entropy flow in near-critical quantum circuits

Near-critical quantum circuits are ideal physical systems for asymptotically large-scale quantum computers, because their low energy collective excitations evolve reversibly, effectively isolated from the environment. The design of reversible computers is constrained by the laws governing entropy flow within the computer. In near-critical quantum circuits, entropy flows as a locally conserved quantum current, obeying circuit laws analogous to the electric circuit laws. The quantum entropy current is just the energy current divided by the temperature. A quantum circuit made from a near-critical system (of conventional type) is described by a relativistic 1+1 dimensional relativistic quantum field theory on the circuit. The universal properties of the energy-momentum tensor constrain the entropy flow characteristics of the circuit components: the entropic conductivity of the quantum wires and the entropic admittance of the quantum circuit junctions. For example, near-critical quantum wires are always resistanceless inductors for entropy. A universal formula is derived for the entropic conductivity: \sigma_S(\omega)=iv^{2}S/\omega T, where \omega is the frequency, T the temperature, S the equilibrium entropy density and v the velocity of `light'. The thermal conductivity is Real(T\sigma_S(\omega))=\pi v^{2}S\delta(\omega). The thermal Drude weight is, universally, v^{2}S. This gives a way to measure the entropy density directly.Comment: 2005 paper published 2017 in Kadanoff memorial issue of J Stat Phys with revisions for clarity following referee's suggestions, arguments and results unchanged, cross-posting now to quant-ph, 27 page

Spin chirality on a two-dimensional frustrated lattice

The collective behavior of interacting magnetic moments can be strongly influenced by the topology of the underlying lattice. In geometrically frustrated spin systems, interesting chiral correlations may develop that are related to the spin arrangement on triangular plaquettes. We report a study of the spin chirality on a two-dimensional geometrically frustrated lattice. Our new chemical synthesis methods allow us to produce large single crystal samples of KFe3(OH)6(SO4)2, an ideal Kagome lattice antiferromagnet. Combined thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements reveal that the phase transition to the ordered ground-state is unusual. At low temperatures, application of a magnetic field induces a transition between states with different non-trivial spin-textures.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Effect of Co catalyst on PECVD growth of carbon nanotubes for NEMS applications

In this paper the effect of cobalt (Co) catalyst on the growth of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was studied. CNTs were vertically grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition method (PECVD) at 700°C with various sputtered Co catalyst thicknesses. Experimental results shows that for carbon nanotube growth duration of 20 minutes, growth was only achieved with thinner catalyst layers but when the growth duration was doubled, high density of CNTS were also observed with thicker catalyst layers with taller nanotubes formed. The nucleation of the catalyst with various thicknesses was also studied as the absorption of the carbon feedstock is dependent on the initial size of the catalyst island

Analytic Continuation of Liouville Theory

Correlation functions in Liouville theory are meromorphic functions of the Liouville momenta, as is shown explicitly by the DOZZ formula for the three-point function on the sphere. In a certain physical region, where a real classical solution exists, the semiclassical limit of the DOZZ formula is known to agree with what one would expect from the action of the classical solution. In this paper, we ask what happens outside of this physical region. Perhaps surprisingly we find that, while in some range of the Liouville momenta the semiclassical limit is associated to complex saddle points, in general Liouville's equations do not have enough complex-valued solutions to account for the semiclassical behavior. For a full picture, we either must include "solutions" of Liouville's equations in which the Liouville field is multivalued (as well as being complex-valued), or else we can reformulate Liouville theory as a Chern-Simons theory in three dimensions, in which the requisite solutions exist in a more conventional sense. We also study the case of "timelike" Liouville theory, where we show that a proposal of Al. B. Zamolodchikov for the exact three-point function on the sphere can be computed by the original Liouville path integral evaluated on a new integration cycle.Comment: 86 pages plus appendices, 9 figures, minor typos fixed, references added, more discussion of the literature adde