Dental caries and its associated factors among children aged 8-12 years in Libyan schools, Klang Valley, Malaysia

Background: Dental caries is a serious public health problem worldwide. Prevalence of dental caries among school children has increased in both developed and developing countries since the last few decades. Objective: To determine the association of dental caries with socio demographic factors among Libyan school children aged 8-12 years in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in three Libyan primary schools in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Five hundred and seventy children aged 8-12 years participated. They were randomly selected using proportional stratified sampling method. Dental caries was assessed using the WHO (1987) criteria. Results: Response rate was 92.5%. The prevalence of dental caries was (55.8%), females have higher dental caries than males. Dental caries was found highly prevalent among; children their aged ≤10 years (64.7%), children whose father and mother have a job (58.5% and 58.7%) respectively, children whose father and mother have elementary level of education (69.6% and 61.0%) respectively. Chi square test showed significant association of dental caries with age group and father’s education level. Logistic regression analysis identified young age (OR=11.78, 95% Cl: 2.305 -26.276) was significant predictor of dental caries among children. Conclusions: Younger children are at higher risk of having dental caries in this study. Health education should be emphasized among younger Libyan school children

Women’s Voices, Work and Bodily Integrity in Pre-Conflict, Conflict and Post-Conflict Reconstruction Processes in Sierra Leone

This article focuses on the historical trajectories of women’s empowerment in Sierra Leone, taking three entry-points as a means of exploring the dynamics of change over the pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict periods: voice and political participation; work and economic participation; and bodily integrity. Looking at pathways of empowerment in pre-conflict Sierra Leone, at experiences of women during the time of conflict over the course of a long and brutal civil war from 1991–2002, and at post-conflict possibilities, the article highlights some of the changes that have taken place in women’s lives and the avenues that are opening up in Sierra Leone in a time of peace. It suggests that understanding women’s pathways of empowerment in Sierra Leone calls for closer attention to be paid to the dynamics of conflict and post-conflict reconstruction, and to the significance of context in shaping constraints and opportunities

Association of Blaoxa-1 Gene with Multidrug Resistance in K. pneumoniae Clinical Isolates

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to isolate K. pneumoniae from patients samples and find an association of the plasmid-mediated bla-OXA-1 gene with multidrug-resistant K. pneumoniae. METHODOLOGY This cross-sectional study was conducted at Mardan Medical Complex and Khyber Medical University Peshawar. K. pneumoniae was isolated from pus, urine and blood samples by culture and confirmed by biochemical techniques. Antibiotic susceptibility was done by disc diffusion according to the CLSI 2022 guidelines. A polymerase chain reaction was done for the gene after extraction and amplification of plasmid DNA. Furthermore, an association of antibiotic resistance was confirmed with blaOXA-1. RESULTSA total of 160 K. pneumoniae isolates were cultured from the patient’s samples, including pus (135, 84.37%), urine (15, 9.37%) and blood (10, 6.26%). There were 154 (96.3%) isolates resistant to Penicillin-G, followed by Ceftriaxone 151 (94.4%), Cefepime 143 (89.4%), Amoxicillin 125 (78.1%), Tigecycline 110 (68.8%), Imipenem 92 (57.6%) and Ertapenem 75(49.9%). However, Tetracycline had 1.9% resistance. The blaOXA-1 gene was positive in 41(25.62%) isolates with a different pattern of antibiotics resistance to Penicillin-G, Ceftriaxone, Cefepime, Amoxicillin, Tigecycline, Imipenem and Ertapenem as compared to the negative isolates. Among the blaOXA-1 gene-positive K. pneumoniae isolates, resistance to Penicillin-G was 100%, followed by Ceftriaxone (92.7%), Cefepime and Amoxicillin (80.5%), respectively. However, resistance to Imipenem and Ertapenem was 46.3% and 41.5%, respectively, and Tetracycline was not resistant. CONCLUSION Our data suggest that the presence of plasmid associated blaOXA-1 gene in K. pneumoniae isolates may contribute to multidrug resistance in beta lactamase-containing antibiotics along with other internal mechanisms of resistance present in these bacteria

Cytomegalovirus infection associated with atypical bronchopulmonary dysplasia in a preterm neonate: a case report

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is frequently isolated from neonates. Symptomatic infection is only apparent in 10% of affected babies with particular predilection for the reticuloendothelial and central nervous system. Isolated respiratory system involvement is rarely encountered. We report a case of a premature 32 weeks infant who required prolonged oxygen dependency and treated for bronchopulmonary dysplasia. The diagnosis of CMV pneumonitis was only discovered after detection of CMV DNA in the bronchoalveolar lavage. A high level of clinical awareness is crucial as a definite diagnosis and treatment will significantly alter the morbidity and the cost of therapy

Evaluation of alveolar cortical bone thickness and density for orthodontic mini-implant placement

Objective: Mini-implant stability is primarily related to bone quality and quantity. This study evaluated alveolar cortical bone thickness and density differences between interradicular sites at different levels from the alveolar crest, and assessed the differences between adolescents (12-18 years of age) and adults (19-50 years of age), males and females, upper and lower arch, anterior and posterior region of jaws and buccal and oral side. Study Design: In this retrospective study, 48 Computed Tomography scans, performed for oral surgery purposes were selected from dental records of 3,223 Caucasian orthodontic patients. The SimPlant software (Materialise, Leuven, Belgium) was used to measure cortical bone thickness and density at 13 interradicular sites and four bone levels ( 2,4,6 and 8 mm ). For the statistical analysis descriptive statistics, Student's t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used. Results: Statistically significant differences in alveolar cortical bone thickness and density between age, gender, sites and sides were found (P<0.05). The Pearson correlation coefficient demonstrated a significant linear increasing of thickness and density from crest to base of alveolar crest (P.0.05). Conclusion. Adults show a thicker alveolar cortical bone than adolescents. Alveolar cortical bone thickness and density were greater in males than in females, in mandible than in maxilla, in the posterior region than the anterior, in oral than buccal side. There is an increase of thickness and density from crest to base of alveolar crest

Water catchment area and management method

Due to critical and obvious effect of the wastewater comes from the industry, agriculture and industrial activity nearby the dam has led to environmental issues in Sembrong dam, Kluang Johor which caused negative impacts to the biological, chemical and physical properties of water river environments. The dam itself contained a large number of algae which caused the blocking of sunlight, could not enter directly to the water surface and it threatening to the aquatic life. The dam also traps sediments, which are crucial for maintaining physical progressions and habitats of the dam. The chapter introduce “G.E.T” formula as management method to overcome the pollution problems. The implementation of “G.E.T” formula is basically to improve the urban environmental condition as key for urban policy and environmental management. Sustainable management and utilisation of resources is a guidance in pursuing the development of agricultural and forestry activity at dam area

Queue backlog as a node metric for RPL protocol

The current de-facto routing protocol over WSN developed by IETF Working Group (6LOWPAN) named as Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy networks (RPL) [1], to enable IPv6 packets carrying over IEEE 802.4 and to empower the usage of IoT over WSN. Because of the potential large networks, number of nodes and the fact that multiple coexisting applications will be running in the same physical layer, RPL in the network layer faces throughput challenges. For the purpose of overcoming these problems many researchers focused on multipath solutions including a Back-Pressure routing protocol for data collection called BackIP [2], however it shows a superior throughput performance, BackIP have shortcomings of higher delay and limited applicability. In this paper, we introduce a node metric based on nodes Queue Backlogs for RPL protocol, which leads to better throughput performance while maintaining the delay and the ability to use with the different network applications. This metric depends on the Packet Queue length of the nodes with the consideration of other link and node metrics, like ETX or Energy usage, leading to better load balancing in the network. Moreover we discuss the needed design changes to enable our metric to perform in an efficient way. Keywords-IOT, RPL, WSN, Back Pressure, Queue Backlog, Objective Functio

Why not everybody loves Hofstede? What are the alternative approaches to study of culture?

In these days the Hofstede's work on culture is most quoted in many publications. For scholars and practitioners knowing and having complete understanding of cross cultural dimensions, Hofstede's work plays an important and dynamic role. His observations and analysis gives the full understanding to the readers and as well as authors and scholars. Still such pioneering work faces much criticism by scholars. Some of the scholars appreciated his credible work. Some scholars quote his finding in their research and some ignore it. In our paper, this study concludes all the criticism on hofstede's work. Basically there are two parts of this paper; in first part we discuss the reason why hofstede's work faces criticism and in second part we recommend various other cultural dimensions, which we can use to understand the culture. Research Findings This paper tries to conclude all the dimensions and also suggest the model for understanding the national culture. Key Words Culture, National culture, Hofstede, cross cultural dimension

A review: effect of copper percentage solder alloy after laser soldering

Purpose This study aims to review the effect of copper percentage in Sn-based solder alloys (Sn-xCu, x = 0–5 Wt.%) on intermetallic compound (IMC) formation and growth after laser soldering. Design/methodology/approach This study reviews the interfacial reactions at the solder joint interface, solder joint morphology and the theory on characterizing the formation and growth of IMCs. In addition, the effects of alloying and strengthening mechanism, including wettability, melting and mechanical properties are discussed

Effect of Sn-xCu Solder Alloy onto Intermetallic Formation After Laser Soldering

The awareness of lead-free solders can be attributed to their environmental and human-health related benefits. Due to this consciousness, research toward lead-free solder alloy became a concern. Tin-copper (SnCu) solder alloy is one of the candidates that can meet the characteristic of tin–lead (SnPb). The objective of this study is to analyse the wetting behaviour, intermetallic compound (IMC) thickness and also the spread ratio by varies the copper weight percentage (Cu wt%) in SnCu solder alloy. Solder alloy used was Sn-xCu, where x = 0.0, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0 which was soldered onto electroless nickel immersion gold (ENIG) substrate using carbon dioxide (CO2) laser. Parameters used for laser soldering was 35 W for the laser power, focal length was kept constant, scanning time was 0.04 s, and scanning speed was 100 mm/s. Then these sample were subjected to isothermal aging with the duration of 0, 200, 500, 1000 and 2000 h. In the final analysis, the IMC thickness and wetting behaviour characteristics were characterized by metallographic microscopy. The results showed that the higher the Cu percentage in the solder alloy, the higher the thickness formed at the solder joint interface. Besides that, the morphology of IMCs additionally changed with aging time whereby it changed into much uniform and continuous shape, Nonetheless, its thickness was found to be increasing upon aging duration. Furthermore, the spread factor and spread ratio increase, but the equilibrium contact angle decreases with increasing Cu content. These results were the proof that Sn-0.7Cu/ENIG offers a good solder joint performance as compared to other copper percentage