251 research outputs found
Role of Environmental Sustainability, Psychological and Managerial Supports for Determining Bankers Green Banking Usage Behavior: An Integrated Framework '
PURPOSE: Green banking, an ethical banking concept, concentrates on environmental protection and encourages social and environmental sustainability, perceived cognitive efforts, and subjective norms ensuring ecologically responsive banking services. Consequently, although there have been considerable green banking attempts in Bangladesh, it is yet unknown how environmental sustainability, perceived cognitive effort, and subjective norms affect usage behavior. The present research aims to uncover this gap, extending the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) to examine the determinants of the bankersā green banking usage behavior during COVID-19. METHODS: Data were collected from 366 bankers in Bangladesh using a purposive sampling technique and analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM) using SMART PLS 3 software. FINDINGS: The study found management support (0.291, t-statistics = 1.978, p 0.000), environmental sustainability (Ī² = 0.278, t-statistics = 2.752, p < 0.001), perceived cognitive efforts (Ī² = 0.401, t-statistics = 3.549, p < 0.000), and subjective norms (Ī² = 0.309, t-statistics = 4.352, p < 0.000) influence bankersā attitudes. Whereas environmental sustainability (Ī² = 0.503, t-statistics = 3.726, p < 0.001), perceived cognitive efforts (Ī² = 0.103, t-statistics = 2.020, p < 0.002), subjective norms (Ī² = 0.281, t-statistics = 4.607, p < 0.000), and attitudes (= 0.602, t-statistics = 5.523, p 0.015) influence bankersā green banking usage behavior. Finally, the mediating role of management supports, environmental sustainability, cognitive efforts and subjective norms on green banking usage behavior through attitudes was significant. CONTRIBUTION/CONCLUSION: The study contributed to existing literature validating the proposed holistic framework applying TRA and three contemporary dimensions explaining bankersā behavior toward green banking practice. Finally, the implementers should focus on green banking practices as green banking is one of the key strategies to protect the environment, assure social justice, and create economic success
Predictors of Bacterial Vaginosis among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Clinic at Tertiary Care Hospital in Tanzania: A Cross Sectional Study
Background: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is one of the most common genital tract infections in pregnancy associated with an increased risk of pregnancy losses, maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Different social behavioural and obstetric factors can contribute to the development of BV. Determining the predictors of BV could be the best way of identifying women at high risk of developing the disease.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted between December 2017 and February 2018 to determine the prevalence and predictors of BV among pregnant women attending antenatal Clinic (ANC) at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), Tanzania. Participants were recruited using systematic random sampling. For each consented participant, a pretested questionnaire was filled, a pelvic examination was done and a sample was collected. BV was diagnosed using Nugentās score. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 23.0. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was done to determine factors that were independently associated with BV.Results: 178 (26.7%) pregnant women out of 667 were diagnosed positive for BV. In the bivariate analysis (Table 3), age (COR 1.71; 95% CI, 1.16-2.52), level of education (COR 4.08, 95% CI, 2.84-5.84), gravidity (COR, 1.52, 95% CI; 1.04-2.23), parity (COR 1.69, 95% CI; 1.18-2.42), vaginal douching (COR 2.89, 95% CI; 1.96-4.27), HIV status (COR 9.37, 95%CI; 4.12-21.28), history of STI (COR 2.49 95% CI; 1.46-4.25), LTSP (COR 2.76, 95% CI; 1.68-4.54) and age of first coitus (COR 3.19, 95% CI; 2.24-4.56) were significantly associated with BV. After adjusting for confounders in multivariate analysis, the following risk factors remained significantly associated with BV; age of 21- 29 years (AOR, 2.22, 95%CI; 1.45-3.49), primary education level (AOR 3.97, 95% CI; 2.63-5.98), vaginal douching (AOR 3.68, 95% CI; 2.35-5.76), HIV status (AOR 6.44, 95% CI; 2.62-15.88), STI infection (AOR 2.34, 95% CI; 1.25-4.37), more than one LTSP (AOR 2.69, 95% CI; 1.53-4.74) and age of less than 18 years of first coitus (AOR 2.16, 95% CI; 1.42-3.30).Conclusion: The prevalence of BV in pregnant women was found to be high. Age of less than 30 years, primary education level and below, vaginal douching, HIV infection, STI, more than one lifetime sexual partners and early age of sexual debut were found to be significant predictors of BV. The high prevalence of BV in our population should necessitate policy makers to include screening and treatment of BV in the future policy of antenatal care package, as BV is associated with significant maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality. Women should also be educated on harmful effects of certain behavioural practices such as vaginal douching that predispose to BV. In addition symptoms of BV such as abnormal vaginal discharge during pregnancy are inconsistent, under reported and often overlooked. Therefore, a high-risk approach can be used for screening and treatment of asymptomatic women
Numerical Model for Hydraulic Performance of Under-drained Perforated Pipe Surrounded by Loose Aggregate
Urbanization significantly alters the hydrological cycle, leading to reduced infiltration, increased flooding, and reduced water quality. Proper management of storm-water runoff is necessary to mitigate these undesired impacts. The use of Best Management Practices (BMP) and Low Impact Development (LID) is becoming more common day by day for this purpose and perforated pipes are one of the main components of these LIDs and BMPs. This poster presents results from a CFD model that combines both porous media flow and pipe flow. The model was developed in ANSYS FLUENT to examine the hydraulic behavior (stage-discharge relationship) of a porous pipe shrouded in loose aggregate for use as an underdrain in storm water management. The model was validated against the experimental data of Murphy et al. (2014) and was then used to undertake a detailed parametric study of porous pipe underdrain performance
Using Customer Segmentation to Build a Hybrid Recommendation Model
Camacho, P., de Almeida, A., & AntĆ³nio, N. (2021). Using Customer Segmentation to Build a Hybrid Recommendation Model. In J. V. de Carvalho, P. Liberato, Ć. Rocha, & A. PeƱa (Eds.), Advances in Tourism, Technology and Systems - Selected Papers from ICOTTS20 (pp. 299-308). (Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies; Vol. 208). Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4256-9_27The growing trend in leisure tourism has been closely followed by the number of hospitality services. Nowadays, customers are more sophisticated and demand a personalized and simplified experience, which is commonly achieved through the use of technological means for anticipating customer behavior. Thus, the ability to predict a customerās willingness to buy is also a growing trend in hospitality businesses to reach more customers and consolidate existing ones. The acquisition of a transfer service through website reservation generates data that can be used to perform customer segmentation and enable recommendations for other products or services to a customer, like recreation experiences. This work uses data from a Portuguese private transfer company to understand how its private transfer business customers can be segmented and how to predict their behavior to enhance services cross-selling. Information extracted from the data acquired with the private transfer reservations is used to train a model to predict customer willingness to buy, and based on it, offer leisure services to customers. For that, a hybrid classifier was trained to offer recommendations to a customer when he/she is booking a transfer. The model employs a two-phase process: first, a binary classifier asserts if the customer whoās buying the transfer would eventually buy a service experience. In that case, a multi-class model decides what should be the most likely experience to be recommended.authorsversionpublishe
Calibration of the LIGO displacement actuators via laser frequency modulation
We present a frequency modulation technique for calibration of the
displacement actuators of the LIGO 4-km-long interferometric gravitational-wave
detectors. With the interferometer locked in a single-arm configuration, we
modulate the frequency of the laser light, creating an effective length
variation that we calibrate by measuring the amplitude of the frequency
modulation. By simultaneously driving the voice coil actuators that control the
length of the arm cavity, we calibrate the voice coil actuation coefficient
with an estimated 1-sigma uncertainty of less than one percent. This technique
enables a force-free, single-step actuator calibration using a displacement
fiducial that is fundamentally different from those employed in other
calibration methods.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravit
The Influence of In Vitro Gastrointestinal Digestion on the Anticancer Activity of Manuka Honey
Manuka honey (MH) is a natural food with many beneficial properties to human health,
thanks to its high variety of bioactive compounds; however, little is known about its bioaccessibility.
The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the polyphenol compounds, the antioxidant
capacity and the anticancer activity of MH subjected to an in vitro gastrointestinal digestion in human
HCT-116 colon cancer cells. Raw MH and digested MH (DMH) were assessed for total polyphenols
and flavonoids by spectrophotometric and HPLC-ESI-MS/MS analysis, and total antioxidant capacity
(TAC) using different methods. Cell viability, intracellular ROS production, apoptosis, cell cycle and
colony formation capacity were tested after treatment with MH or DMH. Results showed that total
polyphenols, total flavonoids and TAC were significantly (p < 0.05) reduced after in vitro digestion.
In addition, MH and DMH at 8, 16 and 24 mg/mL had similar effects in inducing intracellular ROS
production and in inhibiting the colon formation ability; MH induced a more marked apoptosis
compared to DMH, while cell cycle was blocked in S phase by MH and in Sub G1 phase by DMH.
Our results increase knowledge of the effect of gastrointestinal digestion on the biological effect of
honey against colorectal cancer
Epidemiological profile and clinico-pathological features of pediatric gynecological cancers at Moi Teaching & Referral Hospital, Kenya
Background: The main pediatric (0ā18 years) gynecologic cancers include stromal carcinomas (juvenile granulosa cell tumors and Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors), genital rhabdomyosarcomas and ovarian germ cell. Outcomes depend on time of diagnosis, stage, tumor type and treatment which can have long-term effects on the reproductive career of these patients. This study seeks to analyze the trends in clinical-pathologic presentation, treatment and outcomes in the cases seen at our facility. This is the first paper identifying these cancers published from sub-Saharan Africa.
Method: Retrospective review of clinico-pathologic profiles and treatment outcomes of pediatric gynecologic oncology patients managed at MTRH between 2010 and 2020. Data was abstracted from gynecologic oncology database and medical charts.
Results: Records of 40 patients were analyzed. Most, (92.5%, 37/40) of the patients were between 10 and 18 years. Ovarian germ cell tumors were the leading histological diagnosis in 72.5% (29/40) of the patients; with dysgerminomas being the commonest subtype seen in 12 of the 37 patients (32.4%). The patients received platinum-based chemotherapy in 70% of cases (28/40). There were 14 deaths among the 40 patients (35%)
Conclusion: Surgery remains the main stay of treatment and fertility-sparing surgery with or without adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy are the standard of care with excellent prognosis following early detection and treatment initiation. LMICs face several challenges in access to quality care and that affects survival of these patients. Due to its commonality, ovarian germ cell cancers warrant a high index of suspicion amongst primary care providers attending to adnexal masses in this age group
Contribution of noncanonical antigens to virulence and adaptive immunity in human infection with enterotoxigenic E. coli
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) contributes significantly to the substantial burden of infectious diarrhea among children living in low- and middle-income countries. In the absence of a vaccine for ETEC, children succumb to acute dehydration as well as nondiarrheal sequelae related to these infections, including malnutrition. The considerable diversity of ETEC genomes has complicated canonical vaccine development approaches defined by a subset of ETEC pathovar-specific antigens known as colonization factors (CFs). To identify additional conserved immunogens unique to this pathovar, we employed an āopen-apertureā approach to capture all potential conserved ETEC surface antigens, in which we mined the genomic sequences of 89 ETEC isolates, bioinformatically selected potential surface-exposed pathovar-specific antigens conserved in more than 40% of the genomes (nā=ā118), and assembled the representative proteins onto microarrays, complemented with known or putative colonization factor subunit molecules (nā=ā52) and toxin subunits. These arrays were then used to interrogate samples from individuals with acute symptomatic ETEC infections. Surprisingly, in this approach, we found that immune responses were largely constrained to a small number of antigens, including individual colonization factor antigens and EtpA, an extracellular adhesin. In a Bangladeshi cohort of naturally infected children <2āyears of age, both EtpA and a second antigen, EatA, elicited significant serologic responses that were associated with protection from symptomatic illness. In addition, children infected with ETEC isolates bearing either etpA or eatA genes were significantly more likely to develop symptomatic disease. These studies support a role for antigens not presently targeted by vaccines (noncanonical) in virulence and the development of adaptive immune responses during ETEC infections. These findings may inform vaccine design efforts to complement existing approaches
Shonjibon cash and counselling : a community-based cluster randomised controlled trial to measure the effectiveness of unconditional cash transfers and mobile behaviour change communications to reduce child undernutrition in rural Bangladesh
Background: Undernutrition is strongly associated with poverty - levels of undernutrition are higher in poor countries than in better-off countries. Social protection especially cash transfer is increasingly recognized as an important strategy to accelerate progress in improving maternal and child nutrition. A critical method to improve nutrition knowledge and influence feeding practices is through behaviour change communication intervention. The Shonjibon Cash and Counselling study aims to assess the effectiveness of unconditional cash transfers combined with a mobile application on nutrition counselling and direct counselling through mobile phone in reducing the prevalence of stunting in children at 18 months. Method: The study is a longitudinal cluster randomised controlled trial, with two parallel groups, and cluster assignment by groups of villages. The cohort of mother-child dyads will be followed-up over the intervention period of approximately 24 months, starting from recruitment to 18 months of the childās age. The study will take place in north-central Bangladesh. The primary trial outcome will be the percentage of stunted children at 18 m as measured in follow up assessments starting from birth. The secondary trial outcomes will include differences between treatment arms in (1) Mean birthweight, percentage with low birthweight and small for gestational age (2) Mean child length-for age, weight for age and weight-for-length Z scores (3) Prevalence of child wasting (4) Percentage of women exclusively breastfeeding and mean duration of exclusive breastfeeding (5) Percentage of children consuming > 4 food groups (6) Mean child intake of energy, protein, carbohydrate, fat and micronutrients (7) Percentage of women at risk of inadequate nutrient intakes in all three trimesters (8) Maternal weight gain (9) Household food security (10) Number of events for child suffering from diarrhoea, acute respiratory illness and fever (11) Average costs of mobile phone BCC and cash transfer, and benefit-cost ratio for primary and secondary outcomes. Discussion: The proposed trial will provide high-level evidence of the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of mobile phone nutrition behavior change communication, combined with unconditional cash transfers in reducing child undernutrition in rural Bangladesh. Trial registration: The study has been registered in the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12618001975280)
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