DETERMINANTS OF ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS: TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET) IN SRI LANKA

Purpose of the study: This study is focused to investigate the determinants of the entrepreneurial intention of Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students in Sri Lanka. Methodology: The research model comprises seven independent variables i.e. entrepreneurial attitude, perceived self-efficacy, social capital, demographic factors, perceived financial support, perceived regulatory support, perceived technical vocational education, and training and dependent variables of entrepreneurial intention. The primary data was collected through administering structured questionnaires among a hundred and twenty-eight TVET students represented by three TVET sector institutions in Sri Lanka. Linear regression was applied to test the hypotheses. Main Findings: The findings of the study revealed a positive and significant impact of the variables of entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived technical vocational education and training on entrepreneurial intention of TVET students of Sri Lanka. TVET student attitudes pertaining to entrepreneurship intention are positive since they perceive that TVET enhances their entrepreneurship education and this is very important to the policymakers in entrepreneurship development to initiate effective strategies to foster entrepreneurship for TVET students. Implications: This research study provides an academic contribution to enhance the entrepreneurial intention among the TVET students in Sri Lanka

Maternal and fetal outcomes in pregnant patients with lupus nephritis

Background: Pregnancy in a woman with lupus nephritis (LN) carries a high risk of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. This study aims to analyze the effect of LN on maternal and fetal outcomes and lupus activity.Methods: In a single-center, cross-sectional observational study at national hospital Kandy, 32 pregnancies in 23 women with biopsy-proven LN between 2007 and 2019 were analyzed retrospectively.Results: Mean age at pregnancy was 28.4 years (SD=4.8, range 19–38 years). In six women, LN developed during pregnancy, 17 patients were already diagnosed with LN when they became pregnant. A renal biopsy performed 4.6 (SD=3.8) years before pregnancy, showed diffuse LN in 18 (78.3%) and focal LN in 5 (21.7%) cases. At conception, most patients were in complete (43.8%) or partial (21.9%) remission. Therapeutic abortion was performed in 8 pregnancies (indications: renal flares in 5, pre-eclampsia in 3) at a mean period of amenorrhea (POA) of 16.8 weeks (range 8-28 weeks). Spontaneous fetal loss occurred in one pregnancy. Among 23 live births, there were four pre-term deliveries (0.05) between LN histological type, initial clinical presentation and treated hypertension with fetal outcome. No case of neonatal lupus or congenital heart block was noted. During pregnancy, there were five (15.6%) renal flares and two acute kidney injury cases; all were reversible. Eight patients (25%) developed PIHConclusions: Pregnancy induced hypertension is a more commonly encountered complication in pregnancies with lupus nephritis. The fetal outcome is unfavorable in pregnancies with renal flares.

A study of lipid profile and glycemic status in patients with chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology in Sri Lanka

Background: Dyslipidemia and impaired glucose tolerance are common complications of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and are responsible for increased cardiovascular risk. Studies on lipid profile and glycemic status in CKD of unknown origin (CKDu) are scarce. The objective of this study was to evaluate the lipid profile and glycemic status of the patients with CKDu and to aid in preventing morbidity and mortality.Methods: The descriptive, cross sectional study was conducted in a rural CKDu endemic area, Girandurukotte.  Data was collected from February 2018 to June 2019. For the diagnosis of CKDu, history and clinical features with supportive biochemical, renal biopsy and radiological evidence were taken as criteria. Blood samples were taken for serum creatinine, lipid profile and HbA1C. Already diagnosed patients with diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia were excluded.Results: A total of 168 patients within the age range of 32-66 years (mean 50.3±7.7) were participated. There were 106 males (63%) 46.4% were farmers. Majority of the patients (65.5%) had normal body mass index (BMI) (mean 22.9 kg/m2, normal range 18.5-23.5%) followed by overweight (23.5-30 kg/m2) in 55 (32.7%) patients. The prevalence of dyslipidemia in CKDu was found to be 55.9%.  Majority of the abnormality was seen in the HDL group with 68 (40.5%) patients having low HDL cholesterol (mean 44.7 mg/dl, SD=12.3).  There was a significant rise in the serum triglyceride concentration (>150 mg/dl) in 53 (31.5%) (mean 152.4 mg/dl, SD=73.5) and total cholesterol (>200 mg/dl) in 30 (18%) patients (mean 182 mg/dl, SD=36.9). LDL cholesterol abnormality (>130 mg/dl) was seen in only 9 patients (mean 88.7 7658mg/dl, SD=25.4). From the total, 144 (85.7%) patients had abnormal HbA1C levels; 27 (16.1%) patients had HbA1C levels between 5.7% and 6.4% (pre-diabetes), and 117 (69.6%) patients had HbA1C level more than 6.5% (diabetes mellitus). There was no statistically significant association between HbA1C levels and BMI (p=0.29) or HbA1C and lipid abnormalities (p=0.32)Conclusions: The high prevalence of dyslipidemia, pre-diabetes and diabetes mellitus in patients with CKDu may accelerate the progression of chronic kidney disease and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Early detection, initiation of appropriate medication and early referral to the expertise will ameliorate morbidity and mortality.

Body composition in lupus nephritis patients

Background: The assessment of body fat distribution is an important evaluation in patients with lupus nephritis (LN), which does not practice routinely. The objectives of this study were to determine the body composition by using bioelectrical impedance analysis and to identify the effects of age, body mass index, disease activity, and corticosteroid therapy on body composition.Methods: This was a single-centered, cross-sectional, and observational study conducted at the nephrology unit, National Hospital Kandy, Sri Lanka. Seventy-nine patients with biopsy-proven LN have participated in the study.Results: There were 79 lupus nephritis patients enrolled in this study. The duration of LN ranged from 8 months to 32 years. The main non-renal clinical manifestations included skin lesions (59%), arthritis (54%), and oral ulcers (48%). The disease activity was low with a mean SLEDAI score of 1.01 (SD=2.3). The body fat (BF) percentage (p=0.002) and subcutaneous fat (SF) percentage (p<0.001) were significantly low in males compared to females. And, BF percentage was significantly low among patients with SLEDAI-2K 6 (p=0.03). Moreover, there were positive correlations found between SLE disease activity with the BMI (p=0.004), body fat percentage (p=0.001), and visceral fat percentage (p=0.001).Conclusions: Females are more prone to have a high mean value of body composition parameters than males in this study. There is a negative influence of the body composition parameters reported against the disease activity among LN patients in Sri Lanka.

THE MAKING OF AN ENTREPRENEUR: SELF EMPLOYMENT INTENTIONS AMONG SRI LANKAN UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS STUDENTS

This study explored the relationship between individual differences and behavioral intentions of business management undergraduates toward entrepreneurial career (self employment). Entrepreneurial career defines here as “the vocational decision process in terms of the individual’s decision to enter an occupation as a wage or salaried individual or a self employed one. Hypotheses based on tracking models and the theory of planned behavior were tested on a sample of 100 students from undergraduate students who are following business management related degrees at the University of Colombo Sri Lanka. The result showed that the theory of planned behavior, not tracking models or demographics determined employment choice intentions.   Keywords:  Entrepreneurial Intention, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Demographics For full paper: [email protected]

Developing entrepreneurial behaviours through entrepreneurship education

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of social learning in entrepreneurship education on the development of entrepreneurial behaviours of course participants and how this impact is moderated by the level of self-directed learning. Primary data were collected from students of extension courses on entrepreneurship offered by three state-sector universities in Sri Lanka. The results show that social learning plays a vital role in entrepreneurship education and it positively impacts the development of entrepreneurial behaviours. That impact is increased when it is moderated by the level of self-directed learning of course participants except in the resource combination aspect of entrepreneurial behaviours. The research provides important insights into the higher education sector in framing the delivery of its entrepreneurship courses and the selection of course participants to ensure effectiveness in entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurs should engage in social learning in entrepreneurship education to develop their entrepreneurial learning. This study affirms existing arguments on the association between social learning and entrepreneurship development through a quantitative analysis, expanding that framework to include a moderating effect by the level of self-directed learning of potential and practising entrepreneurs.Keywords: entrepreneurial behaviours, entrepreneurship education in Sri Lanka, social learning, selfdirected learnin

Raw data, scripts and model code

Archive containing MATLAB analysis .m code, code for computational model, and raw .mat data. Please read the associated readme file

Data from: Approach-induced biases in human information sampling

IInformation sampling is often biased towards seeking evidence that confirms one’s prior beliefs. Despite such biases being a pervasive feature of human behavior, their underlying causes remain unclear. Many accounts of these biases appeal to limitations of human hypothesis testing and cognition, de facto evoking notions of bounded rationality, but neglect more basic aspects of behavioral control. Here, we investigated a potential role for Pavlovian approach in biasing which information humans will choose to sample. We collected a large novel dataset from 32,445 human subjects, making over 3 million decisions, who played a gambling task designed to measure the latent causes and extent of information-sampling biases. We identified three novel approach-related biases, formalized by comparing subject behavior to a dynamic programming model of optimal information gathering. These biases reflected the amount of information sampled (“positive evidence approach”), the selection of which information to sample (“sampling the favorite”), and the interaction between information sampling and subsequent choices (“rejecting unsampled options”). The prevalence of all three biases was related to a Pavlovian approach-avoid parameter quantified within an entirely independent economic decision task. Our large dataset also revealed that individual differences in the amount of information gathered are a stable trait across multiple gameplays and can be related to demographic measures, including age and educational attainment. As well as revealing limitations in cognitive processing, our findings suggest information sampling biases reflect the expression of primitive, yet potentially ecologically adaptive, behavioral repertoires. One such behavior is sampling from options that will eventually be chosen, even when other sources of information are more pertinent for guiding future action

Correction: Approach-Induced Biases in Human Information Sampling.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2000638.]