Career and practice intentions of health science students at three South African health science faculties

Background. The distribution and accessibility of healthcare professionals as well as the quality of healthcare services are significantly affected by the career choices of medical and other health science graduates.Objective. While much has been reported on the career intentions of medical students, little is known about those of their counterparts in the health sciences. This study describes the career plans of non-medical health science students at three South African health science faculties, and identifies some key motivating factors.Methods. A self-administered survey of first- and final-year health science students was conducted at the health science faculties of the universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. All data were entered into EpiData software and exported for analysis using IBM SPSS Statistics 19.0.Results and discussion. The overall response rate was 47% (N=816). Over half of all respondents (57%, n=467) intended to work after completing their undergraduate studies, 38% (n=177) of these in a rural area. The most popular choices were private hospitals (58%, n=273), tertiary hospitals (53%, n=249) and private practices (51%, n=249). Thirty-two per cent (n=258) of respondents intended to further their studies. Just over half of all respondents intended to work in another country (51%, n=418), primarily motivated by career development, financial reasons and job opportunities.Conclusion. The findings demonstrate that health science students, similar to medical students, are influenced by a multitude of factors in making career choices. This emphasises the relevance to all health science disciplines of national strategies to address the maldistribution of healthcare professionals

Traitement des incertitudes des avis à dire d'expert pour l'évaluation de la sûreté des digues

3rd European Conference on Flood Risk Management FLOODrisk 2016, Lyon, FRA, 17-/10/2016 - 21/10/2016International audienceIn France, levees remain most of the time badly maintained; these long linear structures show signs of weaknesses on numerous occasions. Only incomplete information is usually available. The general lack of data describing the behaviour of the infrastructure during unwanted events led to estimate their safety mainly from expert judgement. Thus the ability of the expert to predict the level of functioning of an infrastructure for a type of hazard and its intensity is crucial. An error of judgement can have very serious consequences and the production of reliable information requires the ability of the expert to report accurately the uncertainties in its estimations, as well as associated confidence. In order to meet this need, our research within Incertu project (French Ministry of Ecology funding) aims to produce relevant scientific approaches and tools for the collection and processing reliable experts'statements or combined with a confidence level in the context of uncertain information and input data

Impact of waterloging-induced hypoxia on nitrogen metabolism in the legume Medicago truncatula

Flooding and waterlogging due to the induced oxygen limitation in the root zone is harmful for plant development. This study examines short term modulation of nitrogen metabolism in Medicafo truncatula submitted to waterlogging. The objective was to evaluate whether and how nitrogen metabolism contributes to the mitigation of damaging effects of hypoxia. The processes that were affected early after the onset of stress were nitrate reduction and amino acids synthesis. NADH-dependent nitrate reductase activity increased dramatically in the root. It is suggested that nitrate reductase contributes to cellular acclimation to hypoxia by regenerating NAD + from NADH. The regeneration of NAD+ is a crucial issue in hypoxic cells because it is necessary for supporting increasing rates of glycolysis. Amino acids metabolism shifted from the ATP consuming pathway leading to asparagines, the most accumulated amino acid in Medicago truncatula, to pathways leading to alanine and GABA accumulation. Synthesis of alanine is not dependent on ATP and allows for storage of carbon used in glycolysis (pyruvate) in a form readily utilizable at the return to normoxic condition. GABA synthesis through the GABA shunt starts by decarboxylation of glutamate by glutamate decarboxylase (GDC) a proton consuming enzyme that helps maintaining cytosolic pH homeostasi

Design, synthesis, characterization and toxicity studies of Poly (N-Iso-Propylacrylamide-co-Lucifer Yellow) particles for drug delivery applications

A novel fluorescent temperature/pH responsive particle was designed, synthesized, characterised and tested for toxicity. Poly ( N-iso- propylacrylamide -co- 5%-lucifer yellow) (p(NIPAM -co- 5% LY)) was prepared using a surfactant free emulsion polymerisation technique. The particles were negatively charged and were approximately 250 nm at 15°C. When the particles de-swell following an increase in temperature, a particle size around 100 nm is obtained. The toxicity of different concentrations of the new particles (p(NIPAM) -co- 5% LY, as well as the 100% p(NIPAM) and the main monomer NIPAM was tested on two cell lines (Hela and Vero). The toxicity was tested in comparison to a positive control (dextran sugar) and a negative one (poly(ethylenimine)) (PEI). The results show that the two particles show cell viability over 80% (for both cell lines Hela and Vero) up to a concentration of 3 mg/mL while NIPAM monomer showed cell viability over 80% at a concentration equal to or less than 0.3 mg/mL. The fluorescence property of the novel particles make them traceable. Combining this property (tracing) to the ability of the particles to release their content in response to temperature and pH change can be a potential drug delivery system for cancer treatment

Conventional Orthography for Dialectal Arabic (CODA): Principles and Guidelines -- Egyptian Arabic - Version 0.7 - March 2012

This document introduces CODA (Conventional Orthography for Dialectal Arabic) and presents specifications and detailed guidelines for Egyptian Arabic CODA. CODA addresses the problem of inconsistent orthographic choices in raw (naturally occurring) written dialectal Arabic text. The specifications are a succinct summary, while the guidelines contain details and examples. The document has three parts that are ordered from most general to the more specific. In Part 1, we define CODA and present its general goals, principles and considerations in a non-dialect specific manner. In Part 2, we present a high level CODA specification for Egyptian Arabic (EGY). And in Part 3, we present detailed guidelines for EGY CODA

Use of sonic tomography to detect and quantify wood decay in living trees.

Premise of the studyField methodology and image analysis protocols using acoustic tomography were developed and evaluated as a tool to estimate the amount of internal decay and damage of living trees, with special attention to tropical rainforest trees with irregular trunk shapes.Methods and resultsLiving trunks of a diversity of tree species in tropical rainforests in the Republic of Panama were scanned using an Argus Electronic PiCUS 3 Sonic Tomograph and evaluated for the amount and patterns of internal decay. A protocol using ImageJ analysis software was used to quantify the proportions of intact and compromised wood. The protocols provide replicable estimates of internal decay and cavities for trees of varying shapes, wood density, and bark thickness.ConclusionsSonic tomography, coupled with image analysis, provides an efficient, noninvasive approach to evaluate decay patterns and structural integrity of even irregularly shaped living trees

Parsing Arabic Dialects

The Arabic language is a collection of spoken dialects with important phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic differences, along with a standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Since the spoken dialects are not officially written, it is very costly to obtain adequate corpora to use for training dialect NLP tools such as parsers. In this paper, we address the problem of parsing transcribed spoken Levantine Arabic (LA). We do not assume the existence of any annotated LA corpus (except for development and testing), nor of a parallel corpus LA-MSA. Instead, we use explicit knowledge about the relation between LA and MSA

Vortex Collisions: Crossing or Recombination?

We investigate the collision of two vortex lines moving with viscous dynamics and driven towards each other by an applied current. Using London theory in the approach phase we observe a non-trivial vortex conformation producing anti-parallel segments; their attractive interaction triggers a violent collision. The collision region is analyzed using the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equation. While we find vortices will always recombine through exchange of segments, a crossing channel appears naturally through a double collision process.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Relación entre la Nudosidad y las Características Resistentes de la Araucaria Angustifolia (Pino Paraná)

In the present work 150 beams to flexion are analyzed and it settles down the correlation between the resistance to flexion and the percentage of the transverse section occupied by the knotti-ness. The tests are made according to Norma UNE-EN 408.The results show to a strong negative correlation between the percentage occupied by knots in the the transverse section and their resistance to the flexion. A strong correlation between the calculated moment of inertia is also reached considering to the knots like holes and the resistance to flexion.One concludes that in the sawed wood pieces of Araucaria angustifolia the knotti-ness generates an important loss of section and is of extreme importance its consideration at the time of the structural calculationEn el presente trabajo se analizan 150 vigas a flexión y se establece la correlación entre la resistencia a flexión y el porcentaje de la sección transversal ocupado por la nudosidad. Los ensayos se realizan de acuerdo a Norma UNE-EN 408.Los resultados muestran una fuerte correlación negativa entre el porcentaje ocupado por nudos en la sección transversal y su resistencia a la flexión. Se alcanza también una fuerte correlación entre el momento de inercia calculado considerando a los nudos como vacíos y la resistencia a flexión.Se concluye que en las piezas de madera aserrada de Araucaria angustifolia la nudosidad genera una importante pérdida de sección y es de suma importancia su consideración al momento del cálculo estructural

The ecacy of an oxidation pond in mineralizing some industrial waste products with special reference to¯uorene degradation: a case study

Abstract The ecacy of the oxidation pond on the outskirts of the 10th of Ramadan, the main industrial city, in Egypt was examined. Samples of wastewater collected from the inlet and the outlet were screened for some priority pollutants. Acenaphthene and¯uor-ene were the most frequently detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, while dimethyl phthalate was the most frequently detected phthalate ester. The spectrum of pollutants, their concentrations and frequencies were similar in the inlet and the outlet, indicating an inferior mineralization capability of the pond. Several degradative bacterial strains were isolated from the pond and grown on M56 minimal media supplemented with dierent pollutants as the carbon source. The ecacy of pure and mixed cultures to break down¯uorene, the most frequently detected pollutant was examined. Fluorene degradation was fast in the ®rst 10 days, then followed by a slow phase. Mixed culture had a higher rate of¯uorene degradation in comparison to pure cultures. High performance liquid chromatography analysis of¯uorene degradation showed three degradative metabolites. But GC/MS analysis detected one compound, identi®ed as acetamide. The present work has indicated the poor ecacy of the pond. Lack of primary treatment of industrial euent at factory level, coupled with shock loads of toxicants that may damage the microorganisms and their degradative capabilities are presumably main factors behind such inferior performance. Moreover, the type of pollutants discharged into the pond tend to¯uctuate and change depending on the rate from the factories discharge and work shifts. Such irregular feeding of persistent pollutants may have led to a wash out of specialized strains of bacteria capable to degrade such persistent pollutants.