The perception of adolescents’ inter-parental conflict and accompanied emotional security: A descriptive study

How Egyptian adolescents respond to their parents’ inter-parental conflict is relatively unexplored. This descriptive study was completed with adolescents to determine their perceptions of inter-parental conflict and the impact of this on their level of emotional security. Two hundred students from Zagazig city in Egypt aged between 13 and 17 years completed the “Children’s perception of inter-parental conflict scale” and “Security in the inter-parental system scale”. The findings showed that when adolescents witnessed inter-parental conflict they felt scared, sad, emotionally charged or unable to stop thinking about the conflict that they had witnessed. However, participants were unprepared to assist in trying to solve their parents’ conflict. Nurses need to be aware of the negative impact that inter-parental conflict may have on adolescents in their care. Interventions should focus on the preservation of the adolescent’s emotional security to prevent negative psychosocial effects occurring in the future

Geological Alterations and Chemical Treatment of a Polluted Limestone Foundation

A large factory for the production of concentrated sulphuric acid is constructed in 1977 and located in the west of Iraq near Al-Kaim city. The footings carrying the installations rest on calcareous rocks which extend deep into the ground. For many years, about 1.5 tons per day of acid seeped and percolated into the ground apart from frequent accidents when larger amounts took their path down into the ground. A record of the footings movement revealed that the footings experienced significant heave and settlement indicating a cyclic movement which depends on the frequency of seepage. The results of the past geotechnical and geochemical investigations have been carefully studied in order to trace the geological alterations occurring in the ground due to the percolation of sulphuric acid over years. It appeared that at certain depths the limestone rock has been almost converted to dough and that a significant amount of dolomitization has taken place in the factory ground. Contaminated samples have been obtained from boreholes executed in the factory site. Many chemical materials have been chosen to treat the contaminated samples. Among these materials are sodium silicate, sodium carbonate, sodium silicate plus calcium chloride, barium sulfate, aluminum oxide, ferric oxide and bentonite. Unconfined compression, ultrasonic wave, physical, wet chemical and XRD tests were performed on intact, contaminated and treated specimens. The results proved that sodium silicate is the best alternative to be used for chemical grouting of the ground. The use of calcium chloride with sodium silicate did not show an additional advantage. Samples contaminated to the degree of having the form of dough have almost regained their original solid state strength when treated with sodium silicate

Security policy compliance: User acceptance perspective

Information security policy compliance is one of the key concerns that face organizations today. Although, technical and procedural security measures help improve information security, there is an increased need to accommodate human, social and organizational factors. While employees are considered the weakest link in information security domain, they also are assets that organizations need to leverage effectively. Employees\u27 compliance with Information Security Policies (ISPs) is critical to the success of an information security program. The purpose of this research is to develop a measurement tool that provides better measures for predicting and explaining employees\u27 compliance with ISPs by examining the role of information security awareness in enhancing employees\u27 compliance with ISPs. The study is the first to address compliance intention from a users\u27 perspective. Overall, analysis results indicate strong support for the proposed instrument and represent an early confirmation for the validation of the underlying theoretical model

Information Security Policy Compliance: An Empirical Study of Ethical Ideology

Information security policy compliance (ISP) is one of the key concerns that face organizations today. Although technical and procedural measures help improve information security, there is an increased need to accommodate human, social and organizational factors. Despite the plethora of studies that attempt to identify the factors that motivate compliance behavior or discourage abuse and misuse behaviors, there is a lack of studies that investigate the role of ethical ideology per se in explaining compliance behavior. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role of ethics in explaining Information Security Policy (ISP) compliance. In that regard, a model that integrates behavioral and ethical theoretical perspectives is developed and tested. Overall, analyses indicate strong support for the validation of the proposed theoretical model

Congenital segmental dilatation of the colon

Congenital segmental dilatation of the colon is a rare cause of intestinal obstruction in neonates. We report a case of congenital segmental dilatation of the colon and highlight the clinical, radiological, and histopathological features of this entity. Proper surgical treatment was initiated on the basis of preoperative radiological findings.Keywords: congenital segmental dilatation of the colon, segmental dilation of intestines, neonatal intestinal obstructio

Modelling and Analysis of Stage-Structured Population Model with State-Dependent Maturation Delay and Harvesting

In 1992, Aiello, Freedman and Wu proposed a mathematical model of certain marine population in which the time from birth to maturity is directly related to the number of individuals present. In this paper we derive an alternative model where the immature birth rate is taken to be a non-monotone birth function in the kind seen in other frequently studied population model, the death rate for the matures is taken to be a general function, and with harvesting of the mature and immature populations. We study the dynamics of our model analytically, and we present results on positivity and boundedness. We also carry out a linearised analysis on the equilibria, which is algebraically very complicated in the case of the non-trivial equilibrium. We prove that the zero steady state is globally asymptotically stable in the situation when the positive equilibrium does not exist

What went wrong? The flawed concept of cerebrospinal venous insufficiency

In 2006, Zamboni reintroduced the concept that chronic impaired venous outflow of the central nervous system is associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), coining the term of chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency ('CCSVI'). The diagnosis of 'CCSVI' is based on sonographic criteria, which he found exclusively fulfilled in MS. The concept proposes that chronic venous outflow failure is associated with venous reflux and congestion and leads to iron deposition, thereby inducing neuroinflammation and degeneration. The revival of this concept has generated major interest in media and patient groups, mainly driven by the hope that endovascular treatment of 'CCSVI' could alleviate MS. Many investigators tried to replicate Zamboni's results with duplex sonography, magnetic resonance imaging, and catheter angiography. The data obtained here do generally not support the 'CCSVI' concept. Moreover, there are no methodologically adequate studies to prove or disprove beneficial effects of endovascular treatment in MS. This review not only gives a comprehensive overview of the methodological flaws and pathophysiologic implausibility of the 'CCSVI' concept, but also summarizes the multimodality diagnostic validation studies and open-label trials of endovascular treatment. In our view, there is currently no basis to diagnose or treat 'CCSVI' in the care of MS patients, outside of the setting of scientific research

The Reality of Distance Learning Skills among General Education Teachers from the Point of View of Supervisors and School Principals

This study examined the reality of distance learning skills among public education teachers from the point of view of supervisors and principals. The study aimed at identifying statistically significant differences in the average responses of the participants about the reality of distance learning skills among public education teachers in Asir region due to the study variables (job title, years of experience, gender, educational qualification, job rank, number of educational programs). The study used the descriptive approach to achieve the objectives of the study, and a questionnaire was designed for data collection and analysis. The study sample consisted of (245) supervisors and principals. The results of the study showed that the degree to which general education teachers possessed distance learning skills came to a large degree. The findings showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the average responses of respondents about distance learning skills due to the job title variable, and the presence of statistically significant differences in the average responses of the respondents about distance learning skills. The findings also revealed statistically significant differences in the averages of respondents’ responses about distance learning skills due to the variable of gender, with the exception of the field of “skills of using applied programs for information technology”, as well. The results showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the averages of the respondents’ responses about the areas of distance learning skills due to the educational qualification variable. There were statistically significant differences in the averages of the respondents’ responses in the areas of “educational software design skills, skills of using applied programs for information technology” due to the variable of occupational rank. There was a presence of statistically significant differences in the average responses of the respondents in the areas of skills of using application programs for information technology, due to the variable number of training programs

Accounting for Endogeneity in Maintenance Decisions and Overlay Thickness in a Pavement-Roughness Deterioration Model

Pavement deterioration models are an important part of any pavement management system. Many of these models suffer from endogeneity bias because of the inclusion of independent variables correlated with unobserved factors, which are captured by the model's error terms. Examples of such endogenous variables include pavement overlay thickness and maintenance and rehabilitation activities, both of which are not randomly chosen but are in fact decision variables selected by pavement engineers based on field conditions. Inclusion of these variables in a pavement deterioration model can result in biased and inconsistent model parameter estimates, leading to incorrect insights. Previous research has shown that continuous endogenous variables, such as pavement overlay thickness, can be corrected using auxiliary models to replace the endogenous variable with an instrumented variable that has lower correlation with the unobserved error term. Discrete endogenous variables, such as the type of maintenance and rehabilitation activities, have been accounted for by modeling the likelihood of each potential outcome and developing individual deterioration models for each of the potential responses. This paper proposes an alternative approach to accommodate discrete endogenous variables-the selectivity correction method-that allows a single model to incorporate the impacts of all discrete choices. This approach is applied to develop a pavement-roughness progression model that incorporates both continuous and discrete endogenous variables using field data from Washington State. The result is a roughness progression model with consistent parameter estimates, which have more realistic values than those obtained in previous studies that used the same data