Exploring Factors that Effect on M-Government Adoption Amongst Users: Evidence From Kuwait

Technological development has significantly influenced the application of mobile technologies, and currently, government agencies are intensely focusing on encouraging citizens to adopt and use mobile government, or M-government, services. However, it is quite clear that in order to motivate citizens, it is important for the government to increase their engagement by enhancing the efficiency of government services. Several governments, including the government of Kuwait, have already begun to move towards developing and implementing mobile government projects, with the primary aim of increasing interaction with citizens to improve service quality and delivery processes. This research has critically developed and analysed existing technology acceptance theories and models to establish an evaluation framework. Furthermore, this paper introduces an effective conceptual model for the citizens of Kuwait to adopt M-government services, promoting national growth. In order to collect data for this research, Kuwaiti citizens were targeted, and a survey was conducted using questionnaires. Moreover, the proposed framework has been empirically tested through structural equation modelling, with data collected directly from the structured questionnaire. The findings primarily address perceived usefulness, awareness, compatibility, face-to-face interaction, and social influence in a significant manner. This research contributes to predicting the main intention behind using M-government services. Keywords: Mobile Government, Kuwait, Adoption, UTAUT DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/15-10-05 Publication date:May 31st 202

Overview of the Parents’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Children Vaccinations: A Systematic Review

Background: It is the parents' responsibility to vaccinate their children. As a result, parents' attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs about vaccination are critical because they influence their activities toward timely and full immunization.  Objectives: This systematic review comprehensively investigated the recently published literature on parents’ knowledge regarding children’s vaccination.  Methods: PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar were systematically searched to include the relevant literature. Rayyan QRCI was used throughout this systematic approach. Results & interpretation: This review included twenty-four studies with a total of 13082 parents, and 70.9% were mothers. Knowledge level about children’s vaccination among parents was significantly related to their fathers' age, education level, women's employment status, and family type. Younger mothers were found to have a higher level of expertise. Good knowledge levels and positive attitudes towards the seasonal influenza vaccine were reported. Good knowledge with caution was reported among parents regarding COVID-19 vaccination. The knowledge about HPV infection and vaccination: All of them reported low vaccination rates and willingness to vaccinate their children. The findings of our study highlight the significance of parental understanding of vaccinations and immunization. Health officials should make additional efforts to promote the benefits of vaccination while emphasizing the risks of non- or late pediatric immunization

Patient going for PRK treatment for refractive error in Al-Jouf region, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) has been widely used as an efficient, secure, and cost-effective method for treating patients with low to moderate myopia. This study was aimed to evaluate the prevalence of accepted and rejected reasons candidates going for PRK treatment for refractive error in Aljouf region, Saudi Arabia. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was conducted among 255 candidates going for PRK treatment for refractive in the department of ophthalmology at tertiary care hospital in Aljouf region, Saudi Arabia from August 2023 to October 2023.The following measurements of eye were noted for the enrolled patients in the study: visual acuity (VA) sine correction (SC) Visual acuity cum correction (CC), refractive error (RE) Central corneal thickness (CCT), Pentacam Astigmatism, keratometry (K1 and K2), spherical, cylindrical, and axis power in diopters, cycloplegic refraction, and pupillary diameter in normal daytime illumination in a room. Results: Total 255 patients were included in this study among them 119 (46.67%) male and 136 (53.33%) female with average age of 26 in both male and female. Total 160 were fit and 95 were not fit. Visual acuity cum correction (CC) ocular dexter (OD) and Visual acuity cum correction (CC) ocular sinister (OS) reported both statistically significant with p value <0.001. Both K Max OS and K Max OD are statistically significant. The dry eye was evaluated by using Schimer test with mean of 15.00 and 10.00 with p value <0.001 were found significant. Conclusion:  This study concluded that 62.74% were reported fit and 37.26% were not fit for PRK treatment for refractive error because of the dry eye, Keratoconus, rocotane, amblyopia, hyperopia, diabetics and pregnancy in Aljouf region, Saudi Arabia. The Pentacam Astigmatism and dry eye was found statistically significant in both fit and unfit group

The comparision of glybenclamide and metformin-loaded bacterial cellulose/gelatin nanofibres produced by a portable electrohydrodynamic gun for diabetic wound healing

Wound dressings made from natural polymers are an important aspect of biomaterials. Protein-based materials are less likely to instigate an immunogenic response and have the capacity to degrade in vivo, also without triggering an inflammatory response. Therefore, gelatin (GEL) was chosen and combined with bacterial cellulose (BC) to produce nanofibres and the potential of an all-natural polymer construct was determined. GEL and BC were successfully electrospun with metformin (Met) and glybenclamide (Gb) using a portable, point of need electrospinning set up. The virgin fibre group exhibited a significant effect on the proliferation of L929 (mouse fibroblast) cells but all fibre samples can safely be applied on wound site without risk of cytotoxicity. According to the results obtained by animal tests, the GEL-BC-Gb group showed better recovery than the GEL-BC-Met group. Diabetic wounds treated with GEL-BC-Met were characterized by moderate re-epithelialization and partially organized granulation tissue. Moderate to complete re-epithelialization and well-formed granulation tissue were observed in diabetic wounds treated with GEL-BC-Gb. The histologic scores obtained on day 14 confirmed that the GEL-BC-Gb group played a stronger wound-healing role compared to the GEL-BC-Met group. The highest decrease of TNF-α level was observed in the GEL-BC-Gb group at the end of the experiment but there is no significant difference between drug-loaded fibre groups. Therefore, topical administration of Met and Gb in a sustained release form has a high potential for diabetic wound healing with high bioavailability and fewer systemic side effects but Gb showed better improvement according to the results of the animal tests

A novel treatment strategy for preterm birth: Intra-vaginal progesterone-loaded fibrous patches

Progesterone-loaded poly(lactic) acid fibrous polymeric patches were produced using electrospinning and pressurized gyration for intra-vaginal application to prevent preterm birth. The patches were intravaginally inserted into rats in the final week of their pregnancy, equivalent to the third trimester of human pregnancy. Maintenance tocolysis with progesterone-loaded patches was elucidated by recording the contractile response of uterine smooth muscle to noradrenaline in pregnant rats. Both progesterone-loaded patches indicated similar results from release and thermal studies, however, patches obtained by electrospinning had smaller average diameters and more uniform dispersion compared to pressurized gyration. Patches obtained by pressurized gyration had better results in production yield and tensile strength than electrospinning; thereby pressurized gyration is better suited for scaled-up production. The patches did not affect cell attachment, viability, and proliferation on Vero cells negatively. Consequently, progesterone-loaded patches are a novel and successful treatment strategy for preventing preterm birth

Crops leaf diseases recognition: a framework of optimum deep learning features

Manual diagnosis of crops diseases is not an easy process; thus, a computerized method is widely used. From a couple of years, advancements in the domain of machine learning, such as deep learning, have shown substantial success. However, they still faced some challenges such as similarity in disease symptoms and irrelevant features extraction. In this article, we proposed a new deep learning architecture with optimization algorithm for cucumber and potato leaf diseases recognition. The proposed architecture consists of five steps. In the first step, data augmentation is performed to increase the numbers of training samples. In the second step, pre-trained DarkNet19 deep model is opted and fine-tuned that later utilized for the training of fine-tuned model through transfer learning. Deep features are extracted from the global pooling layer in the next step that is refined using Improved Cuckoo search algorithm. The best selected features are finally classified using machine learning classifiers such as SVM, and named a few more for final classification results. The proposed architecture is tested using publicly available datasets–Cucumber National Dataset and Plant Village. The proposed architecture achieved an accuracy of 100.0%, 92.9%, and 99.2%, respectively. A comparison with recent techniques is also performed, revealing that the proposed method achieved improved accuracy while consuming less computational time

The longevity-associated BPIFB4 gene supports cardiac function and vascularization in ageing cardiomyopathy

Aims The ageing heart naturally incurs a progressive decline in function and perfusion that available treatments cannot halt. However, some exceptional individuals maintain good health until the very late stage of their life due to favourable gene-environment interaction. We have previously shown that carriers of a longevity-associated variant (LAV) of the BPIFB4 gene enjoy prolonged health spans and lesser cardiovascular complications. Moreover, supplementation of LAV-BPIFB4 via an adeno-associated viral vector improves cardiovascular performance in limb ischaemia, atherosclerosis, and diabetes models. Here, we asked whether the LAV-BPIFB4 gene could address the unmet therapeutic need to delay the heart's spontaneous ageing. Methods and results Immunohistological studies showed a remarkable reduction in vessel coverage by pericytes in failing hearts explanted from elderly patients. This defect was attenuated in patients carrying the homozygous LAV-BPIFB4 genotype. Moreover, pericytes isolated from older hearts showed low levels of BPIFB4, depressed pro-angiogenic activity, and loss of ribosome biogenesis. LAV-BPIFB4 supplementation restored pericyte function and pericyte-endothelial cell interactions through a mechanism involving the nucleolar protein nucleolin. Conversely, BPIFB4 silencing in normal pericytes mimed the heart failure pericytes. Finally, gene therapy with LAV-BPIFB4 prevented cardiac deterioration in middle-aged mice and rescued cardiac function and myocardial perfusion in older mice by improving microvasculature density and pericyte coverage. Conclusions We report the success of the LAV-BPIFB4 gene/protein in improving homeostatic processes in the heart's ageing. These findings open to using LAV-BPIFB4 to reverse the decline of heart performance in older people

A review of the performance and emissions of nano additives in diesel fueled compression ignition-engines

This paper reports the results of various researches on the engine performance and emission characteristics of Diesel engine using nano particles additives in diesel, biodiesel and water emulsified fuels. There are two methods of reducing the exhaust gas emission of the Diesel engine. First method is to reduce the emissions by using exhaust gas treatment devices like catalytic converter and diesel particulate filter. However, use of these devices affects the performance of Diesel engine. Second method to reduce emissions and improve performance of CI engine is the use of fuel additive. Main pollutants of Diesel engine are oxide of nitrogen (NOx) and particulate matter (PM). However, it is difficult to control NOx and PM simultaneously. Many researchers report that the best method to control the emissions and improve the engine performance is the use of nano particles additives and water emulsified fuels. This research paper also reports the biodiesel fuel as an alternative to diesel fuel by using various nano particle additives. Comparative studies of effects on various properties of diesel and biodiesel fuels without/with water contents and nano particles additives by previous researchers are done. Most of the researchers reported improved engine performance and reduction in emission characteristics with dosing of nano particles additives in diesel and biodiesel

Type 2 Diabetes Is Associated with Reduced ATP-Binding Cassette Transporter A1 Gene Expression, Protein and Function

Objective Increasing plasma glucose levels are associated with increasing risk of vascular disease. We tested the hypothesis that there is a glycaemia-mediated impairment of reverse cholesterol transport (RCT). We studied the influence of plasma glucose on expression and function of a key mediator in RCT, the ATP binding cassette transporter-A1 (ABCA1) and expression of its regulators, liver X receptor-α (LXRα) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor–γ (PPARγ). Methods and Results Leukocyte ABCA1, LXRα and PPARγ expression was measured by polymerase chain reaction in 63 men with varying degrees of glucose homeostasis. ABCA1 protein concentrations were measured in leukocytes. In a sub-group of 25 men, ABCA1 function was quantified as apolipoprotein-A1-mediated cholesterol efflux from 2–3 week cultured skin fibroblasts. Leukocyte ABCA1 expression correlated negatively with circulating HbA1c and glucose (rho = −0.41, p<0.001; rho = −0.34, p = 0.006 respectively) and was reduced in Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) (p = 0.03). Leukocyte ABCA1 protein was lower in T2DM (p = 0.03) and positively associated with plasma HDL cholesterol (HDL-C) (rho = 0.34, p = 0.02). Apolipoprotein-A1-mediated cholesterol efflux correlated negatively with fasting glucose (rho = −0.50, p = 0.01) and positively with HDL-C (rho = 0.41, p = 0.02). It was reduced in T2DM compared with controls (p = 0.04). These relationships were independent of LXRα and PPARγ expression. Conclusions ABCA1 expression and protein concentrations in leukocytes, as well as function in cultured skin fibroblasts, are reduced in T2DM. ABCA1 protein concentration and function are associated with HDL-C levels. These findings indicate a glycaemia- related, persistent disruption of a key component of RCT