A review of diabetic patients’ knowledge in a high prevalent European country : Malta

Education is the first milestone in the care pathway of all diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to assess the educational knowledge and awareness among a diabetic patient cohort and compare this knowledge to a previously conducted study. Acquiring information on diabetes knowledge is essential for both clinicians and policy makers. Interviews using validated questionnaires covering various aspects of diabetes knowledge were conducted among a diabetic cohort between August and September of 2014 at the state hospital in Malta. The majority exhibited correct knowledge on diabetes and related complications. Knowledge levels appeared to have improved and were influenced by gender, type of diabetes and length of diabetes awareness. We conclude that educational approaches should be targeted towards every diabetic individual and should start immediately after diagnosis. This would lead to improved self-care, with a reduction in diabetic complications and a decrease in health-care expenditure.peer-reviewe

Are local guidelines on investigations in children admitted with acute gastroenteritis being adhered to?

The aim of this article is to assess adherence to local guidelines on the investigation of children admitted with acute gastroenteritis. Children admitted to Mater Dei Hospital with a diagnosis of gastroenteritis between December 2012 and February 2013 were selected. Their investigations were retrospectively assessed in relation to the degree of dehydration and the type of management given. Hospital guidelines relating to investigations performed in children admitted with gastroenteritis were reviewed and compliance was assessed. A total of 411 investigations were carried out in 76 children with the most common investigations being serum electrolytes, urea and creatinine and random blood glucose. Guidelines were met in 4/76 (5.3%) of the study population. Serum electrolytes had the greatest impact on management. The conclusion is that the local guideline on gastroenteritis is not being adhered to in the vast majority of cases. There is an urgent need to raise awareness about the availability and utilisation of this guideline amongst doctors working in paediatrics.peer-reviewe

A Review of Geophysical Modeling Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

This paper reviews the application of the algorithm particle swarm optimization (PSO) to perform stochastic inverse modeling of geophysical data. The main features of PSO are summarized, and the most important contributions in several geophysical felds are analyzed. The aim is to indicate the fundamental steps of the evolution of PSO methodologies that have been adopted to model the Earth’s subsurface and then to undertake a critical evaluation of their benefts and limitations. Original works have been selected from the existing geophysical literature to illustrate successful PSO applied to the interpretation of electromagnetic (magnetotelluric and time-domain) data, gravimetric and magnetic data, self-potential, direct current and seismic data. These case studies are critically described and compared. In addition, joint optimization of multiple geophysical data sets by means of multi-objective PSO is presented to highlight the advantage of using a single solver that deploys Pareto optimality to handle diferent data sets without conficting solutions. Finally, we propose best practices for the implementation of a customized algorithm from scratch to perform stochastic inverse modeling of any kind of geophysical data sets for the beneft of PSO practitioners or inexperienced researchers

Joint optimization of geophysical data using multi-objective swarm intelligence

The joint inversion of multiple data sets encompasses the advantages of different geophysical methods but may yield to conflicting solutions. Global search methods have been recently developed to address the issue of local minima found by derivative-based methods, to analyse the data compatibility and to find the set of trade-off solutions, since they are not unique. In this paper, we examine two evolutionary algorithms to solve the joint inversion of electrical and electromagnetic data. These nature-inspired metaheuristics also adopt the principle of Pareto optimality in order to identify the result among the feasible solutions and then infer the data compatibility. Since the joint inversion is characterized by more than one objective, we implemented the algorithm multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) to jointly interpret time-domain electromagnetic data and vertical electrical sounding. We first tested MOPSO on a synthetic model. The performance of MOPSO was directly compared with that of a multi-objective genetic algorithm, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGAIII), which has often been adopted in geophysics. The adoption of MOPSO and NSGA-III enabled avoiding both simplification into a single-objective problem and the use of a weighting factor between the objectives. We tested the two methods on real data sets collected in the northwest of Italy. The results obtained from MOPSO and NSGA-III were highly comparable to each other and largely consistent with literature findings. The MOPSO performed a rigorous selection of the best trade-off solutions and its convergence was faster than NSGA-III. The analysis of the Pareto Front reported data incompatibility, which is very common for real data due to different resolutions, sensitivities and depth of investigations. Notwithstanding this, the multi-objective optimizers provided a complementary interpretation of the data, ensuring significant advantages with respect to the separate optimizations we carried out using the single-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm

Cash transfers and women's economic inclusion

This paper investigates whether an increase in exogenous income through the Child Grants model of the Social Cash Transfer programme in Zambia fosters economic inclusion among rural women. We conceptualize economic inclusion as a transformative process comprised of four pillars: productive capacity, financial inclusion, social power, and psychological assets. Using experimental data, we find strong evidence of direct impacts of the Child Grant on the productive capacity, financial inclusion, and psychological assets of rural women. In addition to these direct impacts, we implement a mediation analysis to explore the potential mediating role of psychological assets in affecting the other pillars of economic inclusion. Through this approach, we find indicative evidence of indirect and mutually reinforcing relationships between changes in psychological assets brought about through the Child Grant and improvements in the productive capacity and financial inclusion of beneficiaries. Such results suggest that cash transfers might be effective in promoting women’s economic inclusion, both through the direct monetary effect and through the mediated effect of psychological assets

Accounting for attitudes and perceptions influencing users' willingness to purchase Electric Vehicles through a Hybrid Choice Modeling approach based on Analytic Hierarchy Process

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Stigma in Malta : a Mediterranean perspective

The aim of this paper to describe what Transcultural Psychiatry is. It attempts to describe stigma in Malta and how it comes about that the Mental Hospital in Malta is named for Our Lady of Mount Carmel and finally attempt to put Mount Carmel Hospital and its dedication within Maltese Culture and the culture of the Mediterranean. The paper demonstrates that to understand this, it is necessary to employ History, Anthropology, Theology, among other issues. Doing this also suggests that Malta has undergone a process of 'normalization' regarding treatment of Mental Health Problems.peer-reviewe

STIGMA IN MALTA; A MEDITERRANEAN PERSPECTIVE

The aim of this paper to describe what Transcultural Psychiatry is. It attempts to describe stigma in Malta and how it comes about that the Mental Hospital in Malta is named for Our Lady of Mount Carmel and finally attempt to put Mount Carmel Hospital and its dedication within Maltese Culture and the culture of the Mediterranean. The paper demonstrates that to understand this, it is necessary to employ History, Anthropology, Theology, among other issues. Doing this also suggests that Malta has undergone a process of ‘normalisation’ regarding treatment of Mental Health Problems

Estimating an Injury Crash Rate Prediction Model based on severity levels evaluation: The case study of single-vehicle run-off-road crashes on rural context

Abstract In general in case of crash situations the quality of collected data is very limited and several information are usually unreliable. Thus it is recognised that a significant effort is required in order to improve the quality of the crash prediction models moreover a crucial role is played by the identification of the factors influencing the crashes occurrence and the levels of severity estimation. In this paper two injury crash rate prediction models related to single-vehicle run-off-road crashes type are calibrated and in particular significant attributes estimated are identified not only with roadway geometric characteristics and surface conditions, but also with gender/number-of-drivers. To this aim a survey of injury crashes on two-lane rural roads collected in the Southern Italy was considered and analysed. Finally before the calibration step, a preliminary analysis of the data was provided through the estimation of the levels of severity by multinomial logit; in fact by this model only segments with highest values of severity are identified and involved in the calibration procedure