Caring and Effective Teaching Behavior of Clinical Nursing Instructors in Clinical Area as Perceived by Their Students

Nursing is considered to be an applied science. Thus clinical teaching is central to nurse education. The quality of the student-teacher interaction in the clinical field can either facilitate or hinder the students' integration of theory to practice. It has been postulated that clinical instructors must possess caring behavior and effective clinical teacher characteristics if they want to facilitate students' entry and learning in a multifaceted world of clinical practice. So this study done to describe the clinical instructors’ caring and effective clinical teaching behaviors in clinical area as perceived by their students. A convenience sample of 113 nursing students affiliated to faculty of nursing, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia was included. Two tools for data collection were used; the first on was developed by the researcher and it was concerned with measuring the effective teaching characteristics of the clinical nursing instructors and the second one was the Nursing Student Perceptions of Instructor Caring (NSPIC) which was concerned with measuring clinical instructor’s caring behaviors.  The participant nursing students has common and unique perspectives on the importance of a clinical instructor demonstrating effective teaching characteristics. In addition, caring behaviors demonstrated by clinical instructors were identified and they perceived their clinical instructors demonstrated the highest number of caring behaviors from the subscales of respectful sharing and appreciation of life’s meanings. Clinically, the results might be utilized to improve faculty awareness of students’ views on their teaching performance. On the other hand, the clinical faculty can be educated and provided with useful educational tools to assist them in providing effective clinical instructions. Keywords: effective clinical teaching characteristics, caring behavior, clinical teaching in nursin

Learning English vowels: The effects of different phonetic training modes on Arabic learners' production and perception

This study investigated the effect of different types of phonetic training on potential changes in the production and perception of English vowels by Arabic learners of English. Forty-six Arabic learners of English were randomly assigned to one of three high variability vowel training programs: Perception training (High Variability Phonetic Training), Production training, and a Hybrid Training program (production and perception training). Pre- and post-tests (vowel identification, category discrimination, speech recognition in noise, and vowel production) showed that all training types led to improvements in perception and production. There was some evidence that improvements were linked to training type: learners in the Perception Training condition improved in vowel identification but not vowel production, while those in the Production Training condition showed only small improvements in performance on perceptual tasks, but greater improvement in production. However, the effects of training modality were complicated by proficiency, with high proficiency learners benefitting more from different types of training regardless of training mode than lower proficiency learners

Cell-mediated immunity in recent-onset type 1 diabetic children

Background: The ability to suppress an immune response makes regulatory T-cells (T-reg) an attractive candidate as a novel therapeutic agent for treating autoimmune diseases. The mechanisms involved in maintenance of peripheral tolerance include a specialized subset of regulatory-T-cells (Treg) within the T-cell population. The CD4+ CD25+ T-cells may be important in modulating the risk for autoimmunity. Auto-reactive cytotoxic T-cells recognize peptide epitopes displayed on the beta cells surface in the context of HLA class1 molecules. A population of CD8+ regulatory T-cells characterized by expression of CD25 and FOXP3 have been identified and induced in the human peripheral blood cells. The regulatory activity of these cells is on autologous, antigen-reactive CD4+ T-cells in a cell contactdependent manner. These findings provide an evidence for a new mechanism for induction of immune regulation in human. Objective: This study was aiming to assess the cellular immune parameters including the percentage of CD4+, CD8+, CD4+/CD8+ ratio,CD4+CD25+, CD8+ CD25+ lymphocytes, which may have its application in developing immune therapy based tools for halting disease progression. Methods: This study was conducted on 20 children of recent onset type 1 diabetes (disease duration 0.05) between the two groups. A significant inverse correlation was found between CD4+ CD25+ T-cells and HbA1c percentage among patients group (p < 0.05).Also a significant difference in the percentage of CD4+ CD25+ T-cells was found when patients with HbA1c8% (the latter group had significantly lower percentage of CD4+ CD8+ T-cells). Conclusion: Type 1diabetes is characterised at its onset by a lowered percentage of CD8+ and CD8+ CD25+ T-cells in peripheral blood, a normal percentage of CD4+ and CD4+ CD25+ T-cells. There may be an inverse correlation between percentage of CD4+ CD25+ T-cells at disease onset and HbA1c level after three months. These data support the hypothesis that a defect in function or deficiency in number of T- regulatory cells may affect the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes.Keywords: Type 1 diabetes, cell-mediated immunity, childrenEgypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2008; 6(2): 69-7

Design and development of an innovative and simple optical sensor for the detection of acetic acid

The technology we are developing consists of the use of coordination compounds with metals to carry out this detection of Acetic acid. This compound normally reacts with acetic acid changing its colour, making it a suitable compound for use as a detector. The proposed method allows detecting acetic acid in any medium, whether in solution, in the gas phase, in the solid phase, or in any combination of these. Upon contact with the acid, a colour change occurs that can be detected visually or through optical means. After its use, the active medium can be regenerated by a simple procedure and be available again for new use. This allows the creation of simple and intuitive detection devices, usable by non-experts and that can be regenerated and reused. The main advantage of this sensor is to allow the specific detection of acetic acid and quantification of its concentration, using coordination compounds with metals that are present in the yellow dye.This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain) under project PID2019-106601RB I00,and Generalitat Valenciana (Spain) under projects IDIFEDER/2021/014 (cofunded by European Union through the FEDER Programme), PROMETEO2021/006

EFFECT OF ORGANIC FERTILIZERS AND NUTRIENTS ON ANATOMICAL TRAITS OF RED BEETROOTS

A field experiment was conducted during fall season 2021-2022 In order to study the effect of soil as an agricultural medium, organic fertilizers (Vermecompost, cow manure) and foliar spraying of silicon and calcium on skin, bark and cambium ring thickness of three beetroot varieties (Red, Dark Red, and Cylindra). Seeds directly sown in the fields of Station A College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences - University of Baghdad - Al-Jadriya campus- Within RCBD a split-plot experiment, where the cultivars were the main unites, organic fertilizer, and foliar spray as the subunits, with three replicates, the number of treatments was 27. The results revealed that the triple interaction treatment of  Dark Red, Vermicompost, and silicon spray V2S2F1 was superior in epidermis  thickness, cortex thickness, and cambium ring thickness (55.00 μm, 78.90 μm, and 182.07μm) respectively, compared with Cylindra cultivar, soil medium, and spraying with distilled water V3S1F0, which produced the lowest averages (21.77 μm, 31.23 μm, 64.57 μm) respectively. The interaction treatment between Red cultivar, cow manure and spraying with distilled water V1S3F0 excelled in the thickness of the middle xylem ring ( 261.33 μm). Compared with the thinnest middle xylem (143.8 μm) in red cultivar  roots treated with soil medium and distilled water

Design and development of a simple and innovative Optical detection sensor for acetic acid

The technology we are developing consists of the use of coordination compounds with metals to carry out the detection of acetic acid, which is a harmful substance for human health and some art works.This work was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain) under project PID2019-106601RB-I00, and Generalitat Valenciana (Spain) under projects IDIFEDER/2021/014 (cofunded by European Union through the FEDER Programme), PROMETEO 2021/006

SOLVING TRAFFIC CONGESTION FROM THE DEMAND SIDE

It is nowadays widely accepted that solving traffic congestion from the demand side is more important and more feasible than offering more capacity or facilities for transportation. Following a brief overview of evolution of the concept of Travel Demand Management (TDM), there is a discussion on the TDM foundations that include demand-side strategies, traveler choice and application settings and the new dimensions that ATDM (Active forms of Transportation and Demand Management) bring to TDM, i.e. active management and integrative management. Subsequently, the authors provide a short review of the state-of-the-art TDM focusing on relevant literature published since 2000. Next, we highlight five TDM topics that are currently hot: traffic congestion pricing, public transit and bicycles, travel behavior, travel plans and methodology. The paper closes with some concluding remarks

Epidemiology of bronchial asthma among preparatory school children in Assiut district

Background: The prevalence of asthma and allergies is increasing in both Western and developing countries. Few studies evaluated asthma prevalence in Egypt . Objectives: Determination of the prevalence and risk factors of asthma among preparatory school children in Assiut district, in Upper Egypt. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among preparatory school students in Assiut city and two rural areas in Assiut district in Upper Egypt. Twelve schools were selected randomly from different regions in Assiut city and two rural areas one to the North and the other to the South of Assiut city. The total coverage of the students included was 1048 (482 boys and 566 girls). Data were collected by self-administered questionnaire (in Arabic Language) which was filled by the participants. Results: Of the 1048 positively responding subjects, 65 fitted the diagnosis of asthma with over all prevalence of 6.2%. No significant difference was found between urban and rural areas (P = 0.075). Using logistic regression analysis: a positive family history of allergy and the presence of other one or more allergic diseases were significantly associated risk factors for asthma. Exposure to dust, cigarette smoke, playing and physical activity, common cold attacks, and special food or drinks were the most common triggering factors for asthma exacerbations . Conclusion: Bronchial asthma is a significant health problem among children and adolescents in Assiut district and needs special medical care. Wider scale multi-center studies in upper Egypt and other localities of Egypt are needed to outline the profile of bronchial asthma among children and adolescents in the whole country. Keywords: prevalence of asthma, preparatory school children, Assiut districtEgypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2012;10(2):109-11