Healthcare workers in Saudi Arabia (KSA) perceive stress differently according to gender but not in cortisol levels - an immunoassay study

Background: Working in the healthcare sector is generally regarded as stress inductive, which hampers performance, yet one demanding constant accuracy. This dichotomy has led to numerous investigations on the impact from perceived stress on hospital workers but focused primarily on employing psychological methods to determine perceived stress. This study sought to employ an arguably more objective measure of chronic stress on female healthcare professionals in Saudi Arabia, by assaying the concentration of hair cortisol (HCC) in parallel with stress questionnaires. Methods: Pharmacists, nurses and lab workers participated in providing hair samples. Cortisol levels were subsequently quantified using immunoassay methods. Investigations considered the variables of age, gender, and smoking, hair coloring or bleaching or working in shifts on both stress perception and HCC. Results: On average chronic stress was perceived comparably between the different healthcare professions and not differ significantly against the female control group. However, chronic stress differed significantly between genders within the healthcare profession. In contrast, HCC levels showed no direct relation to stress perception with respect to either gender or profession. HCC did, however, show steady decreases with respect to age, as an indirect measure of experience, that contrasted against the identical scores for stress perception. Finally, night shifts, smoking or hair colouring did not produce a significant change on HCC in the healthcare cohorts. Conclusions: Women in the healthcare profession perceive stress higher irrespective of profession compared to men. Also show a pattern of decreasing levels of cortisol with increasing age despite reporting similar stress perception against younger participants

Remote Learning in Collegiate Instrumental Courses: The Impact of Remote Learning During the COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Remote Learning

During the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges were required to transition to a remote learning platform. This was a new concept to many professors and proved to impact college courses, including courses that relied on in-person learning and interactions, such as instrumental music courses. Courses were affected because teaching and learning methods that applied to in-person learning were not entirely possible with remote learning due to the mandates of social distancing and the lack of face-to-face instruction. Many music professors were required to make necessary changes to the curriculum, teaching styles, and educational technologies. Courses required new and innovative ways to provide collaborative music-making opportunities, as in-person rehearsals were not an option during remote learning. This qualitative case study analyzes the impact of remote learning on collegiate band, orchestra, and instrumental studio lessons, as well as the professors and students involved in the courses. The results will show the curricular changes made to the curricula, the benefits and disadvantages of online learning and teaching, and potential teaching strategies that have proven to be successful

A Censored Multinomial Regression Model for Perinatal Mother to Child Transmission of HIV

In studies designed to estimate rates of perinatal mother to child transmission of HIV, HIV assays are scheduled at multiple points in time. Still infection status for some infants at some time points is often unknown, particularly when interim analyses are conducted. Logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards regression are commonly used to estimate covariate-adjusted transmission rates, but their methods for handling missing data may be inadequate. Here, we propose using censored multinomial regression models to estimate cumulative and conditional rates of HIV transmission. Through simulation, we show that the proposed methods perform better than standard logistic models in terms of bias, mean squared error, coverage probability, and power, under a range of treatment effect and visit process scenarios

Behaviors of Adult \u3ci\u3eAgrilus Planipennis\u3c/i\u3e (Coleoptera: Buprestidae)

A 2-year study was conducted in Canada (2003) and the United States (2005) to better understand searching and mating behaviors of adult Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire. In both field and laboratory, adults spent more time resting and walking than feeding or flying. The sex ratio in the field was biased towards males, which tended to hover around trees, likely looking for mates. There was more leaf feeding damage within a tree higher in the canopy than in the lower canopy early in the season, but this difference disappeared over time. In choice experiments, males attempted to mate with individuals of both sexes, but they landed more frequently on females than on males. A series of sexual behaviors was observed in the laboratory, including: exposure of the ovipositor/genitalia, sporadic jumping by males, attempted mating, and mating. Sexual behaviors were absent among 1-3 day-old beetles, but were observed regularly in 10-12 day-old beetles. Females were seen exposing their ovipositor, suggestive of pheromone-calling behavior. No courtship was observed prior to mating. Hovering, searching, and landing behaviors suggest that beetles most likely rely on visual cues during mate finding, although host-plant volatiles and/or pheromones might also be involved

Computerized system for translating a torch head

The system provides a constant travel speed along a contoured workpiece. It has a driven skate characterized by an elongated bed, with a pair of independently pivoted trucks connected to the bed for support. The trucks are mounted on a contoured track of arbitrary configuration in a mutually spaced relation. An axially extensible torch head manipulator arm is mounted on the bed of the carriage and projects perpendicular from the midportion. The torch head is mounted at its distal end. A real-time computerized control drive subsystem is used to advance the skate along the track of a variable rate for maintaining a constant speed for the torch head tip, and to position the torch axis relative to a preset angle to the workpiece

Phase Separation Driven by External Fluctuations

The influence of external fluctuations in phase separation processes is analysed. These fluctuations arise from random variations of an external control parameter. A linear stability analysis of the homogeneous state shows that phase separation dynamics can be induced by external noise. The spatial structure of the noise is found to have a relevant role in this phenomenon. Numerical simulations confirm these results. A comparison with order-disorder noise induced phase transitions is also made.Comment: 4 pages, 4 Postscript figures included in text. LaTeX (with Revtex macros

Generalization of escape rate from a metastable state driven by external cross-correlated noise processes

We propose generalization of escape rate from a metastable state for externally driven correlated noise processes in one dimension. In addition to the internal non-Markovian thermal fluctuations, the external correlated noise processes we consider are Gaussian, stationary in nature and are of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck type. Based on a Fokker-Planck description of the effective noise processes with finite memory we derive the generalized escape rate from a metastable state in the moderate to large damping limit and investigate the effect of degree of correlation on the resulting rate. Comparison of the theoretical expression with numerical simulation gives a satisfactory agreement and shows that by increasing the degree of external noise correlation one can enhance the escape rate through the dressed effective noise strength.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur