Metacognitive Abilities within Personal Narratives of Inpatients with Schizophrenia: Associations with Clinical Insight and Drug Compliance

Psychiatric nurses face many challenges in providing effective care for patients with schizophrenia who have poor insight. The understanding of metacognitive functions in schizophrenia may form a richer idea of why some patients deny illness and decline treatment, and may allow for further consideration of effective psychiatric care.  This study aimed to assess the metacognitive abilities within personal narratives among inpatients with schizophrenia and to investigate its relationship with clinical insight and drug compliance. The study followed a cross- sectional descriptive correlational research design. It was conducted on 65 male inpatients with schizophrenia, at El-Maamoura Hospital for Psychiatric Medicine in Alexandria, Egypt. Indiana Psychiatric Illness Interview was used to elicit a narrative of self and illness, the narratives of the study subjects were rated using the metacognitive assessment scale concurrently with the assessment of clinical insight and drug compliance. The results revealed a statistical significant positive correlation between metacognitive abilities, clinical insight and drug compliance. It was concluded that poor insight and drug non-compliance might be significantly improved when considering the metacognitive measures.  Recommendations encompassed that metacognitive assessment should be integrated in psychiatric care of inpatients with schizophrenia. A form of integrative psychotherapeutic intervention that could promote insight and drug compliance through stimulating metacognitive abilities should be developed in patients with schizophrenia. Replication of the study is also required on more diverse and larger groups of patients. Keywords: Metacognitive abilities, Narratives, Schizophrenia, Clinical Insight, Drug compliance. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-1-1

Developing Decentralised Resilience to Malicious Influence in Collective Perception Problem

In collective decision-making, designing algorithms that use only local information to effect swarm-level behaviour is a non-trivial problem. We used machine learning techniques to teach swarm members to map their local perceptions of the environment to an optimal action. A curriculum inspired by Machine Education approaches was designed to facilitate this learning process and teach the members the skills required for optimal performance in the collective perception problem. We extended upon previous approaches by creating a curriculum that taught agents resilience to malicious influence. The experimental results show that well-designed rules-based algorithms can produce effective agents. When performing opinion fusion, we implemented decentralised resilience by having agents dynamically weight received opinion. We found a non-significant difference between constant and dynamic weights, suggesting that momentum-based opinion fusion is perhaps already a resilience mechanism.Comment: 14 Pages, 14 Figure

Survey of Personalized Learning Software Systems: A Taxonomy of Environments, Learning Content, and User Models

This paper presents a comprehensive systematic review of personalized learning software systems. All the systems under review are designed to aid educational stakeholders by personalizing one or more facets of the learning process. This is achieved by exploring and analyzing the common architectural attributes among personalized learning software systems. A literature-driven taxonomy is recognized and built to categorize and analyze the reviewed literature. Relevant papers are filtered to produce a final set of full systems to be reviewed and analyzed. In this meta-review, a set of 72 selected personalized learning software systems have been reviewed and categorized based on the proposed personalized learning taxonomy. The proposed taxonomy outlines the three main architectural components of any personalized learning software system: learning environment, learner model, and content. It further defines the different realizations and attributions of each component. Surveyed systems have been analyzed under the proposed taxonomy according to their architectural components, usage, strengths, and weaknesses. Then, the role of these systems in the development of the field of personalized learning systems is discussed. This review sheds light on the field’s current challenges that need to be resolved in the upcoming years

Role of SARS-COV2 Antigen as a diagnostic test for COVID-19

Background: Successive waves of SARS-CoV-2 infections with increasing transmission rates may burden the laboratories performing molecular diagnostic testing. Alternative diagnostic methods may provide additional diagnostic capacity. Chemiluminescent totally automated antigen detection test for SARS-CoV-2 (Ortho VITROS SARS-CoV-2 antigen test) could be satisfactory replacement for reverse-transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) for mass screening during outbreaks. Methods: RT- qPCR and the VITROS® SARS-CoV-2 antigen were compared. Antigen detection test was assessed using clinical samples (nasopharyngeal swabs in viral transport medium) withdrawn from 668 patients suspected to have SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results: From 668 samples, 303 showed SARS-CoV-2 antigens positive and 365 SARS-CoV-2 antigens negative in comparison with RT-qPCR, the sensitivity was 89.11% and the specificity was 100.0% (PPV 100.0 and NPV 91.7). Ct value of 16.0 was the limit of detection of the assay. Conclusion: The given results show that VITROS® assay was acceptable for the detection of patients having contagious COVID-19 in the clinical setting. This test showed high sensitivity and specificity in the SARS-CoV-2 detection in samples with a Ct value of 32 or less. Chemiluminescent full automated antigen detection test for SARS-CoV-2 is a feasible substitute to (RT-qPCR) for mass screenin

Triggers And Tweets: Implicit Aspect-Based Sentiment And Emotion Analysis Of Community Chatter Relevant To Education Post-Covid-19

This research proposes a well-being analytical framework using social media chatter data. The proposed framework infers analytics and provides insights into the public\u27s well-being relevant to education throughout and post the COVID-19 pandemic through a comprehensive Emotion and Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA). Moreover, this research aims to examine the variability in emotions of students, parents, and faculty toward the e-learning process over time and across different locations. The proposed framework curates Twitter chatter data relevant to the education sector, identifies tweets with the sentiment, and then identifies the exact emotion and emotional triggers associated with those feelings through implicit ABSA. The produced analytics are then factored by location and time to provide more comprehensive insights that aim to assist the decision-makers and personnel in the educational sector enhance and adapt the educational process during and following the pandemic and looking toward the future. The experimental results for emotion classification show that the Linear Support Vector Classifier (SVC) outperformed other classifiers in terms of overall accuracy, precision, recall, and F-measure of 91%. Moreover, the Logistic Regression classifier outperformed all other classifiers in terms of overall accuracy, recall, an F-measure of 81%, and precision of 83% for aspect classification. In online experiments using UAE COVID-19 education-related data, the analytics show high relevance with the public concerns around the education process that were reported during the experiment\u27s timeframe

Effect of Foliar Fertilization by Two Types of Fertilizers on Growth and Yield of Cucumber (Omega Variety) under Protected Environment Conditions

     نفذت تجربة حقلية في الموسم الشتوي 2018 في بيت بلاستيكي في منطقة العزاوية بمحافظة بابل بتصميم (C.R.D) وبثلاث مكررات تضمنت سبع معاملات هي رش المغذي الورقي البيومين 221 بتركيز 1، 1.25،  1.5مل .لتر1- ماء والفولسيست بتركيز1، 1.5،  2مل . لتر1- ماء اضافة الى معاملة المقارنة (من دون رش) على نبات الخيار صنف Omega المزروع في البيت البلاستيكي وتم رش النباتات ثلاث مرات ،الاولى عند الازهار، والثانية بعد اسبوعين من الاولى، والثالثة بعد اسبوعين من الثانية. يهدف البحث لمعرفة تأثير الرش الورقي بالمغذيين البيومين 221 والفولسيست في نمو وحاصل الخيار المزروع في البيت البلاستيكي .أظهرت نتائج صفات النمو الخضري (طول النبات وعدد الاوراق والوزن الجاف للمجموع الخضري) وصفات النمو الثمري (طول الثمرة ووزن الثمرة  وعدد الثمار .نبات1- وحاصل النبات الواحد) عند رش الفولسيست بتركيز 1.5مل .لتر-1 (323.7 سم ،88.33 ورقة،  31.67غم ( لصفات النمو الخضري بالتتابع  و (  23.50سم ،113.85 غم ، 43.03 ثمرة . نبات 1- ، 4.900 كغم. نبات 1-) لصفات النمو الثمري بالتتابع وتليها معاملة البيومين 221 بتركيز1.25 مل .لتر1- في صفات النمو الخضري (309.3 سم، 70.33 ورقة، 25.92غم) بالتتابع ولصفات النمو الثمري كانت (21.03 سم، 111.01 غم ،  40.78ثمرة . نبات  1- ، 4.523 كغم . نبات 1-) بالتتابع.The experiment was conducted during the winter season in 2018 under a plastic house at Azawia- Babylon in (C.R.D) design with three replicates consisted of seven treatments such as a spray of foliar nutrition biomin 221with concentration 1‚1.25‚1.5  ml. liter-1 water and folic with concentration of 1‚1.5‚2  ml. litre-1 water, as well as a control treatment (without spraying) on cucumber plant (Omega variety), were grown in plastic house as follows three times ‚ The first spraying was conducted during flowering and the second spraying after two weeks of the first and the third after two weeks of the second. This study aims to determine the effect of foliar spray by nutritions biomin 221 and folic in growth and yield of cucumber planted in a plastic house. Results indicated that in vegetative growth characteristics (plant length, the number of leaves and dry weight of the shoot) and fruiting growth characteristics (fruit long, fruit weight ‚ the number of fruits.plant-1 and the one plant yield) in a spray of folicist with concentration 1.5 ml. litre-1  (323.7 cm ‚ 88.33 leaf ‚31.67 gm) of vegetative growth characteristics sequentially and (23.50 cm ‚113.85 gm‚43.03 fruit.plant-1 and 4.900 kg .plant-1) of fruiting growth characteristics sequentially and treatment of biomin 221 with concentration1.25 ml.litre-1 in vegetative growth characteristics (309.3cm‚70.33 leaf‚25.92gm) sequentially and fruiting growth characteristic (21.03cm‚111.01gm‚40.78 fruit.plant-1 and 4.523 kg.plant-1) sequentiall

Effect Times Number of Spray and Concentration of Foliar Fertilizer (PIO20) in Growth and Yield of Cucumber Variety Jamila Planted in Plastic Houses Conditions

نفذت التجربة خلال الموسم الزراعي 2016 في البيوت البلاستيكية في منطقة العزاوية بمحافظة بابل لدراسة تأثير عدد مرات الرش (رشتان، ثلاث رشات) مع اربعة مستويات للرش بالسماد الورقي PIO20 وهي 0 ،1.5 ،2 ،2.5   مل. لتر1- في نبات الخيار صنف جميلة، طّبقت تجربة عاملية وﻓﻘﴼ لتصميم (C.R.D) بثلاثة مكررات. أوضحت النتائج التفوق المعنوي لمعاملة الرش لثلاث مرات بالسماد الورقيPIO20  على معاملة الرش لمرتين في معدل طول النبات (291.4) سم وعدد الاوراق (36.63) ورقة والوزن الجاف للمجموع الخضري(25.76) غم وطول الثمرة (17.98) سم ووزن الثمرة ((109.27غم وعدد الثمار((11.80 ثمرة. نبات1- وحاصل النبات الواحد ((1.294 كغم . كما أظهرت معاملات الرش الورقي جميعها تفوﻗﴼ معنوﻴﴼ في معدل صفات النمو الخضري والثمري قياﺴﴼ لمعاملة المقارنة.  وبيّنت نتائج التداخل التفوق المعنوي لمعاملة الرش لثلاث مرات عند المستوى 2مل. لتر1- في معدل طول النبات (311.3) سم وعدد الاوراق (40.71) ورقة والوزن الجاف للمجموع الخضري(32.09) غم وطول الثمرة (19.34) سم ووزن الثمرة ((116.06 غم وعدد الثمار((12.97 ثمرة. نبات1- وحاصل النبات الواحد ((1.506 كغم.The experiment was conducted during a season of 2016 in plastic houses at Azawia- Babylon to study effect times number of spray (two times،  three times ) with four levels of spray by foliar nutrition  PIO20 (0 ،1.5 ، 2 ،2.5 ml. liter-1) in cucumber plant c.v. jamila. The experiment was conducted of factorial in design using (C.R.D) with three replicates. Results showed the treatment spray of three times significantly on the treatment spray two times when imported  plant length rate (291.4) cm ,the number of leaves (36.63) leaf and dry weight of the shoot (25.76) gm , fruit long (17.98) cm , fruit weight (109.27) gm and the number of fruits (11.80) fruit.plant-1 and the one plant yield (1.294)kg. the results also showed all the treatment of spray significantly in vegetative growth and fruiting characteristics as compared with control treatment. the results of the interaction the significant superiority of the treatment spray of three times on the level 2 ml. liter-1 plant length rate (311.3) cm ,the number of leaves (40.71) leaf and dry weight of the shoot (32.09) gm , fruit long (19.34) cm , fruit weight (116.06) gm and the number of fruits (12.97) fruit.plant-1 and the one plant yield (1.506)kg

The Importance of Comparative Analysis in the Critical Evaluation of Hadith Narratives and Narrators/

This study investigates the comparative technique employed by Hadith critics for purposes of definition, eVol.ution and importance. Then, it shows how critics use comparative analysis and related techniques, and it gives examples of application to the evaluation of Hadith narratives and narrators. The study aims to explain the Hadith critics’ comparative technique and procedures. It follows a deductive approach. The following are the most important results of the study. The comparative technique started at the time of Prophet Mohammad. Then, it continued to be used by the Sahābah. Afterwards, it became an established way of evaluating Hadith narrators in terms of memorization, authenticity and points of strength and weaknesses in related narrative

The Zionist Organizations’ Recruitment of Propaganda Techniques on Facebook: An Analytical Study of ‘Stand with Us’ Arabic Page

The study aimed at identifying the extent to which the Zionist organization ‘Stand with Us’ recruited propaganda techniques through its communication on Facebook to persuade Arabic-speaking audiences to accept the occupation entity presence as an “original” part of the Arab World. It also aimed at identifying the most important topics the organization posits and the way it frames its messages through the Facebook platform. The study used content analysis method to analyze the Arabic Facebook page of the organization from the 1st of May to the end of June 2020, which is the period when Israel announced its annexation plan of parts of the West Bank. This declaration comes a few months after Trump\u27s controversial Middle East proposal unveiled in January 2020, as the proposal outlined that Israel plans to annex roughly 30% of the occupied West Bank. A systematic random sample, which consisted of 138 posts, was analyzed using the content analysis method. The theoretical framework of the study was based on the agenda-setting theory and the propaganda techniques that were identified by the Propaganda Analysis Institute in the USA in 1937. The study concluded that the most important topics, which were discussed by ‘Stand with Us’ page, included historical, humanitarian, social, political, religious, research and development, women, and commercial exchange. The page used five propaganda techniques which are: glittering generality, card stacking, name-calling, testimonial, and transfer. The most used one was glittering generality with (41%) and the least was transfer with (3%). These techniques were used to support the agenda-setting process and enhance the image of Israel, but, simultaneously, damage the Arab and Palestinian image. Accordingly, the study recommended educating the Arab audience about propaganda techniques that are being used by Zionist organizations to reduce the effect of these techniques