Painting: A Visual Symbol for Effective Teaching

The quest to bring about learning is an integral part of education of the child; a lot of avenues have been explored seeking for possible ways of sustaining retention of learnt materials. However, enough attention has not been given to painting as instructional material for child education. Essentially, this research work is geared towards revealing to the classroom teacher or any other educationist the place of painting as a visual symbol for effective teaching. The study determined and highlighted the contributions of art generally to child education and the influence of painting in particular to teaching and learning of the child. It also reviewed some literatures of authors who had worked in the related area previously. The study also discussed step by step methods applied in the execution of the practical projects and as well presented an in depth analysis of practical display of the easel painting as an example of instructional material. Practical display which revolves around stealing and its consequences was used in the study; it was used to condemn the act of stealing and instil in the young ones, the moral value from the tender age. Finally, the study recommended among others the use of quality instructional material capable of explaining difficult concepts in visual forms by the teacher, since it is believed to promote attention span and retention. Keywords: Visual Arts, Effective Teaching, Visual Symbol, Paintin

Discrete Breathers in One-Dimensional Diatomic Granular Crystals

We report the experimental observation of discrete breathers in a one-dimensional diatomic granular crystal composed of compressed elastic beads that interact via Hertzian contact. We first characterize their effective linear spectrum both theoretically and experimentally. We then illustrate theoretically and numerically the modulational instability of the lower edge of the optical band. This leads to the dynamical formation of long-lived breather structures, whose families of solutions we compute throughout the linear spectral gap. Finally, we observe experimentally such localized breathing modes with quantitative characteristics that agree with our numerical results.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Tetanus with multiple wedge vertebral collapses: A case report in a 13 year old girl

Data from the case records dary School Class two girl managed at the Department of Paediatrics of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital were extracted for presentation to highlight vertebral collapse as an uncommon complication of paediatric tetanus and the associated management challenges. The girl presented with complaints of back pains-11 days, inability to open her mouth- 9 days, jerking of the body- 8 days and upper back swelling-6 days following bruises from corporal punishment in her school. She was diagnosed to have tetanus with vertebral collapses of T3-T6. Tuberculosis and other causes of vertebral collapse were excluded. The tetanus was successfully treated but she left against medical advice and defaulted from follow-up for the management of the vertebral collapses. Poverty, ignorance and belief in traditional health care were major obstacles to her management.Key words: Multiple wedge vertebral collapses in tetanu

Welfarism vs. extra-welfarism

'Extra-welfarism' has received some attention in health economics, yet there is little consensus on what distinguishes it from more conventional 'welfarist economics'. In this paper, we seek to identify the characteristics of each in order to make a systematic comparison of the ways in which they evaluate alternative social states. The focus, though this is not intended to be exclusive, is on health. Specifically, we highlight four areas in which the two schools differ: (i) the outcomes considered relevant in an evaluation; (ii) the sources of valuation of the relevant outcomes; (iii) the basis of weighting of relevant outcomes and (iv) interpersonal comparisons. We conclude that these differences are substantive. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Osteotomy and Autograft Lengthening for Intra-Articular Malunion of the Proximal Ulna: A Case Report

An osteotomy with interposition of iliac crest bone graft and lengthening of the proximal ulna can be used to restore ulnohumeral congruency after a malunited comminuted olecranon fracture treated with figure-of-eight tension band wiring

Antiepileptic drug adherence among children with epilepsy attending a tertiary hospital in Rivers state, Nigeria

Background: Epilepsy is a common neurologic disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizures which can affect the cognitive, social and the psychological wellbeing of a child. Antiepileptic drugs (AED) adherence is necessary for good control of seizure. However, several factors can affect the adherence level among children.  This present study sought to determine the factors associated with adherence to antiepileptic drugs among children with epilepsy in university of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH).Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was done among children with a diagnosis of epilepsy attending the Paediatrics Neurology Clinic of the UPTH over a 6-month period from June 2021 to December 2021. AED adherence was determined by self-report of their AED use in the month preceding the study. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis, test for association between subgroups was carried out using Chi-square test while the difference between means was determined using the Students t-test.Results: A total of 94 children with epilepsy participated in this study. Forty-nine (52.1%) were females and 45 (47.9%) males. The mean age was 7.34 years.  Thirty-eight (40.0%) had seizure control, adherence to AED was found among 39 (41.5%). Age ≤5 years (p-0.04, OR 2.4, CI 1.00-5.50), being a female (p-0.002, OR 2.8, CI 0.18-6.54), patients from upper socioeconomic class (p<0.001, OR 8.8, CI 2.27-29.5), monotherapy (p-0.007, OR 5.4, CI 1.45-19.9) and low monthly income (p-0.03, OR 0.4, CI 0.17-0.90) were factors found to significantly determine adherence to AEDs.Conclusions: AED adherence is poor among children. Making drugs affordable and available as well as adequate and continuous counselling of care givers and patients is important to ensure adherence to AED

Prevalence of child sexual abuse among secondary school adolescents in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria

Background: The traumatic impact of experiencing sexual abuse as a child can be long lasting and span into adulthood; it is a contributory factor to poor academic performance, suicide, depression, high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and transmission of abusive characters to the younger generations. The crime permeates all cultures, gender, and socioeconomic classes. This study evaluated the prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) and socio-demographic risk factors among adolescents in Obio/Akpor LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria Methodology: Using multi-staged sampling technique, 1558 adolescents aged 10-19 years were studied in a cross-sectional, school- based survey from January to May 2013, to determine the prevalence of child sexual abuse among adolescents in Obio/ Akpor. Ethical clearance was obtained. Confidentiality and anonymity was ensured. Data was collected using a semi-structured pretested questionnaire completed by students. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis, test for association between subgroups was carried out using Chi-square test while the difference between means was determined using the Students t-test. Results: The subjects comprised of 739 males (47.4%) and 819 females (52.6%) with a male female ratio of 1:1.1. 572 of the 1558 subjects had experienced CSA giving an overall prevalence of 36.7%. The proportion of females and males that were sexually abused were 47.4% and 24.9% respectively. Girls were 2.7 times more likely to be victims of CSA compared to their male counterparts. (OR: 2.714; 95% CI: 2.188 - 3.37) The gender difference was statistically significant (p= 0.001). The highest prevalence of CSA of 39.8 % occurred within the age range of 14-16 years. The age at the time of CSA ranged from 7 – 18 years with a mean age of 12.6 ± 2.9 years. The prevalence rate increased with low social class, living in a single family set up and the presence of more than 4 children in the family. Conclusion: The prevalence of child sexual abuse among adolescents in secondary school in Obio/ Akpor LGA is high. It is recommended that a stable home with adequate monitoring of children especially the girl child as well an increased public enlightenment on the risk factors and prevention of CSA can reduce its occurrenc

Artificial intelligence in orthopaedics:false hope or not? A narrative review along the line of Gartner's hype cycle

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in general, and Machine Learn-ing (ML)-based applications in particular, have the potential to change the scope of healthcare, including orthopaedic surgery.The greatest benefit of ML is in its ability to learn from real world clinical use and experience, and thereby its capability to improve its own performance.Many successful applications are known in orthopaedics, but have yet to be adopted and evaluated for accuracy and efficacy in patients' care and doctors' workflows.The recent hype around AI triggered hope for development of better risk stratification tools to personalize orthopaedics in all subsequent steps of care, from diagnosis to treatment.Computer vision applications for fracture recognition show promising results to support decision-making, overcome bias, process high-volume workloads without fatigue, and hold the promise of even outperforming doctors in certain tasks.In the near future, AI-derived applications are very likely to assist orthopaedic surgeons rather than replace us. 'If the computer takes over the simple stuff, doctors will have more time again to practice the art of medicine'.(76)</p

The genetic algorithm as a discovery engine: Strange circuits and new principles

This paper examines the idea of a genetic or evolutionary algorithm being an inspirational or discovery engine. This is illustrated in the particular context of designing electronic circuits. We argue that by connecting pieces of logic together and testing them to see if they carry out the desired function it may be possible to discover new principles of design, and new algebraic techniques. This is illustrated in the design of binary circuits, particularly arithmetic functions, where we demonstrate that by evolving a hierarchical series of examples, it becomes possible to re-discover the well known ripple-carry principle for building adder circuits of any size. We also examine the much harder case of multiplication. We show also that extending the work into the field of multiple-valued logic, the genetic algorithm is able to produce fully working circuits that lie outside conventional algebra. In addition we look at the issue of principle extraction from evolved data