Lived experiences of mothers of children who have experienced/perpetrated sibling sexual abuse

The majority of research regarding sibling sexual abuse has focused on victim and perpetrator experiences and there has been less attention paid toward exploring the experiences of mothers, although they are considered responsible for supporting the child after disclosure. The current study aims to fill the gap by analysing mothers experiences regarding the disclosure of SSA. This research uses Interpretative Phenomenological analysis to explore lived experiences of mothers of children who have perpetrated/experienced sibling sexual abuse. The research aimed to explore how mothers understand it, manage it, feel about it, and have reacted to it. Interviews were conducted with 4 mothers, aged between 37-45 years and all from the Midlands UK. Five themes were identified in the analysis; rollercoasters, torn loyalties, power, managing knock-on-effects and rewriting the future. The main conclusions drawn from this research were the difficulties mothers face in sibling sexual abuse cases because they care for both the perpetrator and victim and want to meet the needs of both, since they are both their children. Furthermore, the research found that mothers felt their future had to be altered to include the impact of the abuse which occurred within the family, and the changed family circumstances. Moreover the research demonstrated that mothers went through an on-going process which involved them feeling a mixture of intense emotions once they discovered the abuse of their child

Prose Fiction in Language Teaching

Literature is language in use and is generally seen to play a vital role in language teaching. Literary texts provide us with much aesthetic, intellectual and emotional pleasure in that the writer often seeks to delineate their vision of human experience through a creative, emotive use of language. In essence literature serves to enhance the students’ language competence. This paper examines the relationships between language and literature. This is demonstrated with several prose texts with a view to show their pedagogical relevance to students’ language needs. In the conclusion, it is emphasized that the link between language and literature which had been ignored in the past should now be exploited for the development of students’ performances in the target language

Leadership as a Bane of African Socio-Political Situation: An Examination of Aminata Sow Fall’s: The Beggars’ Strike

This paper examines Sow Fall’s socio-political vision in her novel The Beggars’ Strike. The term leadership is defined before a brief summary of the novel. Then Sow Fall’s vision of leadership in the African contemporary society is examined against the backdrop of the major incidents in the novel. This is then connected with current social issues in African nation states particularly Nigeria.

A novel application of blockchain technology and its features in an effort to increase uptake of medications for Opioid Use Disorder

The opioid crisis has impacted the lives of millions of Americans. Digital technology has been applied in both research and clinical practice to mitigate this public health emergency. Blockchain technology has been implemented in healthcare and other industries outside of cryptocurrency, with few studies exploring its utility in dealing with the opioid crisis. This paper explores a novel application of blockchain technology and its features to increase uptake of medications for opioid use disorder. 

Efektivitas Kinerja Ombudsman dalam Menangani Pengaduan Pelayanan (Kasus Maladministrasi di Kota Pekanbaru)

Ombudsman has a very important role in makingthe good public service because as a supervisory institution of public service provider which is according to Constitution Number 37 of 2008.Therefore the Ombudsman should emphasize on the effectiveness in overseeing public service provider. Included in implement the programs such as implementing socialization activity like introduction of the Ombudsman institution, investigation activities, monitoring and supervision of public service providers based on the issues of maladministration report. As this study aims to determine how the effectiveness and barriers of Riau Province Representative Ombudsman of the Indonesia Republic in supervision of public service provider.This research is a descriptive study that using qualitative approach as a tool of analysis. This research is conducted in the city of Pekanbaru with key informant interviews as an object of information that aims to achieve the goal to have the information. in this study. Data used in this study are primary data and secondary data obtained through direct observation and interviews with key informants.Riau Province Representative Ombudsman in dealing with complaints of maladministration had not been effective,especially in the prevention and settlement report, caused its there barriers such lack of human resources, the limited budget, the lack of facilities to support the performance of the Ombudsman of Riau Province Representative. This has an impact on the number of reports of unresolved by the ombudsman as well as the persistence of maladministration undertaken by public service provider in Pekanbaru so it is very detrimental to the public and sides related. Therefore, needs additional human resources, increasing in the funding, the addition of support facilities and needssocialization evenly related to the Riau Representative Ombudsman of the Indonesia Republi

Antibacterial activity of some South African plant extracts against streptococcus mutans

Magister Scientiae (Medical Bioscience) - MSc(MBS)Good oral health has a major influence on the general quality of life and well-being. Several chronic and systemic diseases have been attributed to poor oral health. With the increasing incidence of oral diseases, the global need for alterative prevention and treatment methods and safe, effective, and economical products has expanded. There are many studies showed that Streptococcus mutans has been implicated as major etiological agent of dental caries. South African has very rich natural flora especially Cape region. Several South African medicinal plants have been used since immemorial time for treatment of different human pathologies including dental problems. The antibacterial activities of plants extracts have been recognized and documented scientifically during the last few decades. In this project we aimed at the screening of 31 South African plants randomly collected from Cape region for their antibacterial activity against Streptococcus mutans initially at two concentrations (500 and 100 µg/ml).MIC’s and MBC’s were determined for the active plant extracts, as well as the qualitative studies of the effect of the active extracts on the biofilm formation. The best or the most active safe plant (Psoralea fruticans) was submitted to chromatographic separation to isolate the bioactive compounds which could be responsible for such activity. Identification of the pure active compounds was carried out using different spectroscopic techniques. Finally the biological evaluation of the isolated pure compounds was measured against S. mutans and also the cytotoxicity studies in-vitro against normal cells lines was carried out

On Monetizing Personal Wearable Devices Data: A Blockchain-based Marketplace for Data Crowdsourcing and Federated Machine Learning in Healthcare

Machine learning advancements in healthcare have made data collected through smartphones and wearable devices a vital source of public health and medical insights. While wearable device data helps to monitor, detect, and predict diseases and health conditions, some data owners hesitate to share such sensitive data with companies or researchers due to privacy concerns. Moreover, wearable devices have been recently available as commercial products; thus large, diverse, and representative datasets are not available to most researchers. In this article, we propose an open marketplace where wearable device users securely monetize their wearable device records by sharing data with consumers (e.g., researchers) to make wearable device data more available to healthcare researchers. To secure the data transactions in a privacy-preserving manner, we use a decentralized approach using Blockchain and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). To ensure data originality and integrity with secure validation, our marketplace uses Trusted Execution Environments (TEE) in wearable devices to verify the correctness of health data. The marketplace also allows researchers to train models using Federated Learning with a TEE-backed secure aggregation of data users may not be willing to share. To ensure user participation, we model incentive mechanisms for the Federated Learning-based and anonymized data-sharing approaches using NFTs. We also propose using payment channels and batching to reduce smart contact gas fees and optimize user profits. If widely adopted, we believe that TEE and Blockchain-based incentives will promote the ethical use of machine learning with validated wearable device data in healthcare and improve user participation due to incentives.

THE USE OF JATROPHA OIL FOR DETERMINING THE SOFTENING POINT OF NIGERIA BITUMEN SAMPLES

The occurrence of bitumen deposits in Nigeria has been estimated to be about 42 billion tones; almost twice the amount of existing reserves of crude petroleum” Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).For proper planning of extraction techniques for heavy crude oil such as Nigeria bitumen or oil sand, softening point is a paramount parameter need to be estimated for determining the temperatures at which bitumen will melt and when the slug start to flow into production systems. The softening point (SP) and penetration index (PI) of bitumen from parts of south-western Nigeria are important properties needed for better design and optimization of the upgrading process of Nigerian bitumen. This study was carried out to design a cost effective and efficient softening point tester to classify bitumen into grades using jatropha oil as fluid bath instead of water. Jatropha oil has higher specific heat capacity and dissipates heat faster than water. It takes shorter time to heat and soften a sample of bitumen compares to water. This saves time and cost as energy generation cost less. Use of Jatropha as bath fluid in the areas of processing bitumen would assist the operator to achieve higher output, less heat for softening and produces a higher softening point

Encéphalocèle occipitale : aspects épidémiologiques, cliniques et thérapeutiques : à propos de 161 cas opérés en 9 ans à l’hôpital national de niamey

Objectif Définir le profil épidémiologique et clinique de l’encéphalocèle occipital et alerter pour une stratégie préventive. MéthodeIl s’agit d’une étude prospective en série continue réalisée de janvier 1999 à Mars 2008 dans le service de neurochirurgie de l’hôpital national de Niamey au Niger. Après examen clinique de l’enfant et de lamalformation, une échographie transfontanellaire avec souvent un scanner étaient réalisés. L’intervention chirurgicale a consisté en une résection du tissu cérébral dysplasique, une coagulation systématique du plexus choroïde au sein de la malformation, et dans certains cas une conservation sans pression du tissus nerveux d’allure saine. L’évolution des patients a été analysée à J7 à 1mois, 3 mois et à 1an. RésultatsLa série comprenait 161 encéphalocèles en situation occipitale. La moyenne d’âge était de 8.34 mois. La moyenne d’âge maternel était de 17 ans. Il s’agissait d’un mariage consanguin dans 67.080% des cas ; Une échographique prénatale était faite dans 7.3% des cas. Le defect osseux était en occipital dans 67.43% des  cas, à la jonction parieto-occipitale dans 27.8% des cas et à la jonction occipito-cervicale dans 4.77% des cas. Il s’agissait d’une méningocèle dans 16.42% des cas, d’une encéphalocèle pure sans kyste dans 6.34% des cas et d’une forme mixte dans 78.81% des cas; l’hydrocéphalie était associée dans 23.60% en préopératoire et dans 49.57% des cas en postopératoire. La durée moyenne d’hospitalisation post opératoire était de 24.41 jours. La mortalité était de 22.36% à 3 mois. 48.78% des patients étaient revus à 1an et 13 patients étaient revus à 5ans soit 8.66% des cas. Conclusion L’encéphalocèle occipitale est une pathologie fréquente à Niamey ; Elle est responsable d’une mortalité et d’une morbidité importantes. Il ya urgence à élaborer une stratégie de prévention des malformations du tube neural au Niger

THE INFLUENCE OF WEB 2.0 TOOLS ON COLLABORATIVE LEARNING FOR SECONDARY EDUCATION STUDENTS IN AMERICAN SAMOA

Ph.D