Confusion is the first step towards understanding: Fixing the problems of E-learning in COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic forced institutions worldwide to adopt online learning, which opened a new era of challenges. Our research was designed to explore the effect of the pandemic on teaching and learning and identify the solutions to the problems based on participants’ perspectives. Methods: A qualitative study of the phenomenological design was conducted at a medical institute in Pakistan. The participants were selected using the purposive sampling technique. Semi-structured interviews were done which were later audio-recorded, transcribed, and subjected to manual thematic analysis. Credibility was ensured by using multiple data collection sources. Results: The 20 participants selected as interviewees were faculty with more than 5 years teaching experience in the medical institute and had gone through online teaching and learning during COVID-19 pandemic.  The thematic analyses of the data generated six themes which were: 1. “I see what you mean”; Re-exploration of educational psychology, 2. Reorganization of curriculum, 3. Mentoring and coaching, 4. Technology: as ubiquities as oxygen, 5. Constructive feedback: a stimulus in pearl formation and 6. Turn the tables: fixing the problem. Conclusion: Online education has emerged as an important mechanism in delivering medical education to undergraduate medical students. Instead of shying away, efforts are needed to restructure the curricula, incorporating various online innovative teaching, and learning tools that are at par with the changing global demands of medical education. Keywords: E-learning, COVID-19, Challenges                                                                                                          

Optimalisasi Hasil Produksi Susu Kambing Peranakan Etawa Melalui Ekonomi Kratif Berbasis Mitra Untuk Mendukung Pariwasata

Pengembangan pariwisata dinilai sebagai salah satu langkah untuk meningkatkan pendapatan Masyarakat. Desa ketapang raya menjadi salah satu desa wisata di Kecamatan Keruak, Kabupaten Lombok Timur. Dikenalnya wilayah Ketapang raya menjadi daerah wisata yang mengakibatkan meningkatnya pengunjung (wisatawan) ke daerah tersebut. Sehingga melalui kuliah kerja nyata ini untuk mendukung sektor wisata di daerah ketapang raya yakni melalui ekonomi kreatif berbasis mitra dengan membuat produk olahan susu kambing menjadi produk minuman Indogoat milk dan kecantikan berupa sabun susu kambing Biolvy bodywash. Tujuan dari kegiatan ini untuk meningkatkan pendapatan masyarakat serta mendukung sektor wisata di desa ketapang raya. Kegiatan ini dilakukan dalam tiga tahap, yaitu tahap pertama penyediaan alat dan bahan, tahap kedua pembuatan produk dan tahap ketiga pemasaran serta pendekatan dengan masyarakat melalui sosialisasi. Manfaat dari kegiatan ini yaitu dapat meningkatakan pendapatan masyarakat sekitar wisata dan sebagai salah satu ikon di tempat wisata. Hasil yang di dapatkan dari program ini yaitu terjadinya peningkatan pengetahuan dan keterampilan mitra tentang wirausaha, mendukung peningkatan pariwisata, serta dapat meningkatkan penghasilan

Pharmacokinetics of Caffeic Acid from Methanol Seed Extract of Syzygium cumini L in Rats

Purpose: To describe caffeic acid-based pharmacokinetics of methanol extract of seed of Syzygium cumini L. in rats.Methods: A dose of the extract (500 mg, equivalent to 37.135 mg caffeic acid) was administered orally to 6 male Wister rats, weighing 200 ± 10 g. Blood samples (0.5 mL), collected from the tail vein at 0, 15, 30, 60, 120, 240 and 720 min, were processed and analyzed using high performance liquid chromatography and detected with florescent light detector (FLD).Results: Following the administration of the extract, caffeic acid achieved maximum plasma concentration (5.96 ± 0.49 μg/mL) in 1.0 h which was also the time to achieve maximum concentration (Tmax). Mean resident time (MRT) and half-life (t1/2) were 4.092 ± 0.94 h and 0.14 ± 0.01 h, respectively.Conclusion: The results indicate that absorption of caffeic acid from the oral route is fast, but lower amounts are absorbed. The method developed for the extraction of caffeic acid from the plasma and HPLC determination may be useful in establishing phyto-bioequivalence between Syzygium cumini seed products.Keywords: Caffeic acid, Pharmacokinetics, Syzygium cumini, Phytobioequivalence, Absorptio

Hepatoprotective potential of Convolvulus arvensis against paracetamol-induced hepatotoxicity

Convolvulus arvensis is traditionally used as laxative. Its decoction is used in cough, flu, jaundice and in skin diseases. It is also used to treat the painful joints, inflammation and swelling. The current study was conducted to determine its hepatoprotective activity. The results showed that extract of C. arvensis (200 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg) produced significant (p<0.05) decrease in paracetamol induced increased levels of liver enzymes and total bilirubin. Histopathological investigation and detection of active constituent, qurecetin by HPLC also supported the results. So the current study showed that ethanolic extract of C. arvensis possess hepatoprotective activity

Knowledge and response to the COVID-19 pandemic in people with severe mental illness in Bangladesh and Pakistan:A cross-sectional survey

BACKGROUND: People with severe mental illnesses (SMIs) are likely to face disproportionate challenges during a pandemic. They may not receive or be able to respond to public health messages to prevent infection or to limit its spread. Additionally, they may be more severely affected, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. METHODS: We conducted a telephone survey (May–June 2020) in a sample of 1,299 people with SMI who had attended national mental health institutes in Bangladesh and Pakistan before the pandemic. We collected information on top worries, socioeconomic impact of the pandemic, knowledge of COVID-19 (symptoms, prevention), and prevention-related practices (social distancing, hygiene). We explored the predictive value of socio-demographic and health-related variables for relative levels of COVID-19 knowledge and practice using regularized logistic regression models. FINDINGS: Mass media were the major source of information about COVID-19. Finances, employment, and physical health were the most frequently mentioned concerns. Overall, participants reported good knowledge and following advice. In Bangladesh, being female and higher levels of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) predicted poor and better knowledge, respectively, while in Pakistan being female predicted better knowledge. Receiving information from television predicted better knowledge in both countries. In Bangladesh, being female, accessing information from multiple media sources, and better HRQoL predicted better practice. In Pakistan, poorer knowledge of COVID-19 prevention measures predicted poorer practice. CONCLUSION: Our paper adds to the literature on people living with SMIs and their knowledge and practices relevant to COVID-19 prevention. Our results emphasize the importance of access to mass and social media for the dissemination of advice and that the likely gendered uptake of both knowledge and practice requires further attention

Effectiveness of interventions to address obesity and health risk behaviours among people with severe mental illness in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): a systematic review and meta analysis

Abstract Introduction People with severe mental illness (SMI) are more likely to have obesity and engage in health risk behaviours than the general population. The aims of this study are (1) evaluate the effectiveness of interventions that focus on body weight, smoking cessation, improving sleeping patterns, and alcohol and illicit substance abuse; (2) Compare the number of interventions addressing body weight and health risk behaviours in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) v. those reported in published systematic reviews focusing on high-income countries (HICs). Methods Intervention studies published up to December 2020 were identified through a structured search in the following database; OVID MEDLINE (1946–December 2020), EMBASE (1974–December 2020), CINAHL (1975–2020), APA PsychoINFO (1806–2020). Two authors independently selected studies, extracted study characteristics and data and assessed the risk of bias. and risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane risk of bias tool V2. We conducted a narrative synthesis and, in the studies evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to address body weight, we conducted random-effects meta-analysis of mean differences in weight gain. We did a systematic search of systematic reviews looking at cardiometabolic and health risk behaviours in people with SMI. We compared the number of available studies of LMICs with those of HICs. Results We assessed 15 657 records, of which 9 met the study inclusion criteria. Six focused on healthy weight management, one on sleeping patterns and two tested a physical activity intervention to improve quality of life. Interventions to reduce weight in people with SMI are effective, with a pooled mean difference of −4.2 kg (95% CI −6.25 to −2.18, 9 studies, 459 participants, I2 = 37.8%). The quality and sample size of the studies was not optimal, most were small studies, with inadequate power to evaluate the primary outcome. Only two were assessed as high quality (i.e. scored ‘low’ in the overall risk of bias assessment). We found 5 reviews assessing the effectiveness of interventions to reduce weight, perform physical activity and address smoking in people with SMI. From the five systematic reviews, we identified 84 unique studies, of which only 6 were performed in LMICs. Conclusion Pharmacological and activity-based interventions are effective to maintain and reduce body weight in people with SMI. There was a very limited number of interventions addressing sleep and physical activity and no interventions addressing smoking, alcohol or harmful drug use. There is a need to test the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of context-appropriate interventions to address health risk behaviours that might help reduce the mortality gap in people with SMI in LMICs

Airco Wind Turbine Prototype Design And Development

The AIRco Wind Turbine is a new kind of product that can generate an electrical power from aerodynamic air flow that can be used to charge the phone. It is a green technology that used the wind as a source of energy to rotate the wind turbine and small electrical motor to generate an electrical power. This product is assembled and attached to the side of motorcycles basket in order to collect the wind energy to generate an electric power and also come with a gadget storage to place the phone when charging the battery. When travelling by riding the motorcycle, the energy from the aerodynamic air flow that occurs when increase the acceleration of the motorcycle can be converted to be an electrical power with adding few electrical components such as 12 volt DC electrical motor 5 volt voltage regulator and USB port which can used to charge our gadgets. It is an alternative way to generate the electrical power using the aerodynamic air flow as a free green energy. The objectives of this research are to analyze and propose the best blade design for wind flow, to design and develop functional prototype of AirCo Wind Turbine and to testing power generation from prototype

Design For Manufacturability (DFM) Of 3D Printed Parts Fabricated Using Open Source 3D Printer

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the well-known additive manufacturing (AM) techniques to fabricate the part using layer-by-layer concept. Recently, an open source 3D printer is become widely available used by 3D printer user because of its affordability and portability. In this study, the performance of an open source 3D printer was evaluated based on the dimensional accuracy of the printed parts. The test model was fabricated using two types of printer, which is low cost 3D printer, Prusa and mid-end 3D printer, Cubepro. Then, the dimension of every model structure was measured using Rexscan 3D laser scanner and was compared

Design, synthesis, in vitro antiproliferative effect and in situ molecular docking studies of a series of new benzoquinoline derivatives

Quinoline derivatives have been reported to possess multi-therapeutic potential owing to the manifestations of different pharmacological effects. The current research work describes about the design and synthesis of a series of novel benzoquinoline analogues with an objective to evaluate their antiproliferative structure–activity relationship against colon, breast and hepatocellular cancers. Upon synthesis, all derivatives’ chemical structures were elucidated through FTIR, 1 HNMR and 13CNMR spectroscopic analysis. All derivatives were investigated for their in vitro anti-proliferative property against three different cancer cell lines (viz., colon carcinoma HT29, Caucasian breast adenocarcinoma MCF7, hepatocellular carcinoma HepG2) and a normal non-transformed human foreskin fibroblast Hs27 cell line. All derivatives demonstrated varied degrees of strong anticancer effect against all of the cell lines with the 2-Amino-4-(4-nitrophenyl)-5,6-dihydrobenzo[h]quinoline-3-carbonitrile (CNMP, 2) exhibited the most potent antiproliferative effect viz. LC50 21.23 lM for breast, 8.24 lM for colon, and 26.15 lM for the hepatocellular, respectively. Molecular docking studies against all the the target crystal structures of cancer proteins (1HK7, 3EQM, 3IG7 and 4FM9) revealed significant binding affinities via hydrophobic and H-bonding interactions with all the compounds in conformity with the wet lab results. CNMP showed the highest binding energy of �7.55 in the HT29, �6.9 (both in MCF7 HepG2) kcal/mol. Based on the results obtained from wet lab and dry lab experiments, it can be proposed that CNMP might prove to be a potential lead structure for the design and synthesis of more potent anticancer candidates