Effectiveness of Home Visits by Public Health Workers in Maternal and Child Health in Naga City

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of home visits conducted by public health workers (PHW), specifically public health nurses and midwives, in promoting maternal and child health in Naga City. The study utilized a descriptive research design with 45 purposively selected PHW (22 midwives and 23 nurses) as respondents. The majority of the 45 respondents were female (91.1\%), aged 28-57 years old, and had been serving for 1-10 years. Most of them (33.3\%) served up to 1,000 families, while only a small percentage served more than 3,000 families. Only one respondent fell within the youngest age group of 18-27. A survey questionnaire was used as the primary research instrument, which contained three parts: the respondents' profile, the effectiveness of home visits on maternal health, and the effectiveness of home visits on child health outcomes. The gathered data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and the results showed that home visits by public health workers are perceived to be effective in improving maternal and child health outcomes across various domains. However, there is still room for improvement in addressing maternal mental health issues economic needs, and reducing delays in seeking medical care. The researcher proposed a needs assessment nursing intervention to identify the specific healthcare needs of Naga City women, improve the delivery of home visits by Public Health Nurses and Midwives, and eventually enhance maternal and child health outcomes in Naga City

Stress-stabilized sub-isostatic fiber networks in a rope-like limit

The mechanics of disordered fibrous networks such as those that make up the extracellular matrix are strongly dependent on the local connectivity or coordination number. For biopolymer networks this coordination number is typically between three and four. Such networks are sub-isostatic and linearly unstable to deformation with only central force interactions, but exhibit a mechanical phase transition between floppy and rigid states under strain. Introducing weak bending interactions stabilizes these networks and suppresses the critical signatures of this transition. We show that applying external stress can also stabilize sub-isostatic networks with only tensile central force interactions, i.e., a rope-like potential. Moreover, we find that the linear shear modulus shows a power law scaling with the external normal stress, with a non-mean-field exponent. For networks with finite bending rigidity, we find that the critical stain shifts to lower values under prestress

Nonlinear Mechanics of Fibrous Networks

MacKintosh, F.C. [Promotor

Confining Eutectic Gallium Indium (eGaIn) in Expired Artificial Kidneys to Unveil Nanoporous Conductive Wires

Nanoporous membranes have gained considerable interest in drug delivery1, ion transportation2, micro/nanofluidics3, molecular sensing4, and separation science5. Artificial kidneys, also known as dialyzers, reject pathogens and other unwanted substances from the blood, utilize hundreds of soft and nanoporous polymeric microtubes, and slowly become a burden to the environment with the growing number of dialysis patients worldwide. We demonstrate the fabrication of nanoporous conductive wires utilizing empty polysulfone microtubes collected from expired and unused artificial kidneys, also known as medical wastes. Injecting a fluidic, highly conductive, and room temperature liquid alloy (eutectic gallium indium-eGaIn$_6$, 75% Ga, 25% In) into microtubes of a twenty years old dialyzer, here, we have revealed a new class of nanoporous and conductive functional materials. These conductive fibers upcycle a medical waste, do not require expensive and conventional fabrication processes, and still provide the quintessential metal-oxide/metal framework due to the presence of the native surface oxide (i.e., Gallium Oxide, Ga2O3) of eGaIn at the nanoconfinement (i.e., nanopores) for nano/biosensing. We harnessed these new materials to sense and differentiate microliter volumes of deionized (DI) water, 1M hydrochloric acid (HCl), and 95% ethanol (EtOH), leveraging their electrical signatures. This new class of soft nanomaterials has the potential to become the paradigm-shift platforms for the next-generation of biomedical, bioelectronics, nanoelectronics, and sensor devices

One optometrist’s personal experience with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and nutritional supplementation

Background: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in ageing western societies and accounts for greater than 50% of all US visual disability. This report describes the 25-year history of a 66-year-old optometrist who has successfully endured AMD.  Case Report: Visual acuity and serial retinal photographs from 1983 to 2009 as various nutritional modalities and non-dietary lifestyle changes were introduced. After starting lutein-based nutritional supplements beginning at approximately 15 years from diagnosis, the optometrist’s Snellen visual acuity improved in his right eye from 20/40 to 20/25 with a subjective improvement in distortion, but eventually regressed to 20/70-20/80 with some increase in metamorphopsia. The left eye, initially 20/30, improved to 20/15 and has remained stable at 20/20 with complete resolution of metamorphopsia and near complete resolution of a parafoveal scotoma. Fundus photographs demonstrate a reduction in soft and hard drusen count over time in each retina and possible parafoveal repigmentation of atrophic areas with later addition of higher dose zeaxanthin. Conclusions: AMD is a nutritionresponsive disease. The carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin appear to be particularly robust therapeutic components of nutritional supplement formulations

The Flowering Habit of Nipa (Nypa fruticans Wurmb.) in Semi-wild Stands of the Davao Region, Philippines

Observations on the flowering characteristics of nipa (Nypa fruticans Wurmb.) were carried out on at least 70 randomly selected palms in various semi-wild stands found in the Davao Region, Philippines (i.e., Bago Aplaya, Ecoland, and Talomo) from April 2010 until February 2011. The developmental stages of inflorescence were identified, described in detail, and arbitrarily divided according to morphological changes exhibited by the inflorescence. These developmental stages are as follows: emergence (E) stage, stage 2 (S2), pre-anthesis (PA) stage, and the antheses stage, which is divided into the female receptivity (F) stage and the male anthesis (M) stage. Among the parameters measured for each stage include the length of the inflorescence from base to tip, the number and length of staminate rachillae, and the number of female flowers. For morphological characteristics comparison of this monoecious inflorescence, different stands in Carmen, Davao del Norte, were observed. The Carmen stands were significantly more fecund compared to the Davao City stands. The former had more female flower count (61 vs. 58 per pistillate head) and more staminate rachilla count (33 vs. 17 spikes) than the latter. The final inflorescence length in Carmen was significantly taller than in Davao City (117.5 cm vs. 84.3 cm), suggesting that the plants in the former had longer tapping potential for sap production. The results have implications toward the future program of nipa hybridization to produce better varieties

Strain-controlled criticality governs the nonlinear mechanics of fibre networks

Disordered fibrous networks are ubiquitous in nature as major structural components of living cells and tissues. The mechanical stability of networks generally depends on the degree of connectivity: only when the average number of connections between nodes exceeds the isostatic threshold are networks stable (Maxwell, J. C., Philosophical Magazine 27, 294 (1864)). Upon increasing the connectivity through this point, such networks undergo a mechanical phase transition from a floppy to a rigid phase. However, even sub-isostatic networks become rigid when subjected to sufficiently large deformations. To study this strain-controlled transition, we perform a combination of computational modeling of fibre networks and experiments on networks of type I collagen fibers, which are crucial for the integrity of biological tissues. We show theoretically that the development of rigidity is characterized by a strain-controlled continuous phase transition with signatures of criticality. Our experiments demonstrate mechanical properties consistent with our model, including the predicted critical exponents. We show that the nonlinear mechanics of collagen networks can be quantitatively captured by the predictions of scaling theory for the strain-controlled critical behavior over a wide range of network concentrations and strains up to failure of the material