Motivating and Engaging Pulmonary Rehabilitation Patients

Lung disease compromises breathing and decreases quality of life for those who have it. The purpose of this qualitative study is to investigate innovative strategies used successfully by pulmonary rehabilitation leaders to keep patients motivated and engaged in completing pulmonary rehabilitation. An open-ended questionnaire asking participants questions pertaining to being a successful pulmonary rehabilitation. The results of this study may help pulmonary rehabilitation leaders to gain a better understanding of the full range of interventions taken by leaders to ensure patients complete pulmonary rehabilitation successfully. This study may help both pulmonary rehabilitation leaders as well as patients. It may help leaders learn better innovative strategies to keep patients engaged in pulmonary rehabilitation as well as motivated to complete rehabilitation. It is hoped that this study will help pulmonary rehabilitation leaders discover more innovative approaches to retain and motivate patients in the recovery process

Variability, correlation and path co-eeficient analysis for yield and its components in rice

Direct selection based on crop yields is often a paradox in breeding programmes because yield is a complex polygenically inherited character, influenced by its component traits. Breeding programmes should, therefore, take into consideration character association of various component traits with yield and among themselves. Inthis study, fourteen rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes at the Gezira Research Station Farm (GRSF), Sudan were assessed for genetic variability and correlations between yield and yield components among phenotypic markers and polygenic trait analysis. A wider genetic variability was observed among the genotypes for most of thecharacters studied. The highest genotypic coefficient of varation was recorded for grain yield, percent unfilled grain panicle-1, number of grains panicle-1 and number of filled grain panicle-1. Phenotypic correlations between grain yield and number of filled grain panicle-1, number of panicle m-2 and 1000 grain weight were 0.52, 0.36 and0.27, respectively. These results suggested that improvement in yield could be attained by selecting rice plants for higher number of filled grain panicle-1, number of panicle m-2, and 1000 grain weight. The path analysis revelead that number of filled grains panicle-1 had direct positive (0.87) contribution to the grain yield ha-1 and positive (0.33) indirect effect on grain yield ha-1 through days to 50% maturity and number of grains panicle-1 (0.089); while number of filled grains per particle had negative (-0.30) and (-0.21) indirect effect on grain yieldha-1 through number of tillers plant-1 and number of panicles m-2, respectively. The relative contribution of characters towards variability and results of correlation and path coefficient indicated the importance of number of grain panicle-1, number of filled grain panicle-1 and number of panicle m-2. Genotypes having these characters would offer a good possibility for the improvement of rice through conventional selection

Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination Status Among University Freshmen in Hawai‘i

Purpose/Background: The HPV vaccine provides immunity against nine HPV strains that cause cancer and genital warts. It is recommended for 11 to 12 year olds, and catch-up immunization is recommended for females 13 to 26 years old and males 13 to 21 years old. College students represent an important population for HPV vaccination due to their increased risk for HPV infection. Despite the benefits of the HPV vaccine, its coverage rates are low in Hawaii. Hawai‘i is the home of two large universities on two islands that are representative of Hawai‘i’s populations, including Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, and Pacific Islanders. The purpose of this study was to assess the current HPV and HPV vaccine knowledge, barriers and beliefs among incoming Freshmen university students at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Materials & Methods: In 2016, 200 University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM) and University of Hawai‘i at Hilo (UHH) Freshmen students responded to a survey that assessed their knowledge and awareness of HPV, the HPV vaccine, their current vaccination status, and barriers and motivators to vaccination. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize each survey variable first for all students and then separately for each campus. Results: Overall 76% of Freshmen from both campuses heard of the HPV vaccine and 54% reported hearing it from their health care provider. Only 28% UHM and 23% UHH Freshmen students have received partial (1-2 shots) or completed doses of the HPV vaccine. For those who received the vaccine, 45% reported that they were told by their parent and 43% were told by their doctor. For the 147 students who did not receive the vaccine, 28% reported that they are still not sure to get it and 20% need more information. Their main reasons for not receiving the HPV vaccine were: their doctor did not mention the vaccine to him/her (44%), he/she never knew about the vaccine (18%), and they don\u27t know enough about the vaccine (17%). Discussion/Conclusion: Although the HPV vaccine has been available for 13 years, young adults remain unvaccinated. Freshmen students reported that they are informed about the vaccine, but were not vaccinated because of the lack of parental and/or healthcare provider recommendation. With no active education campaigns in Hawaii promoting the HPV vaccine at college campuses, a first step to increasing vaccination rates is to develop a health education campaign to inform students of the HPV vaccine and its availability at campus clinics and neighboring pharmacies

Cutaneous leishmaniasis: Review Article

Leishmaniasis is a protozoal infection caused by a number of different species in the Leishmania genus. Sandflies are the vectors for the transmission of these protozoa to humans. When macrophages are triggered into a leishmanicidal state, a clinical recovery occurs. In particular, the T-helper cell type 1 (Th1) response is responsible for this, and it is also responsible for preventing the recurrence of latent chronic infection. Regardless of the disease\u27s clinical manifestation, antimonial drugs are the treatment of choice. Amphotericin B is the second-best treatment option. This study focuses on the pathology and treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis

A Review Article: Hypersensitivity and its Disorders

Hypersensitivity reactions are a set of reactions in which the immune system performs a protective function while also producing an inflammatory consequence. In most cases, both autoimmunity and sensitivities have been responsible for hypersensitivity reactions. In autoimmune contagion, the immune system reacts directly to tissues inside the body, while in sensitivities, the immune system reacts to parts of the environment that are shared. In general, allergic reactions have been put into four groups (Type I, Type II, Type III, and Type IV). This study focuses on hypersensitivity-related illnesses and the role of the immune system in these conditions

Exploiting Deep Neural Networks and Head Movements for Robust Binaural Localisation of Multiple Sources in Reverberant Environments

This paper presents a novel machine-hearing system that exploits deep neural networks (DNNs) and head movements for robust binaural localisation of multiple sources in reverberant environments. DNNs are used to learn the relationship between the source azimuth and binaural cues, consisting of the complete cross-correlation function (CCF) and interaural level differences (ILDs). In contrast to many previous binaural hearing systems, the proposed approach is not restricted to localisation of sound sources in the frontal hemifield. Due to the similarity of binaural cues in the frontal and rear hemifields, front-back confusions often occur. To address this, a head movement strategy is incorporated in the localisation model to help reduce the front-back errors. The proposed DNN system is compared to a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based system that employs interaural time differences (ITDs) and ILDs as localisation features. Our experiments show that the DNN is able to exploit information in the CCF that is not available in the ITD cue, which together with head movements substantially improves localisation accuracies under challenging acoustic scenarios in which multiple talkers and room reverberation are present

Exploiting deep neural networks and head movements for binaural localisation of multiple speakers in reverberant conditions

This paper presents a novel machine-hearing system that ex- ploits deep neural networks (DNNs) and head movements for binaural localisation of multiple speakers in reverberant conditions. DNNs are used to map binaural features, consisting of the complete cross-correlation function (CCF) and interaural level differences (ILDs), to the source azimuth. Our approach was evaluated using a localisation task in which sources were located in a full 360-degree azimuth range. As a result, front- back confusions often occurred due to the similarity of binaural features in the front and rear hemifields. To address this, a head movement strategy was incorporated in the DNN-based model to help reduce the front-back errors. Our experiments show that, compared to a system based on a Gaussian mixture model (GMM) classifier, the proposed DNN system substantially re- duces localisation errors under challenging acoustic scenarios in which multiple speakers and room reverberation are present