An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Exploring the Experience of Marital Tension for Jordanians Residing in the United Kingdom

Marital tension is a covert and insidious form of conflict, that often occurs in almost all marriages. Its subtle occurrence may often result in it being overlooked, however its repercussions can have a long-term impact on marital quality, stability and satisfaction, as well as the wellbeing of the spouses. Some of the negative emotions associated with marital tension may include resentment, irritation and frustration, which may vary in frequency and intensity. These may arise due to disagreements, disappointment, and irritations in the marriage. Similar to its insidious and overlooked nature, the literature depicting marital tension is scarce worldwide and more specifically, is almost non-existent within a Jordanian context. Therefore, this doctoral research, aims to address this gap through exploring the lived experience of marital tension for Jordanians residing in the UK. For this research, a homogeneous sample of eight participants were recruited, and data from the semi-structured interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Findings revealed three themes overarching ten subthemes. The emerging themes were as follows: ‘Facing initial challenges of marital tension’, Engaging with marital tension’ and ‘Actively attempting to resolve the tension’. The analysis revealed unique insights into the experience of marital tension, whilst highlighting cultural facets present within the experience. Participants described the transitional shifts experienced as part of marital tension, and the new dynamics introduced within the marital relationship. Participants also shared a sense of feeling stuck in enduring various challenges, whilst experiencing ongoing marital tension. In spite of that, all participants seemed to have a shared motivation to resolve martial tension. This study contributes to enriching the knowledge base and practice within the field of Counselling Psychology, by offering novel insights into the lived experience of marital tension, as well as addressing cultural sensitivity and autonomy to an ethnic minority group

Context-Aware Service Recommendation System for the Social Internet of Things

The Social Internet of Things (SIoT) enables interconnected smart devices to share data and services, opening up opportunities for personalized service recommendations. However, existing research often overlooks crucial aspects that can enhance the accuracy and relevance of recommendations in the SIoT context. Specifically, existing techniques tend to consider the extraction of social relationships between devices and neglect the contextual presentation of service reviews. This study aims to address these gaps by exploring the contextual representation of each device-service pair. Firstly, we propose a latent features combination technique that can capture latent feature interactions, by aggregating the device-device relationships within the SIoT. Then, we leverage Factorization Machines to model higher-order feature interactions specific to each SIoT device-service pair to accomplish accurate rating prediction. Finally, we propose a service recommendation framework for SIoT based on review aggregation and feature learning processes. The experimental evaluation demonstrates the framework's effectiveness in improving service recommendation accuracy and relevance

Epidémiologie des PFA et les performances du système de surveillance en Mauritanie de 2008 à 2012

Introduction: La Commission Régionale de Certification de l’Eradication de la poliomyélite pour  l’Afrique(CRCA) en session à Brazzaville du 8 au 10 octobre 2007 avait déclaré la Mauritanie « libérée de  la poliomyélite ». Objectif: Décrire l’épidémiologie des PFA (Paralysies flasques aigues) et évaluer les  indicateurs de performance du système de surveillance pour la période de 2008 à 2012 ayant suivi cette déclaration. Méthodes: Les données du service de surveillance épidémiologique ont été nettoyées et analysées à l’aide du logiciel Epi-infoversion 3.4.3 (CDC Atlanta).Résultats: 319 cas de PFA ont été notifié soit une incidence moyenne de 4.61/100000 enfants de moins de 15 ans par an. La distribution des cas cumulés par mois montre une importante notification des cas PFA pendant la période de Février à Juillet et à la suite de l’épidémie de 2009 alors que l’incidence des cas confirmés a été plus importante entre Novembre et Février. L’âge moyen était de 4ans (E.T. ±4ans) et 77.4% avaient un âge ≤ 5ans. 18 cas de PFA ont été confirmés poliovirus sauvage(PVS) dont 6 en 2009 et 12 en 2010 et tous d’importation. L’âge moyen était de 3.4 ans (E.T ±2.6 ans). 44,4% étaient des filles et 55.5% garçons. Cette proportion était proche de celle des PFA non polio (45.1% versus 54.9%). 61% avaient reçu au plus une dose de vaccin polio orale (VPO) pour les cas de PFA polio contre 7.4% pour les PFA non polio. Aucune discrimination de genre n’a été observé sur la population des PFA ayant reçu une dose au plus (ratio-sexe= 16/17=0.94). La fièvre était présente pour 90%des cas de PFA non polio contre 85% pour les cas PVS. Cette fièvre à progresser en 3 jours pour tous les cas de PVS et pour 82,7% des cas de PFA non polio. Le taux d’hospitalisation était de 13.6% pour les cas de PFA non polio contre 89% pour les PFA polio. Dans tous les deux groupes, les membres de prédilection étaient d’abord l’un des 2 membres inférieurs de façon alternative (46.8%), ensuite les deux membres inférieurs à la fois (22.2%). En troisième lieu, un membre supérieur et un membre inférieur de façon asymétrique (5.3%) et en quatrième lieu, tous les 4 membres (4.6%). Le diagnostic final des cas de PFA non polio n’était pas rapporté pendant toute la période de l’étude, cependant, 2 cas ont été classés compatible et un cas de paralysie associée à la vaccination contre la polio a été rapporté en 2012 chez un enfant féminin de 3 ans ayant reçu sa première dose de VPO. En ce qui concerne les performances des indicateurs de la surveillance, 4 indicateurs n’ont pas atteint les performances escomptées: Le pourcentage des échantillons arrivés au laboratoire national moins de 3 jours après les prélèvements est resté en deçà des objectifs, variant entre 40% et 70%. Il en est de même des Districts de santé ayant notifies au moins un cas (50 à 68%). Le pourcentage des prélèvements dans lesquels un entérovirus non polio a été isolé a connu une évolution en dents de scie avec des valeurs de 0.0% en 2008 et en 2010 et 1.9% en 2011. L’examen de suivi du 60eme jour n’a concerné que les cas dont l’échantillon était jugé inadéquat au laboratoire. Conclusion: Les PFA qui ont été notifiés en Mauritanie de 2008 à 2012 présentent tableau clinique qui est classique, et sont notifiés avec un pic régulier en début des périodes de soudure (Mars-Juillet) suggérant l’hypothèse d’un lien écologique avec les changements de climat et de régime alimentaire. Les performances des indicateurs de la surveillance des PFA sont à améliorer, notamment: 1) La compréhension des critères de jugement de la qualité des échantillons. 2) L’examen de laboratoire et l’interprétation des résultats. 3) La détermination du diagnostic final pour chaque cas de PFA non polio. 4) L’enregistrement des informations dans la base des données.Key words: Poliomyélite, PFA, épidémiologie, surveillance, éradicatio

Task Offloading for Smart Glasses in Healthcare: Enhancing Detection of Elevated Body Temperature

Wearable devices like smart glasses have gained popularity across various applications. However, their limited computational capabilities pose challenges for tasks that require extensive processing, such as image and video processing, leading to drained device batteries. To address this, offloading such tasks to nearby powerful remote devices, such as mobile devices or remote servers, has emerged as a promising solution. This paper focuses on analyzing task-offloading scenarios for a healthcare monitoring application performed on smart wearable glasses, aiming to identify the optimal conditions for offloading. The study evaluates performance metrics including task completion time, computing capabilities, and energy consumption under realistic conditions. A specific use case is explored within an indoor area like an airport, where security agents wearing smart glasses to detect elevated body temperature in individuals, potentially indicating COVID-19. The findings highlight the potential benefits of task offloading for wearable devices in healthcare settings, demonstrating its practicality and relevance

Multicomponent and 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition synthesis of triazole- and isoxazole-acridinedione/xanthenedione heterocyclic hybrids: cytotoxic effects on human cancer cells

A new series of diverse 1,2,3-triazole-acridinedione/xanthenedione and 1,2-isoxazole-acridinedione/xanthenedione heterocyclic hybrids have been synthesized via 1,3-dipolar coupling reaction of N/O-substituted-acridinedione-alkyne or O-substituted-xanthenedione-alkyne substrates with various aromatic azides or oximes. In all cases, the cycloaddition is totally regioselective. The chemical structures of the synthesized compounds are determined using 2D NMR and are further confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. Preliminary in vitro cytotoxic assays on two human breast cancer cell lines (MDA-MB-231, T47-D) and one prostate cancer cell line (PC3) are performed on some selected compounds. The most active O-1,2,3-triazole-xanthenedione hybrid displays the best cytotoxicity effects with IC50 ≤ 20 μM in breast cancer and IC50 = 10 μM in prostate cancer cell lines.publishe

A step-by-step synthesis of triazole-benzimidazole-chalcone hybrids: Anticancer activity in human cells+

Novel series of triazole-benzimidazole-chalcone hybrid compounds have been synthesized via click chemistry, between different azide derivatives and substituted benzimidazole terminal alkynes bearing a chalcone moiety. The starting alkynes are prepared via base-catalysed nitrogen alkylation of pre-synthetized benzimidazole-chalcone substrates. All the intermediates as well as the final products are fully characterized by 1D and 2D NMR and mass spectrometry techniques. HMBC correlations permits the identification of a unique 1,4-disubstitued triazole-benzimidazole-chalcone isomer. Evaluation of the anti-proliferative potential in breast and prostate cancer cell lines showed that the presence of chloro substituents at the chalcone ring of the triazole-benzimidazole-chalcone skeleton enhanced the cytotoxic effects. The benzyl group linked to the 1,2,3-triazole moiety provides more antiproliferative potential.publishe

On plexus representation of dissimilarities

Correspondence analysis has found widespread application in analysing vegetation gradients. However, it is not clear how it is robust to situations where structures other than a simple gradient exist. The introduction of instrumental variables in canonical correspondence analysis does not avoid these difficulties. In this paper I propose to examine some simple methods based on the notion of the plexus (sensu McIntosh) where graphs or networks are used to display some of the structure of the data so that an informed choice of models is possible. I showthat two different classes of plexus model are available. These classes are distinguished by the use in one case of a global Euclidean model to obtain well-separated pair decomposition (WSPD) of a set of points which implicitly involves all dissimilarities, while in the other a Riemannian view is taken and emphasis is placed locally, i.e., on small dissimilarities. I showan example of each of these classes applied to vegetation data