Student attitudes to participate in volunteer programs

Students education in medical colleges has its own traditions and follows the principles of pedagogy and psychology, applying good practices in medical science. With the selection of students accepted for teaching, the foundation is laid, on which further empathic and professional training is built. Nowadays, during a pandemic and a shortage of medical staff in healthcare we talk about volunteering practices by young professionals and students to get out of the crisis situation. Medical university students were given the opportunity to volunteer to serve patients with COVID-19. The purpose of this report is to present students 'attitudes to participate in volunteer programs and analyze opportunities to increase learners' motivation for such activities.There were used documentary and sociological methods. Internet sources related to volunteering as a concept are reviewed and analyzed. The sociological survey made through its own anonymous survey, covers 90.3% of the students majoring in " X-ray technician" at the Medical College in Sofia. The results of the survey showed that half of the respondents were involved in various volunteer activities; the biggest percentage of respondents have information about volunteer activities from social networks and friends; 86.3% want to get involved in volunteer programs, but 59.8% of respondents have free time to spend on it. 70.6% believe that volunteering can help their professional careers.In conclusion, it can be said that most of the respondents positively accept the idea of volunteering, but the commitment of the university, respectively the college and its teachers is to guide and stimulate its students to such activities that develop feelings such as empathy and satisfaction in helping others. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to innovations in education, and volunteering practices would contribute to a positive change in the attitude of medical staff towards patients and their own profession

Comparative analysis of the awareness of students from the X-ray technician and Dental technician programs on issues related to the specifics of the work and the professional risk

Всеки човек в един момент от своя живот трябва да направи своя избор за това каква ще е неговата професия. За да бъде мотивиран изборът му, той трябва да е информиран и да познава естеството на работата, с която ще се заеме. Студентите от специалностите „Рентгенов лаборант` и „Зъботехник` попадат в специфична работна среда. Тези професии изискват определени професионални качества и компетент-ност от упражняващите я. Целта е да се проучи информираността на новоприетите студенти относно начина на избор на професия, спецификата на работата и имат ли представа за наличието на професионални вредности. Използвани са документален, социологически и статистически метод. Проведена е собствена анонимна анкета сред новопостъпили студенти в специалностите „Рентгенов лаборант` и „Зъботехник` на Медицински колеж „Й. Филаретова` - София. Проучването показа, че резултатите от отговорите на респондентите от двете сравнявани групи са близки като количествени показатели. Наблюдава се съществено различие при отговорите относно информираността по повод спецификата на работа, където 83% от рент-геновите лаборанти отговарят положително, a само 34% от зъботехниците дават отговор „да`. На базата на сравнителния анализ на получените резултати са направени изводи. И от двете изследвани групи по-голяма част е направила самостоятелен избор на професията си; информация за професията са получили от семейството и приятелите си; водеща мотивация за избор на професията е възможността за професионална реализация. По-голяма част от изследваните твърдят, че са запознати с професионалните вредности, но се установява, че малко са анкетираните, които ги изброяват вярно. За да се промени това, е необходимо да има по-пълна и достъпна информация на сайта на висшето училище.Everyone should make his or her own choice about what their profession will be at some point in life. To motivate this choice, he or she should be informed about the nature of that profession. The students from the X-ray Technician and Dental Technician programs enter a specific working environment. Each of these professions requires certain professional qualities and competences from the practitioners. The aim of this paper is to study the information that new students have about how to choose a profession, the specifics of the job and whether there is professional risk. Documentary, sociological and statistical methods have been used. An anonymous poll among the new students in the the X-ray Technician and Dental Technician programs at Medical College „J. Filaretova` - Sofia was conducted. The study showed that the results obtained from responses by students from both compared groups were similar as quantitative indicators. There is a significant difference in the responses due to the specifics of the work. Of all participants, 83% X-ray Technicians and only 34% of Dental Technicians responded positively. Based on the comparative analysis of the results obtained, conclusions were drawn. The vast majority of both groups have made an independent choice of profession, information concerning the profession has been received from family and friends, the leading motivation for choosing the profession was the possibility of professional realization. The majori ty of those surveyed said that they are aware of the professional risk, but there were only a few respondents who could list them correctly. In order to change this, it is necessary to share more complete and accessible in-formation on the site of the Medical College

Photobiological Risk from the Spectral Emission of Human Centric LED Luminaires – Case Study

People spend most of their time indoors. That is a good reason for implementation Human Centric Lighting solutions in offices. Such solutions can lead to increased productivity and motivation to employees. The spectral composition of light, the timing of the different light scenes and the duration of light exposure play important role for the non-visual effects of light that occur in humans. Moreover, research has shown that these effects may depend on the environment, specifics of the activity, and personal characteristics of people. The use of LED Luminaires makes the implementation of Human Centric Lighting easy and possible. The LEDs as light sources, however can lead to blue light hazard risk that should be estimated. The human eye is adapted to function in a media of optical radiation that ensures not only vision, but also important physiological functions. The emission of LED luminaires is in wide spectrum, especially in the blue part, and it can be both favorable and harmful. The current paper represents an experimental research of the possibility of blue light hazard in a real human centric lighting system

Resource Management Optimization in Multi-Processor Platforms

Proceedings of: Third International Workshop on Sustainable Ultrascale Computing Systems (NESUS 2016). Sofia (Bulgaria), October, 6-7, 2016.The modern high-performance computing systems (HPCS) are composed of hundreds of thousand computational nodes. An effective resource allocation in HPCS is a subject for many scientific research investigations. Many programming models for effective resources allocation have been proposed. The main purpose of those models is to increase the parallel performance of the HPCS. This paper investigates the efficiency of parallel algorithm for resource management optimization based on Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) metaheuristic while solving a package of NP-complete problems on multi-processor platform.In order to achieve minimal parallelization overhead in each cluster node, a multi-level hybrid programming model is proposed that combines coarse-grain and fine-grain parallelism. Coarse-grain parallelism is achieved through domain decomposition by message passing among computational nodes using Message Passing Interface (MPI) and fine-grain parallelism is obtained by loop-level parallelism inside each computation node by compiler-based thread parallelization via Intel TBB. Parallel communications profiling is made and parallel performance parameters are evaluated on the basis of experimental results

International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies- CompSysTech’2005 Organization of Simulation Experiments for Information Servicing Investigation in Distributed Resource-Sharing Environment

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to present the application of simulation techniques for organization of experiments for performance investigation of the distributed information servicing. The paper considers the simulation framework, which allows estimating the effectiveness of different approaches for request routing for resource discovering in the context of decentralized, dynamical resource-sharing environments. The modelling gives us an approximate picture of expected searching performance. To evaluate the performance of different resource-discovering techniques, we conduct simulation experiments, using in Any Logic simulation environment and some results are presented and discussed

Habitat requirements of Boreal Owl (Aegolius funereus) and Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum) in rear edge montane populations on the Balkan Peninsula

Rear-edge populations of montane species are known to be vulnerable to environmental change, which could affect them by habitat reduction and isolation. Habitat requirements of two cold-adapted boreo-alpine owl species — Boreal Owl (Aegolius funereus) and Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum) — have been studied in refugial montane populations in the western Rhodopes, South Bulgaria. Data on owl presence and forest stand attributes recorded in situ have been used to identify significant predictors for owl occurrence. The results revealed Boreal Owl’s preference for comparatively dense forests (high canopy closure values), big trees (diameter at breast height ≥ 50 cm) and large amount of fallen dead wood in penultimate stage of decay. For Pygmy Owl the only significant explanatory variable was the total amount of fallen dead wood. Results suggest preference of both owl species for forests with structural elements typical of old-growth forests (i.e., veteran trees, deadwood), the Pygmy Owl being less prone to inhabit managed forests. Being at the rear edge of their Palearctic breeding range in Europe both Boreal and Pygmy Owls are of high conservation value on the Balkan Peninsula. Hence, additional efforts are needed for their conservation in the light of climate change and resulting alteration of forest structural parameters. Current findings can be used for adjusting forest management practices in order to ensure both, sustainable profit from timber and continuous species survival

Targeting of Influenza Viral Epitopes to Antigen-Presenting Cells by Genetically Engineered Chimeric Molecules in a Humanized NOD SCID Gamma Transfer Model

Antiviral DNA vaccines are a novel strategy in the vaccine development field, which basically consists of the administration of expression vectors coding viral antigen sequences into the host's cells. Targeting of conserved viral epitopes by antibody fragments specific to activating cell surface co-receptor molecules on antigen-presenting cells could be an alternative approach for inducing protective immunity. It has been shown that FcRI on human monocytes enhances antigen presentation in vivo. Various DNA constructs, encoding a Single-chain variable antibodies (scFv) from mouse anti-human FcRI monoclonal antibody, coupled to a sequence encoding a T- and B-cell epitope-containing influenza A virus hemagglutinin inter-subunit peptide were inserted into the eukaryotic expression vector system pTriEx-3 Neo. The constructed chimeric DNA molecules were expressed by transfected Chinese hamster ovary cells and the ability of the engineered proteins to interact with FcRI-expressing cells was confirmed by flow cytometry. The fusion protein induced a strong signal transduction on human monocytes via FcRI. The expression vector pTriEx-3 Neo containing the described construct was used as a naked DNA vaccine and introduced directly to experimental humanized NOD SCID gamma mice with or without boosting with the expressed fusion protein. Immunization with the generated DNA chimeric molecules and prime-boost with the expressed recombinant proteins induced significant serum levels of anti-influenza immunoglobulin G antibodies and strong cytotoxic T lymphocyte activity against influenza virus-infected cells in humanized animals

Migratory birds along the Mediterranean/Black Sea Flyway as carriers of zoonotic pathogens

At the crossroad between Europe, Asia and Africa, Bulgaria is part of the Mediterranean/Black Sea Flyway (MBSF) used by millions of migratory birds. In this study bird species migrating through Bulgaria were investigated as carriers of zoonotic pathogens. In total, 706 birds belonging to 46 species were checked for the presence of various bacterial pathogens (Campylobacter, Yersinia, Salmonella, Listeria, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Francisella tularensis, Coxiella burnetii, Borrelia burgdorferi and Brucella spp). We detected Campylobacter 16S rDNA gene in 1.3% of birds, but none were pathogenic species. E. coli 16S rDNA gene was found in 8.8% of the birds. Out of 34 birds that transported Y. enterocolitica strains (5.05%), only one carried a pathogenic isolate. Three birds (0.4%) were carriers of non-pathogenic Salmonella strains. Four avian samples (0.6%) were positive for Listeria monocytogenes and one (0.15 %) - for Brucella spp. None of the birds tested carried the tick-borne pathogens C. burnetii or B. burgdorferi s.l. Antibiotic resistant strains were detected, suggesting that migratory birds could be reservoirs and spreaders of bacterial pathogens as well as antibiotic resistance genes.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author