Panic disorder in rural Tanzania: an explorative study

Objective: Common mental disorders constitute a considerable disease burden in low-income countries, and there is a need for acceptable and effective brief interventions for such disorders in low-income countries. This article examines cultural based interpretations of the diagnosis of panic disorder (PD) in a rural Tanzanian hospital setting through clinical work. It also examines how to adapt and apply brief cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) interventions to this setting. Method: A qualitative analysis of clinical data from ten participants in a hospital-setting in rural Tanzania. Results: The analysis suggests that the diagnosis of PD is relevant to this rural Tanzanian setting. Patients, relatives, and health personnel at the hospital accepted brief CBT interventions for PD and regarded psychoeducational information to patients as especially useful. Conclusion: A manual for brief interventions for PD may be adapted to a rural Tanzanian setting, also taking into consideration the limited financial and human resources in a rural low-income country setting.Keywords: Panic disorder; Culture; Cognitive behaviour therapy; Low-income countr

An examination of applicability of face recognition sensors in public facilities

Purpose: This study aimed to explore the usability and applicability of face recognition sensors in public spaces to collect customer footfall data, which could then be analysed and evaluated for facility design and planning Methodology: Nine OMRON sensors were provided for the project and installed at five locations in a public facility for three months. The project was carried out by a local consortium with the cooperation of local technology-based Small Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), business organisations, and a local university. Collected data was analysed using data-mining software to develop a result report with diagrams, and reveal issues and potential for practical application in the future. Findings: It has been found that this technology could be applied for further consumer behavioural analysis, for example, analysing the relationship between product displays and purchasing behaviour, or looking at the link between consumers’ attributes and their buying behaviour. Moreover, the collected data can be further studied to develop a more detailed analysis of the relationships between the data collected from different points of installation. A critical issue found was about how to protect the privacy of the people whose data the sensors collected (i.e., image rights, and other privacy-related issues), which suggests the need for guidelines on ethical data collection and raises questions on how to get agreement from potential participants in the experiment. Implication and limitation: Although it was acknowledged that this project remained at pilot level and would need to expand before more robust implications and recommendations could be developed, the experimental outcome suggests that face recognition sensors have the potential for commercial use. Collecting and analysing customers’ behavioural data can contribute to marketing strategy and planning. The study also discusses the necessity of enhancing business opportunities through open innovation, in this case based on a consortium inviting local technology-oriented SMEs, universities, and other stakeholders to support the local economy. The implications of this study could inspire others to start new businesses and to support the local economy and small enterprises

Investigating the challenges of refinery construction in Nigeria: A snapshot across two-timeframes over the past 55 years

The sub-optimal performance of state-owned refineries in Nigeria has led to a significant gap in the supply of refined petroleum products (RPPs) in the country. More so, the growing demand for these products has further widened the gap to the range of 500,000 – 600,000 barrels per day (bpd). Consequently, most of the imports for RPPs in Nigeria are being filled from the United States and North-Western Europe at the expense of the Nigerian economy. However, given the abundance of petroleum resources in Nigeria and its long history in the production of oil, it is unfortunate that the local refineries are hardly maintained to meet the needs of the local population. In addition, the inability of the Nigerian state to build additional refining capacity to cushion its domestic supply gap for RPPs has become a major concern. With more than 40 licenses issued to private companies since 2002, only two companies (Niger Delta Petroleum Resources Refinery and Dangote Oil Refinery) have made noticeable progress in new refinery construction. This paper is focused on investigating the current challenges of refinery construction in Nigeria. This is done with a view of comparing the drivers and enablers of productivity in construction in this sector during the period of 1965 – 1989 and how they differ from the current period of 2000 - 2019 in Nigeria. A systematic literature review within the academic journals, source documents from the industry, relevant interviews from published news media and consulting organisations were used to identify and categorise these challenges. The findings of this study were validated by interviews from experts across key industries in this sector. The study reveals that change of ownership structures from the government sector to the private sector between the two eras, present additional challenges. These challenges cut across availability of capital, inconsistent government priorities and access to land for construction. Others include cronyism and corruption, weak political will, unstructured refinery licensing scheme, security challenges and economic factors regarding the regulated downstream market in Nigeria. Key recommendations proffered to help solve these problems include a private sector-led partnership with the government in the form of public private partnerships (PPPs), a review of existing methods for licensing refineries for private organisations, the development of local manpower with relevant technical skills to help lower the cost of expatriate labour and the establishment of more designated clusters as free trade zones within the oil-producing Niger Delta. These recommendations will help lower the entry barriers for private organisations in this sector

Is Gamification a Magic Tool?: Illusion, Remedy, and Future Opportunities in Enhancing Learning Outcomes during and beyond the COVID-19

Gamification in education has been discussed with potential for further implementation at universities; however, practical suggestions concerning which key issues educators need to consider has far not been shared in academia. This study applied a qualitative approach using interview data with 24 students who participated in the business class with games as learning measures. It has found that most of them believed that gamification could be useful in reinforcing key themes and topics after having learnt them through traditional means: They appreciated the games as a supportive measure to ‘glue’ key knowledge to their learning. A significant drawback that they emphasised was that taking notes is not easy while they are involved in games, which made them unconfident and uncertain about the learning outcome. As a result, a conceptual framework for pedagogy stakeholders was proposed for further discussion of how to design a gamification-based curriculum effectively

Designing lentiviral gene vectors

Lentiviral gene vectors are an important tool in gene therapy and basic biomedical research. They are transducing viral particles, normally replication defective, which are generated using the packaging machinery of lentiviruses. These vectors are used to deliver the encapsidated payload genes to the nuclei of the target cells, offering stable transgene expression in many settings in vitro and in vivo. Successful generation of high-titre lentiviral vectors capable of efficiently expressing transgenes over long period of time is governed by a number of vector design rules, some of which are common to all gene vectors while others are specific to lentiviral vectors. Construction of lentiviral vectors with the cargo genes driven by tissue-specific promoters is a particular challenge. This review focuses both on the guiding principles and the technical know-how of the lentiviral gene vector design.Published versio

Is CSR a magic word?: An exploring study of consumer behaviour in cosmetic market in Thailand

Many authors stated that decision-making today is more complex than in the past, especially when they are being confronted by various kinds of product (eg.: Hafstrom et al., 1992; Lysonski et al., 1995; Mitchell et al., 1998). Thailand is an example of a developing country where a huge number of products from various countries imported cosmetic products. Due to the competition in Thailand, cosmetic market is always very intense; therefore it is important for firms to understand the factors that affect the consumers purchasing behaviour. At the same time, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been one of the most popular theme for academics and marketers when they analyse its impact on consumers’ behaviour (Maignan and Ferrel, 2004; Smith, 2003). Does CSR have a positive impact on Thai consumers’ purchasing intention? To investigate this theme based on quantitative approach, we analyse the impact of CSR factor as an antecedent factor for Thai consumers’ attitudes towards cosmetic products, drawing the pathways resulting in their final decision of purchasing

Oropharyngeal fetus-in fetu in Ilero Nigeria: A case report

Fetus-in-fetu is a rare congenital condition in which a malformed parasitic twin is found within the body of its partner. Although a few had been documented worldwide, none has been reported in Nigeria. In this report, we document the history of a concoction of drugs of an indeterminate nature taken in pregnancy, the wrong diagnosis by the rural based sonographer and the presence of polyhydraminos. Our finding of a previously misdiagnosed oropharyngeal fetus-in fetu with dichorionic and cardiac features calls for a revision of the current definition of fetus-in fetu. It also raises an important hypothesis of the likely associations between drugs, infections, pregnancy induced hypertension and fetus-in-fetu.Key words: Fetal abnormality; oropharyngeal fetus-in fetu; pregnancy