Does community-based education increase students' motivation to practice community health care? - a cross sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Community-based education has been introduced in many medical schools around the globe, but evaluation of instructional quality has remained a critical issue. Community-based education is an approach that aims to prepare students for future professional work at the community level. Instructional quality should be measured based on a program's outcomes. However, the association between learning activities and students' attitudes is unknown. The purpose of this study was to clarify what learning activities affect students' attitudes toward community health care.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From 2003 to 2009, self-administered pre- and post-questionnaire surveys were given to 693 fifth-year medical students taking a 2-week clinical clerkship. Main items measured were student attitudes, which were: "I think practicing community health care is worthwhile" ("worthwhile") and "I am confident about practicing community health care" ("confidence") using a visual analogue scale (0-100). Other items were gender, training setting, and learning activities. We analyzed the difference in attitudes before and after the clerkships by paired <it>t </it>test and the factors associated with a positive change in attitude by logistic regression analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Six hundred forty-five students (93.1%), 494 (76.6%) male and 151(23.4%) female, completed the pre- and post-questionnaires. The VAS scores of the students' attitudes for "worthwhile" and "confidence" after the clerkship were 80.2 ± 17.4 and 57.3 ± 20.1, respectively. Both of the scores increased after the clerkship. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, "health education" was associated with a positive change for both attitudes of "worthwhile" (adjusted RR: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.10-2.66) and "confidence" (1.56, 1.08-2.25).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Community-based education motivates students to practice community health care. In addition, their motivation is increased by the health education activity. Participating in this activity probably produces a positive effect and improves the instructional quality of the program based on its outcomes.</p

Combining Kansei Engineering and Artificial Neural Network to Assess Worker Capacity in Small-Medium Food Industry

This paper highlighted a new method for worker capacity assessment in Indonesian small-medium food industry. The sustainable and productivity of Indonesian food industry should be maintained based on the workers capacity. The status of worker capacity could be categorized as normal, capacity constrained worker and bottleneck. By using Kansei Engineering, worker capacity can be assessed using verbal response of profile of mood states, non-verbal response of heart rate in a given workplace environmental parameters. Fusing various Kansei Engineering parameters of worker capacity requires a robust modeling tool. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is required to assess worker capacity. The model was demonstrated via a case study of Tempe Industry. The trained ANN model generated satisfied accuracy and minimum error. The research results concluded the possibility to assess worker capacity in Indonesian small-medium food industry by combining Kansei Engineering and ANN

Strongly Correlated Cerium Systems: Non-Kondo Mechanism for Moment Collapse

We present an ab initio based method which gives clear insight into the interplay between the hybridization, the coulomb exchange, and the crystal-field interactions, as the degree of 4f localization is varied across a series of strongly correlated cerium systems. The results for the ordered magnetic moments, magnetic structure, and ordering temperatures are in excellent agreement with experiment, including the occurence of a moment collapse of non-Kondo origin. In contrast, standard ab initio density functional calculations fail to predict, even qualitatively, the trend of the unusual magentic properties.Comment: A shorter version of this has been submitted to PR

Relationship of dietary monounsaturated fatty acids to blood pressure: the international study of macro/micronutrients and blood pressure

Objective: In short-term feeding trials, replacement of other macronutrients with monounsaturated fatty acid reduces blood pressure. However, observational studies have not clearly demonstrated a relationship between monounsaturated fatty acid intake and blood pressure. We report associations of monounsaturated fatty acid intake of individuals with blood pressure in a cross-sectional study. Methods: The International Study of Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure is a cross-sectional epidemiologic study of 4,680 men and women ages 40-59 from 17 population samples in China, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States. Nutrient intake data were based on four in-depth multi-pass 24-hour dietary recalls/person and two timed 24-hour urine collections/person. Blood pressure was measured eight times at four visits. Results: Mean monounsaturated fatty acid intake ranged from 8.1 %kcal (China) to 12.2%kcal (United States). With sequential models to control for possible confounders (dietary, other), linear regression analyses showed significant inverse relationship of total monounsaturated fatty acid intake with diastolic blood pressure for all participants; for 2,238 “non-intervened” individuals, the relationship was stronger. Estimated diastolic blood pressure differences with 2-SD higher monounsaturated fatty acids (5.35 %kcal) were -0.82 mm Hg (P<0.05) for all participants and -1.70 mm Hg (P<0.01) for non-intervened individuals. Inverse associations of dietary total oleic acid (main monounsaturated) with blood pressure in non-intervened individuals were not significant, but those of oleic acid from vegetable sources were stronger and significant (P<0.05). Conclusions: Dietary monounsaturated fatty acid intake, especially oleic acid from vegetable sources, may contribute to prevention and control of adverse blood pressure levels in general populations. Condensed Abstract The associations of monounsaturated fatty acid intake of individuals with blood pressure was investigated in a cross-sectional epidemiologic study of 4,680 men and women ages 40-59 from 17 population samples in China, Japan, United Kingdom, and United States. Linear regression analyses showed significant inverse relationship of total monounsaturated fatty acid intake with diastolic blood pressure. Inverse associations of dietary total oleic acid from vegetable sources with blood pressure in non-intervened individuals were stronger and significant. Dietary monounsaturated fatty acid intake, especially oleic acid from vegetable sources, may contribute to prevention and control of adverse blood pressure levels in general populations