Thermophilic bioremediation of emerging pollutants using a recombinant thermophilic fungal peroxidase

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Exploring Stress in the Field of Early Childhood Education

The teaching profession is recognized to be one of the most stressful fields worldwide (Lhospital & Gregory, 2009). This qualitative study was conducted to explore the different stresses of early childhood professionals in the workplace and further explored to see if there is a difference between general and special educators’ stress. 14 individuals participated in one-on-one interviews, 7 general educators and 7 special educators. After interviews were conducted, five major themes were found, three of which were echoed in the literature. With the key findings, it was concluded that there is virtually no difference in the stresses among general and special educators. Both general and special educators expressed that there is a lack of professional support for stress management in the workplace which contributes to their stress. In addition to that, another stress factor for educators was not receiving sufficient training for the position they are in. This study presented data and knowledge on what can be done to support educators and decrease their stress in the workplace.https://source.sheridancollege.ca/fahcs_student_capstones_hbecl/1014/thumbnail.jp

Automated Road Condition Analysis from Video Footage and Accelerometer Data in Developing Countries

The objective of this study was to compare road quality monitoring methods and determine a suitable method for Zanzibar, Tanzania. Road quality monitoring is required for timely road maintenance, enabling uninterrupted and safe travel for citizens and businesses. With growing economies and infrastructure, the network of roads in developing countries is expanding, and monitoring them through traditional ways is becoming cumbersome and ineffective. This requires advanced methods that are easily replicable, incur fewer costs and enable quick decision making. Existing methods have certain advantages and limitations, which makes matching the context of the problem with the method’s capabilities very important. This study compares two frequently used road monitoring methods, vibration-based and vision-based, in Zanzibar’s context. Data collected in collaboration with the Zanzibar Department of Roads, including accelerometer data and video footage of the roads, was used to train three different models. Vibration-based models were established to be more suitable for Zanzibar, specifically the random forest classifier with feature extraction, as they provided higher accuracy and had ease of replication using fewer resources. Additionally, within the accelerometer data used for vibration-based methods, it was found that each axis’ data could predict road quality independently with equally good accuracy

Design and Evaluation of Crowd-sourcing Platforms Based on Users Confidence Judgments

Crowd-sourcing deals with solving problems by assigning them to a large number of non-experts called crowd using their spare time. In these systems, the final answer to the question is determined by summing up the votes obtained from the community. The popularity of using these systems has increased by facilitation of access to community members through mobile phones and the Internet. One of the issues raised in crowd-sourcing is how to choose people and how to collect answers. Usually, the separation of users is done based on their performance in a pre-test. Designing the pre-test for performance calculation is challenging; The pre-test questions should be chosen in a way that they test the characteristics in people related to the main questions. One of the ways to increase the accuracy of crowd-sourcing systems is to pay attention to people's cognitive characteristics and decision-making model to form a crowd and improve the estimation of the accuracy of their answers to questions. People can estimate the correctness of their responses while making a decision. The accuracy of this estimate is determined by a quantity called metacognition ability. Metacoginition is referred to the case where the confidence level is considered along with the answer to increase the accuracy of the solution. In this paper, by both mathematical and experimental analysis, we would answer the following question: Is it possible to improve the performance of the crowd-sourcing system by knowing the metacognition of individuals and recording and using the users' confidence in their answers

Determinants of Child Stunting, Wasting, and Underweight: Evidence from 2017 to 2018 Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey

Child malnutrition persists in low-resource countries such as Pakistan, indicating an urgent need for interventions and policies aimed to address this critical population health issue. The World Health Organization Global Target 2025 includes the reduction of malnourishment in the form of stunting, wasting, and low weight. This study aims to examine the prevalence of factors associated with three measures of child malnutrition, i.e., stunting, wasting, and low weight in Pakistan. This study uses a secondary data analysis design based on data from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (2017-18) that used a two-stage cluster sampling approach. National level data covering urban and rural areas were used for this study consisting of 4,226 children less than 5 years of age. Univariate and multivariable analyses using logistic regression models were conducted. Over 23% of the children were underweight, 8.0% suffered wasting, and 37.7% were stunted. Children with small size at birth (60 cm) were also less likely to be stunted (AOR, 0.288) and underweight (AOR, 0.538). Children who consumed fresh milk were less likely to be classified as wasted (AOR, 0.524) than those children who did not consume fresh milk. The children in high- and middle-economic status families were less likely to be stunted, underweight, or wasted. Children of mothers who had secondary and higher education were less likely to be stunted (AOR, 0.584) and were less likely to be underweight (AOR, 0.668) than illiterate mothers’ children. Children of working mothers were less likely to be wasted compared to children of nonworking mothers (AOR, 0.287). Maternal BMI is also inversely associated with being underweight because overweight and obese mothers were less likely to have underweight children (AOR, 0.585). Our findings reflect a need to design targeted public health policies and community-based education that emphasize the mother’s education on nutrition health and provide socioeconomic resources that enable mothers to provide dietary needs that prevent malnutrition

Application of Behavioural Emotional Rating scale (BERS 2nd ed.) to Study Social and Emotional Behaviour of Students at Middle Level in District Mirpur Azad Jammu Kashmir

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is an ‘Umbrella term’ which covers all the aspects of development of an individual and can increase positive attitude towards self and others, hence reduces negative thinking. Social Emotional Learning is necessary to provide awareness to develop five core competencies i. Self-Awareness, ii. Self-Management, iii. Relationship skills, iv. Social-Awareness, v. Responsible decision making in students, as it is prerequisite for learning process. It creates a stable person who knows, how to behave in certain circumstances. The objectives of the study were to analyze the self-management in students at Middle level, identify the factors associated with responsible decision making, to develop better relationship skills that associates confidence in children, to explore the social awareness rate, to examine the abilities of children self-awareness. This study was quantitative in nature as it was implementation of BERS Scale (2nd Ed.) which is accurate & valid scale to measure attitude & is based on 4-point Likert Scale. Data was collected through BERS Questionnaires which are authentic and comprises of 55 questions. Data was analyzed trough applying of statistical techniques. Results showed majority of the students said that they are stable which indicate that Education system in Mirpur (A.J.K) has been improved in the past few years due to teacher training programs and facilities provided to the students. The study recommended that Social Emotional learning is essential for students. It also suggested that students can be saved from getting into depression, anxiety, regression, aggression and other mental disorders trough proper parental care, eradication of poverty, teacher training, gifted & talented education (GATE) of teachers and turning of schools into homelike environment

Vehicle-Life Interaction in Fog-Enabled Smart Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

Traffic accidents have become a major issue for researchers, academia, government and vehicle manufacturers over the last few years. Many accidents and emergency situations frequently occur on the road. Unfortunately, accidents lead to health injuries, destruction of some infrastructure, bad traffic flow, and more importantly these events cause deaths of hundreds of thousands of people due to not getting treatment in time. Thus, we need to develop an efficient and smart emergency system to ensure the timely arrival of an ambulance service to the place of the accident in order to provide timely medical help to those injured. In addition, we also need to communicate promptly with other entities such as hospitals so that they can make appropriate arrangements and provide timely medical information to emergency personnel on the scene including alerting those related to the injured person(s). In this paper, we have developed an intelligent protocol that uses connected and autonomous vehicles\u27 scenarios in Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) so that prompt emergency services can be provided to reduce the death rate caused. The proposed protocol smartly connects with all the relevant entitles during the emergency while maintaining a smooth traffic flow for the arrival of the ambulance service. Moreover, our protocol also mitigates the broadcasting of messages circulating over the network for delay sensitive tasks. The evaluation results, based on the performance metrics such as channel collision, average packet delay, packet loss, and routing-overhead demonstrate that our proposed protocol outperforms previously proposed protocols such as Emergency Message Dissemination for Vehicular (EMDV), Contention Based Broadcasting (CBB), and Particle Swarm Optimization Contention-based Broadcast (PCBB) protocols. Finally, we discuss several issues and challenges that need to be addressed in the network in order to achieve more a reliable, efficient, connected, and autonomous vehicular network

Microdebrider Intracapsular Tonsillectomy: A Narrative Review

Introduction: Microdebrider intracapsular tonsillectomy is a relatively recent surgical procedure used to treat various tonsil and adenoid disorders. Unlike traditional tonsillectomies, which involve the complete removal of the tonsils, this technique uses high-speed rotation to remove only the diseased tissue, allowing for more precise removal while preserving the surrounding healthy tissue. This procedure has gained popularity in recent years due to its ability to reduce postoperative pain and allow for a quicker return to regular eating habits, especially in children with tonsillitis and sleep apnea. In this review, we aim to explore the efficacy, safety, and limitations of microdebrider intracapsular surgery in the management of otolaryngologic conditions.Methods: A preliminary search was conducted on several databases to identify relevant articles on tonsillectomy. The study focused on keywords such as "microdebrider", "Coblation tonsillectomy", "intracapsular tonsillectomy", “conventional tonsillectomy” and "minimally invasive tonsillectomy" and included patients with recurrent and/or chronic tonsillitis and patients with tonsillar hypertrophy with symptoms of obstructive sleep troubles such as persistent snoring. Conclusion: Microdebrider Intracapsular tonsillectomy is a surgical procedure used for various conditions related to the tonsils, with less tissue removed than traditional tonsillectomy. It causes less pain, has a shorter recovery time, and has fewer complications. However, there is a small risk of tonsil regrowth and the need for an additional procedure. The decision on which method to use depends on the patient's medical history and the surgeon's recommendation, and it is essential to understand potential complications and seek medical attention promptly if needed

Web 2.0-based collaborative learning framework promoting lifelong learning: developing sustainability competencies

This paper aims to present a Web 2.0-based collaborative Learning framework based on the social constructivist theory promoting life-long learning. The Web 2.0 provides conditions of collaborative learning, multiple modes and methods of learning and multiple perspec-tive to achieve learning goals. This practical framework under the guidelines of design science research methodology allows learners to actively engage in the learning process, construct own knowledge and use to solve real-world problems collaboratively. Experts reviewed and confirmed the validity of the framework. Three successive iterations, working with 42 students in formal learning and Facebook members in informal learning were conducted to demonstrate and validate how learners started developing critical thinking, self-regulation and use of knowledge. The framework contributes to the practice of lifelong learning with emphasis on developing sustaina-bility competencies that enable learners to gain more skills in applying different problem-solving frameworks to complex daily life prob-lems

Survival Analysis of Dialysis Patients Under Parametric and Non-Parametric Approaches

Dialysis is a recommended way of treatment for end stage kidney diseases and it provides a life saving procedure. Transplantation can also be useful source but it is restricted by financial limitations especially in developing countries like Pakistan. Censoring is an important part of the survival data which causes insensitivity to the usual procedures of analysis. A little work has been done in literature regarding the estimated survival time of dialysis patients in Pakistan. So, this study has estimated the median survival time of male/females patients separately by parametric and non-parametric approaches. Moreover, comparison of survival time to patients (50 years) was also compared. Frequently, in modeling the survival data, most of the time we have no prior information about the theoretical distribution of survival time is available, that’s why, and non-parametric methods are commonly used. The significance of this study is the fitting of probability distribution of real life time data of dialysis patients which is not done before. It is very laborious job to fit an appropriate distribution of the data. We find that the probability distribution of our real life time data is weibull distribution. Finding suggested that the Kaplan-Meier method and weibull model based on Anderson-Darling test provided a very close estimate of the survival function in both genders and age groups. On the average survival time in males is relatively high but not statistically different from females