Contribution of Propionibacterium Acnes Bacteria in Patients with Acne Vulgaris in Makassar

Propionibacterium acnes is a microaerophilic organism in acne lesion. The study aims to determine the relationship between the number of Propionibacterium acnes bacteria colonies and the degrees of acne vulgaris. The research was cunducted at high school in Makassar city on july 2017- august 2017 as an observational analytic study with cross sectional method. The samples were fort- four (44) acne vulgaris patients of 14 to 20 years old at high schools in Makassar city. Blackheads were taken from acne vulgaris lesions of the 44 sample. The process was followed with gram stain, anaerobic bacterial culture, and polymerase chain reaction examination ( PCR ). The  Results from the anaerobic bacteria culture examination of 44 peoples were, 33 (75%) Staphylococcus epidermididis, 1 (2,3% Staphylococcus xylosus, 4 (9%) Staphylococcus hominis, 1 (2,3%) Staphylococcus aureus, 1 (2.3%) Staphylococcus haemolyticus, 1 (2.3%) Staphylococcus capitis, 2 (4,5%) Staphylococcus warneri, 1 (2.3%) Lactobacillus plantarum and none of propionibacterium acnes. Furthermore the PCR examination showed that there was no Propionibacterium acnes on mild acne vulgaris but in five students (17,8%) had positive results of Propionibacterium acnes in moderate and severe acne.It showed that there was a statistical significance result with biological relevance, Propionibacterium acnes contribute to moderate and severe acne

Variations in the slope of the psychometric functions for speech intelligibility: a systematic survey

Although many studies have looked at the effects of different listening conditions on the intelligibility of speech, their analyses have often concentrated on changes to a single value on the psychometric function, namely, the threshold. Far less commonly has the slope of the psychometric function, that is, the rate at which intelligibility changes with level, been considered. The slope of the function is crucial because it is the slope, rather than the threshold, that determines the improvement in intelligibility caused by any given improvement in signal-to-noise ratio by, for instance, a hearing aid. The aim of the current study was to systematically survey and reanalyze the psychometric function data available in the literature in an attempt to quantify the range of slope changes across studies and to identify listening conditions that affect the slope of the psychometric function. The data for 885 individual psychometric functions, taken from 139 different studies, were fitted with a common logistic equation from which the slope was calculated. Large variations in slope across studies were found, with slope values ranging from as shallow as 1% per dB to as steep as 44% per dB (median = 6.6% per dB), suggesting that the perceptual benefit offered by an improvement in signal-to-noise ratio depends greatly on listening environment. The type and number of maskers used were found to be major factors on the value of the slope of the psychometric function while other minor effects of target predictability, target corpus, and target/masker similarity were also found

A social networking-based advertising to enhance customer reach target

A traditional advertising is a method to deliver commercial messages to mass audiences through the newspaper, outdoor billboards, radio, and television. This method is quite expensive for the small and medium company. The new concept of advertising such as social media, website, and application provide an inexpensive way to promote businesses. The proposed idea is to create a new platform for advertising and promotional tools which is called Tagme. This system is developed based on web environment on Windows and Android. Tagme allows marketers to promote their event, business or store and give promotions including vouchers to customers. Tagme also will notify customers instantly with any events or promotions such as free voucher giveaway that will be managed by the marketers themselves. Tagme provides a form of solution for marketers to promote their business efficiently as it provides web analytics and users preferences functions. This will allow marketers to promote their business to specific and focused customers

Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a massive global health crisis. Because the crisis requires large-scale behaviour change and places significant psychological burdens on individuals, insights from the social and behavioural sciences can be used to help align human behavior with the recommendations of epidemiologists and public health experts. Here we review experimental and correlational data from a selection of research topics relevant to pandemics, including work on navigating threats, social and cultural influences on behaviour, science communication, moral decision-making, leadership, and stress and coping. In each section, we note the nature and quality of prior research, including uncertainty and unsettled issues. We identify several insights for effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and also highlight important gaps researchers should move quickly to fill in the coming weeks and months

Feasibility study of worker safety at highway emergency lane

Safety procedures at highways are essential to ensure safe, clean and accessible roads and highways. The workers were often exposed to hazardous situations, as seen by numerous accidents involving highway workers on the road in recent years. Safety technologies in the highway construction work zone may help improve the roadway construction and maintenance workers’ safety. This paper reviews the statistics of road accidents in Malaysia, highway work zone safety problems and existing applications of safety sensor systems as an improvement of safety technology in the construction work zones. As an improvement towards the safety technology, Signal Warning Detector (SWAD) system was developed to increase the safety at highway work zone especially on PLUS highways in Malaysia. The development of the SWAD system’s parameter setting was discussed later in the methodology section of this pape

A review of reliability tests on safety technologies

A road maintenance employee is someone who ensures that roads and highways are safe, clean, and accessible. They perform a variety of tasks that demand physical exertion, such as repairing damaged automobiles, performing routine check-up procedures, or performing restoration work, among others. As a result, these workers may be exposed to hazardous situations, as there have been multiple accidents involving highway workers on the road recently. Signal Warning Detector casing structure was designed as part of a safety system to provide early warning to highway workers as traffic accidents among highway workers have become a concern. This study reviews the different reliability tests done on casing structure by previous researchers. Therefore, this study applies laboratory experiments to further test the reliability for the SWAD transmitter and receiver casing structure as a development step towards producing a reliable SWAD syste

A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions1, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process2. In April 2020, an influential paper3 proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandemic-related research articles that empirically investigated those claims. We report the scale of evidence and whether evidence supports them to indicate applicability for policymaking. Two independent teams, involving 72 reviewers, found evidence for 18 of 19 claims, with both teams finding evidence supporting 16 (89%) of those 18 claims. The strongest evidence supported claims that anticipated culture, polarization and misinformation would be associated with policy effectiveness. Claims suggesting trusted leaders and positive social norms increased adherence to behavioural interventions also had strong empirical support, as did appealing to social consensus or bipartisan agreement. Targeted language in messaging yielded mixed effects and there were no effects for highlighting individual benefits or protecting others. No available evidence existed to assess any distinct differences in effects between using the terms ‘physical distancing’ and ‘social distancing’. Analysis of 463 papers containing data showed generally large samples; 418 involved human participants with a mean of 16,848 (median of 1,699). That statistical power underscored improved suitability of behavioural science research for informing policy decisions. Furthermore, by implementing a standardized approach to evidence selection and synthesis, we amplify broader implications for advancing scientific evidence in policy formulation and prioritization

A synthesis of evidence for policy from behavioural science during COVID-19

Scientific evidence regularly guides policy decisions 1, with behavioural science increasingly part of this process 2. In April 2020, an influential paper 3 proposed 19 policy recommendations (‘claims’) detailing how evidence from behavioural science could contribute to efforts to reduce impacts and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Here we assess 747 pandemic-related research articles that empirically investigated those claims. We report the scale of evidence and whether evidence supports them to indicate applicability for policymaking. Two independent teams, involving 72 reviewers, found evidence for 18 of 19 claims, with both teams finding evidence supporting 16 (89%) of those 18 claims. The strongest evidence supported claims that anticipated culture, polarization and misinformation would be associated with policy effectiveness. Claims suggesting trusted leaders and positive social norms increased adherence to behavioural interventions also had strong empirical support, as did appealing to social consensus or bipartisan agreement. Targeted language in messaging yielded mixed effects and there were no effects for highlighting individual benefits or protecting others. No available evidence existed to assess any distinct differences in effects between using the terms ‘physical distancing’ and ‘social distancing’. Analysis of 463 papers containing data showed generally large samples; 418 involved human participants with a mean of 16,848 (median of 1,699). That statistical power underscored improved suitability of behavioural science research for informing policy decisions. Furthermore, by implementing a standardized approach to evidence selection and synthesis, we amplify broader implications for advancing scientific evidence in policy formulation and prioritization

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types