A survey of the attitudes and knowledge of parents of high school children on the East Rand on the usage of nutritional supplements

Background: The use of nutritional supplements (NS) by adolescents seems to be an escalating problem in South Africa. Any supplementary product ingested to boost the nutritional content of a normal diet to either fill a need or presumed deficiency, including any sports or energy drink, tablets or injections, are deemed as NS for the purpose of this study. Parents seem to agree that children who play sport are allowed to use NS to assist them to perform better, without knowledge of the health risks associated with these products. Despite information on websites and information sessions arranged by schools, parents seem to disregard advice given to them by experts.Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes and level of knowledge of parents of children on the East Rand with regard to NS usage.Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which used a previously validated, self-administered questionnaire for the parents (n = 198). It also included an interview with a focus group consisting of coaches and administrative staff (n = 9) representing each sports code selected for the purpose of this study. The data were analysed using largely descriptive statistics.Results: Nine percent of parents indicated that they considered themselves well informed with regard to NS; 13% indicated that they would support their children in obtaining NS without efficacy being proven and 75% indicated their awareness of the risk of NS being contaminated. Coaches viewed the role of parents as integral regarding a healthy diet but indicated that the use of NS could not be ignored, also admitting to a lack in knowledge regarding NS.Conclusion: Parents and coaches demonstrated limited knowledge regarding NS. Their knowledge was formed from information on labels and the internet. Parents have a positive attitude towards the use of NS by their children despite indicating an awareness of the health risks related to NS usage.Keywords: adolescents, presumed deficiency, nutrients, health risks, limited knowledg

A deep learning approach to diabetic blood glucose prediction

We consider the question of 30-minute prediction of blood glucose levels measured by continuous glucose monitoring devices, using clinical data. While most studies of this nature deal with one patient at a time, we take a certain percentage of patients in the data set as training data, and test on the remainder of the patients; i.e., the machine need not re-calibrate on the new patients in the data set. We demonstrate how deep learning can outperform shallow networks in this example. One novelty is to demonstrate how a parsimonious deep representation can be constructed using domain knowledge

A survey of the attitudes and knowledge of parents of high school children on the East Rand on the usage of nutritional supplements

Background: The use of nutritional supplements (NS) by adolescents seems to be an escalating problem in South Africa. Any supplementary product ingested to boost the nutritional content of a normal diet to either fill a need or presumed deficiency, including any sports or energy drink, tablets or injections, are deemed as NS for the purpose of this study. Parents seem to agree that children who play sport are allowed to use NS to assist them to perform better, without knowledge of the health risks associated with these products. Despite information on websites and information sessions arranged by schools, parents seem to disregard advice given to them by experts. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the attitudes and level of knowledge of parents of children on the East Rand with regard to NS usage. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study which used a previously validated, self-administered questionnaire for the parents (n = 198). It also included an interview with a focus group consisting of coaches and administrative staff (n = 9) representing each sports code selected for the purpose of this study. The data were analysed using largely descriptive statistics. Results: Nine percent of parents indicated that they considered themselves well informed with regard to NS; 13% indicated that they would support their children in obtaining NS without efficacy being proven and 75% indicated their awareness of the risk of NS being contaminated. Coaches viewed the role of parents as integral regarding a healthy diet but indicated that the use of NS could not be ignored, also admitting to a lack in knowledge regarding NS. Conclusion: Parents and coaches demonstrated limited knowledge regarding NS. Their knowledge was formed from information on labels and the internet. Parents have a positive attitude towards the use of NS by their children despite indicating an awareness of the health risks related to NS usage

Successful first-year learning: A social cognitive view of academic literacy

The research data used in this article are drawn from a study conducted in  a business faculty at a Historically Black South African University during  2009 and 2010. A comparison was made in the study between two groups  of first-year students: a group that had passed all their modules and a group that had failed some of their modules at the end of their first year of study. The aim was to investigate factors that had an impact on the successful completion of the first year of study by problematising theperception that those students from disadvantaged backgrounds or under-resourced schools are necessarily disadvantaged and destined to fail. In this article the focus is on the successful group of students and their mastery of academic discourse situated in the complexity of social and academic interaction. The findings indicate that the inter-relatedness of personal, academic, social and institutional factors mirror the inter-related way in which the students had experienced them. These findings furtherunderline the fact that successful learning is a complex and multi-layered process that is ongoing and that needs to be monitored, sustained and evaluated throughout students’ study careers. The students’ personal perspectives on academic study provided not only evidence that the development of academic literacy is socially situated and constructed but also showed how successful students manage their academic learningto mitigate under-preparedness and adverse personal circumstances.Key words: Students, successful learning, academic literacy, interrelated, socially situated

BENCHMARKING OF FDM PRINTED REPLACEMENT PARTS FOR RURAL WHEELCHAIRS

ArticleMany disabled patients rely on wheelchairs for mobility to participate as equal citizens within society. Wheelchairs supplied through state healthcare are often not well suited to especially rural conditions and often break-down. This study investigates if entry level Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) can be used to produce front caster wheels and seat post guides that commonly fail on wheelchairs. Results of the study has shown that these parts can be produced with good quality and at reasonable cost through FDM. The ability to manufacture custom made parts on request through FDM was shown to be a real advantage to supply hard to source wheelchair parts in the rural communities

Last mile cold chain distribution challenges for privately-owned and retail pharmacies in Auckland Park and surrounding areas, Johannesburg

Abstract: Research objective: The primary research objective was to determine the challenges prevailing in the last mile distribution of cold chain medication to privately-owned and retail pharmacies in Auckland Park and surrounding areas. Methodology: A positivist research philosophy guided a descriptive quantitative survey design. Structured questionnaires were hand-delivered to all 43 privately-owned and retail pharmacies in the Auckland Park and surrounding areas. Findings: Some discrepancies were found in the cold chain distribution process that could compromise the quality of the cold chain medication. Although these pharmacies mostly used the correct storage systems for cold chain medication within the specified temperature range, the appropriate mode of transportation for delivery to the pharmacy is questionable..

Detection of new sources of methanol emission at 107 and 108 GHz with the Mopra telescope

A southern hemisphere survey of methanol emission sources in two millimeter wave transitions has been carried out using the ATNF Mopra millimetre telescope. Sixteen emission sources have been detected in the 3(1)-4(0)A+ transition of methanol at 107 GHz, including six new sources exhibiting class II methanol maser emission features. Combining these results with the similar northern hemisphere survey, a total of eleven 107-GHz methanol masers have been detected. A survey of the methanol emission in the 0(0)-1(-1)E transition at 108 GHz resulted in the detection of 16 sources; one of them showing maser characteristics. This is the first methanol maser detected at 108 GHz, presumably of class II. The results of LVG statistical equilibrium calculations confirm the classification of these new sources as a class II methanol masers.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, mn.sty include

Multiple Sclerosis Susceptibility-Associated SNPs Do Not Influence Disease Severity Measures in a Cohort of Australian MS Patients

Recent association studies in multiple sclerosis (MS) have identified and replicated several single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) susceptibility loci including CLEC16A, IL2RA, IL7R, RPL5, CD58, CD40 and chromosome 12q13–14 in addition to the well established allele HLA-DR15. There is potential that these genetic susceptibility factors could also modulate MS disease severity, as demonstrated previously for the MS risk allele HLA-DR15. We investigated this hypothesis in a cohort of 1006 well characterised MS patients from South-Eastern Australia. We tested the MS-associated SNPs for association with five measures of disease severity incorporating disability, age of onset, cognition and brain atrophy. We observed trends towards association between the RPL5 risk SNP and time between first demyelinating event and relapse, and between the CD40 risk SNP and symbol digit test score. No associations were significant after correction for multiple testing. We found no evidence for the hypothesis that these new MS disease risk-associated SNPs influence disease severity