EFL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES OF WILLINGNESS TO COMMUNICATE IN EXTRAMURAL DIGITAL CONTEXT

This study investigate the positive relationship between extramural digital activities and EFL students’ willingness to communicate. Extramural digital context is learning English outside the classroom without teachers’ involvement. It encourages EFL students to feel more comfortable in L2 willingness to communicate. Furthermore, this research investigated students’ experiences and factors that may influence EFL students’ willingness to communicate towards extramural digital context using qualitative research, specifically case study as the research design. The researcher collected the data from six EFL students from several universities in Indonesia with four female and two male using semi-structured interview and questionnaires. The interviews data were analyzed by using thematic analysis and using descriptive statistics analysis for the questionnaires. The findings showed that the convenience of extramural digital context and students’ self-confidence indicate as the factors that influence students’ willingness to communicate using English. Additionally, based on students’ experiences of using extramural digital context, listening to music is considered as the most frequently used by students. This research contribute to gain deep understanding about L2 willingness to communicate and extramural digital context. In pedagogical insight, this research help English teacher to facilitate EFL students in extramural digital context to increase students’ willingness to communicate

Organizational Climate Correlates Nurses' Intention to Leave Work

Good organizational climate associated with high degree of employees' satisfaction, performance,  organizational commitment and decrease the intention to leave work.  A descriptive correctional study design was used to determine the correlation between organizational climate and intent to leave work among nurses at main Assuit University Hospital. The total sample size comprised all nurses worked in the selected units was (140) nurse, classified as follows: (89) from general medical unit and (51) from intensive care units. The variables investigated were organizational climate and intent to leave. Data was collected by using the perceived nurse work environment organizational climate scale and the intention to leave factors questionnaire. Our results indicated a negative correlation between organizational climate and nurses’ intention to leave.  In view of our findings we recommend that administrative team of Assuit University Hospital should improve the nurse's salaries, maintaining supportive relationships, sharing them in policy making and administrative decisions. Keywords: Organizational climate, Intent to leave, Nurses, Intensive care units

Study of Treg FOXP3 in childhood bronchial asthma in relation to corticosteroid therapy

Background: T cells are considered the main cells responsible for production of suppressive cytokines, and play a key role in balancing the immune responses to maintain the peripheral tolerance against allergens. Objective: The present study investigates T regulatory (Treg) forkheadwinged helix protein 3 FOXP3 expression in childhood asthma and its relation to corticosteroid therapy. Methods: In this case control study, Treg FOXP3 was measured in blood of 60 children using real time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) technique. Two asthmatic groups were included, one on corticosteroid therapy (20 patients) and the other not on corticosteroid treatment (20 patients). They were compared to 20 healthy children as controls. Results: FOXP3 concentration was significantly elevated in asthmatic patients (90 ± 77.4) compared to healthy children (12.844 ± 10.6) (p= 0.000). FOXP3 was significantly more elevated in asthmatics on corticosteroids (161.158 ± 63.9) than steroid naive asthmatics (36.038 ± 23.4) (p=0.000). Levels of Treg FOXP3 in asthmatics with inhaled corticosteroids (mean 151.16 ± 53.79) were almost similar to FOXP3 in asthmatics with systemic corticosteroids (161.49±72.5) (p>0.05). FOXP3 levels did not differ with smoking, asthma severity or disease control and did not correlate with age, FEV1, blood lymphocytes percentage or eosinophils percentage. Conclusion: Asthmatics have increased expression of FOXP3, and corticosteroid therapy –whether oral or inhaled - enhances FOXP3 expression.Keywords: FOXP3, Treg, Corticosteroids, Bronchial asthma, Transcription factors, CytokinesEgypt J Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2012;10(1):39-43

The Role of Educational Training Programs in Developing Teachers' Teaching Skills from their Own Standpoint "A Field Study at the Basic Education First-Cycle Schools in the City of Lattakia"

The current research aimed to identify the first-cycle teachers' standpoint regarding the extent of advantage that they have taken of training programs in terms of developing their teaching skills: lesson preparation and planning skill, lesson implementation skill, and lesson evaluation skill. It also aimed to figure out the obstacles that limit this advantage, seeking to provide some suggestions to face such obstacles. The method adopted was the descriptive one, and the tool was a questionnaire, prepared by the researcher, reviewed by specialists and studied in terms of its psychometric characteristics. The research was applied on a sample of 202 male and female teachers at the first-cycle schools in the city of Lattakia. The research concluded that the extent of contribution of the training programs regarding the development of the teachers' teaching skills from their own standpoint was at a high degree; it was high on both lesson preparation and planning skill and lesson evaluation skill, while it was moderate for lesson implementation skill. Moreover, the results showed a difference in the standpoint of teachers about the extent of the advantage that they have taken of training programs according to the variable of the academic qualification (on the behalf of those who have Educational Habilitation Diploma), according to the variable of experience years (on the behalf of those who have more than 10 years of experience), and according to the variable of the number of training courses (on the behalf of teachers who have undergone more than three courses). هدفت البحث الحالي إلى تعرّف وجهة نظر معلمي الحلقة الأولى حول درجة إفادتهم من البرامج التدريبية في تطوير مهاراتهم التدريسية (مهارة الإعداد والتخطيط للدرس، ومهارة تنفيذ الدرس، ومهارة تقويم الدرس), كما هدف إلى تعرّف المعوقات التي تحد من هذه الفائدة, وسعى لتقديم مقترحات لمواجهة هذه المعوقات. كان المنهج وصفي والأداة استبانة (معدّة من قبل الباحثة ومحكمة من قبل اختصاصيين والخصائص السيكومترية مدروسة), حيث طبقت على عينة مؤلفة من (202) معلماً ومعلمةً في مدارس الحقلة الأولى في مدينة اللاذقية. أظهرت نتائج البحث أن درجة مساهمة البرامج التدريبية في تطوير مهارات المعلمين التدريسية من وجهة نظرهم جاءت بدرجة مرتفعة (حيث كانت مرتفعة على مهارتي: الإعداد والتخطيط للدرس ومهارة تقويم الدرس، ومتوسطة على مهارة تنفيذ الدرس)، وبينت النتائج وجود اختلافُ في وجهات نظر المعلمين حول درجة إفادتهم من البرامج التدريبية بحسب متغير المؤهل العلمي (لصالح حملة دبلوم التأهيل التربوي), وبحسب متغير سنوات الخبرة (لصالح من لديهم خبرة أكثر من 10 سنوات), وبحسب متغير عدد الدورات التدريبية (لصالح المعلمين الذين خضعوا لأكثر من 3 دورات)

ViT-DeiT: An Ensemble Model for Breast Cancer Histopathological Images Classification

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the world and the second most common type of cancer that causes death in women. The timely and accurate diagnosis of breast cancer using histopathological images is crucial for patient care and treatment. Pathologists can make more accurate diagnoses with the help of a novel approach based on image processing. This approach is an ensemble model of two types of pre-trained vision transformer models, namely, Vision Transformer and Data-Efficient Image Transformer. The proposed ensemble model classifies breast cancer histopathology images into eight classes, four of which are categorized as benign, whereas the others are categorized as malignant. A public dataset was used to evaluate the proposed model. The experimental results showed 98.17% accuracy, 98.18% precision, 98.08% recall, and a 98.12% F1 score.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures, 7 table

Exploring the antibacterial potential of plant extracts and essential oils against Bacillus thermophilus in beet sugar for enhanced sucrose retention: a comparative assessment and implications

Sugar beet is one of the greatest sources for producing sugar worldwide. However, a group of bacteria grows on beets during the storage process, leading to a reduction in sucrose yield. Our study focused on identifying common bacterial species that grow on beets during manufacturing and contribute to sucrose loss. The ultimate goal was to find a potential antibacterial agent from various plant extracts and oils to inhibit the growth of these harmful bacteria and reduce sucrose losses. The screening of bacterial species that grow on beet revealed that a large group of mesophilic bacteria, such as Bacillus subtilis, Leuconostoc mesenteroides, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus xylosus, Enterobacter amnigenus, and Aeromonas species, in addition to a dominant thermophilic species called Bacillus thermophilus, were found to be present during the manufacturing of beets. The application of 20 plant extracts and 13 different oils indicated that the extracts of Geranium gruinum, Datura stramonium, and Mentha spicata were the best antibacterials to reduce the growth of B. thermophilus with inhibition zones equal to 40, 39, and 35 mm, respectively. In contrast, the best active oils for inhibiting the growth of B. thermophilus were Mentha spicata and Ocimum bacilicum, with an inhibitory effect of 50 and 45 mm, respectively. RAPD-PCR with different primers indicated that treating sugar juice with the most effective oils against bacteria resulted in new recombinant microorganisms, confirming their roles as strong antibacterial products. The characterization of Mentha spicata and Ocimum bacilicum oils using GC/MS analysis identified cis-iso pulegone and hexadecanoic acid as the two main bioactive compounds with potential antibacterial activity. An analysis of five genes using DD-PCR that have been affected due to antibacterial activity from the highly effective oil from Mentha spicata concluded that all belonged to the family of protein defense. Our findings indicate that the application of these pure antibacterial plant extracts and oils would minimize the reduction of sucrose during sugar production.Peer Reviewe

The Role of Religion on Suicidal Behavior, Attitudes and Psychological Distress in University Students: A Multinational Study

The purpose of this study was to determine the association of religion to suicidal behavior, attitudes and psychological distress in 5572 students from 12 countries by means of a selfreport questionnaire. Our results showed that an affiliation with Islam was associated with reduced risk for suicide ideation, however affiliating with Orthodox Christianity and no religion was related to increased risk for suicide ideation. While affiliating with Buddhism, Catholic religion and no religion associated with lowered risk for attempting suicide, affiliation with Islam was related to heightened risk for attempting suicide. Affiliation with Hinduism, Orthodox Christianity, Protestantism, Catholicism, other religions and with no religion was associated with decreased risk for psychological distress but those reported affiliating with Islam evinced greater risk for psychological distress. The associations of the strength of religious belief to suicidal ideation and attempts were in the expected direction for most but it had a positive relation in respondents affiliating with Catholicism and other religions. Students reporting affiliation with Islam, Orthodox religion and Buddhism were the least accepting of suicide but they displayed a more confronting interpersonal style to an imagined peer with a suicidal decision. It was concluded that the protective function of religion in educated segments of populations (university students) and in university students residing in Muslim countries where freedom from religion is restricted or religion is normative and/or compulsory is likely to be limited. Our findings suggest that public policies supporting religious freedom may augment the protective function of religion against suicide and psychological distress

Biogenic silver nanoparticles eradicate of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) isolated from the sputum of COVID-19 patients

In recent investigations, secondary bacterial infections were found to be strongly related to mortality in COVID-19 patients. In addition, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria played an important role in the series of bacterial infections that accompany infection in COVID-19. The objective of the present study was to investigate the ability of biosynthesized silver nanoparticles from strawberries (Fragaria ananassa L.) leaf extract without a chemical catalyst to inhibit Gram-negative P. aeruginosa and Gram-positive Staph aureus isolated from COVID-19 patient’s sputum. A wide range of measurements was performed on the synthesized AgNPs, including UV–vis, SEM, TEM, EDX, DLS, ζ -potential, XRD, and FTIR. UV-Visible spectral showed the absorbance at the wavelength 398 nm with an increase in the color intensity of the mixture after 8 h passed at the time of preparation confirming the high stability of the FA-AgNPs in the dark at room temperature. SEM and TEM measurements confirmed AgNPs with size ranges of ∼40-∼50 nm, whereas the DLS study confirmed their average hydrodynamic size as ∼53 nm. Furthermore, Ag NPs. EDX analysis showed the presence of the following elements: oxygen (40.46%), and silver (59.54%). Biosynthesized FA-AgNPs (ζ = −17.5 ± 3.1 mV) showed concentration-dependent antimicrobial activity for 48 h in both pathogenic strains. MTT tests showed concentration-dependent and line-specific effects of FA-AgNPs on cancer MCF-7 and normal liver WRL-68 cell cultures. According to the results, synthetic FA-AgNPs obtained through an environmentally friendly biological process are inexpensive and may inhibit the growth of bacteria isolated from COVID-19 patients

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London

The Burden of Mental Disorders in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 1990-2013

Charara R, Forouzanfar M, Naghavi M, et al. The Burden of Mental Disorders in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, 1990-2013. PLOS ONE. 2017;12(1): e0169575.The Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) is witnessing an increase in chronic disorders, including mental illness. With ongoing unrest, this is expected to rise. This is the first study to quantify the burden of mental disorders in the EMR. We used data from the Global Burden of Disease study (GBD) 2013. DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) allow assessment of both premature mortality (years of life lost-YLLs) and nonfatal outcomes (years lived with disability-YLDs). DALYs are computed by adding YLLs and YLDs for each age-sex-country group. In 2013, mental disorders contributed to 5.6% of the total disease burden in the EMR (1894 DALYS/100,000 population): 2519 DALYS/100,000 (2590/100,000 males, 2426/100,000 females) in high-income countries, 1884 DALYS/100,000 (1618/100,000 males, 2157/100,000 females) in middle-income countries, 1607 DALYS/100,000 (1500/100,000 males, 1717/100,000 females) in low-income countries. Females had a greater proportion of burden due to mental disorders than did males of equivalent ages, except for those under 15 years of age. The highest proportion of DALYs occurred in the 25-49 age group, with a peak in the 35-39 years age group (5344 DALYs/100,000). The burden of mental disorders in EMR increased from 1726 DALYs/100,000 in 1990 to 1912 DALYs/100,000 in 2013 (10.8% increase). Within the mental disorders group in EMR, depressive disorders accounted for most DALYs, followed by anxiety disorders. Among EMR countries, Palestine had the largest burden of mental disorders. Nearly all EMR countries had a higher mental disorder burden compared to the global level. Our findings call for EMR ministries of health to increase provision of mental health services and to address the stigma of mental illness. Moreover, our results showing the accelerating burden of mental health are alarming as the region is seeing an increased level of instability. Indeed, mental health problems, if not properly addressed, will lead to an increased burden of diseases in the region