Unbound: Breaking the Bonds of Modern Day Slavery

Undergraduate Graphic Desig

Overcoming a difficult 'area'

One of the problems of the young teacher in the primary school is to find the middle-of-the-road course between what mathematics his pupils need to know and that mathematics which is prescribed in the syllabus for the examination. In an ideal setting there should be no conflict really and this is chiefly for two reasons: (a) the primary school teacher should teach mainly mathematical concepts and later someone else will teach the necessary arithmetic rules and techniques; (b) a satisfactory treatment of primary mathematics is achieved if the teacher has clearly in his mind the correct balance and treatment of the separate topics to which the prescribed syllabus is an approximation.peer-reviewe

Smallness and infinity in mathematics : an intuitive approach

The widespread availability of pocket calculators has widened the domain of possible investigations at certain levels in mathematics, in the secondary school classroom no less than in the university lecture-room. Most school boys and girls use the calculator and many of them may have asked what is the meaning of the letter e which appears on the key ex. This article is intended to explain the background which is necessary to understand the meaning of e and it is hoped that the numerical value of 2.718 assigned to e will no longer remain mysterious to readers who are non mathematicians. A knowledge of the realistic fractions e.g. that 1/6 is less than 1/4 , is the kind of mathematics required to follow the discussion.peer-reviewe

Treating the patient not just the disease? : Delving deeper into the possible link between affective disorders and coronary heart disease through statistical analysis of a random sample of Maltese people

Background: Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of death in Males in Malta and globally. Affective disorders are the commonest psychological problem. This cross-sectional study utilizes a multiple regression model utilizing binary logistic to delve deeper into the link between affective disorders and coronary heart disease and also the link between coronary heart disease and anxiety and depression separately. Methods: The study was performed in the small Mediterranean island of Malta through the European health interview survey (EHIS), at a national level involving 5500 participants. The response rate attained in the actual field work was 72%. Statistical analysis involved performing chi-squared tests on all contributing variables and retaining those variables that were significant to both diseases. These were then placed in a multiple regression model using forward stepwise binary logistic to retain only the most significant variables. Results: Age, gender, BMI, diabetes prevalence, depression prevalence, anxiety prevalence, hypertension prevalence, affective disorders( having either anxiety or depression), smoking status, frequency of alcohol intake, and educational level all had a significance of <0.05, some; than less than 0.01. On fitting a multiple regression model, Anxiety (p=0.033), age (p=<0.001), gender (p=<0.001), hypertension (p=0.016) retained their significance in the model. Diabetes could not be analyzed due to power issues. Conclusion: BMI was not retained in the model having been replaced by associated conditions such as hypertension, together with age and gender as strongly associated risk factors. Anxiety nevertheless retained its independent association with coronary heart disease, in spite of the presence of the other stronger predictors described above.peer-reviewe

Investigating the effect of long-term musical experience on the auditory processing skills of young Maltese adults

Learning and practising a musical instrument has recently been thought to ‘train’ the brain into processing sound in a more refined manner.As a result, musicians experiencing consistent exposure to musical practice have been suspected to have superior auditory processing skills. This study aimed to investigate this phenomenon within the Maltese context, by testing two cohorts of young Maltese adults. Participants in the musician cohort experienced consistent musical training throughout their lifetime, while those in the non-musician cohort did not have a history of musical training. A total of 24 Maltese speakers (14 musicians and 10 non-musicians) of ages ranging between 19 and 31 years were tested for Frequency Discrimination (FD), Duration Discrimination (DD), Temporal Resolution (TR) and speech-in-noise recognition. The main outcomes yielded by each cohort were compared and analysed statistically. In comparison to the non-musician cohort, the musicians performed in a slightly better manner throughout testing. Statistical superiority was surprisingly only present in the FD test. Although musicians displayed a degree of superiority in performance on the other tests, differences in mean scores were not statistically significant. The results yielded by this investigation are to a degree coherent with implications of previous research, in that the effect of long-term musical experience on the trained cohort manifested itself in a slight superiority in performance on auditory processing tasks. However, this difference in scoring was not prominent enough to be statistically significant.peer-reviewe

Clinical trials on medicinal products in Malta following EU accession

Following EU Accession, Malta has to adopt EU Directives as part of its own legislation. Three such directives concern the conduct of clinical trials in European countries ­ 2001/20/EC, 2003/94/EC and 2005/28/EC. These directives, and the respective guidelines explaining their implementation, have considerably changed the way clinical trials are conducted. While the participation of Malta in clinical trials is to be encouraged for various reasons, these have to be regulated according to the legislation set out by the European Union. In themselves, what these Directives strive to achieve are mainly the safety of the study subject and the protection of the investigators from serious consequences. This short article aims to give a brief overview of these changes to prospective investigators and hospital administrators.peer-reviewe