706 research outputs found
Risky Driving Behaviors among Medical Students in the Middle East: Identifying Areas for Intervention
A cross sectional study was conducted on medical students enrolled in the Arabian Gulf University in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The objective was to describe medical students’ risk-taking behaviors while driving and to provide recommendations for promoting safe driving behaviors among them. A self administered anonymous questionnaire was used, which included questions on demography and driving behaviors. Medical students demonstrated risk taking behaviors while driving, as 40.1% of them did not use their seatbelts, 49.6% speeded (>100km/hr), 54.7% talked on their mobile phones and 45.9% wrote/read text messages while driving. Female students had lower driving risk taking behaviors compared to males. Driving risk taking behaviors declined as students progressed in their medical years. Saudi and Kuwaiti students had more risk taking behaviors than other nationalities. Driving risk taking behaviors cluster among students according to gender, medical year and nationality. Urgent interventions are needed to promote safe driving behaviors among students
Cancer Research in the Arab World : A review of publications from seven countries between 2000–2013
This review aimed to examine trends in cancer research in the Arab world and identify existing research gaps. A search of the MEDLINE® database (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland, USA) was undertaken for all cancer-related publications published between January 2000 and December 2013 from seven countries, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Sudan. A total of 1,773 articles were identified, with a significant increase in yearly publications over time (P <0.005). Only 30.6% of the publications included subjects over the age of 50 years old. There was a dearth of cross-sectional/correlational studies (8.8%), randomised controlled trials (2.4%) and systematic reviews/meta-analyses (1.3%). Research exploring cancer associations mainly considered social and structural determinants of health (27.1%), followed by behavioural risk factors (14.1%), particularly tobacco use. Overall, more cancer research is needed in the Arab world, particularly analytical studies with high-quality evidence and those focusing on older age groups and associations with physical activity and diet
Resonant excitation of vortex gyrotropic mode via surface acoustic waves
Finding new energy-efficient methods for exciting magnetization dynamics is
one of the key challenges in magnonics. In this work, we present an approach to
excite the gyrotropic dynamics of magnetic vortices through the phenomenon of
inverse magnetostriction, also known as the Villari effect. We develop an
analytical model based on the Thiele formalism that describes the gyrotropic
motion of the vortex core including the energy contributions due to inverse
magnetostriction. Based on this model, we predict excitations of the vortex
core resonances by surface acoustic waves whose frequency is resonant with the
frequency of the vortex core. We verify the model's prediction using
micromagnetic simulations, and show the dependence of the vortex core's
oscillation radius on the surface acoustic wave amplitude and the static bias
field. Our study contributes to the advancement of energy-efficient magnetic
excitations by relying on voltage-induced driven dynamics, which is an
alternative to conventional current-induced excitations
Mental health stigma at primary health care centres in Lebanon: qualitative study
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec>
<jats:title>Background</jats:title>
<jats:p>Mental health-related stigma is a global public health concern and a major barrier to seeking care. In this study, we explored the role of stigma as a barrier to scaling up mental health services in primary health care (PHC) centres in Lebanon. We focused on the experiences of Healthcare Providers (HCPs) providing services to patients with mental health conditions (MHCs), the views of policy makers, and the perceptions of stigma or discrimination among individuals with MHCs. This study was conducted as part of INDIGO-PRIMARY, a larger multinational stigma reduction programme.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Methods</jats:title>
<jats:p>Semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 45) were carried out with policy makers (n = 3), PHC management (n = 4), PHC staff (n = 24), and service users (SUs) (n = 14) between August 2018 and September 2019. These interviews explored mental health knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of staff, challenges of providing treatment, and patient outcomes. All interviews were coded using NVivo and a thematic coding framework.</jats:p>
</jats:sec><jats:sec>
<jats:title>Results</jats:title>
<jats:p>The results of this study are presented under three themes: (1) stigma at PHC level, (2) stigma outside PHC centres, and (3) structural stigma. SUs did not testify to discrimination from HCPs but did describe stigmatising behaviour from their families. Interestingly, at the PHC level, stigma reporting differed among staff according to a power gradient. Nurses and social workers did not explicitly report incidents of stigma but described patients with MHCs as uncooperative, underscoring their internalized negative views on mental health. General practitioners and directors were more outspoken than nurses regarding the challenges faced with mental health patients. Mental health professionals revealed that HCPs still hold implicitly negative views towards patients with MHCs however their attitude has improved recently. Our analysis highlights five layers of stigma affecting SUs.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title>
<jats:p>This qualitative study reveals that stigma was still a key concern that affects patients with MHC. SUs reported experiencing overt stigmatising behaviour in the community but less explicit discrimination in a PHC setting. Our findings emphasise the importance of (1) combatting structural stigma through legal reform, (2) addressing interpersonal stigma, (3) committing PHC management to deliver high quality mental health integrated services, and (4) reducing intrapersonal stigma by building public empathy.</jats:p>
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Electronic control of the spin-wave damping in a magnetic insulator
It is demonstrated that the decay time of spin-wave modes existing in a
magnetic insulator can be reduced or enhanced by injecting an in-plane dc
current, , in an adjacent normal metal with strong spin-orbit
interaction. The demonstration rests upon the measurement of the ferromagnetic
resonance linewidth as a function of in a 5~m diameter
YIG(20nm){\textbar}Pt(7nm) disk using a magnetic resonance force microscope
(MRFM). Complete compensation of the damping of the fundamental mode is
obtained for a current density of , in
agreement with theoretical predictions. At this critical threshold the MRFM
detects a small change of static magnetization, a behavior consistent with the
onset of an auto-oscillation regime.Comment: 6 pages 4 figure
A spintronic Huxley-Hodgkin-analogue neuron implemented with a single magnetic tunnel junction
Spiking neural networks aim to emulate the brain's properties to achieve
similar parallelism and high-processing power. A caveat of these neural
networks is the high computational cost to emulate, while current proposals for
analogue implementations are energy inefficient and not scalable. We propose a
device based on a single magnetic tunnel junction to perform neuron firing for
spiking neural networks without the need of any resetting procedure. We
leverage two physics, magnetism and thermal effects, to obtain a bio-realistic
spiking behavior analogous to the Huxley-Hodgkin model of the neuron. The
device is also able to emulate the simpler Leaky-Integrate and Fire model.
Numerical simulations using experimental-based parameters demonstrate firing
frequency in the MHz to GHz range under constant input at room temperature. The
compactness, scalability, low cost, CMOS-compatibility, and power efficiency of
magnetic tunnel junctions advocate for their broad use in hardware
implementations of spiking neural networks.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, 2 table
Perfect and robust phase-locking of a spin transfer vortex nano-oscillator to an external microwave source
We study the synchronization of the auto-oscillation signal generated by the spin transfer driven dynamics of two coupled vortices in a spin-valve nanopillar to an external source. Phase-locking to the microwave field hrf occurs in a range larger than 10% of the oscillator frequency for drive amplitudes of only a few Oersteds. Using synchronization at the double frequency, the generation linewidth is found to decrease by more than five orders of magnitude in the phase-locked regime (down to 1 Hz, limited by the resolution bandwidth of the spectrum analyzer) in comparison to the free running regime (140 kHz). This perfect phase-locking holds for frequency detuning as large as 2 MHz, which proves its robustness. We also analyze how the free running spectral linewidth impacts the main characteristics of the synchronization regime
Comparative Study of Different Data Mining Techniques in Predicting Forest Fire in Lebanon and Mediterranean
Forest fire is one of the most complex phenomena which can cause great economic losses and make eco-environment seriously disordered. Forest fire has caused the loss of many green acres in Lebanon due to the lack of governmental policies in order to mange forest fires. This paper presents an overview of the exciting applications of data mining techniques in different fields. This study aims to predict forest fires in North Lebanon in order to reduce fire occurrence based on 4 meteorological parameters (Temperature, Humidity, Precipitation and Wind speed) using different data mining techniques: Neural networks, decision tree (J48), fuzzy logic, support vector machine (SVM) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). A comparative study is then made to find the best performing technique tending to manage such a natural crisis. Decision tree (J48) recorded the best accuracy in forest fire prediction (97.8{%})
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