Health literacy - is it useful in prevention of behavioral risk factors of NCDs?

Background: Health literacy means cognitive and social skills of a person that determine his or her ability to access, understand and use health information to maintain and promote health. People need to understand and use health information in order to choose a healthy lifestyle or to take advantage of preventive measures. The occurrence and consequences of NCDs are related to unhealthy life styles. Insight into the relationship between health literacy and modifiable behavioral risk factors of NCDs may support the prevention and control of these diseases.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1367 adults. Multi-stage random sampling was used. Data entry and analysis was done using Stata 11.0 statistical package. Multiple logistic regression analysis was applied to assess the association between health literacy and behavioral risk factors.Results: The proportion of participants who reported ever smoking, ever alcohol drinking and not-practicing daily-exercise was 19.8%, 16.2% and 85.2%, respectively. The prevalence of satisfactory level of health literacy was 31.5%. Health literacy was significantly related to behavioral risk factors even if age, sex, education status and monthly household’s expenditure were adjusted. By improving the health literacy status of adults up to satisfactory level, the prevalence of ever smoking, ever drinking and not-practicing daily exercise among them would be reduced by 34%, 32.1% and 38.9%, respectively.Conclusions: Health literacy status of community should be assessed, monitored and improved. Health literacy may be an effective tool in prevention and control of NCDs because of its preventive effect on modifiable behavioral risk factors.

Enhancement of Cluster-based Routing Protocol with Parameters Consideration in Wireless Sensor Network

A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of large number of battery operated sensor nodes which are generally deployed in different environments. These sensor nodes have limited energy to sense, process and transmit information. Therefore, there is a need to design an energy efficient routing protocol to extend the lifetime of a WSN. Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocols are considered to optimize the energy consumption. In this paper, a cluster based routing protocol called Enhancement of Cluster-based Routing Protocol with Parameter Consideration (ECRP-PC) is proposed, in which an assistant Cluster Head called Vice Cluster Head (VCH) is introduced in addition to Cluster Head (CH).  In a cluster, the node with the highest residual energy among all nodes is selected as the CH, and the node with second highest residual energy is selected by the CH as the VCH when the cluster head distance is longer than the specified distance. VCH will serve as a backup node of the CH. The selected VCH will be in a sleep mode as long as the energy of CH is above a threshold, and it will become active when the energy of CH is below a threshold. According to the results, the proposed ECRP-PC protocol is able to increase the average lifetime of nodes up to 56% compared to the original LEACH

Evaluation on dry forage yields and nutritional characteristics of introduced herbaceous legumes in Myanmar

The study was carried out to evaluate the forage yields, nutritive values and in vitro fermentation parameters of herbaceous legumes. Five varieties of introduced herbaceous legumes; Stylosanthes guianensis cv. Ubon stylo, Macrotyloma axillare cv. Archer, Centrosema brasilianum cv. Ooloo, Stylosanthes guianensis cv. Stylo 184 and Macroptilum bracteatum cv. Cadarga were evaluated at the research farm, University of Veterinary Science, Yezin, Myanmar. No fertilizer and no irrigation were applied for cultivation to test drought resistance. Dry forage yield, nutritive values and gas production at four harvesting times were measured with 4×5 factorial arrangement (5 legumes and 4 harvesting time) in randomized complete block design. There was no interaction between legumes and harvesting time on forage yield, nutritive values and fermentation parameters but they were affected by the main effects of legume types and harvesting time. Among the legume forages, the highest dry forage yields were found in Ooloo, Ubon stylo, and Stylo 184, and followed by the DM yield of Archer and Cadarga. The DM yield of the second harvest was significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of the first, third and fourth harvest which were not significantly different from each other. As a chemical composition, the DM content of Archer was lower (p<0.05) than those of other varieties. Among the legumes forages, the lower CP content was found in Cadarga. The higher NDF was observed in Ooloo. Ooloo, Ubon stylo and Cadarga showed higher ADF in comparison with the other two varieties. Among the harvesting time, the lowest DM content was found at the first harvest. The highest CP content was found at third harvest. The NDF content was not significantly different. The lowest ADF content was found in fourth harvest. According to the dry forage yield, Ubon stylo and Ooloo had the highest dry forage yield and in term of nutritive values, Stylo 184 and Archer had higher nutritive values. As the main effect of forages, Stylo 184 and Archer had higher gas production in comparison with the other varieties. As the main effect of harvesting time, the fourth harvest had the highest gas production in comparison with other harvesting time. It could be better for cultivation by application of fertilizer and irrigation to get more forage yield and quality. &nbsp

Myanmar migrants living along the Thailand-Myanmar border: Experiences related to pandemic and migration decisions

ImportanceIn Myanmar, amid political and civil unrest, droves of Burmese are displaced to neighboring countries including Thailand. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about the available healthcare services and health and well-being among refugees and migrant workers within resettlement areas along the Myanmar-Thailand border.ObjectiveTo explore the unmet needs of migrants along the Thailand-Myanmar border during the COVID-19 pandemic and their reasons for leaving Myanmar.DesignA qualitative study that used focus groups with migrant schoolteachers and school masters was undertaken. An interpretative analysis approach was used to analyze the data from the focus group sessions. The study followed the COREQ (COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative) checklist.SettingIn July 2022, community stakeholders from migrant schools located in the vicinity of Mae Sot, Thailand were referred to the study team.ParticipantsA purposive sample of 17 adult participants was recruited from 4 migrant schools. The participants were schoolteachers and schoolmasters who had traveled from Myanmar to Thailand 1 to 20 years ago.Main outcomes and measuresThematic analysis was used to scrutinize qualitative data for the outcomes of health and well-being, barriers, and reasons for migration.ResultsThree main themes were identified: "issues related to the pandemic", "teenage marriage and pregnancies" and "migration decisions". The issues related to the pandemic included behavior changes in children, a diminished quality of education, and barriers to receiving COVID-19 vaccines and accessing other health care. There were more dropouts due to teenage pregnancy/marriage during the shelter in place mandate. Migration decisions were affected by concerns over health, civil unrest, and military harassment.Conclusions and relevanceThis study presented the difficulties experienced by Myanmar migrants currently living along the Thailand-Myanmar border. The reasons for leaving Myanmar included health and safety. Suspending education during the pandemic caused more school dropouts due to teenage pregnancy/marriage. Additionally, behavioral changes in children, a diminished quality of education, barriers to receiving COVID-19 vaccines and access to other health care services were reported. Future studies should focus on how migration stress and access to mental health care impact the migrant population

Design of a voltage collapse monitoring device using local information

This project developed a MATLAB GUI application to monitor the voltage collapse point of 3-phase 4-wire power system using locally available information which can be read using a microprocessor-based multi-instrument unit called the MIC. The three methods used to monitor in this project are “Thevenin”, “V-I characteristic” and “Voltage Stability Index”. The result will show as line graph on the display window of MATLAB developed program in real-time. This will be useful for predicting voltage stability of the power system so that the power black out or voltage collapsing can be protected.Bachelor of Engineerin

Defensive Analysis on Web-Application Input Validation for Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Attack `

Nowadays, any kinds of cyber-attacks arefirstly attacked to web site and the site containsinformation about business, government andother organizations. So, the role of web pagesecurity is becoming the essential part of cybersecurity. Most of the web pages are suffered fromattacks such as Advanced Persistent Threat(APT). An APT is an extended campaigntargeted at a specific organization to achieve aclear objective. Most of the web pages havemuch vulnerability due to insecure source codes.In this paper, it will be defined web pagevulnerabilities on PHP source code. It will becollected the attacks from the scenarios. Theresult can be concluded the attack vectors via thesource code. Each level of source code can begenerated by the attributes of source code. Theseattributes can be measured in order to securesource codes and can be evaluated by measuringthe vulnerabilities metrics

Erythrocyte Antioxidant Enzymes Activities and Plasma Carbonyl Protein Levels in Smokers

Smoking has been implicated in the pathogenesis of ischemic heart disease, chronic obstructive lung diseases and cancer.</p

Health literacy - is it useful in prevention of behavioral risk factors of NCDs?

Health literacy means cognitive and social skills of a person that determine his or her ability to access, understand and use health information to maintain and promote health. People need to understand and use health information in order to choose a healthy lifestyle or to take advantage of preventive measures. The occurrence and consequences of NCDs are related to unhealthy life styles.</p