Challenges of Poverty on Sexual Reproductive Health

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This paper reflects on the challenges of poverty on sexual reproductive health in Botswana. It intends to stimulate discussions on issues surrounding poverty and sexual reproductive and how to alleviate such challenges. The challenges explored include: lack of information on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR); poor access to SRHR; lack of negotiation skills for sexuality, and adolescents in poverty and SRHR. The paper starts with an overview of poverty in Botswana, then discusses the challenges of poverty on sexual and reproductive health rights and lastly, the recommendations that intend to address the challenges of poverty related to SRHR.

Surgical Management of Necrotizing Sialometaplasia of Hard Palate: A Case Report

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Necrotizing Sialometaplasia is rare and in the oral cavity it accounts <1% of all biopsied lesion. For decades Necrotizing Sialometaplasia were treated by conservative management as it is a self healing lesion. The progressive healing period was reported from 2 weeks to 3 months in the literature. Is necrotizing sialometaplasia a self-limiting disease? Here we report a case of non-healing necrotizing sialometaplasia which was treated by surgical management. Complete regression of the lesion was evident after the surgical management and no recurrence until two years of follow-up.

Management of Blockchain Based Hybrid P2P Energy Trading Market

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In the local energy trade market peer to peer energy trading and generation of local energy can condense the cost of energy consumption and harmful gases emission ( results in to generate the energy at consumer’s end the renewable energy sources are used) and rise the resilience of smart grid. However, privacy issues and trust may available in the trading of local energy with peers. To manage the energy trading a centralized system can be utilized but it faces the several issues and also it promotes the overall system cost. In this tabloid, based on the blockchain system a hybrid P2P energy trading market is proposed. This system totally decentralized and this system allows that members in trading market can able to interact with each other member and can able to trade the energy without the third party involvement. In the blockchain based energy exchange market the smart agreements play a vital role. Smart agreements follows the all the essential rules in the energy trading. To develop the hybrid electricity exchange market the 3 smart agreements are proposed in this tabloid. The three smart agreements are Main Smart agreement, P2P smart agreement and Producer to Grid smart agreement. Initially the market member interacts with main smart agreement and for further process it follows the other 2 smart agreements. The implementation of an efficient hybrid energy exchange market is the main objective of this tabloid and also reduces the cost of energy and peak to average ratio of electricity.

Environmental Awareness and the Use of Disposable Plastic

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Disposable plastic pollution has become one of the biggest environmental issues. It is evident that single-use plastic products are cheap, versatile, lightweight, resistant, easily available everywhere, which has made them very popular among people around the globe.

However, in many countries, single-use plastic shopping bags are the main source of rubbish, causing pollution impacting the environment and biodiversity. Although a lot of people understand harmful effects of plastic pollution, most people still keep using single-use plastic products. Due to these problems, our study aims to 1) understand the relationship between awareness about plastic pollution and the use of disposable plastic products, 2) explore students’ behaviors, knowledge, and awareness in reducing global warming caused by the overuse of plastic products, 3) observe the students’ attitude toward the impacts of disposable plastic pollution, and 4) raise participants’ awareness about environmental issues among a group of Thai high school students. Data were collected using a questionnaire asking about participants’ global warming knowledge, behaviors, and opinions about plastic usage. Survey samples, including Triamudomsuksanomklao students, were randomly selected through a random sampling method with a total of 307 students (100 males, 182 females, and 25 others). The majority of participants understood how harmful plastic pollution is to the environment. Our results revealed that participants’ knowledge and awareness were at high levels. Nevertheless, statistical analyses showed that there is a significant correlation between the level of awareness about plastic pollution and behavioral change, i.e. trying to avoid and reduce the use of one-time plastic bags or stop using plastic straws.

Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of a Novel In-Service Training Strategy of Public Health Staff: Evidence from Colombo Regional Directorate of Health Services, Sri Lanka

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Introduction: Continuous in-service training sessions help in updating and upgrading the competency of the public health field staff. Implementation of these sessions with the uniform delivery of the quality assured content has been a challenge in the Sri Lankan well-established preventive healthcare system.

Aim: To describe the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of a novel in-service training strategy of public health staff including Pubic Health Inspectors (PHI) and Public Health Midwives (PHM) conducted in the Colombo Regional Directorate of Health, Sri Lanka from January to June 2018.

Methods: A consultative meeting and a workshop was conducted with the participation of all stakeholders in reviewing the existing in-service training methodology and in recommending the strategies of overcoming the limitations of it. A novel strategy was developed for the implementation of in-service sessions with multi-level implementation and evaluation components. The in-service training sessions were conducted to improve the knowledge and quality of service provision by Public Health Inspectors, Public Health Midwives and other public health staff. Four evaluation indicators were defined. Descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon signed rank test were used in the evaluation.

Results: By the consultative meetings and workshops, four main weaknesses of the existing in-service training system were revealed, and three characteristics of an ideal system were defined. Two process indicators have shown a coverage of the intervention of 100% while the median satisfaction scores were observed to be 85% or above. Two output/outcome indicators have shown that the interventions have yielded significantly higher post-intervention scores compared to the pre-intervention scores as perceived by the staff members (p<0.05), while the reception of feedback reports was 100%.

Conclusions and Recommendations: The novel strategy is seemingly effective in relation to the four evaluation indicators used. Possibility of implementing similar strategies in other areas must be explored with the view of disseminating quality assured content with uniformity among the public health field staff categories in the monthly in-service sessions.

Application for Calculating Psychological Pressure in the DASS (Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale) Scale Using the Certainty Factor Method

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Psychological stresses such as depression, anxiety, and stress often experienced by students can affect academic performance, physical health, and psychosocial well-being. The purpose of this research is to build a facility in the form of a website-based application for students in particular and the general public in order to know the level of psychological pressure they are experiencing. The psychological scale used is the DASS-21 (Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale) and the calculation uses the Certainty Factor method. In carrying out this research, there are three main stages that are carried out, namely; The first stage, looking for literature studies related to research. Second stage, conducting interviews with experts to get a certainty value on the scale that the researcher uses. Then, build an expert system using prototype development methods and web-based applications. The third stage, implementation was carried out by getting Computer Technology student respondents. This research is a new domain for the NSC Surabaya Polytechnic which will implement an expert system by utilizing the Certainty Factor method in analyzing student stress levels through intelligent applications that will be implemented in the form of a website, with the calculation of Certainty Factors, the application can produce evidence or analysis that can be used. in changing the learning system.

A Review of the Failure and Damage Forms of Metals under Cyclic Loading

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The studies related to metals damage under cyclic loading as the dominant form of structural failure is reviewed. The early approaches including stress-based and strain-based as well as the later approaches of energy-based, critical plane-based and damage mechanics-based are briefed on. Recent methods including thermography, finite element, and microstructural are summarized and explained. Different phenomenon occurring under cyclic loading are explained including fatigue crack initiation, crack propagation, fretting, and buckling. This review provides insight on the underlying mechanisms of different fatigue damage types and related proposed models. In addition, it explains the different aspects of each model along with their methodology

Restructuring of the Banking Sector through Merger: Case of Tunisian Banks

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In the classical economy, the business is always looking for growth. It tries to protect itself against disappearance and to enter new markets to ensure its growth. It resorts to the merger or the takeover of local companies to more easily solve certain problems. Development today by M&A is the most popular mode. In the context of merger acquisition processes, and its relationship with organizational, process, strategic, economic, political and cultural factors, our paper is designed to study the impact of these various factors on the merger-acquisition.
To understand these relationships, we used principal component analysis, ANOVA analysis and multiple regression. A questionnaire was designed on the basis of a documentary analysis leading to the collection of 80 observations, collected from functionaries in the Tunisian banking sector during the period 16 December to 6 January 2016.The results show that the various factors have a positive impact on the success of the merger acquisition operation. It should be noted that the organizational factor is the most influential factor on the acquisition merger process and the least influential economic factor.

Performance Management in Bangladeshi Schools: Head Teachers’ Perception

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Performance Management is a very important task for the management of an educational institution. However, this concept is not yet widely acknowledged by most of the educational institutions of Bangladesh. This small-scale qualitative study thus focused on performance management in Bangladeshi schools. The main objective of this study was to explore head teachers’ perception about performance management, their roles in performance management and the challenges that they face while managing performance. Six secondary school head teachers were selected through convenient sampling and were interviewed using semi- structured interview guide. The findings revealed that the head teachers’ concept about performance management is not very clear and they mostly measure teachers’ performance on the basis of students’ scores in the examinations. Results also showed that head teachers sometimes fail to provide effective feedback on teachers’ performance which in turn hampers the teachers’ productivity. This study recommends that head teachers themselves need proper training on performance management and there should be a proper guideline on performance management in every educational institution. The researcher believes that this study along with its findings will help improve the overall performance of the schools as well as the individual performance of the teachers and the head teachers.

Current status of the invasive pest (Tuta absoluta) and other pest complex on tomato crop in Karnataka

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Tomato is one of the commercially important vegetable crops in India. Recently, an invasive pest Tuta absoluta was introduced to India causing potential yield loss to the tomato crop. Several studies were undertaken on the pest since 2014 to understand the biology, distribution, host range, natural enemies and chemical management of the pest. It is important to understand the current status of the pest at regular time intervals to validate the existing practices and to development suitable management technologies. Thus, current study aims at understanding the spatial variation in the pest incidence in randomly sampled 24 tomato fields in larger tomato growing areas viz., Chikkaballapur and Kolar of southern parts of Karnataka from August to December, 2018. There was no recognizable pattern in spatial distribution of the pest damage on the crop vegetation and the fruit yield. Intensity of pest incidence on different plant canopies as well as fruit yield were observed to be very low to low (0 – 20 per cent) in 70 per cent of the sampled locations. Subsequently, less than 10 per cent of locations showed high pest infestation. Further, in all the locations, 10-22 per cent of yield loss was observed to be due to insect pest, diseases and/or nutritional deficiency in the sampled locations. In the total loss incurred, about 50 percent of the damage caused by the incidence of Tuta absoluta alone. Further studies have to be conducted on the effect of biotic and non-biotic factors on the pest population, effect of prevailing management practices on the natural enemies to understand the current status of the pest in different seasons.