1,096 research outputs found

    Analisis Penanganan Penerimaan Tandan Buah Segar pada PT. Bio Nusantara Teknologi di Kecamatan Pondok Kelapa Kabupaten Bengkulu Tengah

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    This paper aimed to determine the handling system receiving TBS in PT.Bio Nusantara Teknologi to three supplier of partners supplier, plasma supplier and general supplier and how opportunities for improvement that can be done. This study used decriptive analysis and F test to examined wether there is discrimination in handling treatment and price of TBS among suppliers. The results showed that there are several steps that must be passed TBS suppliers to sell it to the POM: 1) taking a queue number, 2) The calling queue number, 3) Weighing, and 4) Sorting and loading and unloading. There was no difference in the treatment of the company against a third supplier, but the difference is the quality of fruit that would affect the price. The price difference was tested using the Tukey's test or BNJ. From the results of the research sequence starting price of the highest rates of plasma suppliers, partners supplier and then general supplier

    Factors contributing to defaulting scheduled therapy sessions by caregivers of children with congenital disabilities

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    Background: Defaulting scheduled rehabilitation therapy may result in increased adverse outcomes such as permanent disability and increased healthcare costs. Concomitantly, there is evidence to suggest that early and continued rehabilitation of children with congenital disabilities can improve outcomes significantly. This study was conducted to determine factors contributing to caregivers’ defaulting scheduled rehabilitation  therapy sessions.Methods: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out at Chitungwiza Central Hospital, a tertiary facility offering in and outpatient rehabilitation services in Zimbabwe. Caregivers of children who had congenital disabilities (N=40) and who had a history of defaulting treatment but were available during the data collection period responded to an interviewer administered questionnaire. Data were analysed for means and frequencies using STATA 13.Results: Factors that contributed to caregivers defaulting scheduled therapy included economic constraints (52%), child related factors (43%), caregiver related factors (42%), service centred factors (30%) and psychosocial factors(58%). Majority of the caregivers (98%) were motivated to attend therapy by observable improvements in their children. Other motivators were incentives given in the rehabilitation department (45%), availability of rehabilitation personnel to provide the required services (48%) and psychosocial support from fellow caregivers, families and the rehabilitation staff (68%). Although all the caregivers could not distinguish occupational therapy from physiotherapy services they all reported that therapy was important.Conclusions: A combination of psychosocial, economic, child centred and service centred factors contributed to caregivers defaulting scheduled therapy. Interventions that may potentially improve caregiver attendance to scheduled therapy include community outreach services, efficient rehabilitation service provision at the hospitals, and facilitation of income generating programmes for caregivers

    Couples living apart: An examination of their perceived benefits and challenges as a result of living apart

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    Marriage has been conventionally considered a relationship between a man and a woman in which the husband is the breadwinner and the wife is the nurturer of the home. The traditional, or at least idealized, American family in all but very recent years thus consisted of a husband whose primary identification and duties were to his job and a wife who managed the home and family full-time and who, if among the middle and upper classes, did some volunteer work (Pepitone-Rockwell, 1980, p. 113). Other alternatives to the conventional marriage appear to have come about through changes in societal conditions. Such conditions may have developed because of such factors as the move toward industrialization, availability of higher education for women, and changes in attitudes of women

    Rapid automatic segmentation of abnormal tissue in late gadolinium enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance images for improved management of long-standing persistent atrial fibrillation

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    Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disorder. In order for late Gd enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance (LGE CMR) to ameliorate the AF management, the ready availability of the accurate enhancement segmentation is required. However, the computer-aided segmentation of enhancement in LGE CMR of AF is still an open question. Additionally, the number of centres that have reported successful application of LGE CMR to guide clinical AF strategies remains low, while the debate on LGE CMR’s diagnostic ability for AF still holds. The aim of this study is to propose a method that reliably distinguishes enhanced (abnormal) from non-enhanced (healthy) tissue within the left atrial wall of (pre-ablation and 3 months post-ablation) LGE CMR data-sets from long-standing persistent AF patients studied at our centre. Methods: Enhancement segmentation was achieved by employing thresholds benchmarked against the statistics of the whole left atrial blood-pool (LABP). The test-set cross-validation mechanism was applied to determine the input feature representation and algorithm that best predict enhancement threshold levels. Results: Global normalized intensity threshold levels T PRE = 1 1/4 and T POST = 1 5/8 were found to segment enhancement in data-sets acquired pre-ablation and at 3 months post-ablation, respectively. The segmentation results were corroborated by using visual inspection of LGE CMR brightness levels and one endocardial bipolar voltage map. The measured extent of pre-ablation fibrosis fell within the normal range for the specific arrhythmia phenotype. 3D volume renderings of segmented post-ablation enhancement emulated the expected ablation lesion patterns. By comparing our technique with other related approaches that proposed different threshold levels (although they also relied on reference regions from within the LABP) for segmenting enhancement in LGE CMR data-sets of AF patients, we illustrated that the cut-off levels employed by other centres may not be usable for clinical studies performed in our centre. Conclusions: The proposed technique has great potential for successful employment in the AF management within our centre. It provides a highly desirable validation of the LGE CMR technique for AF studies. Inter-centre differences in the CMR acquisition protocol and image analysis strategy inevitably impede the selection of a universally optimal algorithm for segmentation of enhancement in AF studies

    Prevalence and factors associated with postnatal depression among women in two rural districts of Manicaland, Zimbabwe

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    Background: Low- and middle-income countries are disproportionately affected by postnatal depression (PND). High prevalence of PND in urban Zimbabwe has been reported but the situation in rural settings is largely unknown and this is one of the first studies to report prevalence of PND in Chipinge and Mutasa districts. Objectives: This study explored the prevalence and associated factors of PND among women attending postnatal care services in two rural districts of Chipinge and Mutasa, Manicaland, Zimbabwe between August and September 2017. Methods: One hundred and ninety-two women were recruited consecutively as they attended postnatal services at 7 days and 42 days post-delivery. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, fifth edition criteria was used to classify depression among participants. Prevalence of PND and 95.0% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated and associations with key socio-demographic and risk factors assessed. Results: The mean age of participants was 23.7 years (standard deviation = 6.14). Pooled prevalence of PND across the two districts was 26.0% (95% CI: 19.04–31.74). There was a higher prevalence of PND in Mutasa (31.0%) as compared to Chipinge (21.48%) but this was not statistically significant (p = 0.142). Having insufficient food in the household, intimate partner violence and having a child with birthweight under 2500 g significantly increased the likelihood of PND twofold: adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.8 (95% CI: 1.2–6.1), aOR = 2.5 (95% CI: 1.2–5.3) and aOR = 2.4 (95% CI: 1.1–5.6), respectively. Conclusion: The high prevalence of PND and its associated risk factors indicates the need for routine screening and targeted interventions for PND in Zimbabwe, especially in rural areas

    Prevalence and the correlates of post-natal depression in an urban high density suburb of Harare

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    A research article on post-natal depression amongst women in Zimbabwe.Postnatal depression is a common complication of childbearing with a prevalence of 33% in Zimbabwe. Thus Zimbabwe has one of the highest prevalence of postnatal depression in the world and the situation is further compounded by the fact the country also ranks among those with the highest HIV prevalence globally.12 Despite variations in symptomatic presentations in different settings, postnatal depression transcends cultural boundaries, a phenomenon which makes it imperative to tackle the disorder cross culturally Understanding the risk factors for postnatal depression is therefore crucial in planning for effective interventions to curb the burden of psychiatric morbidity among vulnerable populations such as pregnant women in resource constrained settings

    Four-Gene Pan-African Blood Signature Predicts Progression to Tuberculosis.

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    Rationale: Contacts of patients with tuberculosis (TB) constitute an important target population for preventive measures because they are at high risk of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and progression to disease.Objectives: We investigated biosignatures with predictive ability for incident TB.Methods: In a case-control study nested within the Grand Challenges 6-74 longitudinal HIV-negative African cohort of exposed household contacts, we employed RNA sequencing, PCR, and the pair ratio algorithm in a training/test set approach. Overall, 79 progressors who developed TB between 3 and 24 months after diagnosis of index case and 328 matched nonprogressors who remained healthy during 24 months of follow-up were investigated.Measurements and Main Results: A four-transcript signature derived from samples in a South African and Gambian training set predicted progression up to two years before onset of disease in blinded test set samples from South Africa, the Gambia, and Ethiopia with little population-associated variability, and it was also validated in an external cohort of South African adolescents with latent M. tuberculosis infection. By contrast, published diagnostic or prognostic TB signatures were predicted in samples from some but not all three countries, indicating site-specific variability. Post hoc meta-analysis identified a single gene pair, C1QC/TRAV27 (complement C1q C-chain / T-cell receptor-α variable gene 27) that would consistently predict TB progression in household contacts from multiple African sites but not in infected adolescents without known recent exposure events.Conclusions: Collectively, we developed a simple whole blood-based PCR test to predict TB in recently exposed household contacts from diverse African populations. This test has potential for implementation in national TB contact investigation programs
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