Sri Lankan tsunami refugees: a cross sectional study of the relationships between housing conditions and self-reported health

BACKGROUND: On the 26th December 2004 the Asian tsunami devastated the Sri Lankan coastline. More than two years later, over 14,500 families were still living in transitional shelters. This study compares the health of the internally displaced people (IDP), living in transitional camps with those in permanent housing projects provided by government and non-government organisations in Sri Lanka. METHODS: This study was conducted in seven transitional camps and five permanent housing projects in the south west of Sri Lanka. Using an interviewer-led questionnaire, data on the IDPs' self-reported health and housing conditions were collected from 154 participants from transitional camps and 147 participants from permanent housing projects. Simple tabulation with non-parametric tests and logistic regression were used to identify and analyse relationships between housing conditions and the reported prevalence of specific symptoms. RESULTS: Analysis showed that living conditions were significantly worse in transitional camps than in permanent housing projects for all factors investigated, except 'having a leaking roof'. Transitional camp participants scored significantly lower on self-perceived overall health scores than those living in housing projects. After controlling for gender, age and marital status, living in a transitional camp compared to a housing project was found to be a significant risk factor for the following symptoms; coughs OR: 3.53 (CI: 2.11-5.89), stomach ache 4.82 (2.19-10.82), headache 5.20 (3.09-8.76), general aches and pains 6.44 (3.67-11.33) and feeling generally unwell 2.28 (2.51-7.29). Within transitional camp data, the only condition shown to be a significant risk factor for any symptom was household population density, which increased the risk of stomach aches 1.40 (1.09-1.79) and headaches 1.33 (1.01-1.77). CONCLUSION: Internally displaced people living in transitional camps are a vulnerable population and specific interventions need to be targeted at this population to address the health inequalities that they report to be experiencing. Further studies need to be conducted to establish which aspects of their housing environment predispose them to poorer health

A cost effectiveness analysis of salt reduction policies to reduce coronary heart disease in four Eastern Mediterranean countries.

BACKGROUND: Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is rising in middle income countries. Population based strategies to reduce specific CHD risk factors have an important role to play in reducing overall CHD mortality. Reducing dietary salt consumption is a potentially cost-effective way to reduce CHD events. This paper presents an economic evaluation of population based salt reduction policies in Tunisia, Syria, Palestine and Turkey. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Three policies to reduce dietary salt intake were evaluated: a health promotion campaign, labelling of food packaging and mandatory reformulation of salt content in processed food. These were evaluated separately and in combination. Estimates of the effectiveness of salt reduction on blood pressure were based on a literature review. The reduction in mortality was estimated using the IMPACT CHD model specific to that country. Cumulative population health effects were quantified as life years gained (LYG) over a 10 year time frame. The costs of each policy were estimated using evidence from comparable policies and expert opinion including public sector costs and costs to the food industry. Health care costs associated with CHDs were estimated using standardized unit costs. The total cost of implementing each policy was compared against the current baseline (no policy). All costs were calculated using 2010 PPP exchange rates. In all four countries most policies were cost saving compared with the baseline. The combination of all three policies (reducing salt consumption by 30%) resulted in estimated cost savings of $235,000,000 and 6455 LYG in Tunisia;$39,000,000 and 31674 LYG in Syria; $6,000,000 and 2682 LYG in Palestine and$1,3000,000,000 and 378439 LYG in Turkey. CONCLUSION: Decreasing dietary salt intake will reduce coronary heart disease deaths in the four countries. A comprehensive strategy of health education and food industry actions to label and reduce salt content would save both money and lives

The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and (in Libya) Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world

LEPTIN RECEPTOR GENE POLYMORPHISMS AND Its EFFECT ON SOME PRODUCTIVE AND PHYSIOLOGICAL TRAITS IN LOCAL IRAQI CHICKEN

This study was conducted in poultry farm in college of agricultural engineering Sciences - University of Baghdad - animal production department. In this study 100 laying hens of local Iraqi chickens were used with age 67day old, were placed in individual cages, each cage was numbered from 1 to 100, for the period from 26/10/2021 till 24/7/2022 to detect the different genotypes of LEPR gene, determining the frequency and percentage of the relevant genotypes local Iraqi chickens, , Productive traits were measured from the sexual maturity in to 100 days for each chicken, the blood samples were collected from 100 laying hens at the 38 weeks of age from the brachial vein, the PCR reaction will done using specific primers, Then sanger sequencing technique were done and three genotypes of leptin receptor gene were obtained TT genotype (wild) , TC (heterozygous) and CC genotype( mutant), the C allele frequency were 0.74 had high significant difference (p<0.01) as compared with T allele were 0.26 ,there were significant effects (p<0.05) between the various genotypes on the feed intake showed CC   genotype had the high mean, followed by TC  then TT, in 1,2 and 6 periods.  The CC genotype had high significant effect (p<0.01) and significant effect (p<0.05) on albumin and HDL concentration respectively followed by TC genotype then TT genotype, The CC genotype   affect significantly on maturity age

Short sleep and social jetlag are associated with higher intakes of non-milk extrinsic sugars, and social jetlag is associated with lower fibre intakes in those with adequate sleep duration:a cross-sectional analysis from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme (Years 1-9)

Objective: To investigate associations and interactions between sleep duration and social jetlag status with nutrient intake, nutrient status, body composition and cardio-metabolic risk factors in a nationally representative UK adult population. Design: A cross-sectional study using 4-d food diary and self-reported sleep data from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme 2008-2017. Setting: UK free-living population. Subjects: Totally, 5015 adults aged 19-64 years. Results: Thirty-four per cent were short sleepers (&lt; 7 h); 7 % slept ≥ 9 h; 14 % had &gt; 2 h difference in average sleep duration between weeknights and weekend nights (social jetlag). Compared to those reporting optimal sleep duration (≥ 7-&lt; 9 h), short sleep was associated with higher intakes of non-milk extrinsic sugars (NMES) (0·9 % energy, 95 % CI: 0·4, 1·4), total carbohydrate (0·8 % energy, 95 % CI: 0·2, 1·4) and a lower non-starch polysaccharides fibre intake (-0·5 g/d, 95 % CI -0·8, -0·2). There was a significant interaction between short sleep and social jetlag for fibre intakes, where adequate sleepers with social jetlag as well as all short sleepers (regardless of social jetlag) had lower fibre intakes than adequate sleepers with no social jetlag. Short sleep, but not social jetlag, was associated with greater adiposity, but there were no differences in other markers of cardiometabolic disease risk. Conclusions: The present study reports that both short sleep and social jetlag are associated with higher intakes of NMES, but only sleep duration is associated with markers of adiposity. Social jetlag was associated with lower fibre intakes even in individuals with adequate weekly sleep duration, suggesting catch-up sleep does not prevent the adverse impact of irregular sleep habits on food choices.</p

Numerical Studies on the Creep Behavior of Shear Endplate Connection Assemblies UNDER Transient Heating

Correct assessment of the steel connection performance under fire requires including the time-dependent response of steel material in the structural analysis. Failure to do so might impose critical threats on the stability and integrity of steel structures. To this aim, the objective of this study is to investigate the effect of thermal creep on the behavior of shear endplate beam-column connections subjected to transient-state fire temperatures. First, finite element models of shear endplate assemblies are developed using ABAQUS and validated against experimental work available in the literature. Parametric studies are then carried out to study the effect of key geometrical, thermal, and material parameters on the overall response of the frame assembly in fire while explicitly including creep. This includes heating and cooling rates, initial cooling temperature, column size and height, load ratio, plate thickness, and steel grade. The results show that including thermal creep causes a reduction in the induced compressive forces and an increase in the mid-span beam deflection, for about six times higher in some cases, thus earlier development of beam catenary action. It is also concluded that lower heating and cooling rates result in larger beam tying forces on the shear end plate connections, which can reach values around ten times larger than when creep is neglected. This study shows that the current practice of neglecting creep in fire analyses, especially in slow heating, may underestimate the forces that are exerted on the shear endplate connections during fire and thus leads to unsafe structural design. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature

Oversight over The Constitutionality of the Legislative Acts of the Executive Authority: A Comparative Study

This study deals with the constitutional oversight over the legislative acts, which are issued by the executive authority pursuant to the Jordanian Constitution. The study will shed the light on the nature of legal rules enacted by the Cabinet, with the approval of the King, and what extent they are subject to oversight by the Constitutional court. The legislation issued by the Executive authority are called regulations, which are of various types: independent, executive and legislative (Temporary Laws), in addition to the administrative instructions that are passed in normal circumstances. Defense orders are also legal rules issued by the Prime Minister to issue to face exceptional emergency circumstances in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. This study concludes that the constitutional oversight over the executive authority legal rules is limited to regulations only, without the written instructions and defense orders issued in accordance with the Defense Law

Measuring Unethical Consumer Behavior Across Four Countries

The huge amounts spent on store security and crime prevention worldwide, not only costs international businesses, but also amounts to a hidden tax on those law-binding consumers who bear higher prices. Most previous research has focused on shoplifting and ignored many other ways in which consumers cheat businesses. Using a hybrid of both qualitative research and survey approaches in four countries, an index of 37 activities was developed to examine consumers’ unethical activities across UK, US, France, and Austria. The findings indicate that around three quarters of consumers in all four countries can be classified as heavy offenders for these minor cheats. The paper argues that government agencies, marketers, and retailers should adopt more pro-active preventative approaches, rather than reactive loss limitation measures to combat unethical behavior

Are people following hip and knee arthroplasty at greater risk of experiencing a fall and fracture? Data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative

Introduction: Falls are a major challenge for older people and are a significant source of mortality and morbidity. There has been uncertainty as to whether people with total hip (THA) or knee (TKA) arthroplasty have a greater risk of falls and associated fractures. This analysis was to explore this question with a large community dataset. Materials and Methods: Data from all people enrolled onto the US Osteoarthritis Initiative programme who had undergone a THA (n=104) or TKA (n=165), within a 12 month period, were compared to those who had not undergone an arthroplasty (n=4631). Data was collected on: the number of participants who reported a fall within a 12 month period; the frequency of falls in this period; and whether a fracture was sustained during this period. Odd ratios were calculated for the probability of experiencing a fall or fracture between the groups. Results: There was no statistical difference in falls between people following THA (OR 0.90; 95% CI: 0.58 to 1.41) or TKA (OR: 0.95; 0.67 to 1.35) compared to a non-arthroplasty cohort. Whilst there was no statistical difference in fracture risk between people following TKA compared to non-arthroplasty individuals (OR: 1.25; 95% CI: 0.57 to 2.70), those who underwent THA had a 65% lower chance of experiencing a fracture in the initial 12 post-operative months compared to the non-THA cohort (OR 0.35; 95% CI: 0.19 to 0.65; p<0.01). Conclusions: There appears a lower chance of experiencing a fracture for people following THA compared to those who have not