Pregnant Mothers\u27 Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Towards Preventions of Iron Deficiency Anemia in Harar Town, Ethiopia

Low maternal risk perception, poor dietary practice and low adherence to iron and folate tablets among pregnant women are major contributors for higher burden of anemia. Iron deficiency anemia contribute to more than half of Anemia among pregnant women. Thus the level of maternal awareness and attitude towards dietary and other prevention practices of anemia are not well established in the study area. This study was to assess knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant mothers towards the prevention of iron deficiency anemia in Ethiopia, 2018. Hospital based cross sectionals study was conducted on randomly selected, 128 pregnant mothers attending antenatal care service in Harar town. Data were collected by health professionals using pre tested questionnaire containing socio demographic, knowledge, attitude and practice related questions. Attitude questions were organized in five Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree using positive statements. Similarly, practices were assessed in yes/no (appropriate practices were scored as yes or no otherwise). Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 using frequency, tables, graphs and means. Pearson correlation with r was used to assess the relationship between knowledge, attitude and practice. Analysis of Variance was used to compare the mean practice by different factors. Knowledge, attitude and practice of pregnant women on preventions of IDA are not satisfactory. Thus poor practice towards prevention of IDA is the main contributing factor for high burden of anemia

Mortality following a brain tumour diagnosis in patients with multiple sclerosis

Objectives: As brain tumours and their treatment may theoretically have a poorer prognosis in inflammatory central nervous system diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS), all-cause mortality following a brain tumour diagnosis was compared between patients with and without MS. The potential role of age at tumour diagnosis was also examined. Setting: Hospital inpatients in Sweden with assessment of mortality in hospital or following discharge. Participants: Swedish national registers identified 20 543 patients with an MS diagnosis (1969-2005) and they were matched individually to produce a comparison cohort of 204 163 members of the general population without MS. Everyone with a primary brain tumour diagnosis was selected for this study: 111 with MS and 907 without MS. Primary and secondary outcome measures: 5-year mortality risk following brain tumour diagnosis and age at brain tumour diagnosis. Results: A non-statistically significant lower mortality risk among patients with MS (lower for those with tumours of high-grade and uncertain-grade malignancy and no notable difference for low-grade tumours) produced an unadjusted HR (and 95% CI) of 0.75 (0.56 to 1.02). After adjustment for age at diagnosis, grade of malignancy, sex, region of residence and socioeconomic index, the HR is 0.91 (0.67-1.24). The change in estimate was largely due to adjustment for age at brain tumour diagnosis, as patients with MS were on average 4.7 years younger at brain tumour diagnosis than those in the comparison cohort (p<0.001). Conclusions: Younger age at tumour diagnosis may contribute to mortality reduction in those with highgrade and uncertain-grade brain tumours. Survival following a brain tumour is not worse in patients with MS; even after age at brain tumour diagnosis and grade of malignancy are taken into account

Dark/Visible Parallel Universes and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

We develop a model for visible matter-dark matter interaction based on the exchange of a massive gray boson called herein the Mulato. Our model hinges on the assumption that all known particles in the visible matter have their counterparts in the dark matter. We postulate six families of particles five of which are dark. This leads to the unavoidable postulation of six parallel worlds, the visible one and five invisible worlds. A close study of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), baryon asymmetries, cosmic microwave background (CMB) bounds, galaxy dynamics, together with the Standard Model assumptions, help us to set a limit on the mass and width of the new gauge boson. Modification of the statistics underlying the kinetic energy distribution of particles during the BBN is also discussed. The changes in reaction rates during the BBN due to a departure from the Debye-Hueckel electron screening model is also investigated.Comment: Invited talk at the Workshops "CompStar: the physics and astrophysics of compact stars", Tahiti, June 4-8, 2012, "New Directions in Nuclear Astrophysics", Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy, June 18-22, 2012, and "Carpathian Summer School of Physics", Sinaia, Romania, June 24 - July 7, 2012. To be published in AIP Proceeding