The profile of quality of life and mental health of university students in the healthcare field

Objective: to present the profile of quality of life and symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress in university students in the healthcare area. Method: a descriptive study with a quantitative approach to data, carried out with university students in the healthcare field of three Federal Institutions of Higher Education in Minas Gerais. Variables such as sociodemographic, lifestyle, presence of depression symptoms, anxiety and stress, and quality of life (QoL) were measured. The QoL was assessed using the WHOQUOL-bref scale and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress using the DASS-21 scale. A descriptive data analysis was performed. Results: 321 students participated in the study, mostly female (71.0%). More than 50% of the students had symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress, regardless of the level of severity, while severe/very severe symptoms were present in more than 20% of them, presenting a higher proportion in the nursing course. The psychological domain had the lowest overall QoL score (58.33), and the best was observed in the social relationships domain (66.67). Nursing students had the lowest scores while physical education students had the best scores in most domains. Medical students had the best score in the environment domain (68.75). Conclusion: Suggest the planning of policies and strategies that promote the physical and mental well-being of students, as well as screening and monitoring of most vulnerable ones, as well as those with mental health problems; such strategies can positively impact QoL.

Bioconnections as Enablers of Regenerative Circularity for the Built Environment

<p>Learning from nature may be the most important step towards improving cities in the context of environmental and climate issues. However, many of the current approaches to make cities greener or more sustainable are still linear and insufficient to deal with these growing challenges. In this scenario, the adoption of regenerative and circular lenses for the built environment may foster a more holistic development based on what is good rather than what is less bad. In this article, we propose that bioconnectivity or bioconnections—a nature-focused approach based on biophilic design, biomimetics, and ecosystem services—may be an important enabler for the regeneration of the ecological and social boundaries of the planetary boundaries and doughnut economics models. We examine the literature to identify in what ways bioconnections could facilitate circular and regenerative processes for the local scale of the built environment domain. We complement the discussion with some real-world examples from selected urban communities or interventions in existing urban areas around the globe that claim a green approach. In the end, we propose a framework of relevant bioconnections for the built environment that could facilitate addressing ecological and social boundaries at the local urban scale and facilitate processes of regenerative transitions towards thriving communities.</p>

EVALUATION OF POSTURE AND QUALITY OF LIFE IN FEMALES UNDERGONE MODIFIED RADICAL MASTECTOMY

Breast cancer is most common cancer in females. Modified radical mastectomy is operation in female which affects social life and physical life. There is also slightly moderate in quality of life in female undergone modified radical mastectomy. The aim of the study was to find “Evaluation of Posture and Quality Of Life in Females undergone Modified Radical Mastectomy’’ This study was carried out in Physiotherapy OPD, Ravi Nair Physiotherapy College and AVBRH, Sawangi (Meghe), Wardha. The objectives included to evaluate posture in female’s undergone Modified radical mastectomy and to evaluate Quality of life. The present study titled “Evaluation of Posture and Quality of Life in females undergone Modified Radical Mastectomy” which comprised of 35 females. The present study showed that slight changes in posture in females undergone modified radical mastectomy and moderately hampered in social domain of quality of life. From the present study we concluded that there is slight changes in posture in female patients undergone MRM and there is good quality of life in physical , psychological , environment domain and moderate quality of life in social domain. This study will helps in evaluating posture and QOL after Modified radical mastectomy. Hence after every modified radical mastectomy conditions, therapists always follow ergonomics to prevent bad posture and improve quality of life. Hence, the evaluation of posture and QOL should be include in all assessment proformas related MRM conditions.

Learning to Tune a Class of Controllers with Deep Reinforcement Learning

Control systems require maintenance in the form of tuning their parameters in order to maximize their performance in the face of process changes in minerals processing circuits. This work focuses on using deep reinforcement learning to train an agent to perform this maintenance continuously. A generic simulation of a first-order process with a time delay, controlled by a proportional-integral controller, was used as the training environment. Domain randomization in this environment was used to aid in generalizing the agent to unseen conditions on a physical circuit. Proximal policy optimization was used to train the agent, and hyper-parameter optimization was performed to select the optimal agent neural network size and training algorithm parameters. Two agents were tested, examining the impact of the observation space used by the agent and concluding that the best observation consists of the parameters of an auto-regressive with exogenous input model fitted to the measurements of the controlled variable. The best trained agent was deployed at an industrial comminution circuit where it was tested on two flow rate control loops. This agent improved the performance of one of these control loops but decreased the performance of the other control loop. While deep reinforcement learning does show promise in controller tuning, several challenges and directions for further study have been identified.

Kualitas hidup pada ibu dari anak dengan attention deficit hiperactivity disorder

Having an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) child is certainly not easy in her care. Mother, as the most dominant figure in her parenting, certainly experienced psychological impact. This study aims to describe the experience of mothers who are parenting with ADHD related to their quality of life. This research is qualitative research with a Phenomenological approach. The study participants consisted of 5 mothers of children with ADHD aged 36-45 years. Data retrieval is done using semi-structured interviews. Data analysis using thematic analysis. The quality of life in mothers of children with ADHD can be described through 23 themes divided into four domains of quality of life: physical, psychological, social, and environmental. In the physical domain, parenting with ADHD affects daily activities that cause mothers to feel tired. In the psychological domain, the mother feels a variety of feelings from the beginning of the diagnosis to during parenting. In the social relation domain, parenting with ADHD affects maternal relationships. In the environment domain, some costs need to be incurred for the child. Mothers are also able to get new information and lessons during parenting with ADHD.

Health-related quality of life of refugees: a systematic review of studies using the WHOQOL-Bref instrument in general and clinical refugee populations in the community setting

Purpose To systematically review studies on HRQOL, measured by the WHOQOL-Bref instrument, of refugees in general and clinical populations who are settled in the community of the hosting country, and outline the differences in scores among the two population groups and across the four domains of WHOQOL-Bref (physical, psychological, social relationships and environment domain) as well as factors impacting those outcomes. Methods Several databases were systematically searched by using a broad search strategy. Additionally, a hand search for grey literature was performed. Studies had to comply with the following inclusion criteria: (a) population of refugees; (b) living in the community of the country of destination; (c) assessing HRQOL through the WHOQOL-Bref instrument. Results 15 studies were identified and divided into two subgroups: (a) general population of refugees (b) clinical population of refugees, who were specifically selected for their mental status or because they had experienced relevant past traumas. Although we can outline common patterns among the two groups, in terms of domains scoring the highest and the lowest, heterogeneous values of HRQOL are observed across the studies included. Conclusions Individuals who were included in the clinical refugee group have a lower quality of life in respect to the general population of refugees. However, among the two groups different patterns can be outlined considering each domain of HRQOL: higher scores for the Physical and lower for the Environment domain when considering the general population of refugees and higher scores for the Environment and lower for the Psychological domain when referring to the clinical one. These lower scores are probably due to having a higher rate of mental distress and being more exposed to somatization, stigmatization and barriers to access the healthcare system of the hosting country.

Understanding Effects of Tourism on Residents: A Contingent Subjective Well-Being Approach

Research regarding tourism’s effect on the subjective well-being (SWB) of destination residents has provided important insight, but it generally has relied on indirect analyses and diverse measures. This study used livability theory and a novel contingent SWB method in which respondents directly reported anticipated SWB effects. This method is exploratory, but it provides greater confidence in causal relationships. Results from a general population survey in Oregon (USA) suggested the method functioned as intended. County-level population growth and visitor intensity predicted perceived current impacts of tourism. In turn, perceived impacts predicted change in SWB contingent on a vignette reflecting a 20% increase in tourists. Across all individuals and counties, average SWB changes were negative for the environment domain and positive for other domains. Practical implications are discussed, with the most positive SWB effects from tourism development expected to occur in counties with low visitor intensity, especially those with low population growth.

Empowerment perception and health-related quality of life among schizophrenic patients

Objective: The study aims to explore the perception of empowerment, HRQoL and their relationship in schizophrenia patients in rehabilitation ward.Methods: Cross-sectional correlational design and convenience sampling were used to recruit 102 subjects from rehabilitation wards of a psychiatric hospital in southern Taiwan. Three instruments were used: the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Empowerment Scale (subscales: self-esteem and self-efficacy, power-powerlessness, righteous anger, and community autonomy), and the Taiwanese version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF) with four domains (physical health, psychological, social relationship, and environment).Results: (1) Overall empowerment perception and overall HRQoL were at a moderate and above level in patients with schizophrenia in rehabilitation ward. (2) Older patients having a lower empowerment perception with power-powerlessness than youngers; the more severe the psychiatric symptoms, the lower the righteous anger. (3) Male patients scored higher than female patients on overall HRQoL and “environment” domain. The duration of mental illness also influenced at “environment” domain, 6-10 years group scored higher than ≤ 5 years group. (4) Actively participate in rehabilitation activities correlated positively; psychiatric symptoms correlated negatively with overall HRQoL and with each individual domain. (5) Empowerment perception correlated positively with overall HRQoL and with each individual domain.Conclusions: Mental health workers should assist chronic schizophrenic patients in coping with their psychiatric symptoms, allow patients to express negative emotions, and provide opportunities for patients to make their own decisions and exercise their own rights.

MSCR: multidimensional secure clustered routing scheme in hierarchical wireless sensor networks

For hierarchical wireless sensor network (WSN), the clustered routing protocol can effectively deal with large-scale application requirements, thereby, how to efficiently elect the secure cluster heads becomes very critical. Unfortunately, many current studies only focus on improving security while neglecting energy efficiency and transmission performance. In this paper, a lightweight trust management scheme (LTMS) is proposed based on binomial distribution for defending against the internal attacks. Simultaneously, distance domain, energy domain, security domain and environment domain are considered and introduced to propose a multidimensional secure clustered routing (MSCR) scheme by using dynamic dimension weight in hierarchical WSNs. The simulation results show that LTMS can effectively prevent a malicious node from being elected as a cluster head, and MSCR can achieve a balance between security, transmission performance and energy efficiency under the requirements of environmental applications.

Social responsibility approach among universities’ community

Purpose This study aims to explore the extent to which universities in developing countries have adopted social responsibility (SR) and track its implementation. Design/methodology/approach Through content analysis, the study examined the SR activities in 14 universities in Albania and North Macedonia. A framework for assessing SR in universities was developed based on the ISO 26000/2010 standard and the main SR domains relevant to the university context were identified and analysed. A comparison between public and private universities was made and best practices were highlighted. Findings The results showed that the highest scoring domain is organisational governance, while the environment domain scored lowest. No significant differences between public and private universities were identified in the disclosure of the university social responsibility (USR) domains. Research limitations/implications Domains were assessed based on the online content the universities disclosed and did not consider any unpublished content. Social implications The best SR practices are promoted to increase other universities’ level of engagement with the USR approach. Originality/value The study adds to the contributions in the USR literature by providing a better understanding of the application of USR in developing countries. The developed framework may be used to assess USR engagement in a practical way.