Reflections on the Concomitants of the Restrictive Visitation Policy During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Ubuntu Perspective

Caregiving is a prominent concept in the Ubuntu philosophy, and caring and visitation of the sick is regarded as an example of Ubuntu. The restrictive visitation policy adopted in the hospitals during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affected the exhibition of this concept among patients, nurses, and families. The narrative inquiry was used to explore the reflections of the participants on the impact caused by the non-visitation policy experienced during the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. The narrative inquiry approach allowed the participants to tell their story as it is unique to them. The study used purposive sampling technique to select five participants for the webinar. Three themes emerged from the narrated stories which are 1) moral anguish of the caregivers; 2) mental health instability, and 3) erosion of trust in health care practitioners (HCPs). The non-visitation hospital policy was intended to reduce the danger of spreading COVID-19 within and outside the hospital; however, the care provided was devoid of the values of Ubuntu such as mutual respect, relational, responsibility, reciprocity, and interconnectedness. In retrospect, a case-by-case application of the policy would reduce the non-desirable effect of the policy on the patients, nurses, and patients' family members.

The Role of Institutional Quality in Oil Price-Unemployment Nexus in African and Asian Oil-Exporting Countries

This study adopts panel OLS and panel ARDL to examine the role of institutional quality in institutional quality in oil price-unemployment nexus in African and Asian oil-exporting countries. The POLS results reveal that an increase in oil price does not reduce unemployment in African oil-exporting countries whereas it reduces unemployment in Asian oil-exporting countries. However, interaction of oil price with institutional quality variables such as democratic accountability and rule of law leads to reduction of unemployment in African oil-exporting counties while the interaction of control of corruption and government stability with oil price leads to a further reduction in unemployment in Asian oil-exporting countries. The panel ARDL results, however, show that an increase in oil price leads to a reduction in unemployment in African oil-exporting countries only in the short run while it leads to a reduction in unemployment in Asian oil-exporting countries only in the long run. The effect of the interaction of institutional quality with the oil price, even though slightly changes when PARDL is employed, it largely remains ditto when compared with POLS. Given our results, we conclude that each of the oil-exporting countries needs to strengthen some aspects of their institutional quality apparatuses to ensure that an increase in the oil price brings about the desirable effect on unemployment. Precisely, the fight against corruption and government instability must be given the utmost attention in African oil-exporting countries while the rule of law and democratic accountability must be prioritised in Asian oil-exporting countries.JEL Classifications: C33; E24; L71; O17

Electrically tuneable viscosity of Ionic Liquids

Viscosity is an essential property of lubricant, as it affects its capacity to form the lubricating film or to reduce friction and wear. One of highly desirable effect in tribology is to be able to control the viscosity of the lubricant externally in real-time without changing the lubricant. One of the possibilities is to apply an electric field to the lubricant. Since ionic liquids are solvent-free electrolytes, their properties can be usually altered by applying voltage. This preliminary research results reveal that viscosity of tested ionic liquid can be tuned by means of applying DC voltage.

The Influence of Glass Fiber and Milled Glass Fiber on the Performance of Iraqi Oil Well Cement

The reinforced fiberglass in cement slurry reflects the effect on its properties compared to usual additives. Fiberglass is typically used in cement slurry design for one or another of the following goals: (Earth earthquake, bearing storage, and with differential stresses, to enhance cement durability and increase its compressive strength). The main goal is to use glass fiber and ground fiberglass to improve the tensile strength and moderate compressive strength significantly. On the other hand, the use of glass fibers led to a slight increase in the value of thickening time, which is a desirable effect. Eleven glass fiber samples and milled glass fiber were used to show these materials' effect on Iraqi cement with (0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, and 2) % of cement weight. Those tests used to study cement slurry‟s following properties were compressive strength, thickening time, rheology properties of free water, filtering, and density. These evaluations showed that slurries with less than 1% fiber content gave a higher compressive strength than a sample containing more than 1% glass fiber. However, the slurry mixed with equal or less than 1% milled glass fiber is higher compressive than the sample mixed with more than 1% milled glass fiber. So the optimal concentration for glass fiber is less than 1% by weight of cement (BWOC); either for milled glass fiber, it is less or equal to 1% BWOC. Both materials contributed to increasing the compressive strength of the cement. However, attention must be paid to the idealThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. concentration that should be added during the cement slurry preparation because if we use these two materials carelessly for the ideal concentration, this leads to the collapse and bombardment of the resistance of the cement rock. In other words, the collapse of cement resistance and causing problems during the cementing process.

On the possibility of replacing administrative fine with another type of administrative penalty

The object of this research is the social relations arising with regards to bringing to administrative responsibility and imposition of administrative penalties in the form of administrative fine on the persons who have committed administrative offenses. The subject of this research is the current administrative legislation of the Russian Federation that regulates the procedure for bringing the offenders to administrative responsibility, as well as the materials of judicial statistics and practice on imposition of administrative penalties in the form of fines. Analysis is conducted on the amendments in administrative legislation that took place in recent years. The author compares the judicial statistics for the period from 2015 to 2019. The novelty consists in the fact that having analyzed the amendments in administrative legislation and judicial statistics, the author concludes that the practice of bringing the offenders to administrative responsibility testifies to the lack of effectiveness of the taken measures. The growing number of offenses indicates that administrative responsibility does not achieve the goals set by the Part 1 of the Article 3.1 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses. The natural response of the legislator to low efficiency consists in increasing the size of administrative penalties and application of stricter sanctions, but it won’t produce the desirable effect. Therefore, the author offers to develop and adopt a new procedure for replacing one type of administrative penalty with another.

Dentacoin

Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger of transactions shared amongst all participating web nodes, over which every data is recorded. Since the first blockchain was conceptualized in 2008, much research has been done to expand its applications to non-financial purposes. Dentacoin is the first cryptocurrency ever created worldwide that strives to create a dental industry community by rewarding people with a given token—Dentacoin cryptocurrency—for specific actions that have a desirable effect on the Dentacoin ecosystem. This concept aims to improve the global dental market by applying blockchain technology advantages and promoting intelligent prevention in dental healthcare. The purpose of this chapter is to review the concept of blockchain-based Dentacoin ecosystem, as it is expected that, in the future, this method will significantly improve dental health and oral hygiene habits, thus improving the quality of life for individuals resulting in overall health enhancement and increased longevity.

Analysis of selected performance parameters of a drive unit fueled by biocomponents

The most desirable effect of motorization development is obtainment of high performance power units. Ecological requirements, however, and exhaustibility of the earth natural resources limit the possibilities of self-ignition engines. The study presents analyses of power and torque of a self-ignition engine fueled with mixtures of diesel and fatty acid methyl esters. The tests show that application of a biocomponent additive to diesel fuel slightly reduces the value of power and torque of the tested vehicle. Moreover, as proven by other tests, application of such mixtures causes an increase in the number of components in the exhaust gases and emission of sound generated by a power unit. The study shows only some of the tests performed to reflect significant performance parameters of transport means.

Human Factors Affecting HMS Impact on Nurses Jobs

To improve and facilitate patient care, hospital administrators have implemented healthcare management systems (HMS). Unfortunately, many hospitals have encountered HMS implementation problems. Some user-related factors have been proposed in the literature as important to system success. This study proposes an integrative model and empirically tests the importance of these variables as determinants of HMS impact on the jobs of nurses. Data from 213 nurses using their hospital HMS has been used to test the relationships between the independent variables and the HMS impact on the nurses' jobs. The results confirm the importance of nurse participation, training, good communication with developers, and lack of conflict regarding system implementation enabling a more desirable effect of HMS on nurses' jobs. Based on the results, recommendations are made for hospital administrators to improve the likelihood of HMS implementation success.

An extension of the multiple marker algorithm for study of phase separation problems at the mesoscale

Multiphase fluid flow is an active field of research in numerous branches of science and technology. An interesting subset of multiphase flow problems involves the dispersion of one phase into another in the form of many small bubbles or droplets, and their subsequent separation back into bulk phases after this has occurred. Phase dispersion may be a desirable effect, for example in the production of emulsions of otherwise immiscible liquids or to increase interfacial surface area for chemical reactions, or an undesirable one, for example in the intermixing of waste and product phases during processing or the generation of foams preventing gas-liquid decoupling. The present paper describes a computational fluid dynamics method based on the multiple marker front-capturing algorithm – itself an extension of the volume-of-fluids method for multiphase flow – which is capable of scaling to mesoscale systems involving thousands of droplets or bubbles. The method includes sub-grid models for solution of the Reynolds equation to account for thin film dynamics and rupture. The method is demonstrated with an implementation in the OpenFOAM® computational mechanics framework. Comparisons against empirical data are presented, together with a performance benchmarking study and example applications.

What Was First, Obesity or Inflammatory Bowel Disease? What Does the Gut Microbiota Have to Do with It?

A sedentary lifestyle and inadequate nutrition often leads to disturbances in intestinal homeostasis, which may predispose people to excess body weight and metabolic syndrome. Obesity is frequently observed in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), similar to the general population. Obesity may exert a negative effect on the course of IBD as well as reduce the response to treatment. Moreover, it may also be an additional risk factor for vein thromboembolism during the flare. In both obesity and IBD, it is of great importance to implement proper dietary ingredients that exert desirable effect on gut microbiota. The key to reducing body mass index (BMI) and alleviating the course of IBD is preserving healthy intestinal microflora.