This study was conducted to examine the relationship between smartphone addiction, sleep quality, and academic performance. The study presented quantitative research on 323 students in a public university in Sabah to explore the relationship between smartphone addiction, sleep quality, and academic performance. A simple random sampling was used in the study. The Smartphone Addiction Scale Short Version (SAS-SV) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) were used in this study. SPSS was used as a tool of analysis for descriptive and inferential analysis. Pearson correlation was involved to test the hypothesis of the study. The result indicated that the greater the smartphone addiction, the lower the academic performance of university students. The finding also proved that students with poor sleep quality might exhibit low academic performance. Smartphone addiction was found to be associated with sleep quality where overusing smartphones was related to poor sleep quality in university students. On this basis, the problem of smartphone addiction and sleep quality should be tackled in order to improve the academic performance of university students and their overall health.
An enhanced dental cavity diameter measurement mechanism using an intensity-modulated fiber optic displacement sensor (FODS) scanning and imaging system, fuzzy logic as well as a single-layer perceptron (SLP) neural network, is presented. The SLP network was employed for the classification of the reflected signals, which were obtained from the surfaces of teeth samples and captured using FODS. Two features were used for the classification of the reflected signals with one of them being the output of a fuzzy logic. The test results showed that the combined fuzzy logic and SLP network methodology contributed to a 100% classification accuracy of the network. The high-classification accuracy significantly demonstrates the suitability of the proposed features and classification using SLP networks for classifying the reflected signals from teeth surfaces, enabling the sensor to accurately measure small diameters of tooth cavity of up to 0.6 mm. The method remains simple enough to allow its easy integration in existing dental restoration support systems.
In sports, fatigue management is vital as adequate rest builds strength and enhances performance, whereas inadequate rest exposes the body to prolonged fatigue (PF) or also known as overtraining. This paper presents PF identification and classification based on surface electromyography (EMG) signals. An experiment was performed on twenty participants to investigate the behaviour of surface EMG during the inception of PF. PF symptoms were induced in accord with a five-day Bruce Protocol treadmill test on four lower extremity muscles: the biceps femoris (BF), rectus femoris (RF), vastus medialis (VM), and vastus lateralis (VL). The results demonstrate that the experiment successfully induces soreness, unexplained lethargy, and performance decrement and also indicate that the progression of PF can be observed based on changes in frequency features (ΔF med and ΔF mean) and time features (ΔRMS and ΔMAV) of surface EMG. This study also demonstrates the ability of wavelet index features in PF identification. Using a naïve Bayes (NB) classifier exhibits the highest accuracy based on time and frequency features with 98% in distinguishing PF on RF, 94% on BF, 9% on VL, and 97% on VM. Thus, this study has positively indicated that surface EMG can be used in identifying the inception of PF. The implication of the findings is significant in sports to prevent a greater risk of PF.
This paper aims to study the radiation shielding characteristics and buildup factor of some types of granite in Egypt. The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) for three types of granite (gandola, white halayeb, and red aswani) was experimentally determined, and the experimental results were validated by XCOM software. The relative deviation between the two methods does not exceed 3% in all discussed granite samples, which means that MAC calculated through the experimental and XCOM are in suitable agreement. The effective atomic number (Zeff) varies from 13.64 to 10.69, 13.68 to 10.59, and 13.45 and 10.66 for gandola, white halayeb, and red aswani, respectively. As well as the equivalent atomic number (Zeq) was calculated in a wide range of energy to deduce the exposure (EBF) and energy absorption (EABF) buildup factors for the studied granite materials. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), half-value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP) were calculated at each investigated energy and showed that the most effective shielding ability at high energy was red aswani, while at low energy, the shielding ability was nearly constant for studied granites. The present study forms the first endeavor to obtain the radiation shielding properties of the studied materials to be used in practical applications.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people, including those in the fields of science and engineering, to work from home. The new working environment caused by the pandemic is assumed to have a different impact on the amount of work that women and men can do from home. Particularly, if the major burden of child and other types of care is still predominantly on the shoulders of women. As such, a survey was conducted to assess the main issues that biomedical engineers, medical physicists (academics and professionals), and other similar professionals have been facing when working from home during the pandemic. A survey was created and disseminated worldwide. It originated from a committee of International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine (IUPESM; Women in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Task Group) and supported by the Union. The ethics clearance was received from Carleton University. The survey was deployed on the Survey Monkey platform and the results were analyzed using IBM SPSS software. The analyses mainly consisted of frequency of the demographic parameters and the cross-tabulation of gender with all relevant variables describing the impact of work at home. A total of 921 responses from biomedical professions in 76 countries were received: 339 males, 573 females, and nine prefer-not-to-say/other. Regarding marital/partnership status, 85% of males were married or in partnership, and 15% were single, whereas 72% of females were married or in partnership, and 26% were single. More women were working from home during the pandemic (68%) versus 50% of men. More men had access to an office at home (68%) versus 64% for women. The proportion of men spending more than 3 h on child care and schooling per day was 12%, while for women it was 22%; for household duties, 8% of men spent more than 3 h; for women, this was 12.5%. It is interesting to note that 44% of men spent between 1 and 3 h per day on household duties, while for women, it was 55%. The high number of survey responses can be considered excellent. It is interesting to note that men participate in childcare and household duties in a relatively high percentage; although this corresponds to less hours daily than for women. It is far more than can be found 2 and 3 decades ago. This may reflect the situation in the developed countries only-as majority of responses (75%) was received from these countries. It is evident that the burden of childcare and household duties will have a negative impact on the careers of women if the burden is not more similar for both sexes. It is important to recognize that a change in policies of organizations that hire them may be required to provide accommodation and compensation to minimize the negative impact on the professional status and career of men and women who work in STEM fields.
The aim of this article is to offer a view of the current status of women in medical physics and biomedical engineering, while focusing on solutions towards gender balance and providing examples of current activities carried out at national and international levels. The International Union of Physical and Engineering Scientists in Medicine is committed to advancing women in science and health and has several initiatives overseen by the Women in Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering Task Group. Some of the main strategies proposed by the Task Group to attain gender balance are: (a) identify and promote female role models that achieve successful work-life balance, (b) establish programs to develop female leaders, (c) create opportunities for females to increase the international visibility within the scientific community, and (d) establish archives and databases of women in STEM.
In addition to social and environmental factors, individual personality traits have intricately linked with maladaptive behaviour. Thus, the purpose of this article was to review the link between individual personality traits and criminality. A systematic review was conducted to obtain information regarding the link between individual personality traits with criminal behaviour in the Sage, Web of Science, APA PsycNet, Wiley Online Library, and PubMed databases. The results indicate that individual personality traits that contribute towards criminality are (i) psychopathy; (ii) low self-control; and (iii) difficult temperament. As an overall impact, the review is expected to provide in-depth understanding of the link between individual personality traits and criminality; hence, greater consideration will be given to the dimension of personality as a notable risk factor of criminal behaviour.
Background: Breast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL) is a debilitating chronic illness. Early management and prevention of disease progression rely on lymphedema monitoring and assessment. At present, lymphedema monitoring systems are costly and do not promote remote monitoring. Thus, a low-cost, portable, mobile-based bioimpedance lymphedema monitoring system (Mobilymph) was developed to ensure continuous lymphedema surveillance. Method and Results: Forty-five healthy and 100 BCRL participants were recruited in this study. Mobilymph bioimpedance measurement was validated with a Quadscan 4000 on healthy participants' arms. The interarm bioimpedance ratio was determined to evaluate the discriminatory capability of Mobilymph to detect BCRL. Mobilymph's bioimpedance results show no significant difference compared to Quadscan 4000. The interarm bioimpedance ratios were significantly different (p
Acupuncture therapy has been used to treat substance abuse. This study aims to review experimental studies examining the effects of acupuncture on addiction. Research and review articles on acupuncture treatment of substance abuse published between January 2000 and September 2014 were searched using the databases ISI Web of Science Core Collection and EBSCO's MEDLINE Complete. Clinical trial studies on the efficacy of acupuncture therapy for substance abuse were classified according to substance (cocaine, opioid, nicotine, and alcohol), and their treatment protocols, assessments, and findings were examined. A total of 119 studies were identified, of which 85 research articles addressed the efficacy of acupuncture for treating addiction. There were substantial variations in study protocols, particularly regarding treatment duration, frequency of electroacupuncture, duration of stimulation, and choice of acupoints. Contradictory results, intergroup differences, variation in sample sizes, and acupuncture placebo effects made it difficult to evaluate acupuncture effectiveness in drug addiction treatment. This review also identified a lack of rigorous study design, such as control of confounding variables by incorporating sham controls, sufficient sample sizes, reliable assessments, and adequately replicated experiments.
Neuroelectrophysiological properties have been used in human heroin addiction studies. These studies vary in their approach, experimental conditions, paradigms, and outcomes. However, it is essential to integrate previous findings and experimental methods for a better demonstration of current issues and challenges in designing such studies. This Review examines methodologies and experimental conditions of neuroelectrophysiological research among heroin addicts during withdrawal, abstinence, and methadone maintenance treatment and presents the findings. The results show decrements in attentional processing and dysfunctions in brain response inhibition as well as brain activity abnormalities induced by chronic heroin abuse. Chronic heroin addiction causes increased β and α2 power activity, latency of P300 and P600, and diminished P300 and P600 amplitude. Findings confirm that electroencephalography (EEG) band power and coherence are associated with craving indices and heroin abuse history. First symptoms of withdrawal can be seen in high-frequency EEG bands, and the severity of these symptoms is associated with brain functional connectivity. EEG spectral changes and event-related potential (ERP) properties have been shown to be associated with abstinence length and tend to normalize within 3-6 months of abstinence. From the conflicting criteria and confounding effects in neuroelectrophysiological studies, the authors suggest a comprehensive longitudinal study with a multimethod approach for monitoring EEG and ERP attributes of heroin addicts from early stages of withdrawal until long-term abstinence to control the confounding effects, such as nicotine abuse and other comorbid and premorbid conditions.
Methadone as the most prevalent opioid substitution medication has been shown to influence the neurophysiological functions among heroin addicts. However, there is no firm conclusion on acute neuroelectrophysiological changes among methadone-treated subjects as well as the effectiveness of methadone in restoring brain electrical abnormalities among heroin addicts. This study aims to investigate the acute and short-term effects of methadone administration on the brain's electrophysiological properties before and after daily methadone intake over 10 weeks of treatment among heroin addicts. EEG spectral analysis and single-trial event-related potential (ERP) measurements were used to investigate possible alterations in the brain's electrical activities, as well as the cognitive attributes associated with MMN and P3. The results confirmed abnormal brain activities predominantly in the beta band and diminished information processing ability including lower amplitude and prolonged latency of cognitive responses among heroin addicts compared to healthy controls. In addition, the alteration of EEG activities in the frontal and central regions was found to be associated with the withdrawal symptoms of drug users. Certain brain regions were found to be influenced significantly by methadone intake; acute effects of methadone induction appeared to be associative to its dosage. The findings suggest that methadone administration affects cognitive performance and activates the cortical neuronal networks, resulting in cognitive responses enhancement which may be influential in reorganizing cognitive dysfunctions among heroin addicts. This study also supports the notion that the brain's oscillation powers and ERPs can be utilized as neurophysiological indices for assessing the addiction treatment traits.
Real-time monitoring and precise diagnosis of the severity of Dengue infection is needed for better decisions in disease management. The aim of this study is to use the Bioimpedance Vector Analysis (BIVA) method to differentiate between healthy subjects and severe and non-severe Dengue-infected patients. Bioimpedance was measured using a 50 KHz single-frequency bioimpedance analyzer. Data from 299 healthy subjects (124 males and 175 females) and 205 serologically confirmed Dengue patients (123 males and 82 females) were analyzed in this study. The obtained results show that the BIVA method was able to assess and classify the body fluid and cell mass condition between the healthy subjects and the Dengue-infected patients. The bioimpedance mean vectors (95% confidence ellipse) for healthy subjects, severe and non-severe Dengue-infected patients were illustrated. The vector is significantly shortened from healthy subjects to Dengue patients; for both genders the p-value is less than 0.0001. The mean vector of severe Dengue patients is significantly shortened compare to non-severe patients with a p-value of 0.0037 and 0.0023 for males and females, respectively. This study confirms that the BIVA method is a valid method in differentiating the healthy, severe and non-severe Dengue-infected subjects. All tests performed had a significance level with a p-value less than 0.05.
Electrospun polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) fibers were dip-coated by polymethyl methacrylate-co-methacrylic acid, poly(MMA-co-MAA), which was synthesized in different molar ratios of the monomers via free-radical polymerization. Fabricated platfrom was employed for immobilization of the dengue antibody and subsequent detection of dengue enveloped virus in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). There is a major advantage for combination of electrospun fibers and copolymers. Fiber structre of electrospun PHB provides large specific surface area available for biomolecular interaction. In addition, polymer coated parts of the platform inherited the premanent presence of surface carboxyl (-COOH) groups from MAA segments of the copolymer which can be effectively used for covalent and physical protein immobilization. By tuning the concentration of MAA monomers in polymerization reaction the concentration of surface -COOH groups can be carefully controlled. Therefore two different techniques have been used for immobilization of the dengue antibody aimed for dengue detection: physical attachment of dengue antibodies to the surface and covalent immobilization of antibodies through carbodiimide chemistry. In that perspective, several different characterization techniques were employed to investigate the new polymeric fiber platform such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), water contact angle (WCA) measurement and UV-vis titration. Regardless of the immobilization techniques, substantially higher signal intensity was recorded from developed platform in comparison to the conventional ELISA assay.
Liver transplantation is the most common treatment for patients with end-stage liver failure. However, liver transplantation is greatly limited by a shortage of donors. Liver tissue engineering may offer an alternative by providing an implantable engineered liver. Currently, diverse types of engineering approaches for in vitro liver cell culture are available, including scaffold-based methods, microfluidic platforms, and micropatterning techniques. Active cell patterning via dielectrophoretic (DEP) force showed some advantages over other methods, including high speed, ease of handling, high precision and being label-free. This article summarizes liver function and regenerative mechanisms for better understanding in developing engineered liver. We then review recent advances in liver tissue engineering techniques and focus on DEP-based cell patterning, including microelectrode design and patterning configuration.
Bioimpedance analysis is a noninvasive, low cost and a commonly used approach for body composition measurements and assessment of clinical condition. There are a variety of methods applied for interpretation of measured bioimpedance data and a wide range of utilizations of bioimpedance in body composition estimation and evaluation of clinical status. This paper reviews the main concepts of bioimpedance measurement techniques including the frequency based, the allocation based, bioimpedance vector analysis and the real time bioimpedance analysis systems. Commonly used prediction equations for body composition assessment and influence of anthropometric measurements, gender, ethnic groups, postures, measurements protocols and electrode artifacts in estimated values are also discussed. In addition, this paper also contributes to the deliberations of bioimpedance analysis assessment of abnormal loss in lean body mass and unbalanced shift in body fluids and to the summary of diagnostic usage in different kinds of conditions such as cardiac, pulmonary, renal, and neural and infection diseases.
This paper introduces a dielectrophoretic system for the manipulation and separation of microparticles. The system is composed of five layers and utilizes microarray dot electrodes. We validated our system by conducting size-dependent manipulation and separation experiments on 1, 5 and 15 μm polystyrene particles. Our findings confirm the capability of the proposed device to rapidly and efficiently manipulate and separate microparticles of various dimensions, utilizing positive and negative dielectrophoresis (DEP) effects. Larger size particles were repelled and concentrated in the center of the dot by negative DEP, while the smaller sizes were attracted and collected by the edge of the dot by positive DEP.
Standard X-ray images using conventional screen-film technique have a limited field of view that is insufficient to show the full bone structure of large hands on a single frame. To produce images containing the whole hand structure, digitized images from the X-ray films can be assembled using image stitching. This paper presents a new medical image stitching method that utilizes minimum average correlation energy filters to identify and merge pairs of hand X-ray medical images. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated in the experiments involving two databases which contain a total of 40 pairs of overlapping and non-overlapping hand images. The experimental results are compared with that of the normalized cross-correlation (NCC) method. It is found that the proposed method outperforms the NCC method in classifying and merging the overlapping and non-overlapping medical images. The efficacy of the proposed method is further indicated by its average execution time, which is about five times shorter than that of the other method.
This study investigated the proposition of relaxation offered by performing the Muslim prayers by measuring the alpha brain activity in the frontal (F3-F4), central (C3-C4), parietal (P3-P4), and occipital (O1-O2) electrode placements using the International 10-20 System. Nine Muslim subjects were asked to perform the four required cycles of movements of Dhuha prayer, and the EEG were subsequently recorded with open eyes under three conditions, namely, resting, performing four cycles of prayer while reciting the specific verses and supplications, and performing four cycles of acted salat condition (prayer movements without any recitations). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests revealed that there were no significant difference in the mean alpha relative power (RP(α)) between the alpha amplitude in the Dhuha prayer and the acted conditions in all eight electrode positions. However, the mean RP(α) showed higher alpha amplitude during the prostration position of the Dhuha prayer and acted condition at the parietal and occipital regions in comparison to the resting condition. Findings were similar to other studies documenting increased alpha amplitude in parietal and occipital regions during meditation and mental concentration. The incidence of increased alpha amplitude suggested parasympathetic activation, thus indicating a state of relaxation. Subsequent studies are needed to delineate the role of mental concentration, and eye focus, on alpha wave amplitude while performing worshipping acts.
This paper presents the development of kidney TeleUltrasound consultation system. The TeleUltrasound system provides an innovative design that aids the acquisition, archiving, and dissemination of medical data and information over the internet as its backbone. The system provides data sharing to allow remote collaboration, viewing, consultation, and diagnosis of medical data. The design is layered upon a standard known as Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM). The DICOM standard defines protocols for exchanging medical images and their associated data. The TeleUltrasound system is an integrated solution for retrieving, processing, and archiving images and providing data storage management using Structured Query Language (SQL) database. Creating a web-based interface is an additional advantage to achieve global accessibility of experts that will widely open the opportunity of greater examination and multiple consultations. This system is equipped with a high level of data security and its performance has been tested with white, black, and gray box techniques. And the result was satisfactory. The overall system has been evaluated by several radiologists in Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, and Sudan, the result is shown within this paper.