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Background: The purpose of the study was to determine knowledge, attitudes, and practices toward the prevention of typhoid fever among patients aged 15-50 years in Adjumani General Hospital, Adjumani District. Methodology: The study employed a cross-sectional study design with both quantitative approaches. Simple random sampling was used. Data were analyzed manually by use of tally sheets and were entered in the Excel computer program to generate tables, graphs, and pie charts. Results: The study findings revealed that the overall knowledge of the prevention of typhoid fever among the respondents was generally poor, as most (60%) of the respondents did not know anything about typhoid fever. Regarding attitude, the majority (70%) of the respondents agreed washing hands with soap helped in preventing typhoid fever, most (60%) agreed that boiling water also helped in preventing typhoid fever, and the majority (84%) were willing to prevent typhoid fever. In regards to practices half (50%) of the respondents did not know any of the practices that helped in the prevention of typhoid fever, more than half (56%) agreed washing hands with soap helped to minimize typhoid fever infection, the majority (70%) of the agreed on using pit latrine as a fecal disposal facility to minimize typhoid fever infection. Conclusion: The general knowledge, attitude, and practices of the respondents towards the prevention of typhoid fever were generally poor which in the end could lead to an increase in the spread of typhoid fever within the district. Recommendation: Health workers in Adjumani General Hospital should promote community health-based programs to teach the community the best practices to curb the increasing typhoid fever.

The COVID-19 virus has impacted all facets of our lives. As a global response to this threat, vaccination programmes have been initiated and administered in numerous nations. The question remains, however, as to whether mass vaccination programmes result in a decrease in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. In this study, we aim to predict the future number of COVID-19 confirmed cases for the top ten countries with the highest number of vaccinations in the world. A well-known Deep Learning method for time series analysis, namely, the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, is applied as the prediction method. Using three evaluation metrics, i.e., Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), we found that the model built by using LSTM networks could give a good prediction of the future number and trend of COVID-19 confirmed cases in the considered countries. Two different scenarios are employed, namely: ‘All Time’, which includes all historical data; and ‘Before Vaccination’, which excludes data collected after the mass vaccination programme began. The average MAPE scores for the ‘All Time’ and ‘Before Vaccination’ scenarios are 5.977% and 10.388%, respectively. Overall, the results show that the mass vaccination programme has a positive impact on decreasing and controlling the spread of the COVID-19 disease in those countries, as evidenced by decreasing future trends after the programme was implemented.

Background: The purpose of the study was to determine the factors contributing to the increased use of herbal medicine among pregnant women aged 18-45 years attending Buwambo Health Centre IV, Wakiso District. The specific objectives were to determine the: Maternal, Socioeconomic, and health facility-related factors contributing to the increased use of herbal medicine among pregnant women aged 18-45 years. Methodology: The study design was descriptive and cross-sectional and the researcher employed the simple random sampling technique. The study instrument was a questionnaire and a sample of 50 respondents was used. Medicine because they were readily available. Results: Regarding the health facility-related factors contributing to increased use of herbal medicine, the majority (74%) of the respondents reputed that the health workers took a lot of time to work on them, and most (40%) had their homes more than 10km away from the health facility and more than half (52%) waited over 2hrs to be seen by the doctor. Conclusion: Maternal factors contributing to increased use of herbal medicine included having information about herbal medicine from family members (70%), being in the first trimester (76%), and the pregnancy-related complications such as nausea and vomiting (40%), socio-economic factors were; encouragement by their culture and religion (60%), availability of herbal medicine (56%), health facility-related factors were; long waiting hours (74%), and long-distance from the health facility (40%). Recommendation: The researcher recommended the Ministry of Health put up more health facilities to reduce the distance moved by the pregnant women while looking for the antenatal care services and that Buwambo Health Centre IV should intensify health education the pregnant women on the importance of antenatal care visits and the implications of the use of herbal medicine during pregnancy.

Background: The purpose of the study was to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practices towards hepatitis B vaccination among patients aged 16- 40 years attending Buwasa health center IV Sironko District. Methodology: The study involved a descriptive cross-sectional study design to address the specific objectives of the study, on a sample of sixty (60) respondents using a simple random technique as the sampling technique. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed and used as a data collection tool. Results: Regarding the practices, the majority (90%) of the respondents reported that they had ever been screened against hepatitis B infection, the majority (87%) of those who reported having been screened negative were initiated on vaccination, and more than half (59%) of them had completed the three doses, among the unvaccinated, the most (47%) frequently mentioned reason for non-vaccination was fear of side effects, more than half (55%) had ever been sensitized about the importance of hepatitis B vaccination. Conclusion: the knowledge of hepatitis B vaccination was poor since most of the respondents did not know the complete hepatitis B vaccination schedule, and the intervals between the doses; with a relatively good attitude and fair practices towards hepatitis B vaccination, and this consequently called for the need to raise patient’s awareness about hepatitis B vaccination to improve on the knowledge, attitude, and practices towards hepatitis B vaccination. Recommendation: The researcher finally recommended that the government of Uganda through the ministry of health should supply adequate vaccine stock to the facility to ensure consistent availability of the vaccine.

Background: The purpose of the study was to assess; the knowledge, attitude, and practices toward the prevention of dental caries among youths aged 15-25 years in Soroti Regional Referral Hospital, Soroti district. The specific objectives of the study were to assess; the knowledge towards prevention of dental caries among youths aged15-25 years, attitudes towards prevention of dental caries among youths aged 15-25 years, and practices towards prevention of dental caries among youths aged 15-25 years. Methodology: A cross-section study design was employed with sampling technique as a sampling technique. Data was collected from a sample of 50 respondents using a semi-structured questionnaire written in the English language; later analyzed manually; using a scientific calculator, and systematically computed into frequency and percentages using Microsoft excel to generate tables and figures for easy presentations. Results: About practices towards prevention of dental caries among youths aged 15-25 years; results showed that (70%) of the respondents were using fluoridated toothpaste, (90%) commonly used toothpaste and toothbrush, (60%) used to take sugar-containing snacks, and (40%) were eating them daily, (60%) reported a brush and paste as oral cleaning habit that they normally used and (80%) reported cleaning their teeth once daily. Conclusion: The researcher generally concluded that; even though study participants exhibited fair knowledge about the prevention of dental caries but their attitude and practices were not worthy agreeable since almost all respondents had an average attitude towards the prevention of dental caries and also doing some practices that are not in line with the prevention of dental caries. Recommendation; the government together with the ministry of health should improve on the sensitization of people about oral health and put up restrictions that can reduce the accessibility of sugar-containing products like snacks hence preventing dental caries among youths of Soroti district.

Background: Oral hygiene is maintaining the cleanliness of the mouth and taking care of teeth and gum. The purpose of the study was to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices toward oral hygiene among patients aged 18-45 years in Lira Regional Referral Hospital, Lira district. Methodology: The study employed a cross-section design to address the specific objectives of the study on a sample of 50 respondents using the simple random technique. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed and used as a data collection tool. Results: From the study findings, the majority (86%) of the respondents knew about oral health, most (40%) of the respondents reported dentists as their source of information about oral hygiene, and the majority (92%) went for dental checkups to dentists, the majority (86%) knew about dental caries and most (68.9%) gave the correct response about what dental caries are, the majority (92%) reported that they knew the causes of dental caries and more than half (60%) gave the correct response about the cause of dental caries. Conclusion: Even though the respondents had good knowledge and positive attitudes toward oral hygiene, surprisingly they were at risk of contracting dental caries and other periodontal conditions because their oral hygiene practices were below the global recommendations and most of them used only toothbrushes to clean their teeth. Recommendation: The ministry of health should emphasize oral and dental care health education in health facilities and hospitals or carry out health camps and community outreaches. This would at least ensure that the general public gets access to basic knowledge about oral health and hygiene practices and can identify the signs and symptoms of oral health conditions as well as prevent them.

Driving safety is a major concern all around the world of both the concerned authorities and the general public. In the context in which aggressive driving behaviour is generally considered to be a major cause of traffic accidents, the study of such a problem can help policy-makers in their endeavour to design better programs that aim at reducing aggressive driving behaviour. The purpose of the present paper is to analyse the above-mentioned problem by considering short- and medium-term alternative measures in terms of social cost. The optimal combination of short- and medium-term solutions will be shown to depend on the drivers' level of aggressiveness, which, naturally, also depends on the gap between the existent infrastructure and the volume of motorized traffic. Special attention is given to the impact of civic campaigns on the level of aggressiveness. (original abstract)

Today, innovation is perceived as a source of competitive advantage for firms, playing a vital role in both the survival and growth of firms. A general look at the existing literature on innovation points toward a lack of studies that explore the risk and reward topic in the conformation of innovation portfolios in a firm. Hence, the main purpose of the present paper is to analyse the relationship between investment in innovation and the gain of the process and how this relationship is affected by the type of industry in which the firm operates and by the intervention of the authorities (legal protection of innovation). Among others, results indicate that, contrary to what could be expected, firms would tend to invest in disruptive innovation projects in hard innovative industries, wherein the potential, disruptive innovation is much harder to generate given the natural protection against potential competition that characterizes these industries. On the other hand, investment in disruptive innovation in soft innovative industries would require a framework of legal protection in accordance with the level of natural innovativeness of the industry. In terms of practical implications, the management of the legal protection would be socially desirable for achieving a balanced innovation development framework in the economy, as well as for resource allocations in disruptive innovation in industries where, although it is easier to be successful, its usufruct is difficult.

The article discusses the challenges of ensuring safety in early phase clinical trials despite the extensive regulations and guidelines in place. While current frameworks provide a strong foundation for the safe conduct of clinical trials, there is limited consideration of early phase research, which is crucial for efficient drug development. The study highlights the importance of bridging the gap between regulations and practice, emphasizing the need for collaboration between investigators and regulators, adaptable guidelines, intelligent compliance monitoring, and a greater understanding of human factors and ergonomics. The authors propose a toolbox of standards, guidelines, and local work instructions that can be customized to the requirements of each trial, along with the training of a new generation of clinical trial researchers who possess knowledge in safety science. [Extracted from the article]

This paper develops a BCC input relaxation model for identifying input congestion as a severe form of inefficiency of decision-making units in fuzzy data envelopment analysis. The possibility approach is presented to obtain the models equivalent to fuzzy models. We use a one-model approach to determine input congestion based on the BCC input relaxation model. A numerical example is given to illustrate the proposed model and identify the congestion with precise and imprecise data. The proposed model is also used to determine the congestion in 16 hospitals using four fuzzy inputs and two fuzzy outputs with a symmetrical triangular membership function.