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Long-duration spaceflight poses a variety of health risks to astronauts, largely resulting from extended exposure to microgravity and radiation. Here, we assessed the prevalence and incidence of cerebral microbleeds in sixteen astronauts before and after a typical 6-month mission on board the International Space Station Cerebral microbleeds are microhemorrhages in the brain, which are typically interpreted as early evidence of small vessel disease and have been associated with cognitive impairment. We identified evidence of higher-than-expected microbleed prevalence in astronauts with prior spaceflight experience. However, we did not identify a statistically significant increase in microbleed burden up to 7 months after spaceflight. Altogether, these preliminary findings suggest that spaceflight exposure may increase microbleed burden, but this influence may be indirect or occur over time courses that exceed 1 year. For health monitoring purposes, it may be valuable to acquire neuroimaging data that are able to detect the occurrence of microbleeds in astronauts following their spaceflight missions.

Tanya Kane,1 Jason Ford,2 Rafif Mahmood Al Saady,1 Semir Vranic,1 Omran AH Musa,3 Shireen Suliman4,5 1College of Medicine, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar; 2Department of Pathology, Sidra Medicine, Doha, Qatar; 3Department of Disease Control, Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK; 4Medicine Department, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar; 5School of Health Professions Education, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the NetherlandsCorrespondence: Shireen Suliman, Email ssuliman@hamad.qaPurpose: There have been several studies into medical student career decision making in occidental countries (eg US, UK), but medical career selection in a Middle Eastern context has not been as well studied. This study aims to explore determinants underpinning medical students’ residency choice in Qatar.Patients and methods: During the Fall semester of the 2022– 2023 academic year, all (n=358) medical students from the College of Medicine at Qatar University were invited to participate in an online explorative questionnaire about students’ career choices and the factors determining their selection.Results: Of the 358 students, 184 responded (51%). Respondents had a mean age of 20 years; the majority were female (73.9%), Qatari (54.3%), unmarried (97.3%), and enrolled in a pre-clerkship year (55.0%). The most important career determinant was specialty-specific factors. The relative importance of other determinants differed by gender and stage of training. Among our respondents, male students were more likely to rate role models and influencers as being important to their choice, while female students and Qatari students overall were more likely to cite societal obligation. Medical students in Qatar seemed to have career preferences in mind upon entry into medical education. Later-year students were more likely to identify the importance of work-life balance and place of practice, but were less likely to rank prestige and income as an important determinant.Conclusion: The results of this baseline study suggest that socioeconomic and cultural context influence medical student career decisions.Keywords: career choice, specialty selection, medical students, medical education, residency, Qatar

The pursuit of success in one's chosen profession is a universal aspiration that requires individuals to engage in competition, not just domestically but also internationally, particularly in today's era of globalization. The rapid advancement of technology presents both opportunities and challenges, necessitating proactive management to achieve professional success. In the field of Informatics Engineering, there is a wide range of professional pathways, each offering unique opportunities and requiring distinct skill sets. For university graduates, it is crucial to have a comprehensive understanding of the specific requirements and demands associated with various job paths to make informed decisions. This knowledge enables them to select a professional route that aligns with their individual aspirations and goals, thereby avoiding potential discontent in their chosen career. Lack of knowledge or awareness during the decision-making process can negatively impact productivity and overall performance. There is a growing demand among university graduates, especially at the undergraduate level, for career-related information. This has led to heightened competition among graduates in terms of skills, knowledge, and availability. To effectively navigate this competitive landscape and engage in meaningful competition with fellow graduates, individuals must possess a comprehensive understanding of their desired career trajectory. To address these challenges, the Decision Support Model (MPK) can be utilized, employing the Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process methodology. This approach considers four primary criteria—Financial Compensation, Non-Financial Compensation, Soft Skills, and Hard Skills—each with several sub-criteria. These criteria are evaluated based on the perspectives of certified graduates of Informatics Engineering and industry specialists. The study successfully identified the primary criteria influencing career decisions, such as job conditions, incentives, and prospects. It also highlighted the most favorable career path, with the role of a Data Analyst being identified as particularly promising. This career path involves roles within the field of Informatics Engineering that focus on processing data according to specific requirements, highlighting the importance of understanding the evolving landscape of technology and its impact on professional opportunities. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2024-08-01-011 Full Text: PDF

Abstract Terahertz (THz) radiation will play a pivotal role in wireless communications, sensing, spectroscopy and imaging technologies in the decades to come. THz emitters and receivers should thus be simplified in their design and miniaturized to become a commodity. In this work we demonstrate scalable photoconductive THz receivers based on horizontally-grown InAs nanowires (NWs) embedded in a bow-tie antenna that work at room temperature. The NWs provide a short photoconductivity lifetime while conserving high electron mobility. The large surface-to-volume ratio also ensures low dark current and thus low thermal noise, compared to narrow-bandgap bulk devices. By engineering the NW morphology, the NWs exhibit greatly different photoconductivity lifetimes, enabling the receivers to detect THz photons via both direct and integrating sampling modes. The broadband NW receivers are compatible with gating lasers across the entire range of telecom wavelengths (1.2–1.6 μm) and thus are ideal for inexpensive all-optical fibre-based THz time-domain spectroscopy and imaging systems. The devices are deterministically positioned by lithography and thus scalable to the wafer scale, opening the path for a new generation of commercial THz receivers.

Personality classification has garnered significant interest in psychology, computational social science, and Machine Learning (ML) due to its wide-ranging applications. This paper presents PersoNet, an innovative framework developed to identify personality types using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), aimed at enhancing customer service experiences by matching customers with suitable support agents. PersoNet employs a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) neural network architecture and has achieved an impressive classification accuracy of over 93.98%. Our extensive experiments with the MBTI dataset reveal that the BiLSTM architecture effectively captures both temporal dependencies and semantic subtleties in textual data, contributing to this high level of accuracy. Consequently, PersoNet can accurately select customer service agents who match customer personalities, achieving a Customer Satisfaction Rate (CSR) of over 97.82%–a notable improvement of 20.25% in CSR based on our experimental data. These results establish PersoNet as a cutting-edge tool in personality classification, surpassing existing methods in both accuracy and computational efficiency and markedly enhancing customer service quality.

Nowadays, most of our daily activities are assisted electronically due to not only time effectiveness but also activity efficiency. Processes that once could only be completed at the office are now able to be done anywhere and anytime, as long as there is internet access. One obvious example is the COVID-19 pandemic which leads to the work-from-home system. Therefore, this spurred the author on to innovation by adapting to the current phenomenon. Most of our daily activities are currently converted to digital, in which these digital users can reap abundant results. This manual-to-digital conversion is known as ‘digital transformation’. The purpose of digitalization in this organization is to transform the disposition distribution of the leaders from manual to digital. The result of the study is the adoption of e-Disposisi application (paperless office) in the organization, which causes the business processes to be more effective and more efficient concerning time, human resources, document storage, and paper use. This implementation results in changes in the business processes, the reduction of time needed to distribute documents, the lower purchase of paper and tint, and the minimized employment of human resources. Generally, the research contributes to the more effortless business processes in the organization, allowing operations to continue without direct contact. Data collection was done through various methods, namely observation, interview, questionnaire, focus group discussion (FGD), and literature. The methodologies used were Soft System Management, qualitative and quantitative referring to the IT Information Library framework. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-06-07 Full Text: PDF