Search

People who nonmedically use drugs (PWUD) face intricate social issues that suppress self-actualization, communal integration, and overall health and wellness. Strengths-based approaches, an under-used pedagogy and practice in addiction medicine, underscore the significance of identifying and recognizing the inherent and acquired skills, attributes, and capacities of PWUD. A strengths-based approach engenders client affirmation and improves their capacity to reduce drug use-related harms by leveraging existing capabilities. Exploring this paradigm, we conducted and analyzed interviews with 46 PWUD who were clients at syringe services programs in New York City and rural southern Illinois, two areas with elevated rates of opioid-related morbidity and mortality, to assess respondents perceived strengths. We located two primary thematic modalities in which strengths-based ethos is expressed: individuals (1) being and advocate and resource for harm reduction knowledge and practices and (2) engaging in acts of continuous self-actualization. These dynamics demonstrate PWUD strengths populating and manifesting in complex ways that both affirm and challenge humanist and biomedical notions of individual agency, as PWUD refract enacted, anticipated, and perceived stigmas. In conclusion, programs that blend evidence-based, systems-level interventions on drug use stigma and disenfranchisement with meso and micro-level strengths-based interventions that affirm and leverage personal identity, decision-making capacity, and endemic knowledge may help disrupt health promotion cleavages among PWUD.

With the advent of smartphones, laptops, and other various portable devices, the ability to incorporate technology into the classroom has increased dramatically in the last few decades. This study evaluates the perceptions and attitudes of both students and teachers in relation to mobile apps that assist in classroom learning. The research used a mixed-methods approach that collected demographic information and conducted qualitative interviews to determine the perceptions of mobile apps to students and teachers. Cross-sectional data was collected from participants and analyzed for associations. 43 students and 6 teachers were recruited and interviewed. The participants were asked about their thoughts on mobile educational apps, and their interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. For students, themes were centered on barriers to educational app adoption, barriers to continued use of education apps, tracking progress, credibility, and goal setting/reminders. For teachers, themes identified that influenced mobile app use, and criteria used for mobile app selection was identified. Future research should aim to assess quantitative improvements in mobile educational app use within the classroom.

With the advent of smartphones, laptops, and other various portable devices, the ability to incorporate technology into the classroom has increased dramatically in the last few decades. This study evaluates the perceptions and attitudes of both students and teachers in relation to mobile apps that assist in classroom learning. The research used a mixed-methods approach that collected demographic information and conducted qualitative interviews to determine the perceptions of mobile apps to students and teachers. Cross-sectional data was collected from participants and analyzed for associations. 43 students and 6 teachers were recruited and interviewed. The participants were asked about their thoughts on mobile educational apps, and their interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the data and 5 themes were identified for students: barriers to educational app adoption, barriers to continued use of education apps, tracking progress, tracking of progress, and goal setting. For teachers, themes identified included factors to mobile app use, and criteria used for mobile app selection. These findings may provide school boards and scientists with insights on how to best develop educational apps to fit the needs of students.

Project completion behind schedule is a struggle for the construction sector, affecting time, cost, and quality. This investigation has been necessitated by the lingering nature of project delay risks despite many extant analyses. This study collated expert opinions from the Thai construction sector on salient construction delay variables and their influence on each other for DEMATEL-SD analysis. The collated data were analysed and found consistent with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.939. Then, the DEMATEL technique was used to establish the influence weight of factors for the System dynamics (SD) analysis. It was discovered that minimising the design error at the preconstruction stage significantly reduces the magnitude of delay. Increasing values of design error and change order increase the rework profile. Besides, the project delivery within the scheduled 232 weeks can be ensured by minimising the threat of design error, design change, change order, rework, productivity problem, and by improving project management. This study adopted a hybrid mathematical system to holistically examine the construction delay risk by comprehensively exploring the dynamics of influencing variables and investigating their impact on the project scheme. The system helps project stakeholders to arrive at an effective decision in overcoming delay risks, thus minimising the cost overrun and improving the project quality.

Issues: To date, there has been no synthesis of research addressing the scale and nuances of the opioid epidemic in racial/ethnic minority populations in the United States that considers the independent and joint impacts of dynamics such as structural disadvantage, provider bias, health literacy, cultural norms and various other risk factors. Approach: Using the "risk environment" framework, we conducted a scoping review on PubMed, Embase and Google Scholar of peer‐reviewed literature and governmental reports published between January 2000 and February 2024 on the nature and scale of opioid use, opioid prescribing patterns, and fatal overdoses among racial/ethnic minorities in the United States, while also examining macro, meso and individual‐level risk factors. Key Findings: Results from this review illuminate a growing, but fragmented, literature lacking standardisation in racial/ethnic classification and case reporting, specifically in regards to Indigenous and Asian subpopulations. This literature broadly illustrates racial/ethnic minorities' increasing nonmedical use of opioids, heightened burdens of fatal overdoses, specifically in relation to polydrug use and synthetic opioids, with notable elevations among Black/Latino subgroups, in addition uneven opioid prescribing patterns. Moreover, the literature implicates a variety of unique risk environments corresponding to dynamics such as residential segregation, provider bias, overpolicing, acculturative stress, patient distrust, and limited access to mental health care services and drug treatment resources, including medications for opioid use disorder. Implications: There has been a lack of rigorous, targeted study on racial/ethnic minorities who use opioids, but evidence highlights burgeoning increases in usage, especially polydrug/synthetic opioid use, and disparities in prescriptions and fatal overdose risk‐phenomena tied to multi‐level forms of entrenched disenfranchisement. Conclusion: There is a need for further research on the complex, overlapping risk environments of racial/ethnic minorities who use opioids, including deeper inclusion of Indigenous and Asian individuals, and efforts to generate greater methodological synergies in population classification and reporting guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anatomical features that underlie tree functions in E. angolense and E. cylindricum were investigated in this study. Mechanical, hydraulic and storage functions, including their presumed dominance in either stem and root region were also stated. This study was carried out at Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), Jericho hills, Ibadan. Stem and root wood cores were obtained by non-destructive sampling from tree stem at breast height of 1.35m, while root samples were obtained from the lateral root of each mature tree at a radius of about 100cm to the trunk. Sectioning of sample materials was performed using a Reichert microtome sliding machine. Maceration was done by preparing wood samples into slivers in equal volume of glacial acetic acid (ethanoic acid) and hydrogen peroxide (1:1) in two hours (2hrs) at a temperature of 100°C. Microscopic investigations and measurements of wood cells were performed using a Zeis light microscope (Standard 25), and all data analyses were completed using R statistical software (R Core Team 2016). Results showed average values of vessel parameters, fibre parameters were higher at the stem region than at the root region in both wood species, while ray dimensions were higher at the root regions than at the stem regions of the two species. This suggested that the two wood species would rather trade off mechanical and hydraulic functions for storage function at the root region in order to be efficient in water conduction as large vessels will bring about embolism. Therefore, vessels were wider in the stem regions than in the root regions of the two wood species; rays were also wider in the root than in the stem, hence, this study revealed that storage functions could be dominance in the root region rather than the stem region of both E. angolense and E. cylindricum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an analytical approach for pressure transient test analysis in naturally fractured vuggy reservoirs. This analysis approach relies on a triple-continuum concept, using observed geological data from carbonate oil formations in western China, to describe transient flow behavior in fracture-vug-matrix reservoirs. In the conceptual mathematical model, fractured vuggy rock is considered as a triple-continuum medium, consisting of fractures, rock matrix, and vugs (or cavities). Similar to the classical double-porosity model, the fracture continuum is assumed to be responsible for the occurrence of global flow, while vuggy and matrix continua (providing primary storage space) interact locally with each other as well as with globally connected fractures. Furthermore, the triple continua of fractures, matrix, and vugs are assumed to have uniform and homogeneous properties throughout, and intercontinuum flows between them are at pseudosteady state. With these assumptions, we derive analytical solutions in Laplace space for transient flow toward a well in an infinite and finite reservoir with wellbore storage and skin effects. The analytical solutions reveal typical pressure responses in a fracture-vug-matrix reservoir and can be used for estimating vug properties, in addition to fracture and matrix parameters, through properly designed and conducted well tests. As application examples, actual well test data from a fractured-vuggy reservoir in Western China are analyzed using the triple continuum model.

The use of coconut husk sawdust and tomato stem particles at varying blending proportion was examined for the production of particle board. Boards of dimensions 350 mm by 350 mm by 6 mm were produced (coconut husk dust, tomato stem particles) at different blending proportion and addition of additive (CaCl2 at different concentrations). The physical properties (water absorption and thickness swelling) and mechanical properties (modulus of rupture (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE)) were investigated. Thickness swelling and water absorption were investigated at 24 and 48 hours. The results showed that boards exhibited mean values of 0.50% to 4.16% and 2.12% to 7.00% respectively of thickness swelling at 24 hours and 48 hours respectively and 13.6% to 25.2% and 17.6% to 29.1% of water absorption at 24 h and 48 h, respectively. The boards also exhibited means of 1.00 N/mm² to 5.25 N/mm² and 339 N/mm² to 3430 N/mm² for MOR and MOE respectively. An increase in the tomato particle content caused increase in water absorption and thickness swelling, resulting in the highest water absorption and thickness swelling values. Tomato stem and coconut husk dust can be used to produce cement bonded boards after pre-treatment with hot water and preferably both sieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classification of Bambusa vulgaris for structural application was carried out based on the maximum crushing strength perpendicular and parallel to the grain of the culm as well as bending moduli of rupture (MOR) and elasticity (MOE). The findings of the work showed that the MOR > 70 N/mm2, MOE > 9000 N/mm2 and compression strength > 35 N/mm2. Following the standard classification of timber species for structural use in building, B. vulgaris is placed in group one as the strength properties surpassed the standard stress limit required for structural application. The basic density of B. vulgaris falls in the range of 755.22 to 877.23 kg/m3 which is comparable to most bamboo as well as heavy tropical wood species used in construction. The overall specific strength properties of B. vulgaris were somewhat higher than and comparable to most timber species used in construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated the compatibility of kraft paper and plastic wastes. Also, the physical and mechanical properties of the paper-plastic composite were determined. Pulverized kraft paper wastes and fine sachet water particles were weighed and mixed together using different mixing ratios (50% of paper & 50% of plastic (1:1), 33% of paper & 67% of plastic (1:2) and 25% of paper & 75% of plastic (1:3)). The method of composite production employed was extrusion method. The results of water absorption (WA) conducted on the paper-plastic composite material ranged between 0.03% - 0.16% and 0.03% - 0.20% for 2 and 24 hours respectively. The average values obtained for thickness swell (TS) ranged between 0.00% - 0.23% and 0.00% - 0.33% for 2 and 24 hours respectively. The average values obtained for tensile modulus ranged between 0.11GPa to 0.33GPa and the average values obtained for tensile strength ranged between 9.99MPa to 15.12MPa. The result obtained from this study shows that kraft paper wastes and water sachet wastes can be utilized as a composite material as they were compatible. In addition, 25% of paper & 75% of plastic waste (1:3) gives the best mixing ratio as indicated by the result with the most dimensionally stable and high strength properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]