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Iwona Kolodziejczyk,1 Jerzy Kuzma2 1Centre for Learning and Teaching, Divine Word University, Madang, Papua New Guinea; 2Medical Department, Divine Word University, Madang, Papua New GuineaCorrespondence: Iwona KolodziejczykCentre for Learning and Teaching, Divine Word University, P.O. Box 483, Madang 511, Papua New GuineaTel +675 70407734Email ikolodziejczyk@dwu.ac.pgPurpose: The purpose of this study was to explore knowledge and attitudes of health program students towards ethical issues pertaining to the beginning and the end of human life, and associations between these attitudes and demographic variables.Participants and Methods: The study took a mixed-method approach with self-administered survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews. A total of 88 students participated in the survey, and 10 students participated in interviews. The study was conducted among students in the Health Extension Program at a Christian university in Papua New Guinea.Results: Students showed a higher acceptance of abortion than euthanasia. More year-4 students presented significantly deeper knowledge of euthanasia and abortion compared to year-1 students. There were no gender differences regarding knowledge and attitude towards these two bioethical issues. The majority of students opposed the idea of women’s right to abortion, which is attributed mainly to socio-cultural reasons. The qualitative analysis indicated a very strong perception that having children ‘defines’ womanhood and also revealed general disapproval of any form of euthanasia. A low level of acceptance of various forms of euthanasia is associated with a respect for older people in Melanesian society and beliefs that ancestors’ support is required for achieving prosperity in life.Conclusion: The study offered a comprehensive description and analysis of students’ knowledge and attitudes towards ethical issues pertaining to the beginning and the end of human life. Presented a low level of knowledge towards bioethical issues, together with a small proportion of the knowledge gained from lectures and tutorials, indicated inadequate teaching of bioethics and calls for further improvement. In the perspective of rapid social and cultural changes in the Papua New Guinea society, further studies on changing attitudes towards bioethics issues would be valuable.Keywords: bioethics education, health students, abortion, euthanasia, developing country

Primary surgical infections are the second most common cause of surgical admission and contribute considerably to morbidity and mortality of surgical patients in developing countries. This study aimed to determine a bacterial profile and antimicrobial susceptibility patterns in primary surgical infections. Methods: This was a prospective cross-sectional study including 150 patients diagnosed clinically as primary surgical infections. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was done on the isolates using the disc diffusion method. Results: Positive cultures were obtained from 122 patients; Gram-positive bacteria were responsible for 48% (n = 59), Gram-negative for 39% (n = 48), mixed flora for 10% (n = 12) and Candida for 2% (n = 3) of primary surgical infections. The alarming finding was that 78% of Staphylococcus aureus were resistant to oxacillin (MRSA) and 83% resistant to cephalosporins, whilst 3 isolates showed intermediate resistance to vancomycin. Gram-negative isolates also demonstrated antibiotic resistance. Conclusions: This study provides recent baseline data both on the bacterial profile and the antibiotic susceptibility patterns in primary surgical infections in the Papua New Guinean setting and it should guide therapeutic policies in the country. There is a growing need for surveillance of the local microbiological epidemiology and for antimicrobial stewardship to ensure that the empirical use of antibiotics is appropriate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background & aims: Fast track protocols have been successfully used in abdominal surgery but there are no randomized trials on fast track after appendectomy. The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and feasibility of fast track perioperative care protocol including early feeding with opioid-sparing analgesia after open appendectomy.Methods: We randomly allocated 62 consecutive patients who underwent appendectomy to an early feeding with opioid-sparing analgesia and traditional care group. The study was not blinded regarding the mode of postoperative rehabilitation. Clinical primary endpoint was length of postoperative hospital stay. Secondary endpoints were morbidity rate, time to bowel sounds and passage of flatus or stools, tolerance of solid diet and facial visual pain score.Results: The mean length of primary hospital stay was significantly shorter in the early feeding with opioid-sparing analgesia than in traditional care group (2.2 versus 4.0 days, P < 0.001). No significant differences were seen between groups regarding demographics, degree of pathological changes in the appendix, and in the secondary endpoints such as morbidity, frequency of vomiting, visual facial pain score, time to first flatus or stools, resumption of bowel sounds and toleration of solid diet.Conclusions: This study indicates that early feeding and opioid-sparing analgesia after open appendectomy is safe and reduces length of hospital stay without deterioration of pain control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of the probiotic strain Lactobacillus plantarum LS/07 on intestinal bacterial enzyme activities – β-glucuronidase (β-GLUCUR), β-galactosidase (β-GAL), and β-glucosidase (β-GLU) in the prevention of cancer, atherosclerosis and dysbiosis was investigated. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 12 experimental groups: C (control group), AT (atherosclerotic group), CC (carcinogenic group), and then each group in combination with antibiotics and probiotics individually and each group in double combination on antibiotic and probiotic. In the control group the β-glucuronidase activity did not change throughout the experiment. High fat diet in the atherosclerotic group significantly increased the activity of β-glucuronidase (p

We compare the mortality experience of medical school graduates from Loma Linda University (LLU [n = 4342]) and the University of Southern California (USC [n = 2832]) with each other and with that of contemporaneous, white, American men. When compared with US white men from the general population, both USC and LLU graduates had below expected deaths for all causes (USC, standardized mortality ratio [SMR] = 76; LLU, SMR = 56), although deaths due to cerebrovascular disease, airplane accidents, and suicides were elevated for USC (SMRs = 132, 360, and 218, respectively). The LLU graduates had a risk similar to that of the USC graduates for fatal cancer, with a mortality ratio (MR) of 0.92 (95% confidence interval, 0.67 to 1.26); but half the risk of fatal atherosclerotic disease, with MRs of 0.58 (0.46 to 0.73) and 0.66 (0.43 to 0.99) for coronary and cerebrovascular disease, respectively; and three times the risk of fatal airplane accidents. The overall mortality rate of LLU physicians was only 75% as high as that of the USC physicians and only 56% as high as that of the US male population at large. We attribute this reduced mortality mainly to the low cardiovascular mortality rates, which may be accounted for by the life-style of the substantial proportion of Seventh-day Adventists among LLU graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development in the field of space engineering is aimed at achieving another milestone, which is the creation of an extraterrestrial colony on, for example, Mars. Missions of this kind will be long-term and long-distance, which results in the need to design systems with a high degree of self-sufficiency. It is synonymous with high recovery resources. This article is a concept proposed for the needs of the Mar Colony Prize competition – Design The First Human Settlement On Mars, created by The Mars Society. This competition assumed designing highly-autonomous base for 1000 people. This means, that all environmental systems must be connected with each other and work in closed loops. In this paper four main environmental systems are proposed and characterized. The state of art of each subsystems technology is presented.

One of the crucial steps in the development of self-sufficient extra-terrestrial human colonies is water and biomass management. One of the attempts to simplify the treatment scheme is to directly implement greywater into soil-less cultivation as no greywater treatment unit would be necessary. In this case, the most essential key factor is the influence of surfactants. In this paper, an analysis of various experiment designs is investigated and shown. While full factorial design of experiment would require more than 500 000 tests, with duration of at least 30 days each, an approach to reduce this number to a total of 5 experiments is shown in this paper for initial experiments.

Design of efficient and robust life support systems will require huge effort. In closed systems such as future extra-terrestrial colonies or spaceships, all produced wastes will have to be perfectly purified and all resources will have to be recovered. This isn’t possible now even in life support systems built on Earth. Future extra-terrestrial closed life support system will have to be robust and simple as possible to decrease risk of failure and transport costs. One of the attempts to simplify the treatment of wastes is to use greywater as water source in soil-less cultivation without pretreatment. In this paper results of two lab-scale aeroponic experiments are shown. These experiments were aimed at determining possibility of using grey water directly as water source for aeroponic cultivation of lettuce. Two surfactants (SBDS,SMCT) with concentrations varying from 0.08 to 1.5 g/L and model grey water (containing SLES surfactant) were tested. Experiments shown that high concentrations of SBDS and SMCT are detrimental for lettuce growth while similar concentration of SLES inhibit but do not stop lettuce growth. With lower concentrations of surfactants growth of lettuce is possible. Moreover results shows decrease in surfactants mass in model grey water used as nutrient solution which may indicate development of bacteria in root zone that are able to use surfactants as substrates.

This paper presents construction, operating principle and initial study of new device for measurement and recording of arterial blood pressure, created at Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. This device is equipped with a pneumatic pressure sensor based on the pneumatic nozzle flapper amplifier principle. During the measurement sensor is applied to the patient’s body, where the pulse is easily palpable. After that, sensor is gradually pressed against to the artery, in order to record peak amplitude. Maximum value of this amplitude corresponds to the real blood pressure waveform. This device was validated according to „International Protocol revision 2010 for the validation of blood pressure measuring devices in adults”.