Search

Educators who design and manage study abroad programs face a series of ethical responsibilities. Meeting these responsibilities is critical in the field of global health, where study abroad programs are often designed to provide healthcare services in under-resourced communities. Leaders in global health have thus formed working groups to study the ethical implications of overseas programming and have led the way in establishing socially responsible best practices for study abroad. Their recommendations include development of bidirectional programming that is designed for mutual and equitable benefits, focused on locally identified needs and priorities, attentive to local community costs, and structured to build local capacity to ensure sustainability. Implementation remains a key challenge, however. Sustainable, bidirectional programming is difficult and costly. In the present study, authors questioned how technology could be used to connect students of global health in distant countries to make socially responsible global health programming more accessible. Drawing on empirical research in the learning sciences and leveraging best practices in technology design, the authors developed a Virtual Exchange in Global Health to connect university students in the U.S. with counterparts in Lebanon, who worked in teams to address humanitarian problems in Syrian refugee camps. Early results demonstrate the value of this approach. At dramatically lower cost than traditional study abroad—and with essentially no carbon footprint—students recognized complementary strengths in each other through bidirectional programming, learned about local needs and priorities through Virtual Reality, and built sustaining relationships while addressing a difficult real-world problem. The authors learned that technology could effectively facilitate socially responsible global health programming and do so at low cost. The program has important implications for teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond.

BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic is an additional burden on Lebanon’s stressed population, fragmented healthcare system, and political, economic, and refugee crises. Vaccination is an important means to overcoming the pandemic. OBJECTIVE Understanding the population’s intentions to vaccinate, and perceptions of and obstacles to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, can inform Lebanon’s vaccination efforts. METHODS We performed a cross-sectional study from 29 Jan 2021 to 11 Mar 2021 using an online questionnaire of open- and closed-ended questions in Arabic via convenience “snowball” sampling to assess the perceptions of adults residing in Lebanon. RESULTS 1,185 adults participated in the survey. 46.1% [95% CI: 43.2%-49.0%] of survey participants intended to take the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine when available to them, 19.0% [16.8%-21.4%] indicated that they would not, and 34.0% [31.3%-36.8%] were unsure. The most common reasons for hesitancy were concerns about safety, limited testing, side effects, and efficacy. Top motivations for vaccinating were to protect oneself, to protect one’s family and the public, and to end the pandemic. Despite financial hardships in Lebanon, barriers to vaccine access were not frequently described as concerns. Established healthcare facilities, rather than new temporary vaccination centers, were most frequently selected as preferred vaccination sites. CONCLUSIONS Vaccine hesitancy appears to be high in Lebanon. Disseminating clear, consistent, evidence-based safety and efficacy information on vaccines may help reduce vaccine hesitancy, especially among the large proportion of adults who appear to be unsure about (rather than opposed to) vaccination.

People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypotheses drawn from other influential and non-mutually exclusive theoretical frameworks, from biosocial role theory to a cultural media perspective. Survey data from 93,158 human participants across 93 countries provide evidence that behaviors such as applying makeup or using other cosmetics, hair grooming, clothing style, caring for body hygiene, and exercising or following a specific diet for the specific purpose of improving ones physical attractiveness, are universal. Indeed, 99% of participants reported spending >10 min a day performing beauty-enhancing behaviors. The results largely support evolutionary hypotheses: more time was spent enhancing beauty by women (almost 4 h a day, on average) than by men (3.6 h a day), by the youngest participants (and contrary to predictions, also the oldest), by those with a relatively more severe history of infectious diseases, and by participants currently dating compared to those in established relationships. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviors was social media usage. Other predictors, in order of effect size, included adhering to traditional gender roles, residing in countries with less gender equality, considering oneself as highly attractive or, conversely, highly unattractive, TV watching time, higher socioeconomic status, right-wing political beliefs, a lower level of education, and personal individualistic attitudes. This study provides novel insight into universal beauty-enhancing behaviors by unifying evolutionary theory with several other complementary perspectives., National Science Center, Poland [2019/33/N/HS6/00054]; Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University); Basic Research Program at HSE University, RF; FCT [UID/PSI/03125/2021, SFRH/BD/126304/2016]; UTAR Research Centre Excellence Award; Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman [2019 -CAP (6401/0019)], This work is the result of the research project funded by the National Science Center, Poland (2019/33/N/HS6/00054). Dmitry Grigoryev was supported by the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University).; Dmitrii Dubrov was supported by the Basic Research Program at HSE University, RF.; Patricia Arriaga was supported by the FCT through funds from the research center UID/PSI/03125/2021. Anabela C. Santos was supported by the FCT through funds from a PhD grant SFRH/BD/126304/2016. Kavitha Nalla Muthu and Chee-Seng Tan were supported by the UTAR Research Centre Excellence Award 2019 -CAP (6401/0019) from the Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Although Life Skills programs showed to improve the psychological and physical wellbeing of individuals, little attention has been paid, worldwide and in the Arab countries in specific to implementing life skills intervention for university students. In this study, we tested the effectiveness of a life skills based health promotion intervention KHOTWA (STEP) in enhancing the wellbeing of university students in Lebanon, a country that faces economic and political instability. This is a quasi-experimental study, with pre and post-test, intervention-control design. Each group was formed of 78 participants studying in a private university in Lebanon. Mixed design was used to address the process and outcomes objectives of the intervention. The program was carried online due to COVID-19 pandemic. Significant differences were observed between the intervention and the control groups for life skills, dietary habits and mental health scores at the 3-month follow-up. For the intervention group, a significant increase was observed in the mean score of each of the following Life Skills subscales: self-care ( p = 0.001), work and study ( p = 0.013), career and education planning ( p = 0.011) and looking forward/goal settings ( p

The COVID-19 pandemic is an additional burden on Lebanon’s stressed population, fragmented healthcare system, and political, economic, and refugee crises. Understanding the population’s intentions to vaccinate, and perceptions of and obstacles to SARS-CoV-2 vaccination, can inform Lebanon’s vaccination efforts. We performed a cross-sectional study from 29 Jan 2021 to 11 Mar 2021 using an online questionnaire in Arabic via convenience “snowball” sampling to assess the perceptions of adults residing in Lebanon. 1,185 adults participated in the survey. % [95% CI: 43.2%-49.0%] of survey participants intended to take the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine when available to them, 19.0% [16.8%-21.4%] indicated that they would not, and 34.0% [31.3%-36.8%] were unsure. The most common reasons for hesitancy were concerns about safety, limited testing, side effects, and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy appears to be high in Lebanon. Disseminating clear, consistent, evidence-based safety and efficacy information on vaccines may help reduce vaccine hesitancy, especially among the large proportion of adults who appear to be unsure about (rather than opposed to) vaccination.

University students in developing countries may be at high risk for mental health disorders due to many financial, political, and social stressors. In the present study, we intended to explore the association of mental health with health behaviors and life skills. Participants included 2789 university students in Lebanon. Bivariate and multivariate regression analysis were performed. Results suggested that the risk for mental health disorders is associated with the socio-demographic factors of being a first year university student, being female, and living in rural areas. Also, consumption of high-calorie dietary pattern, low physical activity, and high level of risky behaviors associated with higher occurrence of mental health disorders. Life Skills are associated with less occurrence of mental health disorders in our data. Sociodemographic factors such as gender, university year, and area of residence (rural vs. urban), healthy behaviors, and life skills showed to be strongly associated with university students’ mental health. Life skills based interventions addressing the aforementioned mental health determinants would benefit university students in developing countries.

Conference paper published in Proceedings of the Virtual and Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Conference 2018, available open access at https://doi.org/10.1255/vrar2018.ch8

SummaryThe RNA-binding protein TDP-43 regulates RNA metabolism at multiple levels, including transcription, RNA splicing, and mRNA stability. TDP-43 is a major component of the cytoplasmic inclusions characteristic of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and some types of frontotemporal lobar degeneration. The importance of TDP-43 in disease is underscored by the fact that dominant missense mutations are sufficient to cause disease, although the role of TDP-43 in pathogenesis is unknown. Here we show that TDP-43 forms cytoplasmic mRNP granules that undergo bidirectional, microtubule-dependent transport in neurons in vitro and in vivo and facilitate delivery of target mRNA to distal neuronal compartments. TDP-43 mutations impair this mRNA transport function in vivo and in vitro, including in stem cell-derived motor neurons from ALS patients bearing any one of three different TDP-43 ALS-causing mutations. Thus, TDP-43 mutations that cause ALS lead to partial loss of a novel cytoplasmic function of TDP-43.

We investigated the axonal transport of neurofilaments in cultured neurons from two different strains ofdilute lethalmice, which lack myosin Va. To analyze the motile behavior, we tracked the movement of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged neurofilaments through naturally occurring gaps in the axonal neurofilament array of cultured superior cervical ganglion neurons from DLS/LeJdilute lethalmice. Compared with wild-type controls, we observed no statistically significant difference in velocity or frequency of movement. To analyze the pausing behavior, we used a fluorescence photoactivation pulse–escape technique to measure the rate of departure of PAGFP (photoactivatable GFP)-tagged neurofilaments from photoactivated axonal segments in cultured dorsal root ganglion neurons from DLS/LeJ anddl20Jdilute lethalmice. Compared with wild-type controls, we observed a 48% increase in the mean time for neurofilaments to depart the activated regions in neurons from DLS/LeJ mice (p< 0.001) and a 169% increase in neurons fromdl20J mice (p< 0.0001). These data indicate that neurofilaments pause for more prolonged periods in the absence of myosin Va. We hypothesize that myosin Va is a short-range motor for neurofilaments and that it can function to enhance the efficiency of neurofilament transport in axons by delivering neurofilaments to their microtubule tracks, thereby reducing the duration of prolonged off-track pauses.

Summary Mutations in VCP cause multisystem degeneration impacting the nervous system, muscle, and/or bone. Patients may present with ALS, Parkinsonism, frontotemporal dementia, myopathy, Paget's disease, or a combination of these. The disease mechanism is unknown. We developed a Drosophila model of VCP mutation-dependent degeneration. The phenotype is reminiscent of PINK1 and parkin mutants, including a pronounced mitochondrial defect. Indeed, VCP interacts genetically with the PINK1/parkin pathway in vivo. Paradoxically, VCP complements PINK1 deficiency but not parkin deficiency. The basis of this paradox is resolved by mechanistic studies in vitro showing that VCP recruitment to damaged mitochondria requires Parkin-mediated ubiquitination of mitochondrial targets. VCP recruitment coincides temporally with mitochondrial fission, and VCP is required for proteasome-dependent degradation of Mitofusins in vitro and in vivo. Further, VCP and its adaptor Npl4/Ufd1 are required for clearance of damaged mitochondria via the PINK1/Parkin pathway, and this is impaired by pathogenic mutations in VCP.