Research has found that 24% of foreign domestic workers (FDWs) in Singapore have poor mental health (24%), with depressive symptoms being identified as the second most severe psychological symptoms
...1
. The study assessed the acceptability and effectiveness of a 4-week cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based paraprofessional training program for FDWs in Singapore on depression literacy and CBT knowledge (primary outcomes), depression-related stigma, as well as attitudes towards seeking professional help (secondary outcomes) immediately and 2 months following the training. Forty female Filipino FDWs were recruited and randomized into either a CBT-based paraprofessional training program or wait-list (WL) group. Participants completed outcome measures before, after, and 2 months following their training. No significant difference was found on changes on any of the outcome variables in the intervention group as compared to the WL group. Following training, both groups showed significantly improved depression literacy, CBT knowledge, and attitudes towards seeking professional help. These changes were sustained at 2-month follow-up. All participants indicated a high level of satisfaction with the training program. While findings from between-group analyses do not support the efficacy of the CBT-based paraprofessional training program in improving depression literacy and related outcomes, participation in the program was associated with improvements in several outcomes within the training group. Future research should explore adaptations to the program (e.g., in terms of training duration and modes of delivery) that would increase its efficacy in improving depression literacy and CBT knowledge among FDWs.
Approximately one in every five Singaporean households employs Foreign Domestic Workers (FDWs) (Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics Home, 2015). Mental health problems, especially ...depression, are prevalent among FDWs in Singapore (HOME, 2015). Yet, there is a lack of empirically-supported interventions to address their mental health needs.
To train FDWs as mental health paraprofessionals with selected CBT skills for depression, which may enable them to provide basic assistance to their fellow domestic workers with depressive symptoms.
To present and assess the effectiveness and acceptability of a 4 weekly 3-hour group CBT-based paraprofessional training program for FDWs.
Participants were randomized into either an intervention or a wait-list control group. Participants in the wait-list group received the training after the intervention group completed the training. Both groups completed questionnaires assessing attitudes towards seeking psychological help; stigma towards people with depression; self-confidence in delivering CBT; general self-efficacy; knowledge of depression and CBT before, immediately after, and two months following the training.
Thirty-eight out of 40 participants completed the program. Both groups did not differ on changes in any of the outcome variables. However, within-group analyses showed improved attitudes towards seeking professional health for mental health issues; greater depression literacy; and CBT knowledge following the training. These changes were sustained at 2-month follow-up. All participants indicated high level of satisfaction with the program.
These preliminary results highlight the potential effectiveness and feasibility of implementing the training as a stepped-care mental health service to address the high rate of depression among the FDW community.
Sustainability in human development sets exact standards for the management of natural resources, including their extraction, use, and the introduction of waste products into a complex, inventive ...circuit as a consequence of exploitation. Because of the negative influence that medical waste has on the environment and people, it needs specific handling. Medical waste is increasing in amount all the time and has a wide range of consequences across a wide range of activity domains. This paper discusses various issues of the sustainable management of blood sample bio-medical waste and evaluates the properties of alternative samples which are made of gelatin-coated sample paper. A unique bar-coded paper-based blood sample method has prevented complications during blood tests and is much more environmentally friendly.
Agriculture plays a crucial role in India’s economy and around 70% of people earn their income through it and also provides large employment opportunities. The technological advancement has led to ...remarkable achievements in developing Agricultural based software applications to get faster information. But, many farmers are still applying the traditional methods of farming and hence the result of productivity becomes very low. Agriculture prediction process for organic and inorganic farms is an open issue and it depends upon weather, soil fertility, water, seasons and commodity prices, etc. Soil fertility factor is paramount important to maintain the crop growth and increase the production. The soil fertility levels help the farmers to identify the deficiencies in the soil, namely nutrient content, soil type, pH value, EC (Electrical Conductivity) value and soil texture and to choose the right crops to increase the production. In this work, as a novelty, the soil fertility level is predicted by analyzing the Virudhunagar District Soil information and recommendations are offered for crop selection and sowing by using C5.0: Advanced Decision Tree (ADT) classifier algorithm. Using this technique, an Android-based mobile phone applications named as Design of Smart Information System (DSIS) application has been developed. The proposed application activates the Global Positioning System (GPS) to identify the user location. The performance of proposed model is analysed and it is compared with the existing classification model for agricultural data.
Summary
DDoS attacks are rapidly growing bigger and upsetting online businesses than ever before. During 2012, DDoS attacks were performed on six US banks, viz, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, US ...Bancorp, Citigroup, and PNC Bank. The attacker(s) bombarded their targets with crest traffic of more than 60 gigabits per second. In 2013, Spamhaus, an antispam organization, was the victim for a DDoS attack of 300 gigabits per second. CyberBunker, a Dutch company, outwardly performed this attack on Spamhaus and got blacklisted after it. During 2014, the security company named Cloudflare was struck by 400 gigabits per second of traffic. Initially, the attack was aimed at one of Cloudflare's customers, but it later spread to the Cloudflare's own network. In 2018, a record‐breaking attack was performed on GitHub, a popular code hosting website, with an impulsive blitz of traffic that marked the scales at 1.35 terabits per second. At this moment, from freelance websites to multinational banks, it sounds like nobody has enough online security. This paper presents a novel low and high–rate DDoS attack detection using statistical metrics. The NS3 simulation result shows that the proposed method detects the low and high volume of attacks in minimum time with reduced false positive and false negative than the existing method.
A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is outlined as a network of mobile devices that can coordinate and communicate among themselves without any prior administration. Energy efficient lifetime maximizing ...methods based on channel awareness in MANETs result in better performance of the networks until the node's energy is capable of handling control messages. In the existing approach, the node's lifetime and consistency of packet flow are defaced due to unplanned energy conservation methods. This results in a tradeoff between network throughput and node energy, resulting in post network failure. The post network failure results in limited TTL of the nodes and retarded network throughput with higher control overhead. To bridge the gap between network throughput and energy conservation under limited overhead, a Transition State supporting cooperative MAC broadcast protocol for both conserving node energy and to utilize available node in an effective manner prior to their energy drain is proposed in this paper. TSMP reduces the total energy consumption to a maximum extent of 14–21% higher than DPCMP and 24–33% than SPCMP. And comparatively, the routing overhead falls almost 45–52% than SPCMP and 27–31% than DPCMP.
To restore the traditional memories like Static RAM, Dynamic RAM and Flash memory in future computers, various semiconductor nano memories are introduced such as PCRAM, STTRAM, STTMRAM, Ferroelectric ...FET Memory and RRAM. Among them, RRAM is the most prominent candidate to fulfill future generation desires. Due to nanoscale miniaturizing it comes with a number of faults that directly affect the performance and reliability of the system. Previously there are many testing methods proposed for RRAM testing but there is no reliability assessment scheme specifically intended for testing algorithms. Hence an optimized march algorithm is formulated using self-verification write method and also a novel reliability assessment scheme is proposed in this article by means of queuing theory parameters. More particularly, the reliability curve is plotted for various testing methods (traditional testing method, row reading and optimized March algorithm – March 2n) which confer a clear idea about the probability of memristor cell waits in the test queue, idle time of the test server and test server utilization. Thus the proposed reliability assessment scheme paves a new dimension in quality and reliability assessment of nano RRAM testing.
This paper presents the design and characterization of a novel metamaterial with five distinct operating bands for THz applications. The proposed metamaterial is constructed using an ultra‐thin ...polyimide substrate. The proposed metamaterial has a square geometry with metallic patterns suitably designed to obtain the desired frequency characteristics. The metamaterial operates based on surface plasmon hybridization with stopband characteristics at 0.82, 1.96, 2.77, 3.40 and 4.74 THz. The metamaterial has a small geometry 0.082λo × 0.082λo where λo is wavelength calculated under free‐space conditions at 0.82 THz. The operation of the proposed pentaband metamaterial is described using electric field distributions. The metamaterial reported in this paper has rotational symmetry and hence it is polarization independent. The performance of the metamaterial for various angles of incidence has been evaluated and the results reveal that the proposed metamaterial is stable up to ±70 degrees. The THz metamaterial is appropriate for components like frequency selective surface, sensors and detectors.
Plant materials are a rich source of polyphenolic compounds with interesting health-beneficial effects. The present study aimed to determine the optimized condition for maximum extraction of ...polyphenols from grape seeds through RSM (response surface methodology), ANFIS (adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system), and machine learning (ML) algorithm models. Effect of five independent variables and their ranges, particle size (X
: 0.5-1 mm), methanol concentration (X
: 60-70% in distilled water), ultrasound exposure time (X
: 18-28 min), temperature (X
: 35-45 °C), and ultrasound intensity (X
: 65-75 W cm
) at five levels (- 2, - 1, 0, + 1, and + 2) concerning dependent variables, total phenolic content (y
; TPC), total flavonoid content (y
; TFC), 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl free radicals scavenging (y
; %DPPH*sc), 2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) free radicals scavenging (y
; %ABTS*sc) and Ferric ion reducing antioxidant potential (y
; FRAP) were selected. The optimized condition was observed at X
= 0.155 mm, X
= 65% methanol in water, X
= 23 min ultrasound exposure time, X
= 40 °C, and X
= 70 W cm
ultrasound intensity. Under this situation, the optimal yields of TPC, TFC, and antioxidant scavenging potential were achieved to be 670.32 mg GAE/g, 451.45 mg RE/g, 81.23% DPPH*sc, 77.39% ABTS*sc and 71.55 μg mol (Fe(II))/g FRAP. This optimal condition yielded equal experimental and expected values. A well-fitted quadratic model was recommended. Furthermore, the validated extraction parameters were optimized and compared using the ANFIS and random forest regressor-ML algorithm. Gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy (LC-MS) analyses were performed to find the existence of the bioactive compounds in the optimized extract.
Emerging nanoelectronic memories such as PCRAM, STT-RAM, Ferroelectric FET Memory and Resistive Random Access Memory (RRAM) are proficient to substitute the traditional memory technologies such as ...SRAMs, DRAMs and flash memory in future computers. Among all these nanoelectronic memories RRAM (combines the merits of both RAM and Flash memories) is exceptionally fast, cost-effective which is capable of accomplishing the requirements of immense growth in data and storage. Despite the fact that it suffers by various faults, more specifically Write Disturbance Fault (WDF) and Read Disturbance Fault (RDF) has huge effect on system performance and reliability. Different algorithms are designed to identify specific kind of faults and the main drawback of all existing algorithm is redundancy (repeated March elements with write and read operations) it will increase the test complexity and time. Moreover, this repeated write and read operation will leads to endurance degradation. To circumvent this pitfall, a self-checking write circuit is adapted where the accuracy of every write operation is verified at the end of write cycle by means of a write verification signal in the write circuit (acts as in built read circuit). Hence, this self checking write method offers a combined “write and read” operation (wr) that detects the faulty write operation (main reason for read fault) and avoids the data corruption in memory system. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first one to propose March algorithm with “wr” element hence it is named as novel ‘March WR’ testing algorithm which detects WDF and RDF effectively with 4n test complexity which is very less than all other existing test algorithms. Thus it reduces 63.63% of the test time. Due to keen monitoring of each operation 100% fault coverage is achieved that results in enhanced performance and reliability.
