Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which is a prevalent neurodevelopmental condition, commonly manifests during early childhood and has the potential to adversely affect an ...individual’s social, academic, and occupational performance in multiple settings. Students with ADHD may struggle with attention, focus, listening, and completing schoolwork. Additionally, they may exhibit restless or disruptive behavior in class and may have learning disabilities that affect their academic performance. The aim of this study was to explore the perspectives of primary school teachers on ADHD in Alkadrow, Khartoum, Sudan.
Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in Alkadrow-Bahri locality, Sudan, over a period of three to six months in 2022. The study population included primary school teachers who had taught for at least one year and encountered at least one student with ADHD. A convenience sampling technique was used to select a minimum of 59 participants, and data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire with closed-ended questions. SPSS version 23 was used to analyze the data, including descriptive statistics and inferential statistics such as chi-square tests and logistic regression analysis.
Results: The study had 59 participants, with the majority being female and in the age group of 41–45 years. The participants were mostly married and had obtained psychology courses, with a bachelor’s degree being the most common level of education. Many participants had over 20 years of teaching experience. Regarding the attitude toward attention deficit hyperactivity, most participants strongly agreed that they did have a negative/positive attitude toward it, and a majority agreed or were neutral toward ADHD. However, in the case of attention deficit hyperactivity, a significant percentage of participants disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement.
Conclusion: The study found that most participants had a negative attitude toward student referrals for medical care and believed that most symptoms of ADHD can be lowered by aging. Additionally, more than half strongly disagreed that punishment has a positive effect on ADHD.
Key message
Correlations were observed between
Balanites aegyptiaca
fruit morphology and kernel oil yield and quality, thus suggesting the possibility of selecting trees with smaller fruits and lower ...pulp/seed ratio for edible oil production.
Phenotypic variations in fruit morphology (length, diameter, total fruit weight, anatomical part weight percentages) and kernel chemical traits (gross composition, amino acid content, fatty acid composition of kernel oil) were assessed in a natural population of
Balanites aegyptiaca
(L.) Del. grown in the South-East of Sudan, with the main aim of highlighting the potential of
B. aegyptiaca
kernel for edible oil production. Mature fruits were randomly collected from eight trees, representative of eight distinct categories for shape (length/diameter ratio) and size (weight). Significant tree-to-tree differences in fruit morphology and kernel composition have been registered. The smallest fruits were characterised by the highest kernel contribution to the whole fruit weight, while the largest fruits showed the smallest seeds. The highest oleic/linoleic acid ratio in kernel oil fatty acids was found in fruits characterized by the lowest pulp percentage; the maximum oil yield (highest kernel percentage and kernel oil percentage) was associated to the highest levels of polyphenolic antioxidants and the highest radical scavenging activity of kernel tissues. Experimental data suggested the possibility of selecting trees with large fruits and high pulp/seed ratio, suitable for direct consumption as human food, and trees with smaller fruits and lower pulp/seed ratio for oil production.
This paper proposes an optimal<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha </tex-math></inline-formula>-variable model-free adaptive barrier-function fractional-order nonlinear sliding mode ...control (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha (t) </tex-math></inline-formula>-MF-ABFFONSMC) for the load frequency control (LFC) problem of a four-area interconnected hybrid power system with boiler dynamics and physical constraints. The proposed<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha (t) </tex-math></inline-formula>-MF-ABFFONSMC is comprised of the ultra-local model (ULM)-based sliding mode disturbance observer (SMDO), proportional-differential (PD) controller, and adaptive barrier-function fractional-order nonlinear sliding mode control (ABFFONSMC). The ULM mechanism is utilized to re-formulate the complex four-area interconnected hybrid power system so as to reduce the controller's design complexity, wherein SMDO is utilized to observe and eliminate the uncertain dynamics or lumped disturbance. Then, the SMDO based-iPD controller is designed. However, there always exists non-null estimation error under the SMDO method and the control performance cannot be ensured. Therefore, the ABFFONSMC is proposed and inserted into the SMDO-iPD controller to avoid the impact of estimation error and improve the control performance. In addition, an adaptive gain based on barrier function is formulated to approximate the upper bound of SMDO's estimation error and thus decrease the undesired chattering on the sliding surface. Correspondingly, the<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha (t) </tex-math></inline-formula>-MF-ABFFONSMC is established. Moreover, the parameter optimizer based on the Marine Predator Algorithm (MPA) is proposed to tune the parameters of the proposed<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha (t) </tex-math></inline-formula>-MF-ABFFONSMC controller. Furthermore, using the Lyapunov theorem, the stability of<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">\alpha (t) </tex-math></inline-formula>-MF-ABFFONSMC via a closed-loop system is verified. To validate the performance of the proposed controller, the numerical simulation on a four-area interconnected hybrid power system is carried out in a Matlab/Simulink environment. The corresponding simulation results are presented to show the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed technique.
Staphylococcal food poisoning is an intoxication that results from the consumption of improperly prepared or stored foods containing sufficient amounts of one or more preformed S. aureus ...enterotoxins. Nowadays, many researchers worldwide noted an emergence of resistant strains such as Staphylococci particularly for the antibiotic methicillin. Therefore, this study was aimed to determine the existence of Staphylococcus aureus and its enterotoxins, mecA genes, in selected food samples. A total of 400 selected food samples were collected from different areas in Khartoum State. The selected foods included cheese, meat products, fish, and raw milk. One hundred samples from each type of food were cultivated, and the resultant growth yielded 137 (34.25%) S. aureus, 126 (31.5%) bacteria other than S. aureus, and 137 (34.25%) yielded no growth. Eighty-four of the 137 S. aureus isolates were randomly selected and tested for the presence of mecA and enterotoxin genes. The oxacillin sensitivity test showed that 15 (11%) of 137 S. aureus isolates were oxacillin resistant. The PCR assay showed that the mecA gene was detected in 15 of 84 (17%) S. aureus isolates. Simultaneously, only 2 (2.385%) out of 84 S. aureus isolates showed an enterotoxin B gene product. There was a relatively moderate prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus with very low frequency of enterotoxin B gene in different kinds of selected food samples collected from Khartoum State. These findings elucidate the increased risk on public in Khartoum being affected by Staphylococcal food poisoning upon consumption of dairy or meat products prepared in unhygienic conditions that could lead to intoxication by Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxins.
Curcuma zedoaria also known as Temu putih is traditionally used in food preparations and treatment of various ailments including cancer. The cytotoxic activity of hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl ...acetate, methanol, and the methanol-soxhlet extracts of Curcuma zedoaria rhizomes was tested on two human cancer cell lines (Ca Ski and MCF-7) and a noncancer cell line (HUVEC) using MTT assay. Investigation on the chemical components in the hexane and dichloromethane fractions gave 19 compounds, namely, labda-8(17),12 diene-15,16 dial (1), dehydrocurdione (2), curcumenone (3), comosone II (4), curcumenol (5), procurcumenol (6), germacrone (7), zerumbone epoxide (8), zederone (9), 9-isopropylidene-2,6-dimethyl-11-oxatricyclo6.2.1.01,5undec-6-en-8-ol (10), furanodiene (11), germacrone-4,5-epoxide (12), calcaratarin A (13), isoprocurcumenol (14), germacrone-1,10-epoxide (15), zerumin A (16), curcumanolide A (17), curcuzedoalide (18), and gweicurculactone (19). Compounds (1–19) were evaluated for their antiproliferative effect using MTT assay against four cancer cell lines (Ca Ski, MCF-7, PC-3, and HT-29). Curcumenone (3) and curcumenol (5) displayed strong antiproliferative activity ( IC 50 = 8.3 ± 1.0 and 9.3 ± 0.3 μg/mL, resp.) and were found to induce apoptotic cell death on MCF-7 cells using phase contrast and Hoechst 33342/PI double-staining assay. Thus, the present study provides basis for the ethnomedical application of Curcuma zedoaria in the treatment of breast cancer.
The efficient use of the incorporation of photovoltaic generation (PV) and an electric vehicle (EV) with the home energy management system (HEMS) can play a significant role in improving grid ...stability in the residential area and bringing economic benefit to the homeowner. Therefore, this paper presents an energy management strategy in a smart home that integrates an electric vehicle with/without PV generation. The proposed strategy seeks to reduce the household electricity costs and flatten the load curve based on time-of-use pricing, time-varying household power demand, PV generation profile, and EV parameters (arrival and departure times, minimum and maximum limit of the state-of-charge, and initial state-of-charge). The proposed control strategy is divided into two stages: Stage A, which operates in three operating modes according to the unavailability of PV power generation, and Stage B, which operates in five operating modes according to the availability of PV generation. In this study, the proposed strategy enables controlling the amount of energy absorbed by the EV from the grid and/or PV and the amount of energy injected from the EV to the load to ensure that the household electricity costs are minimized, and the household power load profile is flattened. The findings show that both household electricity costs reduction and flattening of the power load profile are achieved. Moreover, the corresponding simulation results exhibit that the proposed strategy for the smart home with EV and PV provides better results than the smart home with EV and without PV in terms of electricity costs reduction and power load profile flattening.
A survey was conducted in Al-Kharj governorate, Riyadh region to identify viruses causing variety of virus-like symptoms on tomato plants. A total of 135 samples were collected from symptomatic ...tomato plants. Symptoms included mottling, deformation, necrosis of leaves and fruits. Eighteen viruses were tested by DAS-ELISA. Tomato black ring virus (TBRV) was the virus of concern as it was not detected in Saudi Arabia before and was detected in 52.6% of the collected samples in this study. RT-PCR was used to confirm detection of TBRV and to sequence the amplified products to determine molecular characteristics of this virus. In the host range test study that was performed using a purified isolate of TBRV, sixteen out of the twenty two tested plants showed symptoms. Brassica oleracea was not infected by this virus. Gel electrophoreses (2% agarose) yielded fragments of 978 bp of coat protein gene of TBRV. Nucleotide sequences of purified RT-PCR products for three TBRV Saudi isolates were deposited in the GenBank with the following accession numbers MT274656, MT274657, and MT274658. These isolates of TBRV indicated a close Phylogenetic relationship of (99–100%) among themselves and with five isolates from Poland (95–98%) but a distant relationship of 85% with isolates from England and Lithuania deposited in the GenBank. This is the first report for detection and molecular characterization of TBRV infecting tomato plants in Saudi Arabia.
The influence of commercial prebiotics (fructo-oligosaccharides and inulin) and sugars (glucose and sucrose) on enhancing equol production from soymilk isoflavones by Bifidobacterium longum BB536 and ...Bifidobacterium breve ATCC 15700 was evaluated in vitro. Sterilized soymilk was inoculated with each bacterial species at 37 °C for 48 h. The growth and β-glucosidase enzyme activity for the two Bifidobacterium species in soymilk throughout fermentation were assessed. The highest viable count for B. breve (8.75 log CFU/ml) was reached at 36 h and for B. longum (8.55 log CFU/ml) at 24 h. Both bacterial species displayed β-glucosidase activity. B. breve showed increased enzyme activity (4.126 U) at 36 h, while B. longum exhibited maximum activity (3.935 U) at 24 h of fermentation. Among the prebiotics screened for their effect in isoflavones transformation to equol, inulin delivered the highest effect on equol production. The co-culture of B. longum BB536 and B. breve ATCC15700 in soymilk supplemented with inulin produced the highest level (11.49 mmol/l) of equol at 48 h of fermentation process. Level of daidzin declined whereas that of daidzein increased, and then gradually decreased due to formation of equol when soymilk was fermented using bifidobacterial. This suggests that the nutritional value of soymilk may be increased by increasing bioavailability of the bioactive ingredients. Collectively these data identify probiotics and prebiotic combinations suitable for inclusion in soymilk to enhance equol production.
Food Science; Bifidobacterium spp; Prebiotic; β-glucosidase; Isoflavones; Transformation.
This study aimed to investigate the impact of a seed mixture (SM) (black cumin, fenugreek, and sesame) on broiler chickens’ performance, intestinal morphology, and blood traits under chronic heat ...stress conditions. 330-day-old male Ross 308 chicks were divided into five treatments (6 replicates and 11 birds per each) consisting of a corn-soybean supplemented with 0, 1.5, 3, 4.5, and 6% SM for 45 days in a completely randomised design. 6% SM supplementation increased body weight (BW) at 45 days of age, average weight gain (AWG) at 26-45 days, and total rearing period under heat stress conditions (p < 0.05). Adding 3% SM to broiler diets increased average feed intake (AFI) at 26-45 and 1-45 days, feed conversion ratio (FCR) at 12-25, and the mortality rate decreased from 28.8% (0% SM) to 12.1% (6% SM) (p < 0.05). Adding SM had no significant effects on the relative weight of carcase segments and internal organs (p > 0.05) except for the duodenum, which increased weight and length at the level of 6% (p < 0.05). The red blood cell (RBC) count and haemoglobin were elevated in chicks inoculated with 3% and 6% SM, respectively (p < 0.05). The mean corpuscular volume (MCV) value increased following the supplementation of SM, while differential white blood cell (WBC) counts did not influence. Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and Alanine transaminase (ALT) activity declined in chicks that received 6% SM at 45 days of age (p < 0.05). SM supplementation decreased liver steatosis, uric acid, glucose, total protein, and lipid profile concentrations of serum (p < 0.05). Therefore, we conclude that adding SM to the broiler diets at 6% level significantly improves broiler performance, blood traits, and liver health under chronic heat-stress conditions.
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