Scientific Research Publishing

Mineral macronutrients, such as potassium (K), calcium (Ca), phosphorous (P) and magnesium (Mg), and micronutrients, such as ferrum (Fe), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), are required in the human diet.  Chickpea is an important pulse crop with a wide range of potential nutritional benefits because of its chemical composition. A single 100 g serving of cooked chickpeas can provide 24%, 43% and 39% of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for the macronutrient P and for the micronutrients Mn and Cu, respectively. The purpose of the current work was to provide the chemical composition of “kabuli”-type chickpea ( Cicer   arietinum  L.) developed in Argentina for nutritional purpose. In this study, seeds of 14 “kabuli”-type chickpea ( Cicer arietinum L.) genotypes were provided by the chickpea breeding program at the National University of Córdoba (UNC) Argentina and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) of Salta, Argentina. The stu...

Nurses decide the patient’s problem and the priorities of care based on patients’ complaints and information obtained by observation when they care for patients. Nurses need to have insight during evaluation of patients with disturbed consciousness because they cannot complain about their pain and symptoms. The objective of this study was to clarify the characteristics of nurses’ eye movements during observation of patients with disturbed consciousness by comparing intuition ability, critical thinking, and clinical experience years.  Participants were 19 nurses working on a neurosurgery ward in Japan and caring for patients with consciousness disturbance who were unable to speak. Ten novice nurses (24.8 ± 3.36 years old) and nine expert nurses (38.3 ± 5.77 years old) were compared. The observation scene, displayed on a computer screen, was a static image of a simulated patient in a resting state who had developed right putaminal hemorrhage. The authors showed the participants ...

Early intervention into nurse burnout can prevent job separation among nurses and therefore the issue of nurses maintaining and improving their own physical and mental health is an important issue that can lead to improved quality of healthcare. Previous studies have assessed and shown the relation between sleep among nurses who work shifts and chronic disease, and sleep is thought to be a predictive index of chronic fatigue. However, the relationship between the degree of sleep problems and fatigue is not fully considered. In this study, the authors aimed to investigate the state of fatigue and sleep among clinical nurses in Japan. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted from December 2015 to January 2016. The participants were nurses who worked in public hospitals with 500 beds in the major cities and regional cities of Hokkaido. The survey was an anonymous, self-administered drop-off survey. The survey description and questionnaire forms were distributed to the su...

Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP), an infection of the ascites fluid in the peritoneum that occurs in the absence of another infectious source, is a serious complication that contributes to the high morbidity and mortality rate in patients with liver cirrhosis. Currently, there is a lack of consensus regarding both prevention and treatment strategies amongst the research community. And there are conflicting findings and opinions regarding the role and use of antibiotic therapy and pharmacological gastric acid suppression and their potential associations with SBP prevalence, disease process and progression. The aim of this article was to explore the current state of knowledge regarding independent predictors of SBP development in liver cirrhosis patients as well as the potential utilization of trace elements (particularly zinc) and inflammatory biomarkers to stratify SBP risk and vulnerability. The online databases resourced for articles reviewed in the paper included Pu...

Obesity problems vary on a continuum of intensity and types of problems during different periods of life. An increasing amount of available treatment requires patients and professionals to make choices concerning the suitability of the individual patient to undergo certain types of treatment. Surgical treatment is considered sustainable and more successful for weight loss than other interventions. Alternatively, conservative treatment of obesity may be a matter of dealing with mental issues as well as diet and exercise. In a qualitative context, a deeper understanding related to patients’ own post-treatment experiences is needed.  The aim of this review was to describe and systemize existing literature on patient-experiences in the context of obesity treatment. The review question was: How do patients describe their experiences after obesity treatment?  A systematic qualitative literature review was conducted for the period from 2006 to November 2016. The search was done...

Flowering in many plant species is usually regulated by environmental cues, such as night length in photoperiodic flowering and temperature in vernalization. However, some studies have indicated that stress is also a cue to induce flowering. In fact, plants flower as an emergency response when stressed, ensuring their ability to produce the next generation. Through this mechanism, the species is preserved, even under unfavorable environmental conditions. Therefore, stress-induced flowering is universal and as important as photoperiodic flowering and vernalization. In this article, physiological characteristics, the regulation by salicylic acid (SA) and the expression of flowering-related genes in stress-induced flowering in pharbitis were reviewed. Pharbitis flowered under long-days in response to poor nutrition or low temperature. The pharbitis plants induced to flower by stress reached anthesis, fruited and produced fertile seeds. The progeny of the stressed plants developed nor...

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen (or any halogen). However, literature on the pyrolysis of finished paper products is rare. In the course of this study, the influence of ionic additives (sodium, potassium, lithium, magnesium, and manganese as cations; acetate, lactate, malate, malonate, succinate, and citrate as anions) on the pattern of volatile pyrolysis products of finished paper was investigated. The pyrolysis of paper caused a cascade of reaction products. As expected, the most abundant pyrolysis product was levoglucosan, however, along with other volatile products, such as hydroxyl and carbonyl compounds, furan and pyran derivatives, phenols, and other anhydrosugars, respectively. These compounds could easily be separated and characterized online using analytical pyrolysis in combination with gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectrometry (MS) detection. Both the composition and total amount of v...

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a psychological and possibly life-threatening eating disorder defined by an extremely low body weight relative to stature, extreme and needless weight loss, illogical fear of weight gain, and distorted perception of self-image and body. Among eating disorders, anorexia nervosa has been proving a difficult condition, with many patients remaining ill for many years. The purpose of this study was to elucidate clinical factors influencing quality of life (QOL) in anorexia nervosa (AN) patients.  Twenty female patients with AN (median age = 30.0 years old, quartile deviation = 6.8) and forty female healthy controls (HC) (median age = 30.0 years old, quartile deviation = 8.6) participated in the study. QOL was assessed with the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) and social support was evaluated using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS). Clinical symptoms were evaluated with the Structured Interview Guide for the  Hamilto...

Sleep disturbances may include difficulty settling, sleep onset delay/insomnia, night wakings, excessive daytime fatigue, nightmares, parasomnias, bedtime refusal, and sleep disordered breathing problems such as obstructive sleep apnea. The common causes of sleep disturbances include a variety of medical, psychological, developmental, and environmental factors which in isolation or in combination may contribute to or maintain a child’s sleep disturbances. This study explored characteristics of sleep and other presenting problems in children and adolescents seeking mental health services within an outpatient clinic. Primary caregivers seeking outpatient mental health services for their children between the ages of 2 - 18 completed a measure assessing various aspects of their children’s sleep, emotional and behavioral problems, and use of electronics at bedtime. The study measure included demographic questions regarding age, gender, and ethnicity and was administered at outpatient i...

To some consumers, color is merely a decorative trait. However, in marketing strategies, color is used by brands to reach consumers on a deeper level and stand out in the market amongst competitors. And to ensure color is most effective, brands wanting to optimize success, should seek color research that can best meet their objectives of appealing to consumers. This paper discussed the science of color to consumer perception and the value of that color research to consumer-brand relationships. Specifically, it examined how color influenced consumers’ perception and how brands strategically utilized color to distinguish themselves amongst competitors, establish an identity, promote an image, and foster relationships with its consumers. In this study, to test the significance of color to consumer perception and brand imagery, a nonrandom convenience sample of 20 North Jersey men and women between the ages of 18 and 37 years old participated in a focus group. Using color-centered...

Some studies have shown that early postpartum is a period when fatigue is likely to occur due to burden of childbirth and child rearing, and particularly women with mental disorders suffer from fatigue more severely than other pregnant women and this seems to be the cause of their depressed state. This study aimed to ascertain the prevalence of fatigue and depression from early postpartum to 1 month after delivery among postpartum women with mental disorders.  The participants of this study were postpartum women who had delivered a child after a full-term pregnancy and were suffering from a mental disorder. The authors administered the Postpartum Fatigue Scale (PFS) on days 1, 3, and 4 (to multiparas), and 1, 3, and 5 (to primiparas), and 1 month after delivery to all participants. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), Japanese version, was also administered at the same time intervals as PFS except on day 3 after delivery.  A total of 7 primiparas and 9 mul...

In recent years, mushrooms have been drawing much public attention as a source of development for medications and nutraceuticals because of their antioxidants, antitumors, and antimicrobial properties. And they are also becoming more essential to the human diet due to their nutritional value, high levels of protein and low levels of fat. Besides, for mushrooms can be cultivated with low cost and low usage of land compared to other agricultural products, many farmers and manufacturers are turning towards the cultivation of mushrooms. In this study, the authors examined ceramic beads as a reusable material for cultivation of edible mushrooms. And 20 species of edible mushrooms were tested, which were obtained from the Mushpia Co. Limit., Fukuoka, Japan. Within the cultivation vessels, 70% were ceramic beads (diameter 1 cm) and 30% of the nutrient solution. Moreover, the control groups used several types of sawdust, wheat bran, and rice bran with the ratio of 8:1:1 as the substrate....

Although studies have documented the potential for coyote ( Canis latrans ) food use to negatively affect wildlife populations and domesticated animals, they are often equivocal, possibly because most are of small spatial extent, and little is known of factors determining coyote diets. The objectives of this paper were to quantify the diet and identify factors determining coyote food use, particularly game species and livestock, over a large spatial and temporal extent. In this study, contents of gastrointestinal tracts were identified from 263 coyotes opportunistically obtained from hunters, trappers, and as road-kills throughout Florida from December 2011 to February 2015. Road-kills were typically less than 2 days old at the time of collection. Collection date, method, and location (Table 1) were documented for all animals. The authors employed logistic regression in an information-theoretic framework to understand determinants of coyote food use. And all research and animal...

Macrophytes, as an integral component of wetlands and shallow lakes, play critical ecological role, such as nutrient cycling, and nitrogen removal through denitrification coupled with nitrification. Water hyacinth ( Eichhornia crassipes ) is a menace to global aquatic environments with serious and devastating consequences. It is also an invasive plant species introduced to Ethiopian water bodies around the mid-20th century with recently exacerbated devastating ecological and economic consequences. In this paper, the authors reported the impact of the invasive plant species on macrophyte species assemblage and biodiversity in Lake Abaya, southwestern Ethiopia. In the study, the authors compared four sites in Lake Abaya, two hyacinth infested and two non-infested, each site consisting of 15 plots. And each plot (quadrats) with a size of 0.5 × 0.5 m 2 and 25 meter apart from each other. In the field, macrophytes were counted within each plot. Besides, macrophyte species richne...

The Human Development index (HDI), which is to evaluate the development of a UN country from the perspective of well-being of human-beings, in addition to the economic advancement, is basically an index composed of three measures, namely life expectancy, education, and per capita income. It has widely accepted and practiced by many people such as academicians, politicians, and donor organizations. However, the current version of the index formulation published in 2016 needs research to better understand and to gap-fill the knowledge base that can enhance the index formulation to facilitate the direction of attention such as release of funds. Therefore, in this paper, based on principal component analysis and K-means clustering algorithm, the data that reflected the measures of life expectancy index (LEI), education index (EI), and income index (II) were analyzed to categorize and to rank the member states of the UN using R statistical software package, an open source extensible pr...

Schools are often a setting to implement nutrition-based pediatric obesity prevention programs. However, when there has been considerable focus on the school environment in the context of childhood obesity, less is known about the environments around the school, particularly in low-income, urban neighborhoods. The purpose of this study was to assess students’ corner store and commuting habits before and after school in a low-income, urban environment.  This was a cross-sectional study. Participants were 702 4 th  - 6 th  graders from 10 K-8 public schools where 82.1% ± 7.4% of children qualified for free or reduce-priced meals. Participants were surveyed about their corner store and commuting habits by using a 16-item questionnaire. Both height and weight were measured twice and the average of each was used and Body Mass Index (BMI) as well as BMI z-scores and BMI percentiles based on age and sex were calculated for each student . Besides, student’s demogra...

With the development of the society, many new building materials have been produced and “sick house” occurred, then many countermeasures against indoor air pollution in houses have been taken by the Japanese government, building companies, building material manufacturers and other related groups. The purpose of this investigation was to know the long-term characteristics of VOC concentrations in houses built before the building code in 2003 and to clarify the countermeasures against indoor air pollution in the houses already built, such as the improvements of living habits, ventilation and the remove of building materials. In the study, the concentrations of formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, ethyl-benzene, styrene and acetaldehyde were measured in winter and in summer for five years in about two hundred and fifty houses in which formaldehyde concentration was higher than the guideline: 0.08ppm in 2000. The concentrations were specified using gas chromatographs in the laboratory. ...