Bhutan is one of the biological hotspots in the world where humans and natural flora and fauna co-exist in close proximity. Bhutan is home to two species of bears Sloth Bear and Himalayan Black Bear. Human conflicts with bears are reported from all over the country. This study describes the profile of the victims and the pattern of injury resulting from bear attacks and circumstances around human conflicts with bears in Bhutan between 2015 and 2019. This was a cross-sectional study with a review of hospital records of patients treated at the National Referral Hospital from 01 January 2015 till 31 December 2019. Data were extracted into a structured pro forma and entered into EpiData Entry 3.1 and analysed in STATA 13.1. There were thirty-four patients who were provided care for bear maul injuries, with an average annual caseload of 6.8 cases per year. The injury prevalence was 100% and the kill prevalence was 0%. Bear attacks were reported from fourteen of twenty districts of the country. The mean age of the victims was 49 (±13) years. Males (26, 76%) and farmers (26, 76%) were the common victims; the risk of bear attacks was 0.16 per 100,000 farmers per year. The commonest region of the body attacked was the face (29, 85%) and victims were provided emergency and rehabilitative care within and outside the country. Thirty-three victims (97%) were provided post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies. All victims received antibiotics despite the lack of national guidelines on the choice of antibiotics post-bear maul. Human-bear conflict is multi-faceted, puts a considerable strain on bear-conservation efforts and requires multi-disciplinary efforts in the prevention of human injury and socioeconomic losses.Dust masks are widely used to prevent the inhalation of particulate matter into the human respiratory organs in polluted air environments. The filter of a dust mask inherently obstructs the natural respiratory air flows, and this flow resistance is mainly responsible for the discomfort experienced when wearing a dust mask. In atmospheric conditions seriously contaminated with fine dust, it is recommended that common citizens wear a dust mask in their everyday lives, yet many people are reluctant to wear a dust mask owing to the discomfort experienced when wearing it for a long time. Understanding of physical reasons for the discomfort is thus crucial in designing a dust mask, but remains far from clear. This study presents a technique to quantify the wearing comfort of dust masks. By developing a respiration simulator to measure the pressure loss across a dust mask, we assessed the energy costs to overcome flow resistance when breathing through various types of dust masks. The energy cost for a single inhalation varies with the mask type in a range between 0 and 10 mJ. We compared the results with the survey results of 40 people about the wearing comfort of the dust masks, which revealed that the wearing comfort crucially depends on the energy cost required for air inhalation though the dust mask. Using the measured energy cost during inhalation as a parameter to quantify the wearing comfort, we present a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of dust masks in terms of not only the filtering performance but also the wearing comfort. Our study suggests some design principles for dust mask filters, auxiliary electric fans, and check valves.The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a serious global health threat. Without a vaccine, behavior change is the most effective means of reducing disease transmission. Identifying psychological factors that may encourage engagement in preventative health behaviors is crucial. The behavioral immune system (BIS) represents a set of psychological processes thought to promote health by encouraging disease avoidance behaviors. This study examined whether individual differences in BIS reactivity (germ aversion, pathogen disgust sensitivity) were associated with concern about COVID-19 and engagement in recommended preventative health behaviors (social distancing, handwashing, cleaning/disinfecting, avoiding touching face, wearing facemasks). From March 20 to 23, 2020, a US national sample (N = 1019) completed an online survey. Germ aversion and pathogen disgust sensitivity were the two variables most consistently associated with COVID-19 concern and preventative health behaviors, while accounting for demographic, health, and psychosocial covariates. Findings have implications for the development of interventions intended to increase preventative health behaviors.
The Beery-Buktenica Test of Visual-Motor Integration (Beery VMI) is a commonly used standardized test of visual-motor integration. Performance on the test is related to academic achievement, but the effect of reduced visual acuity on test results is unknown. This study determined the visual acuity demand and the spacing of the test forms for the Beery VMI and its supplemental tests and investigated the effect of induced optical blur on test results in both adults and children.

The overall size and critical detail size of each form and the distance between the center of each form and its adjacent crowding source were measured. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/nesuparib.html The visual acuity demand and angular separation of forms were calculated. Two groups of participants (adults aged ≥18 years [n = 19] and children aged 7-12 years [n = 20]) completed four sessions in which they performed the Beery VMI and the supplemental tests under different blur conditions (habitual near correction, monocular spherical blur, binocular spherical blur and binocular aastigmatic ametropia, reduced scores on the Beery VMI and its supplemental tests may be due to impaired near visual acuity and not reflect reduced visual-motor abilities. This highlights the importance of excluding reduced near visual acuity as a cause of reduced performance before diagnosing impairment and initiating treatment strategies for visual-motor integration.
It is now well recognised that the risk of severe COVID-19 increases with some long-term conditions (LTCs). However, prior research primarily focuses on individual LTCs and there is a lack of data on the influence of multimorbidity (≥2 LTCs) on the risk of COVID-19. Given the high prevalence of multimorbidity, more detailed understanding of the associations with multimorbidity and COVID-19 would improve risk stratification and help protect those most vulnerable to severe COVID-19. Here we examine the relationships between multimorbidity, polypharmacy (a proxy of multimorbidity), and COVID-19; and how these differ by sociodemographic, lifestyle, and physiological prognostic factors.

We studied data from UK Biobank (428,199 participants; aged 37-73; recruited 2006-2010) on self-reported LTCs, medications, sociodemographic, lifestyle, and physiological measures which were linked to COVID-19 test data. Poisson regression models examined risk of COVID-19 by multimorbidity/polypharmacy and effect modification by COVID-19 prognostic factors (age/sex/ethnicity/socioeconomic status/smoking/physical activity/BMI/systolic blood pressure/renal function).