EARTH AND LIFE SCIENCE HW 1

The shaping of our bodies, 2018

In all their settlements, the bodily capacities of the people are sure to be according to the heaven and earthly influences, as cold or hot, dry or moist.-Li Ji (Book of Rites) 1 From the treasurehouse of Chinese medicine and classical books we find universal ideas about how we are shaped as humans, and how to use insights about food regulation and other daily habits to maintain our balance in the face of constant change. In Chinese thinking there is an obvious interconnectedness between man and his surroundings, and this article will focus on how this connection defines and shapes the body. Thanks to Chinese correlative cosmology, we understand that the body and skin manifest a constitutional tendency, but not a static one. We live in our bodies, whether they are healthy or sick. Chinese medicine theory, its terms such as qi, yin and yang, and its categorisation of signs and symptoms, gives us tools to stay healthy and to shape those bodies in the way we wish. These tools allow us to choose the proper food, drink and activity to achieve our goals. Two organ systems are key to shaping the body: the Spleen and Lungs.

Architectural Press is an imprint of Elsevier

Objectives: This study investigated the practice towards vitamin D deficiency among female pharmacy and dentistry students in Ajman, UAE. Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was used in Ajman University with a total of 390 pharmacy and dentistry students surveyed from October 2015 to February 2016. The data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 24. Correlation tests were used to determine the association between the socio-demographic data and the practice towards VDD. Results: The majority of the participating students (63.3%) were studying in their first year at Ajman University. Forty-two percent of the participants were diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency. Sixty percent of the students feel often tired and 40.8% complain from having pain or weakness in muscles and bones. Although the majority of the participants (97.9%) were aware of the fact that sunlight is one of the main sources of vitamin D, 65.9% avoided sun exposure by covering themselves with cloths or sunscreen on daily basis. Only thirty-five percent of the participants exposed themselves more to the sun in summer and fall. Conclusions: Ajman University pharmacy and dental students have sufficient knowledge about vitamin D deficiency, but they lack the practice by exhibiting sun-avoidance behavior. Therefore, many are diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency or complain from related symptoms. Students need to be equipped with school and university level health education to promote safe sun exposure practice and sufficient intake of vitamin D from different sources.

2003

The potential health effects of elevated levels of ambient UV-B radiation are diverse, and it is difficult to quantify the risks, especially as they are likely to be considerably modified by human behaviour. Nevertheless epidemiological and experimental studies have confirmed that UV radiation is a definite risk factor for certain types of cataract, with peak efficacy in the UV-B waveband. The causal link between squamous cell carcinoma and cumulative solar UV exposure has been well established. New findings regarding the genetic basis of skin cancer, including studies on genetically modified mice, have confirmed the epidemiological evidence that UV radiation contributes to the formation of basal cell carcinomas and cutaneous melanomas. For the latter, animal models have demonstrated that UV exposure at a very young age is more detrimental than exposure in adulthood. Although suppression of certain immune responses has been recognised following UV exposure, the impact of this suppression on the control of infectious and autoimmune diseases is largely unknown. However, studies on several microbial infections have indicated significant consequences in terms of symptoms or reactivation of disease. The possibility that the immune response to vaccination could be depressed by UV-B exposure is of considerable concern. Newly emerging possibilities regarding interactions between ozone depletion and global climate change further complicate the risk assessments for human health but might result in an increased incidence of cataracts and skin cancer, plus alterations in the patterns of certain categories of infectious and other diseases. † This article is published as part of the United Nations Environmental Programme: Environmental effects of ozone depletion and its interactions with climate change: 2002 assessment.

International Journal of Advanced Research (IJAR), 2019

Background: Vitamin D deficiency which known as hypovitaminosis D is more serious problem. It is currently estimated that one billion peoplesuffer from vitamin D deficiency worldwide. Vitamin D innowadays one of the most important topics inresearch and clinics and the cause of vitamin D deficiency in Saudi Arabian female student could be related to many reasons. Objectives: the aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and practice of Saudi female students about vitamin D deficiency. Methods: This study used a descriptive cross-sectional design to assess the knowledge and practice of Saudi female about vitamin D deficiency. The number of responders from secondary school is 340 and from university students are 467, total of 807 female students. The questionnaire used consists of 17 closed questions, arranged in 4 subscales. It includes two questions about the demographic characteristics; six questions about knowledge about vitamin D deficiency or increment, source of knowledge, four questions for knowledge about food rich in vitamin D, the relationship between vitamin D and calcium in the body, vitamin D deficiency causing tiredness, low mood and muscle and bone pain and the last five questions about suffering from diseases in the bones, expose of face, arms and legs to the sun, and finally if the females pregnant or lactating mothers and have vitamin D deficiency. Results: For secondary school students, showed that most of participants (72.1%) have good knowledge about vitamin D deficiency compared to university students (78.6%). The source of knowledge about vitamin D deficiency varied, most from social media (19.4% Vs24.4%), most of participants don?t know the true level of blood vitamin D (60%Vs 52.9%) for secondary school and University students respectively. About 67.6% vs 35.8% % know the dangerous of vitamin D deficiency and 18.8 % Vs 40.9% know the dangerous of vitamin D increment, and 38.5% Vs 25.1% receive vitamin D without prescription for secondary school and University students respectively. About 69.7% Vs 77.9% not suffered from bone diseases, while (12.9% Vs 9.4% suffered from arthiritis), (7.9% Vs 5.8% suffered from osteomalacia) and (9.4% Vs 6.9% suffered from osteoporosis) and about 45.9% Vs 43.3% don?t expose to sun for secondary school & university students respectively. Conclusion: Most of students either in secondary school or university, their knowledge about vitamin D is little and some of them suffer from bone diseases while they are still young and did not expose to sun. Recommendations: Health awareness campaigns should be held to give advises to students in all stages about the importance of vitamin D and how they can protect themselves from its defeciency by eating healthy foods rich with vitamin D. Also advised them to be exposed to sun rayes at the suitable times and did not take vitamin D without needs or without priscription.

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UIB-AILS: A Model for Autonomous Inductive Learning Systems (Atena Editora), 2024

Systems that learn autonomously constitute a relevant exponent with- in the category of intelligent systems. Such systems are characterized by the ability to update their decision/action hypothesis over time without any external intervention. Such capacity for updating is based on some main considerations, such as: the experiences accumulated by the system, the acquisition of new knowledge from the environment, the general structural characteristics of the hypothesis and the criterion specifying the particular properties that the hypoth- esis must satisfy. The design of an autonomous inductive learning system – AILS - is a com- plex task. This work presents a general model for the design of AILSs, whose components can be customized according to the nature of the problem in hand, so that the model is suitable for addressing the design of a variety of AILS with different peculiarities. Such a model adopts a cyclic evolutionary configuration that includes, among others, components to deal with data imprecision, tech- niques to handle the vagueness of decisions/actions, and methods to process in a unified way knowledge coming from different levels of abstraction, such as raw data and logic expressions.