Activity

Background Post-secondary education forms the backbone of delivering high-powered persons in a country. Students are subjected to high levels of pressure to achieve success. This often promotes aggression towards self, others and even the environment. Predicting aggression is important as this can assist in managing aggression and the facilitation of the mental health of students. Little research has been published on the prediction of aggression in a university. Aim To describe the prediction of aggression of students in one faculty in a university. Setting Students in one faculty in a university. Methods A deductive quantitative methodology was applied. Multivariate statistical techniques were used to answer the research questions. An online survey was conducted by using a questionnaire that comprised items related to biographic, personality and aggression aspects. Data were analysed by calculating Cronbach’s alpha values, various factor analyses (principal component analysis) and several multiple regression analyses to identify and describe the predictors of aggression. Results Findings reflect that aggression can be predicted by intra- and interpersonal variables, such as ‘positive inclination towards others’, ‘positive inclination towards self’ and ‘acting responsibly towards self.’ Aggression is lower when a student’s positive inclination towards others is higher and towards self is lower and when a student acts with greater responsibility towards self. Conclusion Students should understand and manage their own aggression. Overall, the findings showed that students are seemingly ‘adjusted’ conformists using an external locus of control. The facilitation of an internal locus of control and autonomous behaviour is imperative. © 2020. The Authors.Background Youth behaviour in South Africa continues to be a public health concern. Primary prevention interventions remain a pre-requisite for promotion of improved social and health outcomes. Aim The aim of the study was to assess the impact of a behavioural youth risk reduction intervention among grade 10 learners. Setting The Study was conducted in KwaZulu-Natal high schools, at UMgungundlovu District Municipality. Methods We conducted a cluster randomised controlled trial at 16 KwaZulu-Natal high schools where learners completed a self- administered questionnaire assessing youth risk behaviours. Schools were divided into two arms, intervention and a control arms. Results The intervention reduced learners’ reports of carrying of a weapon to school in the past 30 days, but did not significantly reduce other assessed risk behaviours. Although the intervention appeared more likely to reduce learners’ risk behaviours when compared to the control group, such as carrying weapons, risky sexual behaviour and alcohol and drug abuse. Conclusion This study was unable to show statistical significance for these outcomes. © 2020. The Authors.Background The objective of this study was to evaluate the nature and extent of reproducible and transparent research practices in neurology publications. Methods The NLM catalog was used to identify MEDLINE-indexed neurology journals. A PubMed search of these journals was conducted to retrieve publications over a 5-year period from 2014 to 2018. A random sample of publications was extracted. Two authors conducted data extraction in a blinded, duplicate fashion using a pilot-tested Google form. This form prompted data extractors to determine whether publications provided access to items such as study materials, raw data, analysis scripts, and protocols. In addition, we determined if the publication was included in a replication study or systematic review, was preregistered, had a conflict of interest declaration, specified funding sources, and was open access. Results Our search identified 223,932 publications meeting the inclusion criteria, from which 400 were randomly sampled. Only 389 articles were accessible, yielding 271 publications with empirical data for analysis. Our results indicate that 9.4% provided access to materials, 9.2% provided access to raw data, 0.7% provided access to the analysis scripts, 0.7% linked the protocol, and 3.7% were preregistered. A third of sampled publications lacked funding or conflict of interest statements. No publications from our sample were included in replication studies, but a fifth were cited in a systematic review or meta-analysis. Conclusions Currently, published neurology research does not consistently provide information needed for reproducibility. The implications of poor research reporting can both affect patient care and increase research waste. Collaborative intervention by authors, peer reviewers, journals, and funding sources is needed to mitigate this problem. © The Author(s) 2020.Noroviruses are a very diverse group of viruses that infect different mammalian species. click here In humans, norovirus is a major cause of acute gastroenteritis. Multiple norovirus infections can occur in a lifetime as the result of limited duration of acquired immunity and cross-protection among different strains. A combination of advances in sequencing methods and improvements on surveillance has provided new insights into norovirus diversification and emergence. The generation of diverse norovirus strains has been associated with (1) point mutations on two different genes ORF1, encoding the non-structural proteins, and ORF2, encoding the major capsid protein (VP1); and (2) recombination events that create chimeric viruses. While both mechanisms are exploited by all norovirus strains, individual genotypes utilize each mechanism differently to emerge and persist in the human population. GII.4 noroviruses (the most prevalent genotype in humans) present an accumulation of amino acid mutations on VP1 resulting in the chronological emergence of new variants. In contrast, non-GII.4 noroviruses present co-circulation of different variants over long periods with limited changes on their VP1. Notably, genetic diversity of non-GII.4 noroviruses is mostly related to the high number of recombinant strains detected in humans. While it is difficult to determine the precise mechanism of emergence of epidemic noroviruses, observations point to multiple factors that include host-virus interactions and changes on two regions of the genome (ORF1 and ORF2). Larger datasets of viral genomes are needed to facilitate comparison of epidemic strains and those circulating at low levels in the population. This will provide a better understanding of the mechanism of norovirus emergence and persistence. Published by Oxford University Press 2019. This work is written by a US Government employee and is in the public domain in the US.