Statistical Tests Research Articles

Assessing the impact of unplanned settlements on urban renewal projects with GEE

Spatial plans and strategies ensure that urbanization takes place according to predetermined scientific and technical criteria. Urbanization that takes place without taking into account these legal and technical bases lead to the emergence of informal, risky and dysfunctional settlements. Over time, these settlements become increasingly vulnerable due to their failure to meet social and technical requirements, making their sustainability increasingly challenging, and inevitably becoming subjects of urban renewal activities. Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform's archive of satellite images provides temporal monitoring of urbanization on Earth for about 50 years and analysis of changes in the cloud environment. This study investigates whether the GEE platform can use to detect the impact of the areas where settlement activities are carried out without a development plan in the current urban transformation projects in Istanbul. Land use/cover maps classified with the Random Forest algorithm correlate urbanization activities in urban renewal areas with the entry into force date of the spatial plans that guide the settlement. The classification results evaluated in conjunction with statistical tests and spatial plan decisions demonstrate that unplanned urbanization is a serious obstacle to the sustainability of settlements. Additionally, the study results show the performance of the GEE platform in detecting the effects of factors in the urbanization period. The GEE platform can serve as a facilitative tool for deriving lessons from urbanization experiences to inform policymaking.

Examining UV Radiation Patterns in Relation to Particulate Matter and Atmospheric Conditions in Arid, Unclouded Skies

This study investigates the influences of air temperature (T), relative humidity (RH), wind speed (WS), clearance index (KT), particulate matter (PM) concentrations (PM10 and PM2.5), and aerosol optical depth (AOD) on ultraviolet (UV) radiation during clear skies in Riyadh, central Saudi Arabia. The observational dataset utilized in this study comprises global solar radiation (G), UVA radiation, AOD measurements, and PM concentrations. The data were collected from 2014 to 2015 at the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) campus in Riyadh. Regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between UV radiation and the considered variables. The methodology is based on the least square method and associated statistical tests. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into the impacts of meteorological variables and aerosols on UV radiation, contributing to the understanding of environmental and industrial applications in the Arabian Peninsula. The analyses showed that the strengths and magnitudes differed from one variable to another. No significant correlations between UVA radiation (315–400 nm) and hourly and daily values of PM2.5 were found. Moreover, no significant correlations were seen between daily values of the UVA radiation and RH and between the UVB (280–315 nm) and PM10. The rest of the correlations (between UV radiation and the PM10 and meteorological variables) were found to be significant. While WS, the ratio of the PM concentrations (PM2.5/PM10), KT, and T exhibited positive correlations with UV radiation, the rest of the variables had anti-correlations with UV radiation. The influences of T, WS, and RH on ambient PM concentrations during the considered period were taken into account, and it was found that the PM concentrations correlate, with different magnitudes and strengths, positively with T and negatively with RH and WS.

Does periodontitis have any association with mild cognitive impairment?

This study aimed at determining the association between periodontitis and mild cognitive impairment. For this, different electronic databases, including PubMed, Scopus, Embase and Web of Science, were searched for finding the relevant literature. In addition, hand searching of relevant journals was also done to find gray literature. The systematic review included observational studies only. Accordingly, case-control, cohort and cross-sectional studies were searched. The search strategy was based on PECO framework, wherein the studies which included patients with/without periodontitis and patients with/without mild cognitive impairment (MCI)were included. A total of 7 studies were included and the data from these studies and the data including bibliographic details, demographic data, data about periodontitis, presence of MCI etc. was extracted from the included articles. The extracted data, was then assessed for heterogeneity using clinical parameters and I2 statistical test. Owing to low heterogeneity, fixed-effects model was used for meta-analysis. Meta-analysis was done to determine the association between periodontitis and MCI and significantly higher incidence of MCI was found in patients with periodontitis OR = OR, 1.70 (95% CI: 1.24-2.32, p < 0.001). A subgroup analysis was done by including the studies comparing incidence of MCI in patients with severe periodontitis, which resulted in even stronger association with an OR of 2.09 (95% CI: 1.49-2.92, p < 0.001). Lastly, periodontal parameters, including CAL, PPD, and PI were compared amongst patients with/without MCI. Significant differences were observed for both CAL and PI, with worsening of values in patients with MCI. Observed mean difference for CAL and PI were 0.44 (95% CI: 0.12-0.75) and 0.72 (95% CI:0.50-0.93), respectively. NS differences were observed for PPD values with a mean difference of 0.21 and 95% CI as -0.08 to 0.49. Strong association between periodontitis and MCI was observed, indicating periodontitis to be a risk factor for MCI.

Performance of the non-invasive point-of-care device, EzeCheck, for haemoglobin assessment in adults and children in community and institutional care settings.

Anaemia is a major public health problem, especially in resource constrained settings. Dependency on assessment of blood hemoglobin (Hgb) concentration impedes anemia detection, risk stratification and intervention. Thus, valid, frugal and scalable technologies are needed. EzeCheck is a noninvasive portable device developed in India for predicting hemoglobin levels in human beings aged 4 years and above using a finger-tip biosensor. In this assessment, we aimed to: (i) evaluate EzeCheck's performance with an automated whole blood hemato-analyzer (Sysmex XN 1000) as the gold standard, and (ii) estimate EzeCheck's agreement with Sahli's method and HemoCue (Hb-301) in real-world primary and higher care facilities. Paired assessments were done at five sites across India i.e., Bhubaneshwar, Shimla, Solan and Mashobra and Ulhasnagar. Participants across all age groups (4 years and above) were assessed. We used a range of statistical tests to evaluate the performance of EzeCheck. It was found that EzeCheck performed well across age and gender categories with convincing validity, concordance, precision and accuracy, and acceptable bias. While comparing EzeCheck with Hemato-analyzer, no statistically significant systematic bias was found. However, EzeCheck showed significant systematic bias when compared to Sahli's method and HemoCue. We concluded that EzeCheck could detect anemia (as per WHO Hgb cut-offs) in 'real-world settings' and 'across age and gender categories', with high sensitivity, specificity and accuracy, and can serve as a replacement to traditional methods of hemoglobin assessment. Further, for countries with higher prevalence of anemia where universal screening may be mandated, the positive predictive value of EzeCheck will be higher. The likelihood ratios also indicated that the device had moderate-to-good utility. EzeCheck is suitable for embedment into program and out-patient health care settings in resource constrained contexts as a spot-check hemoglobinometer.

Levetiracetam or Phenytoin as Prophylaxis for Status Epilepticus: Secondary Analysis of the "Approaches and Decisions in Acute Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Trial" Dataset, 2014-2017.

To compare levetiracetam and phenytoin as prophylaxis for the short-term development of status epilepticus (SE) during care of pediatric patients with acute severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Nonprespecified secondary analysis using propensity score matching. We used the Approaches and Decisions in Acute Pediatric TBI Trial (ADAPT NCT04077411) dataset (2014-2017). Patients less than 18 years old with Glasgow Coma Scale Score less than or equal to 8 who received levetiracetam or phenytoin as a prophylactic anticonvulsant therapy. None. Of the 516 total patients who qualified for the case-control study, 372 (72.1%) patients received levetiracetam, and 144 (27.9%) received phenytoin. After propensity score matching, the pair-matched analysis with 133 in each group failed to identify an association between levetiracetam versus phenytoin use and occurrent of SE (3.8% vs. 0.8%, p = 0.22), or mortality (i.e., in-hospital, 30-d and 60-d). However, on closer inspection of the statistical testing, we cannot exclude the possibility that selecting levetiracetam rather than phenytoin for prophylaxis was associated with the following: up to a mean difference of 7.3% greater prevalence of SE; up to a mean difference of 13.9%, 12.1%, and 13.9% greater mortality during the hospital stay, and 30-, and 60-days after hospital arrival, respectively. Last, analysis of 6 months Glasgow Outcome Scale Extended score in those without premorbid comorbidities, there was an association between favorable outcomes and use of phenytoin rather than levetiracetam prophylaxis. In ADAPT, the decision to use prophylactic levetiracetam versus phenytoin failed to show an association with occurrence of subsequent SE, or mortality. However, we are unable to exclude the possibility that selecting levetiracetam rather than phenytoin for prophylaxis was associated with greater prevalence of SE and mortality. We are unable to make any recommendation about one prophylactic anticonvulsant medication over the other, but recommend that further larger, contemporary studies in severe pediatric TBI are carried out.

Exploring the evolution of research topics during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the research agendas of most scientific communities, resulting in an overwhelming production of research articles in a variety of domains, including medicine, virology, epidemiology, economy, psychology, and so on. Several open-access corpora and literature hubs were established; among them, the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) has systematically gathered scientific contributions for 2.5 years, by collecting and indexing over one million articles—this corpus, however, does not provide an easy-to-access overview of its content. Here, we present the CORD-19 Topic Visualizer (CORToViz), a method and associated visualization tool for inspecting the CORD-19 textual corpus of scientific abstracts. Our method is based upon a careful selection of up-to-date technologies (including large language models), resulting in an architecture for clustering articles along orthogonal dimensions and extraction techniques for temporal topic mining. Topic inspection is supported by an interactive dashboard, providing fast, one-click visualization of topic contents as word clouds and topic trends as time series, equipped with easy-to-drive statistical testing for analyzing the significance of topic emergence along arbitrarily selected time windows. Overall, our pipeline is very fast and its results match our expectations on topic identification (F1-score 0.854). The processes of data preparation and results visualization are completely general and virtually applicable to any corpus of textual documents—thus suited for effective adaptation to other contexts.

Discord and Teamwork in Children of the Peruvian Highlands

The objective of this research was to determine the effectiveness of Discord as an educational resource to promote teamwork in sixth grade primary school students. The design was pre-experimental, with a sample of 35 children between 11-12 years old. The technique was the survey and the instrument was the questionnaire to measure teamwork. The statistical test used was Wilcoxon's W. The results demonstrate improvement in the development of teamwork in the dimensions of leadership, communication and empathy, thus proving that the Discord platform optimizes interaction and collaboration between students. It is concluded that the Discord platform as an educational resource is effective in the development of teamwork, according to the Wilcoxon test, obtaining a p value lower than the proposed significance (0.00&lt;0.05), which suggests that there is a significant difference between the entrance questionnaire and exit after the experiment.

Knowledge Attitude and Practices of Food Handlers towards Food Hygiene

Knowledge of food hygiene essentially entails the handlers’ awareness or things to be done or things to be put in place, in the course of either acquiring raw food materials, preparing food or serving food to the consumers, so that food safety is achieved. Food hygiene knowledge, attitude and practices are important because inadequate knowledge, poor attitude and poor sanitation practices have life-threatening danger to food safety. It is important to have an understanding of the interaction on prevailing food hygiene knowledge attitude and practices of food handlers in order to minimize foodborne outbreaks. The main objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of food handlers regarding the aspect of food hygiene in Kanpur. One hundred ten food handlers from fifty food establishments of Kanpur were involved in this study. The data was collected from the street food vendors with the help of structured questionnaire and extensive observation. Analysis of data revealed that Knowledge and attitude towards food hygiene was satisfactory among food handlers, where most of the food handlers have fair knowledge and attitude that was (50.0 %) and (40.90%) but fair practice was practiced by only (17.27%) whereas, majority of them had poor practice (46.36). About 53.6 per cent of food handlers always wash their hands before handling food and only (38.1%) of the food handlers had knowledge about hygiene and sanitation. Statistical testing with chi-square at p&lt;0.05 showed that there is no correlation between educational level of the food handlers and practice of food hygiene; like-wise attitude of the handlers towards food hygiene and work experience had no impact on food hygiene practices of food handlers. The present study concludes that practice regarding food hygiene is not satisfactory and therefore there is need to increase the practice level of food handlers towards food hygiene.

Researchers Training Researchers: Ethics Training in Quantitative Applied Linguistics

AbstractThis forum piece reports on a brief survey of current quantitative research ethics training materials in Applied Linguistics (AL). This survey was conducted as a step towards an increased understanding of the ways in which we, as a field, train students and researchers to conduct quantitative research ethically. The survey was carried out in the process of creating research ethics training materials as part of a grant‐funded project related to questionable research practices (QRPs). Through manual and computer‐assisted searches in twenty‐four textbooks and twenty‐three course syllabi from the past five years, three themes emerged: (1) research ethics is most often conceptualized in terms of IRB‐related topics, (2) when ‘ethical gray‐zone’ issues are mentioned, the focus is primarily on methodological transparency, data sharing/open science, and selecting the appropriate research design and statistical tests, and (3) materials tend to address the topic of research ethics in a single section or chapter, or in a single day or week of a course. Against this background, we provide three recommendations that our field can implement to provide more robust and thorough research ethics training for students and researchers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics: (1) expand our conceptualization of research ethics to include ethical gray‐zone issues, (2) be thorough and explicit in our discussion of ethical issues related to research decisions, and (3) incorporate research ethics as a recurring theme throughout textbooks and courses.

Exploring the relationship between admixture and genetic susceptibility to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in two Latin American cohorts.

Contemporary research on the genomics of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) often underrepresents admixed populations of diverse genomic ancestries, such as Latin Americans. This study explores the relationship between admixture and genetic associations for ADHD in Colombian and Mexican cohorts. Some 546 participants in two groups, ADHD and Control, were genotyped with Infinium PsychArray®. Global ancestry levels were estimated using overall admixture proportions and principal component analysis, while local ancestry was determined using a method to estimate ancestral components along the genome. Genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) was conducted to identify significant associations. Differences between Colombia and Mexico were evaluated using appropriate statistical tests. 354 Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and Single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) related to some genes and intergenic regions exhibited suggestive significance (p-value < 5*10e-5) in the GWAS. None of the variants revealed genome-wide significance (p-value < 5*10e-8). The study identified a significant relationship between risk SNPs and the European component of admixture, notably observed in the LOC105379109 gene. Despite differences in risk association loci, such as FOXP2, our findings suggest a possible homogeneity in genetic variation's impact on ADHD between Colombian and Mexican populations. Current reference datasets for ADHD predominantly consist of samples with high European ancestry, underscoring the need for further research to enhance the representation of reference populations and improve the identification of ADHD risk traits in Latin Americans.

Identifying Traveler Groups Lacking in Seatbelt Usage and Suggesting Policy Measures

This study was aimed to identify the traveler groups who are exposed to potential of severe injury due to lack of seatbelt use. Moreover, policy measures have been suggested to enhance seatbelt use among such groups. A hybrid data collection approach was adopted to gather traveler information. Seatbelt usage questionnaire was used as the survey instrument. The survey was carried out in the parking lots of educational and commercial facilities around Bahrain. Statistical tests, namely, t-tests and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), were used to compare the attributes of travelers. Literature review was used to verify the findings of this study and identify common traveler groups which are lacking in seatbelt use. The recommendations are also provided on policy measures which could be adopted globally to promote seatbelt use. It was found that occupation, education, gender, nationality and accident occurrence have significant impact on seatbelt wearing. It was also found that accident experience and seatbelt wearing, both are dependent on travelers’ social and cultural background rather than each other. The findings of this study matched previous literature. Groups lacking in seatbelt use included male passengers belonging to lower- and middle-income groups which fits the description of expatriate workers in Bahrain. Some policy measures, appropriate to these groups, have also been suggested.

Improvement in quality of life after Asfotase Alfa treatment in adults with Pediatric-onset Hypophosphatasia: data from 5 patient-reported outcome measures

Abstract Hypophosphatasia (HPP) is a rare inherited metabolic disorder caused by deficient tissue-nonspecific alkaline phosphatase activity. This study assessed the impact of treatment with asfotase alfa on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in adults with pediatric-onset HPP. A longitudinal telephone-based survey was administered to eligible individuals enrolled in a patient support program. Interviews were conducted at study entry (prior to asfotase alfa initiation) and after 3, 6, and 12 months. PROs—Patient Health Questionnaire-9 [PHQ-9], Work Productivity and Activity Impairment–Specific Health Problem [WPAI:SHP], Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System 29 [PROMIS-29], and Routine Assessment of Patient Index Data 3 [RAPID3]—were assessed at each time point. Appropriate statistical tests were performed to assess score changes. Among 50 enrolled patients (mean age: 46 years [SD: 15.4]; 80% female; 94% white), 49 were evaluable at 3 months, 44 at 6 months, and 29 at 12 months. By Month 3, statistically significant improvements from baseline were detected in PHQ-9 scores (10.6 vs. 5.8 [p &amp;lt; 0.0001]), PROMIS-29 domain scores (overall physical function: 38.0 vs. 43.0 [p = 0.001]; anxiety: 57.5 vs. 51.5 [p = 0.0011]; fatigue: 63.3 vs. 55.3 [p &amp;lt; 0.0001]; sleep disturbances: 58.8 vs. 54.3 [p = 0.0099]; ability to participate in social roles and activities: 42.6 vs. 47.7 [p = 0.0012]; and pain interference: 63.8 vs. 58.4 [p = 0.001]) and RAPID3 domain scores (functional status: 2.7 vs. 1.1 [p &amp;lt; 0.0001]; pain tolerance: 6.0 vs. 3.2 [p &amp;lt; 0.0001]; and global health estimate: 5.1 vs. 2.7 [p &amp;lt; 0.0001]). Improvements persisted at Month 12. Patients also showed improvements in WPAI:SHP domain scores at Month 6 (presenteeism: 39.6% vs. 14.1% [p &amp;lt; 0.0001] and work productivity loss: 41.9% vs. 14.1% [p &amp;lt; 0.0001]). Treatment with asfotase alfa was associated with improved quality of life across several domains.

Radiomics analysis for prediction and classification of submucosal tumors based on gastrointestinal endoscopic ultrasonography.

To identify and classify submucosal tumors by building and validating a radiomics model with gastrointestinal endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) images. A total of 144 patients diagnosed with submucosal tumors through gastrointestinal EUS were collected between January 2019 and October 2020. There are 1952 radiomic features extracted from each patient's EUS images. The statistical test and the customized least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression were used for feature selection. Subsequently, an extremely randomized trees algorithm was utilized to construct a robust radiomics classification model specifically tailored for gastrointestinal EUS images. The performance of the model was measured by evaluating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The radiomics model comprised 30 selected features that showed good discrimination performance in the validation cohorts. During validation, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was calculated as 0.9203 and the mean value after 10-fold cross-validation was 0.9260, indicating excellent stability and calibration. These results confirm the clinical utility of the model. Utilizing the dataset provided curated from gastrointestinal EUS examinations at our collaborating hospital, we have developed a well-performing radiomics model. It can be used for personalized and non-invasive prediction of the type of submucosal tumors, providing physicians with aid for early treatment and management of tumor progression.

A new framework for exploratory network mediator analysis in omics data.

Omics methods are widely used in basic biology and translational medicine research. More and more omics data are collected to explain the impact of certain risk factors on clinical outcomes. To explain the mechanism of the risk factors, a core question is how to find the genes/proteins/metabolites that mediate their effects on the clinical outcome. Mediation analysis is a modeling framework to study the relationship between risk factors and pathological outcomes, via mediator variables. However, high-dimensional omics data are far more challenging than traditional data: (1) From tens of thousands of genes, can we overcome the curse of dimensionality to reliably select a set of mediators? (2) How do we ensure that the selected mediators are functionally consistent? (3) Many biological mechanisms contain nonlinear effects. How do we include nonlinear effects in the high-dimensional mediation analysis? (4) How do we consider multiple risk factors at the same time? To meet these challenges, we propose a new exploratory mediation analysis framework, medNet, which focuses on finding mediators through predictive modeling. We propose new definitions for predictive exposure, predictive mediator, and predictive network mediator, using a statistical hypothesis testing framework to identify predictive exposures and mediators. Additionally, two heuristic search algorithms are proposed to identify network mediators, essentially subnetworks in the genome-scale biological network that mediate the effects of single or multiple exposures. We applied medNet on a breast cancer data set and a metabolomics data set combined with food intake questionnaire data. It identified functionally consistent network mediators for the exposures' impact on the outcome, facilitating data interpretation.

Analysis of the Effectiveness of Online-Based Patient Queue Management System Innovation: Study at the Dental and Oral Hospital, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Long queues and long waiting times at dental and oral health services are frequent complaints from patients. This is caused by the time for dental and oral procedures which generally takes quite a long time compared to other health services. The Dental and Oral Hospital (RSGM) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) implemented innovation in the form of an online patient queue management system to overcome this problem. This research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the online queuing system. This study used a non-experimental observational design with a cross-sectional approach. Data was collected through a survey of 1000 patients who used the RSGM UMY online queue system. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistical tests. The research results show that the RSGM UMY online queuing system is effective in reducing patient waiting time. The average patient waiting time with the online queuing system was 21.33 (SD 1.45) minutes, shorter than with the manual queuing system which averaged 112.32 (SD 8.23) minutes. Patients were also satisfied with the online queuing system, with 92.32 (SD 4.21) respondents stating they were satisfied. The online patient queue management system at RSGM UMY has proven effective in reducing patient waiting time and increasing patient satisfaction. This system can be a model for other RSGMs to improve the quality of their services.

Assessing Residential Building Energy Efficiency Using Evolutionary Dendritic Neural Regression

Assessing building energy consumption is of paramount significance in sustainability and energy efficiency (EE) studies. The development of an accurate EE prediction model is pivotal for optimizing energy resources and facilitating effective building planning. Traditional physical modeling approaches are encumbered by high complexity and protracted modeling cycles. In this paper, we introduce a novel evolutionary dendritic neural regression (EDNR) model tailored to forecasting residential building EE. Acknowledging the vast landscape and complexity of the EDNR weight space, coupled with the inherent susceptibility of traditional optimization algorithms to local optima, we propose a complex network-guided strategy-based differential evolution algorithm for training the EDNR model. This strategy adeptly strikes a balance between exploration and exploitation during the search process, significantly enhancing the predictive and generalization capacities of EDNR. To our knowledge, this study represents the inaugural application of dendritic neural regression in real-world prediction scenarios. Extensive experimental findings demonstrate the efficacy of EDNR in accurately predicting building EE with commendable performance. Furthermore, the results of two nonparametric statistical tests affirm the validity and stability of EDNR. Consequently, our proposed methodology exhibits high potential and competitiveness in machine learning applications within the energy domain.

The Role of Parental Support in the Relationship between Motivation and Student Learning Outcomes

The aims of this research are to measure and analyze, 1) the influence of motivation on student learning outcomes, 2) the moderating role of parental support on the influence of motivation on student learning outcomes. This type of research is quantitative research with inferential statistical tests. The population of this study were elementary education master's students at FKIP Jember University. The number of respondents involved was 37 students. Researchers collected data through a questionnaire with a Likert scale with answer choices 1-3, namely; 1. disagree; 2. agree; .3. strongly agree. The data analysis used was the SPSS version 26 application with linear regression techniques. The analysis steps that have been carried out are influence testing, moderation testing, and hypothesis testing. The research results provide information on several things. First, motivation has a significant positive effect on student learning outcomes; second, parental support significantly moderates the influence of motivation on student learning outcomes.

Frequency of Erectile Dysfunction in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Presenting with Peripheral Neuropathy at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is notably prevalent among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), especially those suffering from peripheral neuropathy. The condition significantly impacts the quality of life and is often exacerbated by diabetes-related complications. Objective: This study aims to ascertain the frequency and severity of ED among patients with T2DM and peripheral neuropathy, and to examine the association between ED and variables such as age, duration of diabetes, and glycemic control. Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted at the Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology, Karachi, from July 2021 to September 2022. We included 115 male patients aged 35-65 years with T2DM and diagnosed peripheral neuropathy. ED was assessed using the Urdu version of the International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5) questionnaire. Demographic details, medical history, and laboratory results were collected and analyzed using SPSS version 25. Statistical tests included chi-squared and one-way ANOVA, with a significance level set at p&lt;0.05. Results: The mean age of the participants was 50.97 ± 7.21 years, and the average duration of diabetes was 9.37 ± 6.56 years. The mean IIEF-5 score was 14.33 ± 6.0, indicating moderate ED. Severe ED was observed in 20% of the participants, moderate ED in 19.1%, and mild to moderate ED in 28.7%. The study found a significant association between the duration of diabetes and ED severity (p &lt; 0.001), while age and HbA1c levels did not show a significant correlation with ED status. Conclusion: ED is highly prevalent and severe among patients with T2DM and peripheral neuropathy, with disease duration being a significant predictor of ED severity. These findings underscore the need for early screening and targeted interventions in this population.

Analytical Study on the Impact of Digital Marketing Strategies and Performance of Small and Medium-sized Companies

The efficacy and strategies of digital marketing employed by small and medium-sized businesses were analyzed in this study. This study examined the influence of electronic mail marketing, social media marketing, and internet advertising on the operational outcomes of small and medium-sized Companies (SMCs) during the present era marked by evolving standards. The research investigation employed a cross-sectional survey design. Primary data for this study were obtained from 295 administrators of SMCs in Jordan through a systematic questionnaire. The statistical testing of the study's assumptions was conducted utilising multiple linear regression, with the assistance of the SPSS 23. During the new average period, social media websites marketing, using internet for advertising, and electronic mail for marketing had positive effects on performance, according to the study's findings. Therefore, the research proposed that SMCs enhance their sales and marketing performance by utilizing online advertising devices (including search engine, display, and website advertising), social media platforms (including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), and electronic mail marketing tools (including welcome electronic mail s, electronic mail newsletters, and dedicated electronic mail promotions). Moreover, the study provides recommendations for additional research that might serve as a beneficial point of reference for prospective scholars.

Tectonic activity in Gulf of Guinea and Sub-Sahara West Africa: A validation of Freeth (1977) using focal mechanism solutions

Fault plane solutions for a group of 104; 4.0 ≤ Mw ≤ 7.1 earthquakes between January 1979 and December 2016, extracted from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor Project catalog. Were used to investigate the regional tectonic stress regime of the Gulf of Guinea region. The idea is to validate the theory of membrane tectonics put forward by Freeth (1977)[1] in which the tectonic of the Gulf of Guinea and the sub-Sahara West Africa region were described based on Freeth (1977)[1]. The tectonic of the Gulf of Guinea and the sub-Sahara West Africa region are based on the movement of the African plate, we emphasized the use of rigorous statistical tests to decide on the quality and variability of the earthquake focal mechanisms (FMSs) utilized for the stress tensor inversion analysis. To constrain our analysis, we have applied both the Algorithm of Michael and Gauss technique in our stress tensor inversion analysis of FMS obtained from the region, and the results are found to be coherent and in good agreement with each other. Both Michael (1984)[2] and Zalohar and Vrabec (2007)[3] techniques show that the regional tectonic stress regime of the Gulf of Guinea and the sub-Sahara West Africa is extensional, which is in good agreement with the work of Freeth (1977)[1]. However, our investigation concluded that the orientation of the extensional stress regime is the same as the orientation of the movement of the African plate, which is towards the Euro-Asia plate.