conclusions our results demonstrated the antimicrobial properties of frog skin as a wound dressing, which has antimicrobial effects per se. this biological dressing shows promise as an effective biological wound dressing insofar as not only is it capable of resisting microbes and accelerating wound healing but also it is cost-effective and easy to use. results in the microbial studies, the bact...

  According to statistics released by agricultural insurance fund (AIF) less than 4 million acres out of 90 million acres has been covered by Pastures Insurance. This observation along with several facts motivated authors to study possible barriers which Pastures Insurance has been encountered in practice. The research population included all the experts in agricultural insurance fund. Small po...

Disease control efforts directed at human immunodeficiency virus are predicated on the need to reduce personal risk behaviors; that approach may not adequately reflect the complicated interplay between personal behaviors and the social setting in which they occur. Efforts to date, including the application of population ecology, the development of the core group hypothesis, and the use of compa...

Transferring knowledge has become a key challenge for global organizations and social media offers new opportunities to digitalize and support this process. However, the successful implementation of a social media based knowledge transfer environment is marked by several uncertainties that can become a barrier for the participants’ adoption. There is only limited existing research studying the ...

In this work, we discuss a set of feature representations for analyzing human spatial behavior (proxemics) motivated by metrics used in the social sciences. Specifically, we consider individual, physical, and psychophysical factors that contribute to social spacing. We demonstrate the feasibility of autonomous real-time annotation of these proxemic features during a social interaction between t...

This article is a critique of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering’s report, Grand Challenges for Engineering, based upon the “technocratic view” of progress as defined by historian Leo Marx and as exemplified by the public works of Robert Moses, including the 1964 World’s Fair, as well as technological determinist narratives on the digital age drawn from contemporary culture. While the soc...

Smoking cessation is challenging and lack of positive support is a known major barrier to quitting cigarettes. Previous studies have suggested that social influences might increase smokers' awareness of social norms for appropriate behavior, which might lead to smoking cessation. Although social media use is increasing among young adults in the United States, research on the relationship betwee...

Multi-problem households are households with problems on more than one of the following core problem areas: socio-economic problems, psycho-social problems, and problems related to child care. The aim of this study was to examine barriers and facilitators for health behavior change among adults from multi-problem households, as well as to identify ideas for a health promotion program. A qualita...

background: dielectric barrier discharge (dbd), a source of non-thermal plasma, is used in surface decontamination. objective: to study the effect of dbd plasma treatment, we evaluated the effect of plasma exposure time on inactivation of bacillus subtilis. results: applying the dbd plasma to the culture of b. subtilis caused complete sterilization of the surface without any thermal effects. in...