ABSTRACT
Background and Objectives: The concept of health literacy shaping attitudes and behaviours is critical in preventing and controlling person-to-person transmission in the spread of infectious diseases. Health literacy is a determinant of health;it impacts the effective use of health behaviour by empowering individuals and communities to prevent epidemics like Coronavirus and Monkeypox. The study aims to assess the association between health-protective behavior and health literacy for preventing the spread of the Coronavirus during the pandemic in adolescents of Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in public and private schools of Rawalpindi, 387 middle and high school students. Multiple linear regression was used to find the association between the main explanatory variable, health literacy and the outcome variables, health knowledge and health behaviour. The study was conducted in ten different sessions, each requiring one hour from 1st August to 31st October 2021, the self-administered questionnaire was used as a data collection tool, and a total of 387 participants took part in the study. Data were entered and analysed using SPSS Version 27. Results: Multiple linear regression analyses showed a significant association between health literacy and health knowledge (= 0.04, 95% CI = 0.005– 0.069, p=0.023), and between health literacy and health behaviour (= 0.07, 95% CI = 0.048–0.099, p<0.001). Conclusion: Health literacy is significantly associated with increased hand hygiene knowledge and behaviour. Government should prioritise health literacy policy and practice and make it more sustainable, effective, and integral using the multi-level targeted approach for the national educational sector. © 2023, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Featured Application: Collapsing cavitation bubbles can be used in material surface cleaning, the medical field, and so on. By adjusting the micro-jet intensity of the collapsing bubbles, the cavitation phenomenon can be employed to clean irregular material surfaces, such as sections, cracks, and vegetable leaves. In the medical field, cavitation bubbles can be used as microbubble contrast agents for ultrasound diagnostic imaging or vehicles for drug or gene delivery. The growth and violent collapse of cavitation bubbles can also be employed in sterilization or killing viruses such as COVID-19. The interaction mechanism between the cavitation bubble and a solid wall is a basic problem in bubble collapse prevention and application. In particular, when bubble collapse occurs near solid walls with arbitrarily complex geometries, it is difficult to efficiently establish a model and quantitatively explore the interaction mechanism between bubbles and solid walls. Based on the advantages of the lattice Boltzmann method, a model for cavitation bubble collapse close to a solid wall was established using the pseudopotential multi-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann model. Solid walls with arbitrarily complex geometries were introduced in the computational domain, and the fractal dimension was used to quantify the complexity of the solid wall. Furthermore, owing to the lack of periodicity, symmetry, spatial uniformity and obvious correlation in this process, the Minkowski functionals-based morphological analysis method was introduced to quantitatively describe the temporal evolution of collapsing bubble profiles and acquire effective information from the process. The interaction mechanism between the bubble and solid wall was investigated using evolutions of physical fields. In addition, the influences of the solid walls' surface conditions and the position parameter on collapsing bubbles were discussed. These achievements provide an efficient tool for quantifying the morphological changes of the collapsing bubble. © 2023 by the authors.
ABSTRACT
Vaccines and antiviral treatments for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) are progressing at an incredible rate. To protect further lives, the world is eager for treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Antiviral peptides (AVPs), also termed antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), have antiviral properties, although little is known. AVPs are a group of small polycationic antivirals (8–40 amino acids long) having strong wide-range antiviral activity. Surprisingly, AVPs have been shown to have preventive and therapeutic actions against coronaviruses (CoVs). Peptides and proteins contain significant therapeutic potential. More research is needed to explore the possibilities of a wide range of lipidated (and non-lipidated) peptide medications;lipidation is a helpful tool for reducing drug degradation and extending half-life, with some of these benefits likely due to self-assembly. This chapter aims to use peptides and lipopeptides against SARS-CoV-2. © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.