How can we improve knowledge and perceptions of menstruation? A mixed-methods research study.

BACKGROUND: Traditionally, menstrual education has consisted of lectures directed toward women. The objective of this study was to design an innovative menstrual education (ME) program that reflects the needs of both young women and men, and verify its effectiveness. METHODS: A mixed-method design was used to determine the program needs and assess young adults' knowledge and perceptions of menstruation and menstrual products. Focus group interviews were conducted with 14 young adults, and 150 young adults participated in an online survey. After developing the ME program, 10 young adults participated in a study to verify its effectiveness. RESULTS: Interview results showed young adults wanted more information about menstrual products. The online survey revealed significant differences in knowledge based on participants' general characteristics and experience; exposure to menstruation and menstrual products positively impacted knowledge and perception. In addition, the results indicated young adults wanted ME content access via mobile and in-person modalities, designed for both genders, drawing on menstrual experts' knowledge. Based on these results, a multi-experimental menstrual education (MEME) program was designed and included: hands-on exposure to 60 menstrual products, product demonstrations with a female perineal model, a YouTube video created by the researchers, a true-or-false quiz, and question-and-answer sessions with menstrual experts. CONCLUSIONS: This study clarified the requirements of an innovative menstrual education program. It led to high satisfaction among participants, and improved knowledge and perceptions of menstruation and menstrual products. The online survey showed a correlation between the extent of received ME, and respondents' perception of menstrual products. This implied that a MEME program could change perceptions when conducted systematically; by extension it could ameliorate menstruation challenges attributed to poverty. Future research could further verify the effectiveness of the MEME program, using a larger sample, and examine its suitability for incorporation into official ME curricula at universities and companies. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This trial was registered in a Clinical Research Information Service in Korea linked with the World Health Organization's International Clinical Trial Registry Platform (WHO's ICTRP) (no. KCT0004715 ), Registered 07 Feb 2020.

Accuracy-energy configurable sensor processor and IoT device for long-term activity monitoring in rare-event sensing applications.

A specially designed sensor processor used as a main processor in IoT (internet-of-thing) device for the rare-event sensing applications is proposed. The IoT device including the proposed sensor processor performs the event-driven sensor data processing based on an accuracy-energy configurable event-quantization in architectural level. The received sensor signal is converted into a sequence of atomic events, which is extracted by the signal-to-atomic-event generator (AEG). Using an event signal processing unit (EPU) as an accelerator, the extracted atomic events are analyzed to build the final event. Instead of the sampled raw data transmission via internet, the proposed method delays the communication with a host system until a semantic pattern of the signal is identified as a final event. The proposed processor is implemented on a single chip, which is tightly coupled in bus connection level with a microcontroller using a 0.18 µm CMOS embedded-flash process. For experimental results, we evaluated the proposed sensor processor by using an IR- (infrared radio-) based signal reflection and sensor signal acquisition system. We successfully demonstrated that the expected power consumption is in the range of 20% to 50% compared to the result of the basement in case of allowing 10% accuracy error.

Kinetic and dynamic kinetic resolution of secondary alcohols with ionic-surfactant-coated Burkholderia cepacia lipase: substrate scope and enantioselectivity.

Forty-four different secondary alcohols, which can be classified into several types (II-IX), were tested as the substrates of ionic surfactant-coated Burkholderia cepacia lipase (ISCBCL) to see its substrate scope and enantioselectivity in kinetic and dynamic kinetic resolution (KR and DKR). They include 6 boron-containing alcohols, 24 chiral propargyl alcohols, and 14 diarylmethanols. The results from the studies on KR indicate that ISCBCL accepted most of them with high enantioselectivity at ambient temperature and with useful to high enantioselectivity at elevated temperatures. In particular, ISCBCL displayed high enantioselectivity toward sterically demanding secondary alcohols (types VIII and IX) which have two bulky substituents at the hydroxymethine center. DKR reactions were performed by the combination of ISCBCL with a ruthenium-based racemization catalyst at 25-60 °C. Forty-one secondary alcohols were tested for DKR. About half of them were transformed into their acetates of high enantiopurity (>90% ee) with good yields (>80%). It is concluded that ISCBCL appears to be a superb enzyme for the KR and DKR of secondary alcohols.