Age of Menarche and Knowledge about Menstrual Hygiene Management among Adolescent School Girls in Amhara Province,Ethiopia: Implication to Health Care Workers & School Teachers

Background

Effective menstrual hygiene has direct and indirect effect on achieving millennium development goals two (universal education), three (gender equality and women empowerment) and, five (improving maternal health). However, in Ethiopiait is an issue which is insufficiently acknowledged in the reproductive health sector. The objective of this study therefore, is to assess the age of menarche and knowledge of adolescents about menstrual hygiene management in Amhara province.

Method

School based cross sectional study was conducted from November 2012 to June 2013. Multistage stage sampling technique was used. The school was first clustered in to grades & sections and thenparticipants were selected by lottery method. A pretested &structured questionnaire was used. Data were entered, cleaned and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Finally, multivariate analysis was used to assess independent effect of predictors.

Findings

In this study, 492 students were included, making a response rate of 100%. Mean age at menarche was 14.1±1.4 years. The main sources of information about menstrual hygiene management were teachers for 212 (43.1%). Four hundred forty six (90.7%) respondents had high level knowledge about menstrual hygiene management. Most of the respondents 457 (92.9%) and 475 (96.5%) had access for water and toilet facility respectively. Place of residence (AOR = 1.8, 95%CI: [1.42–1.52]) and educational status of their mothers’ (AOR = 95%CI: [1.15–13.95]) were independent predictors of knowledge about menstrual hygiene management.

Conclusion

Knowledge of respondents about menstrual hygiene management was very high. School teachers were the primary source of information. Place of residence and their mother’s educational status were independent predictors of menstrual hygiene management. Thus, the government of Ethiopia in collaboration with its stalk holders should develop and disseminatereproductive health programmes on menstrual hygiene management targeting both parents and their adolescents. Moreover, parents should be made aware about the need to support their children with appropriate sanitary materials.     

A micromechanical muscle model for determining the impact of motor unit fiber clustering on force transmission in aging skeletal muscle

This study used a micromechanical finite element muscle model to investigate the effects of the redistribution of spatial activation patterns in young and old muscle. The geometry consisted of a bundle of 19 active muscle fibers encased in endomysium sheets, surrounded by passive tissue to model a fascicle. Force was induced by activating combinations of the 19 active muscle fibers. The spacial clustering of muscle fibers modeled in this study showed unbalanced strains suggesting tissue damage at higher strain levels may occur during higher levels of activation and/or during dynamic conditions. These patterns of motor unit remodeling are one of the consequences of motor unit loss and reinnervation associated with aging. The results did not reveal evident quantitative changes in force transmission between old and young adults, but the patterns of stress and strain distribution were affected, suggesting an uneven distribution of the forces may occur within the fascicle that could provide a mechanism for muscle injury in older muscle.

     

3-Methoxy-2-methyl-carbazole-1,4-quinone, carbazomycins D and F from Streptomyces sp. CMU-JT005

3-Methoxy-2-methyl-carbazole-1,4-quinone (1) together with carbazomycins D (2) and F (3) were isolated from the crude extract of Streptomyces CMU-JT005, an actinomycete with nematicidal activity. 3-Methoxy-2-methyl-carbazole-1,4-quinone is reported here for the first time from nature. In this paper, we describe the isolation and structure elucidation of the compounds together with the characterization of the Streptomyces strain CMU-JT005.     

A Finite Element Model Approach to Determine the Influence of Electrode Design and Muscle Architecture on Myoelectric Signal Properties

Introduction

Surface electromyography (sEMG) is the measurement of the electrical activity of the skeletal muscle tissue detected at the skin’s surface. Typically, a bipolar electrode configuration is used. Most muscles have pennate and/or curved fibres, meaning it is not always feasible to align the bipolar electrodes along the fibres direction. Hence, there is a need to explore how different electrode designs can affect sEMG measurements.

Method

A three layer finite element (skin, fat, muscle) muscle model was used to explore different electrode designs. The implemented model used as source signal an experimentally recorded intramuscular EMG taken from the biceps brachii muscle of one healthy male. A wavelet based intensity analysis of the simulated sEMG signal was performed to analyze the power of the signal in the time and frequency domain.

Results

The model showed muscle tissue causing a bandwidth reduction (to 20-92- Hz). The inter-electrode distance (IED) and the electrode orientation relative to the fibres affected the total power but not the frequency filtering response. The effect of significant misalignment between the electrodes and the fibres (60°- 90°) could be reduced by increasing the IED (25–30 mm), which attenuates signal cancellation. When modelling pennated fibres, the muscle tissue started to act as a low pass filter. The effect of different IED seems to be enhanced in the pennated model, while the filtering response is changed considerably only when the electrodes are close to the signal termination within the model. For pennation angle greater than 20°, more than 50% of the source signal was attenuated, which can be compensated by increasing the IED to 25 mm.

Conclusion

Differences in tissue filtering properties, shown in our model, indicates that different electrode designs should be considered for muscle with different geometric properties (i.e. pennated muscles).     

AS-1 cyanophage infection inhibits the photosynthetic electron flow of photosystem II in Synechococcus sp. PCC 6301, a cyanobacterium

In Synechococcus sp. cells AS-1 cyanophage infection gradually inhibits the photosystem II mediated photosynthetic electron flow whereas the activity of photosystem I is apparently unaffected by the cyanophage infection. Transient fluorescence induction and flash-induced delayed luminescence decay studies revealed that the inhibition may occur at the level of the secondary acceptor, Q_B of photosystem II. In addition, the breakdown of D₁-protein is inhibited, comparable to DCMU-induced protection of D₁-protein turnover, in AS-1-infected cells.     

Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase-induced freezing tolerance in jack pine (Pinus banksiana) seedlings treated with low, ambient levels of ultraviolet‐B radiation

Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) induction in UVB-exposed plants leads to an increased synthesis of UV-absorbing phenols. As phenols, including anthocycanins, are linked to many protective mechanisms in plants, we tested the hypothesis that UVB-induced phenol accumulation, mediated by PAL, may confer freezing tolerance in jack pine ( Pinus banksiana Lamb) seedlings. The hypothesis was tested by applying UVB in the presence and absence of the PAL-inhibitor, 2-aminoindan-2-phosphonic acid (AIP). Jack pine seedlings were grown for 3 weeks with and without 10 µ M aqueous AIP. Each treatment was then divided into two groups. One group received near-ambient UVB (5.5 kJ m⁻² day⁻¹of biologically effective radiation) for up to 30 h. A second, control group of seedlings received no UVB. Anthocyanin concentration declined by > 99% in PAL-inhibited seedlings and other methanol-extractable UV-absorbing phenols declined by > 48%, relative to the controls. A 20-h exposure to UVB increased seedling freezing (−15°C) tolerance in the absence of the PAL-inhibitor, as shown by a 30% reduction in membrane injury, determined by electrolyte leakage measurements. In PAL-inhibited seedlings, by contrast, the same UVB pre-treatment increased freezing injury by 48%. A longer (30 h) UVB exposure was damaging to both AIP-treated and untreated seedlings. Root feeding with 10 µ M AIP during a 3-week exposure of older (6-month-old) seedlings similarly reduced phenol accumulation in UVB-exposed seedlings. The decline in phenol production in PAL-inhibited seedlings correlated with increased freezing injury. These results suggest a role for ambient UVB in seedling frost hardiness, mediated by a PAL-induced production of phenolic compounds.