Northern Caribbean University

Diabetes mellitus represents a growing public health challenge in Jamaica, contributing to increased morbidity, mortality, and strain on the healthcare system. This study analyses longitudinal secondary data from national surveys, hospital records, and the International Diabetes Federation spanning 1995–2024 to evaluate trends in prevalence, demographic disparities, and healthcare access. Findings indicate that diabetes prevalence rose from approximately 7.9% in 2007 to 12.5% in 2024 among adults aged 20–79, with higher rates among women and urban populations. Contributing factors include ageing, rising obesity, nutritional transitions, and limited access to healthcare services. Comparative analysis shows Jamaica’s prevalence exceeds that of Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe but remains slightly below North American rates. Despite policy efforts, awareness, treatment, and glycaemic control remain suboptimal. The study underscores the need for integrated prevention strategies, community-based interventions, and strengthened surveillance systems to curb the growing diabetes burden in Jamaica.

The vast and unstructured scientific literature hinders quantitative analysis and trend discovery. While Small Language Models (SLMs) with Prompt Engineering can structure abstracts, existing methods often face challenges in accuracy, output stability, and extensive manual post-processing. We introduce SciExtract-LLaMa (SEL), a novel framework for robust, automated structured data extraction from scientific abstracts. SEL leverages a Phi-4 SLM, combining multi-stage Prompt Engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation with domainspecific knowledge, self-correction, and automated entity standardization. Operating entirely in an inference-only mode, SEL requires no model training or fine-tuning. Evaluated on a comprehensive dataset of scientific abstracts, SEL consistently surpasses conventional SLMbased methods. Our results demonstrate high extraction accuracy, completeness, and format consistency. Critically, SEL significantly reduces human post-processing time compared to baseline methods. These findings confirm SEL's efficacy in generating high-fidelity structured data, streamlining academic discovery and facilitating large-scale scientific trend analysis.

Icebreakers have proved advantageous to the foreign language (L2) classroom. However, there is no known documented research on the ‘How much do you use?’ toilet paper icebreaker activity in L2 classes. This study seeks to conduct initial research on its incorporation. The authors sought to ascertain learners’ and instructors’ perceptions of this icebreaker in L2 contexts. Eight undergraduate students of Applied Foreign Languages learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and their instructor at Clermont Auvergne University participated in the study. Data were collected via an Instagram poll and the instructor’s checklist and observation notes, which were analyzed through the qualitative method. Major findings show that students appreciated the icebreaker and considered it entertaining, memorable, original, and engaging. The instructor found that the icebreaker preliminarily evaluated the learners’ linguistic (speaking) skills. However, toilet paper as an apparatus in this icebreaker may raise concerns of potential cultural sensitivity; therefore, the instructor should be mindful of the socio-cultural learning context. In this article, the authors highlighted the benefits and concerns of using this icebreaker and ways to lessen or overcome possible challenges.

This research will discuss verbal communication in the Upin and Ipin animation series, content analysis of episodes of the Upin and Ipin animation series – Gong Xi Fa cai. This episode was chosen because it has the highest viewership in terms of the regional language. The research uses a quantitative research method that will discuss six aspects of verbal communication. The data collection technique in this study uses initial observations on the series, tracing the episodes with the highest viewing Malay category, encoding each visual scene of the episode and inferring the results of the episode on verbal communication. So it can be concluded that in the episode of the animated series Upin and Ipin – Gong Xi Fa Cai has a score in the vocabulary aspect of 71%, racing 96%. voice intonation 93%, humor 8%, concise and clear 98% and timing 89%. Of the six aspects of verbal communication, the short and clear aspects part that received the highest score of 98% and it can be said that the characters tend to be more consistent with the core message of the conversation discussed when dialogue or communication.

Gamification is a method used to engage and motivate students virtually during the coronavirus pandemic. This paper reports on the use of Kahoot! as a review tool in French as a foreign language (L2) classes at Northern Caribbean University (NCU), Jamaica, as a means of formative assessment. Using the exploratory approach, it seeks to highlight students’ perceptions of this platform to enhance teaching and learning. Twenty-one students of both genders between the ages of 18 and 35 responded to a post questionnaire, after participating in two or more games of Kahoot!. Data was also collected through semi-structured interviews and observations recorded by the instructor. Preliminary findings show that Kahoot! helps most students (95%) to improve their French, in terms of learning and/or reinforcing new vocabulary or previously taught concepts, as well as pronunciation. All the participants highlighted that Kahoot! is fun and interactive, and playing the game serves as a motivation for them to revise their already acquired knowledge. However, the countdown feature can provoke stress and affect the thought process.

The 2030 health agenda for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals promote exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for the first 6months of life as a central step towards ensuring the survival of infants. As Jamaica attempts to achieve this goal, monitoring the rates of EBF is desirable. Currently, EBF rate is measured by questionnaires which are subject to recall and social desirability biases. We determined the rate of EBF using the Deuterium-oxide dose-to-mother (DTM) method and 24-h recall. The concordance of both methods and urban-rural differences of EBF were evaluated. Additionally, thegrowth of infants who were exclusively breastfed was compared to the infants who were mixed-fed. Sixty-one healthy mother-child pairs were followed from birth. EBF was measured at 6weeks. Growth was determined using standard anthropometric measurements. Differences in means were assessed by independent t-test or ANOVA. The agreement between the DTM and 24-h recall method was assessed with the kappa statistic. Differences in anthropometry and location were determined using a repeated measure model approach. Thirty (49%) women exclusively breastfed their infants with mean breast milk intake of 1024.3 ± 256.9g/day. There was moderate agreement between the methods (Agreement 69%, kappa 0.37, p = 0.002). Rural women (65%) were more likely to practice exclusive breastfeeding. There was no significant difference between the growth of the exclusively breastfed infant and mixed-fed infants. EBF rate was successfully measured using the DTM method. Women from urban settings are less likely to practice EBF. Further research may be needed to gain an in-depth understanding of the factors affecting breastfeeding practices in urban Jamaica.

Schools were plunged into emergency situations consequent to the spread of COVID-19. School leaders, educators, and other stakeholders engaged crisis management procedures to resolve the accompanying challenges of meeting students' learning needs via remote learning modalities. The primary aim of the chapter is to provide lessons senior teachers could learn from supervisees' employment of problem-solving approaches. Sixty-seven teachers participated in a survey that revealed most employed collaboration as a method for addressing the encountered difficulties. From the supervisees' experiences, senior teachers could garner insights into the need for them to activate self-empowerment in the process of actively assisting institutions' recovery and success. In addition, they should exercise their agency by involving supervisees, and other stakeholders, in sustainable collaborative practices which potentially function as a crucial element of crisis management. The chapter offers recommendations for systemising collaboration in ensuring that the greatest benefits are attained.

Abstract Introduction: COVID-19 is a dangerous disease caused by a virus discovered in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. World Health Organization WHO (2021), postulated that safe and effective vaccines are an important tool, in combination with other measures, to protect people against COVID-19. People decide to get a COVID-19 vaccine for a variety of reasons. Some people are skeptical or hesitant to get the vaccine. But many people are having a change of heart and deciding to get a vaccine (Weis, 2021). Objective: This study evaluates issues that influence Jamaicans' decisions to accept the COVID-19 vaccination. Materials and Methods: A web-based and face-to-face explanatory cross-sectional, and correlational research design was used to collect data from vaccinated and unvaccinated Jamaicans. A purposive (non-probability) sampling was used to obtain the data from 1074 sampled respondents across the 14 parishes in Jamaica. The collection of data was from September 20, 2021, to November 30, 2021. It was ensured that confidentiality, privacy, and informed consent were maintained. Results: The findings indicate that the majority of the sampled respondents were vaccinated against COVID-19 (51.9%, n=557) at the time of this research. This means that 13 in every 25 of the sampled respondents were vaccinated against COVID-19. Whereas, 12 in every 25 (48.1%, n=517) were not vaccinated against COVID-19. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic demands that Jamaicans remain vigilant in their daily lives as they return to everyday activities.