University of Elbasan

Background: Maternal health behaviors during pregnancy are crucial for maternal and fetal outcomes. While global research has explored that demographic, clinical, and psychosocial determinants significantly influence these behaviors, evidence from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including Albania, remains limited. This study aims to evaluate psychosocial perceptions and health behaviors related to lifestyle among pregnant women in a local Albanian community in order to identify which are higher risk subgroups that need targeted and tailored antenatal care interventions. Methods: This multicenter cross-sectional study included 200 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics from May to August 2024 in Vlora city, Albania. Participants were selected using consecutive sampling based on inclusion criteria. Data were collected through a validated questionnaire composed of five sections: demographic/obstetric data; maternal health behaviors; dietary diversity; physical activity, perceived stress; and social support. Clinical and anthropometric measurements were assessed by trained health professionals during antenatal visits. SPSS version 23.0 and binary logistic regression with p-value ≤ 0.05 statistically significant were used for data analysis. Results: Mean age was 28.3 ± 6.4 years, 71% employed and 83.5% urban residents. Key unhealthy behaviors included tobacco use (25.5%), alcohol consumption (10.5%), exposure to toxins (15%), and low dietary diversity (32%). We found significant correlations between low dietary diversity and rural residence (Adj OR = 2.48), hypertension (Adj OR = 6.88), and overweight/obesity (Adj OR = 2.33). Tobacco use was associated with unemployment and alcohol use with unemployment and hypertension variables. Low/moderate social support and high perceived stress were significantly related with multiple unhealthy behaviors, such as low dietary diversity, inadequate physical activity and antenatal care. Conclusions: Unhealthy nutritional behaviors, tobacco and alcohol use and low physical activity are more prevalent risk factors among pregnant women in Vlora city. Priority should be given to vulnerable groups, including rural residents, pregnant women with low social support, high perceived stress and those with hypertension and obesity. Interventions that integrate psychosocial support and health education into antenatal care services are urgently needed to enhance pregnancy outcomes in Albanian communities.

With the rapidly increasing rates of vehicle usage during recent decades, road accidents have become a significant concern, posing not only risks of injuries but also ranking among the leading causes of fatalities for young and middle-aged individuals. Several factors influence the occurrence of accidents, including careless driving, atmospheric conditions, speeding, and driving under the influence. Understanding the circumstances that lead to a greater risk of road accidents is very helpful for their prevention. The primary goal of this work is to explore patterns in road accidents that have occurred within the state of Albania based on web data scraped from news portals and reports from governmental institutions. The data mining pipeline first involves an intensive data preprocessing phase where scraping, filtering, and refining techniques are employed. Subsequently, several classification models are built on the preprocessed data. These models are developed using various methodologies, including naïve Bayes, random forests, XGBoost, and LightGBM. The constructed classification models are evaluated based on training-test splitting of the preprocessed data using various performance measures. Finally, these models can be used to predict the likelihood of accidents based on certain circumstances.

Background: This study investigates the diagnostic reliability of an artificial intelligence (AI)-based software (Diagnocat) in caries, dental restorations, missing teeth, and periodontal bone loss on panoramic radiographs (PRs), comparing its performance with evaluations from three independent dental experts serving as ground truth. Methods: A total of 104 PRs were analyzed using Diagnocat, which assigned a likelihood score (0–100%) for each condition. The same images were independently evaluated by three experts. The diagnostic performance of Diagnocat was evaluated using sensitivity, specificity, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, while inter-rater agreement was assessed through Cohen’s kappa (κ). Results: Diagnocat showed high overall sensitivity (99.2%), identifying nearly all conditions marked as present by human evaluators. Specificity was low (8.7%), indicating a tendency to overdiagnose. Overall accuracy was 96%, likely influenced by the coexistence of multiple conditions. Sensitivity ranged from 77% to 96%, while specificity varied: dental restorations (66%), missing teeth (68%), periodontal bone loss (71%), and caries signs (47%). The agreement was fair for dental restorations (κ = 0.39) and missing teeth (κ = 0.37), but poor for caries signs (κ = −0.15) and periodontal bone loss (κ = −0.62). Conclusions: Diagnocat shows promise as a screening tool due to its high sensitivity, but low specificity and poor agreement for certain conditions warrant cautious interpretation alongside clinical evaluation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed intensive care unit (ICU) nurses under intense psychological pressure, increasing emotional and psychological stress. Two constructs-difficulties in emotion regulation and psychological inflexibility (i.e., low contact with the present moment and a lack of committed action based on personal values)-have been associated with increased perceived stress levels but remain underexplored in this population. This study investigated whether psychological inflexibility mediates the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and perceived stress in ICU nurses. It also examined whether years of ICU work experience moderate the direct relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and perceived stress. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 210 ICU nurses (65.2% women; 34.8% men; mean age = 40.25 years ± 11.36) from Italian public hospitals. The participants completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II, and the Perceived Stress Scale. A moderated mediation model was tested to examine whether psychological inflexibility mediates the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and perceived stress and whether years of ICU work experience moderate the path between these variables. Higher difficulties in emotion regulation predicted greater psychological inflexibility, which, in turn, predicted higher perceived stress. Psychological inflexibility fully mediated the relationship between emotion regulation difficulties and perceived stress. Additionally, years of ICU work experience significantly moderated the direct link between emotion regulation difficulties and perceived stress. This relationship was strongest for nurses with 1-15 years of ICU experience. The model explained 33% of the variance in perceived stress. This study highlights the importance of the novel construct of psychological inflexibility in the context of healthcare professionals and its role in shaping perceived stress. Addressing psychological inflexibility through targeted interventions may help mitigate stress and promote well-being among ICU nurses.

This paper presents the web application "Mathematics," structured with multiple pages. The purpose of this work is to explore the use of the application during mathematics lessons, the implementation of real-world problem-solving situations based on Information and Communication Technology. The application is organized using a Navigation Bar with five main menus, each corresponding to different topics within mathematics. Each menu contains multiple dropdown submenus that appear when the mouse hovers over the menu title. Users submit requests that the server processes and returns to the browser, providing results to the user.The "Number" menu includes submenus such as: “Factors of a Number; Prime Number; Even or Odd Number; Calculator; Fractions; Converting Decimals to Fractions; Maximum Between Three Numbers; Power of Numbers; Arithmetic Progression”. The "Measurement" menu includes: “Unit Conversion; Pythagorean Theorem; Triangle Area; Square Area; Circle Perimeter; Circle Surface Area; Sphere Volume; Cone Volume”.The "Geometry" menu focuses on Angle Measures.The "Algebra and Functions" menu includes: “Linear Equation; Quadratic Equation; System of Equations; Plotting a Point in the Coordinate Plane; Graph of a Linear Function; Graph of a Quadratic Function; Graph of a Cosine Function; Graph of a Sine Function”.The "Probability and Statistics" menu offers: “Pie Chart in Statistics; Solved Statistical Exercise; Factorial of a Number; Probability of Rolling Two Dice; Probability of Coin Tossing”. The application also includes links to educational videos developed during online teaching sessions. The final menu summarizes all curricular and cross-curricular projects conducted in secondary education. The exercises and problem-solving situations are designed to different education levels (Grades II to VI in Middle School and High School). The integration of applications makes learning more engaging and fun for students, enhancing the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process. Teachers can utilize this application in all three stages of a lesson.

Water is a valuable natural source and essential for the life in every single cell, organism, or ecosystem. Freshwaters are used as drinking water sources, for domestic and industrial purposes, in energy production, etc. However, a considerable amount of polluted water is discharged into environment, because of inappropriate and intensive use for different purposes. Therefore, an important number of water ecosystems are considered polluted from anthropogenic activities. Agricultural activities, untreated or partly treated wastewater, industrial activities add nutrients and other chemicals to water bodies, influencing the water quality and biological parameters of the ecosystem. Nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorous forms) overloading results in increase of water plants that leads to eutrophication of the water body. Eutrophication is one of the most dangerous types of water pollution with direct effects in fauna due to dissolved oxygen loss that leads to fish death. Enrichment of water systems with nutrients is associated with algal “bloom” and with the degradation of natural water quality. Considering the effects of different pollutants in natural water bodies, the study of water quality in these systems receives a particular importance. The main purpose of this paper is to determine the pollution and the eutrophication level in the lake water, because of the increase of pollutant and nutrient concentration with anthropogenic origin. Belshi Lake, a karstic lake situated in Albania and considered as a case study, takes pollutants mainly from untreated wastewaters and from agricultural practices. The chemical water parameters are measured over a three-year period. Experimental data for the chosen water system are compared with international water quality standards. The chemical measured parameters are used to determine the lake trophic state according to several literature suggestions. Statistical data analysis shows the correlation between chemical parameters measured experimentally.

IntroductionCaregiving for people with dementia poses emotional, social, and ethical challenges, which are intensified by socio-cultural factors and limited external support.AimThis study explores the complex challenges, ethical dilemmas and socio-cultural factors, faced by informal caregivers of individuals with dementia in Albania, focusing on their experiences, views, and attitudes towards caregiving responsibilities and decision-making processes.MethodsQualitative research using interpretative phenomenological analysis, was conducted through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 12 family caregivers.ResultsThree main themes emerged: (1) The Heavy Burden of Family Caregiving; (2) Balancing Autonomy, Safety, Dignity, and Well-being and (3) Injustice in Care: The Plight of Dementia Caregivers in Albania.ConclusionThis study underscores the necessity for systemic changes that prioritize the health and well-being of both caregivers and people with dementia highlighting the impact of cultural norms, family dynamics, and insufficient external support on caregivers.

Introduction: Whilst evaluating the skills, behaviors, and habits taught in civic education to young students, leadership skills present a key aspect to be observed.Usually, when children learn to have and show responsibility at an early age, they can further expand the range of their activities as adult citizens.Moreover, leadership skills are an important domain that needs to undergo further analysis, especially when exploring the gender perspective as identified by teachers towards their students.Method: This article expands on some of the values and skills that are displayed by children of fifth grade as group leaders, including several important components for citizenship education, such as leadership skills, empathy, and critical thinking skills.The students' habits and behaviors are carefully analyzed in the light of the assessment given by the homeroom teachers.By using self-completion assessment questionnaires by teachers on an equal number of male and female students, this research relies on a quantitative methodology.Results: The findings of this research stem from the teachers' evaluation of the habits of the students in terms of the leadership role in activities with friends.Although the gender difference resulting from the reported values is not as high as to be statistically significant, teachers usually report girls to have higher averages in various citizenship skills as compared to the same skills in boys.Conclusion and Discussions: The findings of this research contradict the dominant social and political reality, where women come second regarding leadership when compared to men.This fact highlights the reality of gender inequalities starting in childhood and later accentuating even more over time.Therefore, the required change for achieving gender equality in citizenship needs to start with primary education and continue throughout later stages in life in the course of gender mainstreaming.

This study is in the field of cognitive psychology and it focuses on the perception and attention of students in learning. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the perception and concentration of students in learning, as well as the new contexts created with the development of technology. The perception and concentration of students in learning have changed, and distracting factors have increased. This study hypothesizes that high learning outcomes for students are achieved through interactive learning and new inclusive approaches. The study method is both quantitative and qualitative. For this, questionnaires are administered to a specific sample, and for the qualitative method, observations and interviews are conducted from which the necessary data are collected for analysis. The study population consists of all pre-university education students in Tirana, and the study sample is composed of three 9-year schools in the city of Tirana and three schools in the Elbasan region, totaling 5,400 students. The schools were selected by lot from a total of 112 schools in the city of Tirana and 23 schools in the Elbasan region. Data analysis is performed using the SPSS program, and for qualitative data, categorization and classification of the analyzed data are employed. The conclusion is that the factors of perception, concentration, and attention of students in teaching and learning have changed in favor of distraction, and teachers must ensure that learning builds different approaches to mitigate the distractions of perception and concentration.