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Tag: Action Research

  • Women who get gel manicures risk cancer- Research

    Women who get gel manicures risk cancer- Research

     

    Reseach found that radiation from UV nail dryers can damage DNA and cause mutations in human cells which in turn is linked to a risk of cancer.

    According to the study recently published, researchers have suspected that the ultraviolet nail dryers used for gel manicures might be associated with a higher risk of skin cancer if they are used routinely.

    The study found that radiation from UV nail dryers can damage DNA and cause permanent mutations in human cells which in turn is linked to cancer risk.

    “is just one step along the pathway to cancer,” said Dr. Julia Curtis, an assistant professor at the University of Utah dermatology department, who wasn’t involved in the new research.”

    The researchers exposed cells derived from humans and mice to UV light from nail dryers. They observed that after 20 minutes, 20% to 30% of the cells had died. After three consecutive 20-minute sessions, 65% to 70% of cells had died.

    A 2020 analysis identified two women in the U.S. who developed melanoma on the backs of their hands from 2007 to 2016. Both had gotten gel manicures for years. Overall, however, the researchers determined that that type of manicure which involves applying a gel polish that must then set under UV lamps had little to no association with cancer.

    “At this point, I would recommend or advise people to just weigh the risk,” said one of the new study’s authors, Maria Zhivagui, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego. “Understand what this is doing. There is damage at the DNA level. We don’t know if it’s carcinogenic.”

    “UV nail lamps didn’t really get popular until about the 2000s, I would say, so making that cause and effect can be very difficult,” Curtis said.

    Even so, Curtis and Zhivagui said that in their own lives, they don’t ever get manicures that require UV nail dryers.

    “You’re not going to find a dermatologist who doesn’t say that UVA is aging us and increasing our risk of skin cancer,” said Dr. Loretta Davis, the chair of the dermatology department at Augusta University in Georgia. “So anything that’s purposely done with that type of device is going to contribute.”

    Davis said she doesn’t get manicures but would be concerned about the aging effects of UVA radiation if she did.

    The harmful effects of UV rays accumulate over time, and Davis’ own research has suggested that the more frequently people get manicures with UV nail lamps, the greater their risk of damage might be.

    Using a UV nail dryer every other week is “probably too much,” she said.

    “If you’re going to do this before a wedding and you want to feel special, sure,” Davis added. “But to do it routinely, no, I wouldn’t do that.”

     

  • Experts identify best research approach to seeking solutions to societal problems

    Experts identify best research approach to seeking solutions to societal problems

    A group of university dons and research experts under the aegis of Jacksonites’ Professional Development Series – Knowledge Hub – has identified Action Research (AR) as the most applied, practical problem-solving research approach to seeking solutions to societal problems.

    Led by renowned Professor Emeritus of Strategic Communication, North Dakota State University, USA, Charles Okigbo, the experts dimensioned Action Research in terms of its meaning, rational, utilization, essence and economic benefits and concluded that it was a very important approach to continuous research and can boost researchers’ earnings.

    At the 2nd edition of the Knowledge Hub seminar of the Jacksonites’ Professional Development Series, held virtually on August 5, 2022, Okigbo and his colleagues – Nuhu Gapsiso of University of Maiduguri and Katherine Tulibaski of North Dakota University – noted that Action Research is more than just common sense knowledge but involves repeating and revising procedures and interpretations while using the proper research methodology such as a sophisticated experiment or a basic focus group discussions (FGD).

    The university dons further stated that Action Research leads people to take specific actions which use both qualitative and quantitative research methods to come up with solutions to pressing problems of the time; they added that AR is recursive because it operates in a nonlinear manner by employing a repeating pattern – Looking – Thinking – Acting – a process they described as the interacting spiral.

    Highlighting some of the key benefit of Action Research for Management Consultants, the experts said that the recursive nature of AR method made it suited for education and communication research because, “the problems in these areas hardly end with finality; One solution can lead to new problems that yield new data and new results that are applied as solutions that can lead to new problems.”

    “Action Research is not neat, like a simple survey, not oddly like a simple interview neither is it linear like one simple experiment but rather it is a process of repeating and revising procedures and interpretations because our results address the situation as it is today and when we implement our results, we will get a new situation that will require us to collect a new set of data and do a new analysis to come up with new recommendation that will be implemented” the experts said.

    Highlighting the economic benefit of AR to researchers and consultants, Okigbo called on university academics who are presently under the burden of strikes to consider engaging in consulting. “We hope that Nigerian lecturers and professors of communication will adopt Action Research in consulting because it entails using our skills to address problems that are germane to the interest of our clients.”

    He pointed out that it was important for the lecturers to know how they can use the research methods, particularly action research methods, to address pressing problems that will get them rewarded financially.

    In their separate presentations, Prof Nuhu Gapsiso, Head, Department of Mass Communication, University of Maiduguri, said that Action Research is an ongoing process of renewal that can help an organisation to come up with new approaches to some of their challenges in order to enhance their performance and also develop interventions that can help address them.

    Prof Katherine Tulibaski of the Department of Management and Marketing, North Dakota State University, USA said that the purpose of action research is to address those important organizational community and social issues together with those who experienced those issues. “It has to come from a group of people experiencing that issue or who wants to be involved in the change,” she informed the audience.

    The Knowledge Hub seminar series is a monthly knowledge sharing initiative of the Jacksonites Professional Development Series, moderated by Dr Chuks Odiegwu-Enwerem and coordinated by Professor Chinedu Mba.