Objective There is little known about the demands of medical school on students’ sleep behavior. The study’s main goal was to examine the interplay between medical students’ sleep knowledge, personal attitudes towards sleep, and their sleep habits. Methods An anonymous online survey was created and emailed to all students enrolled at a large metropolitan medical school. Data on demographics, sleep perception and habits in addition to self-reported measures of students sleep knowledge, beliefs and sleepiness were collected. Results There were 261, out of a possible 720, responses to the survey. While 71.5% of respondents believed that they needed >7 hours of sleep only 24.9% of respondents stated they average >7 hours of sleep. During the week of an examination only 15.3% of students stated they averaged >7 hours of sleep. A comparison of pre-clinical and clinical students revealed that reported median sleep during a school or rotation night was significantly lower in clinical students as compared to pre-clinical students while mean sleep during examination weeks between the two groups was not statistically different. In regards to sleep knowledge, clinical students were more knowledgeable (65.53% correct) than pre-clinical students (39.83% correct) (t (1) = −8.9, p = .00). However, there was no difference in the assessment of dysfunctional beliefs between the two groups (66.0 for preclinical students, 64.7 for clinical students (t(1)= .37, p = .71) while clinical students had a higher score of sleepiness compared to pre-clinical students (9.12 to 7.83, t (1) = −2.3, p = .023). Conclusions A majority of medical students are sleeping an inadequate amount of time during their four years and as they progress from the pre-clinical to the clinical years the amount of time they sleep decreases even though their knowledge about sleep increases. Increased awareness around sleep health is required beyond sleep education, as medical students appear to need help translating knowledge into strategies to improve their own sleep and well-being.

Several epidemiological studies conducted on thousands of underground miners suggest that long- term exposure to high radon concentration can increase the risk of lung cancer. Keeping in view the importance of the subject, numerous studies throughout the world have been carried out to measure indoor radon concentration and its resulting doses at occupational and non-occupational sites. The purpose of the current study was to measure indoor radon concentration and its resulting doses received by the students of Azad Kashmir government schools. For this purpose, CR-39 radon detectors were installed in 80 carefully selected schools. The detectors were placed at a height of 3-5 ft. (depending upon average height of students in particular class) from the ground. After exposure of 90 d detectors were etched for 9 h in 6 M NaOH at 70°C and the observed track densities were related to radon concentrations. The measured indoor radon concentration ranged from 22 ± 9 to 228 ± 3 Bq m(-3) with a mean value of 78 ± 5 Bq m(-3). Based on the measured indoor radon data, the annual effective doses were found to vary from 0.55 ± 0.04 to 0.71 ± 0.03 mSv y(-1). The overall mean effective dose for the studied area was found to be 0.63 ± 0.04 mSv y(-1). Reported values for radon concentrations and corresponding doses are lower than ICRP recommended limits for workplaces.

A new Ce/chitosan catalyst has been prepared and used for the highly efficient synthesis of diverse range of spiropiperidine derivatives via multicomponent reaction of substituted anilines, formaldehyde and different cyclic active methylene compounds at room temperature in PEG-200. The catalyst could be reused for five consecutive cycles without appreciable loss in catalytic activity. The structure of the catalyst was determined by IR, XRD, EDX, TEM and ICP-AES techniques. The present green protocol has advantages such as novel products, energy sustainability, short reaction times, high yield of products, economic viability and recyclability of the catalyst.

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