Search results for: component based development

Authors: Sadia Munir, Diana White, Aya Albahri, Pratiwi Hastania, Eltahir Mohamed, Mahmood Khan, Fathima Mohamed, Ayat Kadhi, Haila Saleem

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Preeclampsia is a major complication of pregnancy. Prediction and management of preeclampsia is a challenge for obstetricians. To our knowledge, no major progress has been achieved in the prevention and early detection of preeclampsia. There is very little known about the clear treatment path of this disorder. Preeclampsia puts both mother and baby at risk of several short term- and long term-health problems later in life. There is huge health service cost burden in the health care system associated with preeclampsia and its complications. Preeclampsia is divided into two different types. Early onset preeclampsia develops before 34 weeks of gestation, and late onset develops at or after 34 weeks of gestation. Different genetic and environmental factors, prognosis, heritability, biochemical and clinical features are associated with early and late onset preeclampsia. Prevalence of preeclampsia greatly varies all over the world and is dependent on ethnicity of the population and geographic region. To authors best knowledge, no published data on preeclampsia exist in Qatar. In this study, we are reporting the incidence of preeclampsia in Qatar. The purpose of this study is to compare the incidence and risk factors of both early onset and late onset preeclampsia in Qatar. This retrospective longitudinal cohort study was conducted using data from the hospital record of Women’s Hospital, Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), from May 2014-May 2016. Data collection tool, which was approved by HMC, was a researcher made extraction sheet that included information such as blood pressure during admission, socio demographic characteristics, delivery mode, and new born details. A total of 1929 patients’ files were identified by the hospital information management when they apply codes of preeclampsia. Out of 1929 files, 878 had significant gestational hypertension without proteinuria, 365 had preeclampsia, 364 had severe preeclampsia, and 188 had preexisting hypertension with superimposed proteinuria. In this study, 78% of the data was obtained by hospital electronic system (Cerner) and the remaining 22% was from patient’s paper records. We have gone through detail data extraction from 560 files. Initial data analysis has revealed that 15.02% of pregnancies were complicated with preeclampsia from May 2014-May 2016. We have analyzed difference in the two different disease entities in the ethnicity, maternal age, severity of hypertension, mode of delivery and infant birth weight. We have identified promising differences in the risk factors of early onset and late onset preeclampsia. The data from clinical findings of preeclampsia will contribute to increased knowledge about two different disease entities, their etiology, and similarities/differences. The findings of this study can also be used in predicting health challenges, improving health care system, setting up guidelines, and providing the best care for women suffering from preeclampsia.

Keywords: preeclampsia, incidence, risk factors, maternal

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Authors: Anita Bajpai, Sarah Duan, Ashlee Erskine, Shehzein Khan, Raymond Kramer

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Introduction: This research focuses on exploring the beneficial effects if any, of Vitamin-D in reducing the need for supplemental oxygen among hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Two questions are investigated – Q1)Doeshaving a healthy level of baselineVitamin-D 25-OH (≥ 30ng/ml) help,andQ2) does administering Vitamin-D therapy after-the-factduring inpatient hospitalization help? Methods/Study Design: This is a comprehensive, retrospective, observational study of all inpatients at RUHS from March through December 2020 who tested positive for COVID-19 based on real-time reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction assay of nasal and pharyngeal swabs and rapid assay antigen test. To address Q1, we looked atall N1=182 patients whose baseline plasma Vitamin-D 25-OH was known and who needed supplemental oxygen. Of this, a total of 121 patients had a healthy Vitamin-D level of ≥30 ng/mlwhile the remaining 61 patients had low or borderline (≤ 29.9ng/ml)level. Similarly, for Q2, we looked at a total of N2=893 patients who were given supplemental oxygen, of which713 were not given Vitamin-D and 180 were given Vitamin-D therapy. The numerical value of the maximum amount of oxygen flow rate(dependent variable) administered was recorded for each patient. The mean values and associated standard deviations for each group were calculated. Thesetwo sets of independent data served as the basis for independent, two-sample t-Test statistical analysis. To be accommodative of any reasonable benefitof Vitamin-D, ap-value of 0.10(α< 10%) was set as the cutoff point for statistical significance. Results: Given the large sample sizes, the calculated statistical power for both our studies exceeded the customary norm of 80% or better (β< 0.2). For Q1, the mean value for maximumoxygen flow rate for the group with healthybaseline level of Vitamin-D was 8.6 L/min vs.12.6L/min for those with low or borderline levels, yielding a p-value of 0.07 (p < 0.10) with the conclusion that those with a healthy level of baseline Vitamin-D needed statistically significant lower levels of supplemental oxygen. ForQ2, the mean value for a maximum oxygen flow rate for those not administered Vitamin-Dwas 12.5 L/min vs.12.8L/min for those given Vitamin-D, yielding a p-valueof 0.87 (p > 0.10). We thereforeconcludedthat there was no statistically significant difference in the use of oxygen therapy between those who were or were not administered Vitamin-D after-the-fact in the hospital. Discussion/Conclusion: We found that patients who had healthy levels of Vitamin-D at baseline needed statistically significant lower levels of supplemental oxygen. Vitamin-D is well documented, including in a recent article in the Lancet, for its anti-inflammatory role as an adjuvant in the regulation of cytokines and immune cells. Interestingly, we found no statistically significant advantage for giving Vitamin-D to hospitalized patients. It may be a case of “too little too late”. A randomized clinical trial reported in JAMA also did not find any reduction in hospital stay of patients given Vitamin-D. Such conclusions come with a caveat that any delayed marginal benefits may not have materialized promptly in the presence of a significant inflammatory condition. Since Vitamin-D is a low-cost, low-risk option, it may still be useful on an inpatient basis until more definitive findings are established.

Keywords: COVID-19, vitamin-D, supplemental oxygen, vitamin-D in primary care

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Authors: Antonis Skouloudis, Georgios Deligiannakis, Panagiotis Vouros, Konstantinos Evangelinos, Loannis Nikolaou

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On November 15th, 2017, a catastrophic flash flood devastated the city of Mandra in Central Greece, resulting in 24 fatalities and extensive damages to the built environment and infrastructure. It was Greece's deadliest and most destructive flood event for the past 40 years. In this paper, we examine the consequences of this event too small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in Mandra during the flood event, which were affected by the floodwaters to varying extents. In this context, we conducted semi-structured interviews with business owners-managers of 45 SMEs located in flood inundated areas and are still active nowadays, based on an interview guide that spanned 27 topics. The topics pertained to the disaster experience of the business and business owners-managers, knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and extreme weather, aspects of disaster preparedness and related assistance needs. Our findings reveal that the vast majority of the affected businesses experienced heavy damages in equipment and infrastructure or total destruction, which resulted in business interruption from several weeks up to several months. Assistance from relatives or friends helped for the damage repairs and business recovery, while state compensations were deemed insufficient compared to the extent of the damages. Most interviewees pinpoint flooding as one of the most critical risks, and many connect it with the climate crisis. However, they are either not willing or unable to apply property-level prevention measures in their businesses due to cost considerations or complex and cumbersome bureaucratic processes. In all cases, the business owners are fully aware of the flood hazard implications, and since the recovery from the event, they have engaged in basic mitigation measures and contingency plans in case of future flood events. Such plans include insurance contracts whenever possible (as the vast majority of the affected SMEs were uninsured at the time of the 2017 event) as well as simple relocations of critical equipment within their property. The study offers fruitful insights on latent drivers and barriers of SMEs' resilience capacity to flash flooding. In this respect, findings such as ours, highlighting tensions that underpin behavioral responses and experiences, can feed into a) bottom-up approaches for devising actionable and practical guidelines, manuals and/or standards on business preparedness to flooding, and, ultimately, b) policy-making for an enabling environment towards a flood-resilient SME sector.

Keywords: flash flood, small and medium-sized enterprises, organizational resilience capacity, disaster preparedness, qualitative study

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Authors: Stephen Kyakulumbye, Vivian Kobusingye

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Generally, World over, COVID-19 has had adverse effects on all sectors but with more debilitating effects on the education sector. After reactive lockdowns, education institutions that could continue teaching and learning had to go a distance mediated by digital technological tools. In Uganda, the Ministry of Education thereby issued COVID-19 Online Distance E-learning (ODeL) emergent guidelines. Despite such guidelines, academic institutions in Uganda and similar developing contexts with academically constrained resource environments were caught off-guard and ill-prepared to transform from face-to-face learning to online distance learning mode. Most academic institutions that migrated spontaneously did so with no deliberate tools, systems, strategies, or software to cause active, meaningful, and engaging learning for students. By experience, most of these academic institutions shifted to Zoom and WhatsApp and instead conducted online teaching in real-time than blended synchronous and asynchronous tools. This paper provides students’ experiences while blending synchronous and asynchronous content-creating and learning tools within a technological resource-constrained environment to navigate in such a challenging Uganda context. These conceptual case-based findings, using experience from Uganda Christian University (UCU), point at the design of learning activities with two certain characteristics, the enhancement of synchronous learning technologies with asynchronous ones to mitigate the challenge of system breakdown, passive learning to active learning, and enhances the types of presence (social, cognitive and facilitatory). The paper, both empirical and experiential in nature, uses online experiences from third-year students in Bachelor of Business Administration student lectured using asynchronous text, audio, and video created with Open Broadcaster Studio software and compressed with Handbrake, all open-source software to mitigate disk space and bandwidth usage challenges. The synchronous online engagements with students were a blend of zoom or BigBlueButton, to ensure that students had an alternative just in case one failed due to excessive real-time traffic. Generally, students report that compared to their previous face-to-face lectures, the pre-recorded lectures via Youtube provided them an opportunity to reflect on content in a self-paced manner, which later on enabled them to engage actively during the live zoom and/or BigBlueButton real-time discussions and presentations. The major recommendation is that lecturers and teachers in a resource-constrained environment with limited digital resources like the internet and digital devices should harness this approach to offer students access to learning content in a self-paced manner and thereby enabling reflective active learning through reflective and high-order thinking.

Keywords: synchronous learning, asynchronous learning, active learning, reflective learning, resource-constrained environment

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Authors: C. Silveira, A. Ascenso, J. Ferreira, A. I. Miranda, P. Tuccella, G. Curci

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Poor air quality is one of the main environmental causes of premature deaths worldwide, and mainly in cities, where the majority of the population lives. It is a consequence of successive land cover (LC) and use changes, as a result of the intensification of human activities. Knowing these landscape modifications in a comprehensive spatiotemporal dimension is, therefore, essential for understanding variations in air pollutant concentrations. In this sense, the use of air quality models is very useful to simulate the physical and chemical processes that affect the dispersion and reaction of chemical species into the atmosphere. However, the modelling performance should always be evaluated since the resolution of the input datasets largely dictates the reliability of the air quality outcomes. Among these data, the updated LC is an important parameter to be considered in atmospheric models, since it takes into account the Earth’s surface changes due to natural and anthropic actions, and regulates the exchanges of fluxes (emissions, heat, moisture, etc.) between the soil and the air. This work aims to evaluate the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), when different LC classifications are used as an input. The influence of two LC classifications was tested: i) the 24-classes USGS (United States Geological Survey) LC database included by default in the model, and the ii) CLC (Corine Land Cover) and specific high-resolution LC data for Portugal, reclassified according to the new USGS nomenclature (33-classes). Two distinct WRF-Chem simulations were carried out to assess the influence of the LC on air quality over Europe and Portugal, as a case study, for the year 2015, using the nesting technique over three simulation domains (25 km², 5 km² and 1 km² horizontal resolution). Based on the 33-classes LC approach, particular emphasis was attributed to Portugal, given the detail and higher LC spatial resolution (100 m x 100 m) than the CLC data (5000 m x 5000 m). As regards to the air quality, only the LC impacts on tropospheric ozone concentrations were evaluated, because ozone pollution episodes typically occur in Portugal, in particular during the spring/summer, and there are few research works relating to this pollutant with LC changes. The WRF-Chem results were validated by season and station typology using background measurements from the Portuguese air quality monitoring network. As expected, a better model performance was achieved in rural stations: moderate correlation (0.4 – 0.7), BIAS (10 – 21µg.m^-3) and RMSE (20 – 30 µg.m^-3), and where higher average ozone concentrations were estimated. Comparing both simulations, small differences grounded on the Leaf Area Index and air temperature values were found, although the high-resolution LC approach shows a slight enhancement in the model evaluation. This highlights the role of the LC on the exchange of atmospheric fluxes, and stresses the need to consider a high-resolution LC characterization combined with other detailed model inputs, such as the emission inventory, to improve air quality assessment.

Keywords: land use, spatial resolution, WRF-Chem, air quality assessment

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Authors: O. Gsib, U. Peirera, C. Egles, S. A. Bencherif

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In skin regenerative medicine, one of the critical issues is to produce a three-dimensional scaffold with optimized porosity for dermal fibroblast infiltration and neovascularization, which exhibits high mechanical properties and displays sufficient wound healing characteristics. In this study, we report on the synthesis and characterization of macroporous sequential interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) combining skin wound healing properties of fibrin with the excellent physical properties of polyethylene glycol (PEG). Fibrin fibers serve as a provisional biologically active network to promote cell adhesion and proliferation while PEG provides the mechanical stability to maintain the entire 3D construct. After having modified both PEG and Serum Albumin (used for promoting enzymatic degradability) by adding methacrylate residues (PEGDM and SAM, respectively), Fibrin/PEGDM-SAM sequential IPNs were synthesized as follows: Macroporous sponges were first produced from PEGDM-SAM hydrogels by a freeze-drying technique and then rehydrated by adding the fibrin precursors. Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy (CLSM) were used to characterize their microstructure. Human dermal fibroblasts were cultivated during one week in the constructs and different cell culture parameters (viability, morphology, proliferation) were evaluated. Subcutaneous implantations of the scaffolds were conducted on five-week old male nude mice to investigate their biocompatibility in vivo. We successfully synthesized interconnected and macroporous Fibrin/PEGDM-SAM sequential IPNs. The viability of primary dermal fibroblasts was well maintained (above 90%) after 2 days of culture. Cells were able to adhere, spread and proliferate in the scaffolds suggesting the suitable porosity and intrinsic biologic properties of the constructs. The fibrin network adopted a spider web shape that covered partially the pores allowing easier cell infiltration into the macroporous structure. To further characterize the in vitro cell behavior, cell proliferation (EdU incorporation, MTS assay) is being studied. Preliminary histological analysis of animal studies indicated the persistence of hydrogels even after one-month post implantation and confirmed the absence of inflammation response, good biocompatibility and biointegration of our scaffolds within the surrounding tissues. These results suggest that our Fibrin/PEGDM-SAM IPNs could be considered as potential candidates for dermis regenerative medicine. Histological analysis will be completed to further assess scaffold remodeling including de novo extracellular matrix protein synthesis and early stage angiogenesis analysis. Compression measurements will be conducted to investigate the mechanical properties.

Keywords: fibrin, hydrogels for dermal reconstruction, polyethylene glycol, semi-interpenetrating polymer network

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Authors: Nikeshala Weerasekara, Roshan Ajward

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Contemporary business environment, given the circumstance of stringent scrutiny toward corporate behavior, organizations are under pressure to develop and implement solid overarching Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. In that milieu, in order to differentiate themselves from competitors and maintain stakeholder confidence banks spend millions of dollars on CSR programmes. However, knowledge on how non-western bank employees perceive such activities is inconclusive. At the same time recently only researchers have shifted their focus on positive effects of compassion at work or the organizational conditions under which it arises. Nevertheless, mediation mechanisms between CSR and compassion at work have not been adequately examined leaving a vacuum to be explored. Despite finding a purpose in work that is greater than extrinsic outcomes of the work is important to employees, meaningful work has not been examined adequately. Thus, in addition to examining the direct relationship between CSR and compassion at work, this study examined the mediating capability of meaningful work between these variables. Specifically, the researcher explored how CSR enables employees to sense work as meaningful which in turn would enhance their level of compassion at work. Hypotheses were developed to examine the direct relationship between CSR and compassion at work and the mediating effect of meaningful work on the relationship between CSR and compassion at work. Both Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Social Exchange Theory (SET) were used to theoretically support the relationships. The sample comprised of 450 respondents covering different levels of the bank. A convenience sampling strategy was used to secure responses from 13 local licensed commercial banks in Sri Lanka. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire which was developed based on a comprehensive review of literature and refined using both expert opinions and a pilot survey. Structural equation modeling using Smart Partial Least Square (PLS) was utilized for data analysis. Findings indicate a positive and significant (p < .05) relationship between CSR and compassion at work. Also, it was found that meaningful work partially mediates the relationship between CSR and compassion at work. As per the findings it is concluded that bank employees’ perception of CSR engagement not only directly influence compassion at work but also impact such through meaningful work as well. This implies that employees consider working for a socially responsible bank since it creates greater meaningfulness of work to retain with the organization, which in turn trigger higher level of compassion at work. By utilizing both SIT and SET in explaining relationships between CSR and compassion at work it amounts to theoretical significance of the study. Enhance existing literature on CSR and compassion at work. Also, adds insights on mediating capability of psychologically related variables such as meaningful work. This study is expected to have significant policy implications in terms of increasing compassion at work where managers must understand the importance of including CSR activities into their strategy in order to thrive. Finally, it provides evidence of suitability of using Smart PLS to test models with mediating relationships involving non normal data.

Keywords: compassion at work, corporate social responsibility, employee commitment, meaningful work, positive affect

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Authors: Luis Reynaldo Mota-Santiago, Angélica Lozano

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Determining appropriate measures to face earthquakesarea challenge for practitioners. In the literature, some analyses consider disaster scenarios, disregarding some important field characteristics. Sometimes, software that allows estimating the number of victims and infrastructure damages is used. Other times historical information of previous events is used, or the scenarios’informationis assumed to be available even if it isnot usual in practice. Humanitarian operations start immediately after an earthquake strikes, and the first hours in relief efforts are important; local efforts are critical to assess the situation and deliver relief supplies to the victims. A preparation action is prepositioning stockpiles, most of them at central warehouses placed away from damage-prone areas, which requires large size facilities and budget. Usually, decisions in the first 12 hours (standard relief time (SRT)) after the disaster are the location of temporary depots and the design of distribution paths. The motivation for this research was the delay in the reaction time of the early relief efforts generating the late arrival of aid to some areas after the Mexico City 7.1 magnitude earthquake in 2017. Hence, a preparation approach for planning the immediate response to earthquake disasters is proposed, intended for local governments, considering their capabilities for planning and for responding during the SRT, in order to reduce the start-up time of immediate response operations in urban areas. The first steps are the generation and analysis of disaster scenarios, which allow estimatethe relief demand before and in the early hours after an earthquake. The scenarios can be based on historical data and/or the seismic hazard analysis of an Atlas of Natural Hazards and Risk as a way to address the limited or null available information.The following steps include the decision processes for: a) locating local depots (places to prepositioning stockpiles)and aid-giving facilities at closer places as possible to risk areas; and b) designing the vehicle paths for aid distribution (from local depots to the aid-giving facilities), which can be used at the beginning of the response actions. This approach allows speeding up the delivery of aid in the early moments of the emergency, which could reduce the suffering of the victims allowing additional time to integrate a broader and more streamlined response (according to new information)from national and international organizations into these efforts. The proposed approachis applied to two case studies in Mexico City. These areas were affectedby the 2017’s earthquake, having limited aid response. The approach generates disaster scenarios in an easy way and plans a faster early response with a short quantity of stockpiles which can be managed in the early hours of the emergency by local governments. Considering long-term storage, the estimated quantities of stockpiles require a limited budget to maintain and a small storage space. These stockpiles are useful also to address a different kind of emergencies in the area.

Keywords: disaster logistics, early response, generation of disaster scenarios, preparation phase

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Authors: Kathleen Frances Haigh, Mieke Nieder-Heitmann, Somayeh Farzad, Mohsen Ali Mandegari, Johann Ferdinand Gorgens

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Lignocellulose can be converted to a range of biochemicals and biofuels. Where this is derived from agricultural waste, issues of competition with food are virtually eliminated. One such source of lignocellulose is the South African sugar industry. Lignocellulose could be accessed by changes to the current farming practices and investments in more efficient boilers. The South African sugar industry is struggling due to falling sugar prices and increasing costs and it is proposed that annexing a biorefinery to a sugar mill will broaden the product range and improve viability. Process simulations of the selected chemicals were generated using Aspen Plus®. It was envisaged that a biorefinery would be annexed to a typical South African sugar mill. Bagasse would be diverted from the existing boilers to the biorefinery and mixed with harvest residues. This biomass would provide the feedstock for the biorefinery and the process energy for the biorefinery and sugar mill. Thus, in all scenarios a portion of the biomass was diverted to a new efficient combined heat and power plant (CHP). The Aspen Plus® simulations provided the mass and energy balance data to carry out an economic assessment of each scenarios. The net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and minimum selling price (MSP) was calculated for each scenario. As a starting point scenarios were generated to investigate the production of ethanol, ethanol and lactic acid, ethanol and furfural, butanol, methanol, and Fischer-Tropsch syncrude. The bypass to the CHP plant is a useful indicator of the energy demands of the chemical processes. An iterative approach was used to identify a suitable bypass because increasing this value had the combined effect of increasing the amount of energy available and reducing the capacity of the chemical plant. Bypass values ranged from 30% for syncrude production to 50% for combined ethanol and furfural production. A hurdle rate of 15.7% was selected for the IRR. The butanol, combined ethanol and furfural, or the Fischer-Tropsch syncrude scenarios are unsuitable for investment with IRRs of 4.8%, 7.5% and 11.5% respectively. This provides valuable insights into research opportunities. For example furfural from sugarcane bagasse is an established process although the integration of furfural production with ethanol is less well understood. The IRR for the ethanol scenario was 14.7%, which is below the investment criteria, but given the technological maturity it may still be considered for investment. The scenarios which met the investment criteria were the combined ethanol and lactic acid, and the methanol scenarios with IRRs of 20.5% and 16.7%, respectively. These assessments show that the production of biochemicals from lignocellulose can be commercially viable. In addition, this assessment have provided valuable insights for research to improve the commercial viability of additional chemicals and scenarios. This has led to further assessments of the production of itaconic acid, succinic acid, citric acid, xylitol, polyhydroxybutyrate, polyethylene, glucaric acid and glutamic acid.

Keywords: biorefineries, sugar mill, methanol, ethanol

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Authors: Mireille Canal-Raffin, Nadege Lepage, Antoine Villa

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Context: Most antineoplastic drugs (AD) have a potential carcinogenic, mutagenic and/or reprotoxic effect and are classified as 'hazardous to handle' by National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Their handling increases with the increase of cancer incidence. AD contamination from workers who handle AD and/or care for treated patients is, therefore, a major concern for occupational physicians. As part of the process of evaluation and prevention of chemical risks for professionals exposed to AD, Biological Monitoring of Occupational Exposure (BMOE) is the tool of choice. BMOE allows identification of at-risk groups, monitoring of exposures, assessment of poorly controlled exposures and the effectiveness and/or wearing of protective equipment, and documenting occupational exposure incidents to AD. This work aims to make proposals for the practical implementation of the BMOE for AD. The proposed strategy is based on the French good practice recommendations for BMOE, issued in 2016 by 3 French learned societies. These recommendations have been adapted to occupational exposure to AD. Results: AD contamination of professionals is a sensitive topic, and the BMOE requires the establishment of a working group and information meetings within the concerned health establishment to explain the approach, objectives, and purpose of monitoring. Occupational exposure to AD is often discontinuous and 2 steps are essential upstream: a study of the nature and frequency of AD used to select the Biological Exposure Indice(s) (BEI) most representative of the activity; a study of AD path in the institution to target exposed professionals and to adapt medico-professional information sheet (MPIS). The MPIS is essential to gather the necessary elements for results interpretation. Currently, 28 urinary specific BEIs of AD exposure have been identified, and corresponding analytical methods have been published: 11 BEIs were AD metabolites, and 17 were AD. Results interpretation is performed by groups of homogeneous exposure (GHE). There is no threshold biological limit value of interpretation. Contamination is established when an AD is detected in trace concentration or in a urine concentration equal or greater than the limit of quantification (LOQ) of the analytical method. Results can only be compared to LOQs of these methods, which must be as low as possible. For 8 of the 17 AD BEIs, the LOQ is very low with values between 0.01 to 0.05µg/l. For the other BEIs, the LOQ values were higher between 0.1 to 30µg/l. Results restitution by occupational physicians to workers should be individual and collective. Faced with AD dangerousness, in cases of workers contamination, it is necessary to put in place corrective measures. In addition, the implementation of prevention and awareness measures for those exposed to this risk is a priority. Conclusion: This work is a help for occupational physicians engaging in a process of prevention of occupational risks related to AD exposure. With the current analytical tools, effective and available, the (BMOE) to the AD should now be possible to develop in routine occupational physician practice. The BMOE may be complemented by surface sampling to determine workers' contamination modalities.

Keywords: antineoplastic drugs, urine, occupational exposure, biological monitoring of occupational exposure, biological exposure indice

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Authors: Ha Phuong Tran, Feng Wang, Jo Dewulf, Hai Trung Huynh, Thomas Schaubroeck

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The fast increase and complex components have made waste of electrical and electronic equipment (or e-waste) one of the most problematic waste streams worldwide. Precise information on its size on national, regional and global level has therefore been highlighted as prerequisite to obtain a proper management system. However, this is a very challenging task, especially in developing countries where both formal e-waste management system and necessary statistical data for e-waste estimation, i.e. data on the production, sale and trade of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), are often lacking. Moreover, there is an inflow of non-registered electronic and electric equipment, which ‘invisibly’ enters the EEE domestic market and then is used for domestic consumption. The non-registration/invisibility and (in most of the case) illicit nature of this flow make it difficult or even impossible to be captured in any statistical system. The e-waste generated from it is thus often uncounted in current e-waste estimation based on statistical market data. Therefore, this study focuses on enhancing e-waste estimation in developing countries and proposing a calculation pathway to quantify the magnitude of the non-registered EEE inflow. An advanced Input-Out Analysis model (i.e. the Sale–Stock–Lifespan model) has been integrated in the calculation procedure. In general, Sale-Stock-Lifespan model assists to improve the quality of input data for modeling (i.e. perform data consolidation to create more accurate lifespan profile, model dynamic lifespan to take into account its changes over time), via which the quality of e-waste estimation can be improved. To demonstrate the above objectives, a case study on televisions (TVs) in Vietnam has been employed. The results show that the amount of waste TVs in Vietnam has increased four times since 2000 till now. This upward trend is expected to continue in the future. In 2035, a total of 9.51 million TVs are predicted to be discarded. Moreover, estimation of non-registered TV inflow shows that it might on average contribute about 15% to the total TVs sold on the Vietnamese market during the whole period of 2002 to 2013. To tackle potential uncertainties associated with estimation models and input data, sensitivity analysis has been applied. The results show that both estimations of waste and non-registered inflow depend on two parameters i.e. number of TVs used in household and the lifespan. Particularly, with a 1% increase in the TV in-use rate, the average market share of non-register inflow in the period 2002-2013 increases 0.95%. However, it decreases from 27% to 15% when the constant unadjusted lifespan is replaced by the dynamic adjusted lifespan. The effect of these two parameters on the amount of waste TV generation for each year is more complex and non-linear over time. To conclude, despite of remaining uncertainty, this study is the first attempt to apply the Sale-Stock-Lifespan model to improve the e-waste estimation in developing countries and to quantify the non-registered EEE inflow to domestic consumption. It therefore can be further improved in future with more knowledge and data.

Keywords: e-waste, non-registered electrical and electronic equipment, TVs, Vietnam

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Authors: Eduardo Antonio Lozano Hernandez, Nancy Ramirez Alvarez, Lorena Margarita Rios Mendoza, Jose Vinicio Macias Zamora, Felix Augusto Hernandez Guzman, Jose Luis Sanchez Osorio

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Microplastics (MPs) are one of the most numerous reported wastes found in the marine ecosystem, representing one of the greatest risks for organisms that inhabit that environment due to their bioavailability. Such is the case of bivalve mollusks, since they are capable of filtering large volumes of water, which increases the risk of contamination by microplastics through the continuous exposure to these materials. This study aims to determine, quantify and characterize microplastics found in the cultured oyster Crassostrea gigas. We also analyzed if there are spatio-temporal differences in the microplastic concentration of organisms grown in two bays having quite different human population. In addition, we wanted to have an idea of the possible impact on humans via consumption of these organisms. Commercial size organisms (>6cm length; n = 15) were collected by triplicate from eight oyster farming sites in Baja California, Mexico during winter and summer. Two sites are located in Todos Santos Bay (TSB), while the other six are located in San Quintin Bay (SQB). Site selection was based on commercial concessions for oyster farming in each bay. The organisms were chemically digested with 30% KOH (w/v) and 30% H₂O₂ (v/v) to remove the organic matter and subsequently filtered using a GF/D filter. All particles considered as possible MPs were quantified according to their physical characteristics using a stereoscopic microscope. The type of synthetic polymer was determined using a FTIR-ATR microscope and using a user as well as a commercial reference library (Nicolet iN10 Thermo Scientific, Inc.) of IR spectra of plastic polymers (with a certainty ≥70% for polymers pure; ≥50% for composite polymers). Plastic microfibers were found in all the samples analyzed. However, a low incidence of MP fragments was observed in our study (approximately 9%). The synthetic polymers identified were mainly polyester and polyacrylonitrile. In addition, polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, nylon, and T. elastomer. On average, the content of microplastics in organisms were higher in TSB (0.05 ± 0.01 plastic particles (pp)/g of wet weight) than found in SQB (0.02 ± 0.004 pp/g of wet weight) in the winter period. The highest concentration of MPs found in TSB coincides with the rainy season in the region, which increases the runoff from streams and wastewater discharges to the bay, as well as the larger population pressure (> 500,000 inhabitants). Otherwise, SQB is a mainly rural location, where surface runoff from streams is minimal and in addition, does not have a wastewater discharge into the bay. During the summer, no significant differences (Manne-Whitney U test; P=0.484) were observed in the concentration of MPs found in the cultured oysters of TSB and SQB, (average: 0.01 ± 0.003 pp/g and 0.01 ± 0.002 pp/g, respectively). Finally, we concluded that the consumption of oyster does not represent a risk for humans due to the low concentrations of MPs found. The concentration of MPs is influenced by the variables such as temporality, circulations dynamics of the bay and existing demographic pressure.

Keywords: FTIR-ATR, Human risk, Microplastic, Oyster

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Authors: Yasser R. Shaban

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A practical multipurpose device for medical isotopes production is most wanted for clinical centers and researches. Unfortunately, the major supply of these radioisotopes currently comes from aging sources, and there is a great deal of uneasiness in the domestic market. There are also many cases where the cost of certain radioisotopes is too high for their introduction on a commercial scale even though the isotopes might have great benefits for society. The medical isotopes such as radiotracers PET (Positron Emission Tomography), Technetium-99 m, and Iodine-131, Lutetium-177 by is feasible to be generated by a single unit named IEMC (Inertial Electrostatic Magnetic Confinement). The IEMC fusion vessel is the upgrading unit of the Inertial Electrostatic Confinement IEC fusion vessel. Comprehensive experimental works on IEC were carried earlier with promising results. The principle of inertial electrostatic magnetic confinement IEMC fusion is based on forcing the binary fuel ions to interact in the opposite directions in ions cyclotrons orbits with different kinetic energies in order to have equal compression (forces) and with different ion cyclotron frequency ω in order to increase the rate of intersection. The IEMC features greater fusion volume than IEC by several orders of magnitude. The particles rate from the IEMC approach are projected to be 8.5 x 10¹¹ (p/s), ~ 0.2 microampere proton, for D/He-3 fusion reaction and 4.2 x 10¹² (n/s) for D/T fusion reaction. The projected values of particles yield (neutrons and protons) are suitable for medical isotope productions on-site by a single unit without any change in the fusion vessel but only the fuel gas. The PET radiotracers are usually produced on-site by medical ion accelerator whereas Technetium-99m (Tc-99m) is usually produced off-site from the irradiation facilities of nuclear power plants. Typically, hospitals receive molybdenum-99 isotope container; the isotope decays to Tc-99mwith half-life time 2.75 days. Even though the projected current from IEMC is lesser than the proton current from the medical ion accelerator but still the IEMC vessel is simpler, and reduced in components and power consumption which add a new value of populating the PET radiotracers in most clinical centers. On the other hand, the projected neutrons flux from the IEMC is lesser than the thermal neutron flux at the irradiation facilities of nuclear power plants, but in the IEMC case the productions of Technetium-99m is suggested to be at the resonance region of which the resonance integral cross section is two orders of magnitude higher than the thermal flux. Thus it can be said the net activity from both is evened. Besides, the particle accelerator cannot be considered a multipurpose particles production unless a significant change is made to the accelerator to change from neutrons mode to protons mode or vice versa. In conclusion, the projected fusion yield from IEMC is a straightforward since slightly change in the primer IEC and ion source is required.

Keywords: electrostatic versus magnetic confinement fusion vessel, ion source, medical isotopes productions, neutron activation

Procedia PDF Downloads 329

Authors: Mohamed Naser Zainol, P. P. Angeline Song

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Over the years, the profile of end-stage renal patients placed under The National Kidney Foundation Singapore (NKFS) dialysis program has evolved, with a gradual incline in the number of patients with behavior-related issues. With these challenging profiles, social workers and counsellors are often expected to oversee behavior management, through referrals from its partnering colleagues. Due to the segregation of tasks usually found in many hospital-based multi-disciplinary settings, social workers’ and counsellors’ interventions are often seen as an endpoint, limiting other stakeholders’ involvement that could otherwise be potentially crucial in managing such patients. While patients’ contact in local hospitals often leads to eventual discharge, NKFS patients are mostly long term. It is interesting to note that these patients are regularly seen by a team of professionals that includes doctors, nurses, dietitians, exercise specialists in NKFS. The dynamism of relationships presents an opportunity for any of these professionals to take ownership of their potentials in leading interventions that can be helpful to patients. As such, it is important to have a framework that incorporates the strength of these professionals and also channels empowerment across the multi-disciplinary team in working towards wholistic patient care. This paper would like to suggest a new framework for NKFS’s multi-disciplinary team, where the group synergy and dynamics are used to encourage ownership and promote empowerment. The social worker and counsellor use group work skills and his/her knowledge of its members’ strengths, to generate constructive solutions that are centered towards patient’s growth. Using key ideas from Karl’s Tomm Interpersonal Communications, the Communication Management of Meaning and Motivational Interviewing, the social worker and counsellor through a series of guided meeting with other colleagues, facilitates the transmission of understanding, responsibility sharing and tapping on team resources for patient care. As a result, the patient can experience personal and concerted approach and begins to flow in a direction that is helpful for him. Using seven case studies of identified patients with behavioral issues, the social worker and counsellor apply this framework for a period of six months. Patient’s overall improvement through interventions as a result of this framework are recorded using the AB single case design, with baseline measured three months before referral. Interviews with patients and their families, as well as other colleagues that are not part of the multi-disciplinary team are solicited at mid and end points to gather their experiences about patient’s progress as a by-product of this framework. Expert interviews will be conducted on each member of the multi-disciplinary team to study their observations and experience in using this new framework. Hence, this exploratory framework hopes to identify the inherent usefulness in managing patients with behavior related issues. Moreover, it would provide indicators in improving aspects of the framework when applied to a larger population.

Keywords: behavior management, end-stage renal failure, satellite dialysis, multi-disciplinary team

Procedia PDF Downloads 128

Authors: M. Attavanich, H. Kobayashi

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Moklen is a sub-group of ethnic minority in Thailand. In the past, they were vagabonds of the sea. Their livelihood relied on the sea but they built temporary shelters to avoid strong wind and waves during monsoon season. Recently, they have permanently settled on land along coastal area and mangrove forest in Phang Nga and Phuket Province, Southern Thailand. Moklen people have their own housing culture: the Moklen ethnic house was built from local natural materials, indicating a unique structure and design. Its wooden structure is joined by rattan ropes. The construction process is very unique because of using body-based unit of measurement for design and construction. However, there are several threats for those unique structures. One of the most important threats on Moklen ethnic house is tsunami. Especially the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami caused widely damage to Southern Thailand and Phang Nga province was the most affected area. In that time, Moklen villages which are located along the coastal area also affected calamitously. In order to recover the damage in affected villages, mostly new modern style houses were provided by aid agencies. This process has caused a significant impact on Moklen housing culture. Not only tsunami, but also modernization has an influence on the changing appearance of the Moklen houses and the effect of modernization has been started to experience before the tsunami. As a result, local construction knowledge is very limited nowadays because the number of elderly people in Moklen has been decreasing drastically. Last but not the least, restrictions of construction materials which are originally provided from accessible mangroves, create limitations in building a Moklen house. In particular, after the Reserved Forest Act, wood chopping without any permission has become illegal. These are some of the most important reasons for Moklen ethnic houses to disappear. Nevertheless, according to the results of field surveys done in 2013 in Phang Nga province, it is found out that some Moklen ethnic houses are still available in Tubpla Village, but only a few. Next survey in the same area in 2014 showed that number of Moklen houses in the village has been started to increase significantly. That proves that there is a high potential to conserve Moklen houses. Also the project of our research team in February 2014 contributed to continuation of Moklen ethnic house. With the cooperation of the village leader and our team, it was aimed to construct a Moklen house with the help of local participants. For the project, villagers revealed the building knowledge and techniques, and in the end, project helped community to understand the value of their houses. Also, it was a good opportunity for Moklen children to learn about their culture. In addition, NGOs recently have started to support ecotourism projects in the village. It not only helps to preserve a way of life, but also contributes to preserve indigenous knowledge and techniques of Moklen ethnic house. This kind of supporting activities are important for the conservation of Moklen ethnic houses.

Keywords: conservation, construction project, Moklen Ethnic House, 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami

Procedia PDF Downloads 294

Authors: Gerhard Gritsch, Ana Skupch, Manfred Hartmann, Wolfgang Frühwirt, Hannes Perko, Dieter Grossegger, Tilmann Kluge

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Rehabilitation of stroke patients is dominated by classical physiotherapy. Nowadays, a field of research is the application of neurofeedback techniques in order to help stroke patients to get rid of their motor impairments. Especially, if a certain limb is completely paralyzed, neurofeedback is often the last option to cure the patient. Certain exercises, like the imagination of the impaired motor function, have to be performed to stimulate the neuroplasticity of the brain, such that in the neighboring parts of the injured cortex the corresponding activity takes place. During the exercises, it is very important to keep the motivation of the patient at a high level. For this reason, the missing natural feedback due to a movement of the effected limb may be replaced by a synthetic feedback based on the motor-related brain function. To generate such a synthetic feedback a system is needed which measures, detects, localizes and visualizes the motor related µ-rhythm. Fast therapeutic success can only be achieved if the feedback features high specificity, comes in real-time and without large delay. We describe such an approach that offers a 3D visualization of µ-rhythms in real time with a delay of 500ms. This is accomplished by combining smart EEG preprocessing in the frequency domain with source localization techniques. The algorithm first selects the EEG channel featuring the most prominent rhythm in the alpha frequency band from a so-called motor channel set (C4, CZ, C3; CP6, CP4, CP2, CP1, CP3, CP5). If the amplitude in the alpha frequency band of this certain electrode exceeds a threshold, a µ-rhythm is detected. To prevent detection of a mixture of posterior alpha activity and µ-activity, the amplitudes in the alpha band outside the motor channel set are not allowed to be in the same range as the main channel. The EEG signal of the main channel is used as template for calculating the spatial distribution of the µ - rhythm over all electrodes. This spatial distribution is the input for a inverse method which provides the 3D distribution of the µ - activity within the brain which is visualized in 3D as color coded activity map. This approach mitigates the influence of lid artifacts on the localization performance. The first results of several healthy subjects show that the system is capable of detecting and localizing the rarely appearing µ-rhythm. In most cases the results match with findings from visual EEG analysis. Frequent eye-lid artifacts have no influence on the system performance. Furthermore, the system will be able to run in real-time. Due to the design of the frequency transformation the processing delay is 500ms. First results are promising and we plan to extend the test data set to further evaluate the performance of the system. The relevance of the system with respect to the therapy of stroke patients has to be shown in studies with real patients after CE certification of the system. This work was performed within the project ‘LiveSolo’ funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) (project number: 853263).

Keywords: real-time EEG neuroimaging, neurofeedback, stroke, EEG–signal processing, rehabilitation

Procedia PDF Downloads 369

Authors: S. Fares, K. Mellakh, A. Hmouri

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The StorMer project aims to set up a network of researchers to study traditional hydraulic rainwater harvesting systems in the Mediterranean basin, a region suffering from the major impacts of climate change and limited natural water resources. The arid and semi-arid Mediterranean basin has a long history of pioneering water management practices. The region has developed various ancient traditional water management systems, such as cisterns and qanats, to sustainably manage water resources under historical conditions of scarcity. Therefore, the StorMer project brings together Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Jordan and Morocco to explore traditional rainwater harvesting practices and systems in the Mediterranean region and to develop accurate modeling to simulate the performance and sustainability of these technologies under present-day climatic conditions. The ultimate goal of this project was to resuscitate and valorize these practices in the context of contemporary challenges. This project was intended to establish a Mediterranean network to serve as a basis for a more ambitious project. The ultimate objective was to analyze traditional hydraulic systems and create a prototype hydraulic ecosystem using a coupled environmental approach and traditional and ancient know-how, with the aim of reinterpreting them in the light of current techniques. The combination of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern knowledge/techniques’ is expected to lead to proposals for innovative hydraulic systems. The pandemic initially slowed our progress, but in the end it forced us to carry out the fieldwork in Morocco and Saudi Arabia, and so restart the project. With the participation of colleagues from chronologically distant fields (archaeology, sociology), we are now prepared to share our observations and propose the next steps. This interdisciplinary approach should give us a global vision of the project's objectives and challenges. A diachronic approach is needed to tackle the question of the long-term adaptation of societies in a Mediterranean context that has experienced several periods of water stress. The next stage of the StorMer project is the implementation of pilots in non-urbanized regions. These pilots will test the implementation of traditional systems and will be maintained and evaluated in terms of effectiveness, cost and acceptance. Based on these experiences, larger projects will be proposed and could provide information for regional water management policies. One of the most important lessons learned from this project is the highly social nature of managing traditional rainwater harvesting systems. Unlike modern, centralized water infrastructures, these systems often require the involvement of communities, which assume ownership and responsibility for them. This kind of community engagement leads to greater maintenance and, therefore, sustainability of the systems. Knowledge of the socio-cultural characteristics of these communities means that the systems can be adapted to the needs of each location, ensuring greater acceptance and efficiency.

Keywords: oasis, rainfall harvesting, arid regions, Mediterranean

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Authors: Katarina Ott, Velibor Mačkić, Mihaela Bronić, Branko Stanić

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The determinants of national budget transparency have been widely discussed in the literature, while research on determinants of local budget transparency are scarce and empirically inconclusive, particularly in the new, fiscally centralised, EU member states. To fill the gap, we combine two strands of the literature: that concerned with public administration and public finance, shedding light on the economic and financial determinants of local budget transparency, and that on the political economy of transparency (principal agent theory), covering the relationships among politicians and between politicians and voters. Our main hypothesis states that variables describing residents’ capacity have a greater impact on local budget transparency than variables indicating the institutional capacity of local government units (LGUs). Additional subhypotheses test the impact of each variable analysed on local budget transparency. We address the determinants of local budget transparency in Croatia, measured by the number of key local budget documents published on the LGUs’ websites. By using a data set of 128 cities and 428 municipalities over the 2015-2017 period and by applying panel data analysis based on Poisson and negative binomial distribution, we test our main hypothesis and sub-hypotheses empirically. We measure different characteristics of institutional and residents’ capacity for each LGU. Age, education and ideology of the mayor/municipality head, political competition indicators, number of employees, current budget revenues and direct debt per capita have been used as a measure of the institutional capacity of LGU. Residents’ capacity in each LGU has been measured through the numbers of citizens and their average age as well as by average income per capita. The most important determinant of local budget transparency is average residents' income per capita at both city and municipality level. The results are in line with most previous research results in fiscally decentralised countries. In the context of a fiscally centralised country with numerous small LGUs, most of whom have low administrative and fiscal capacity, this has a theoretical rationale in the legitimacy and principal-agent theory (opportunistic motives of the incumbent). The result is robust and significant, but because of the various other results that change between city and municipality levels (e.g. ideology and political competition), there is a need for further research (both on identifying other determinates and/or methods of analysis). Since in Croatia the fiscal capacity of a LGU depends heavily on the income of its residents, units with higher per capita incomes in many cases have also higher budget revenues allowing them to engage more employees and resources. In addition, residents’ incomes might be also positively associated with local budget transparency because of higher citizen demand for such transparency. Residents with higher incomes expect more public services and have more access to and experience in using the Internet, and will thus typically demand more budget information on the LGUs’ websites.

Keywords: budget transparency, count data, Croatia, local government, political economy

Procedia PDF Downloads 167

Authors: Laura Kocsor, Laszlo Peter, Laszlo Kovacs, Zsolt Kis

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The aim of our research is to prepare rare-earth-doped lithium niobate (LiNbO3) nanocrystals, having only a few dopant ions in the focal point of an exciting laser beam. These samples will be used to achieve individual addressing of the dopant ions by light beams in a confocal microscope setup. One method for the preparation of nanocrystalline materials is to reduce the particle size by mechanical grinding. High-energy ball-milling was used in several works to produce nano lithium niobate. Previously, it was reported that dry high-energy ball-milling of lithium niobate in a shaker mill results in the partial reduction of the material, which leads to a balanced formation of bipolarons and polarons yielding gray color together with oxygen release and Li2O segregation on the open surfaces. In the present work we focus on preparing LiNbO3 nanocrystals by high-energy ball-milling using a Fritsch Pulverisette 7 planetary mill. Every ball-milling process was carried out in zirconia vial with zirconia balls of different sizes (from 3 mm to 0.1 mm), wet grinding with water, and the grinding time being less than an hour. Gradually decreasing the ball size to 0.1 mm, an average particle size of about 10 nm could be obtained determined by dynamic light scattering and verified by scanning electron microscopy. High-energy ball-milling resulted in sample darkening evidenced by optical absorption spectroscopy measurements indicating that the material underwent partial reduction. The unwanted lithium oxide loss decreases the Li/Nb ratio in the crystal, strongly influencing the spectroscopic properties of lithium niobate. Zirconia contamination was found in ground samples proved by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements; however, it cannot be explained based on the hardness properties of the materials involved in the ball-milling process. It can be understood taking into account the presence of lithium hydroxide formed the segregated lithium oxide and water during the ball-milling process, through chemically induced abrasion. The quantity of the segregated Li2O was measured by coulometric titration. During the wet milling process in the planetary mill, it was found that the lithium oxide loss increases linearly in the early phase of the milling process, then a saturation of the Li2O loss can be seen. This change goes along with the disappearance of the relatively large particles until a relatively narrow size distribution is achieved in accord with the dynamic light scattering measurements. With the 3 mm ball size and 1100 rpm rotation rate, the mean particle size achieved is 100 nm, and the total Li2O loss is about 1.2 wt.% of the original LiNbO3. Further investigations have been done to minimize the Li2O segregation during the ball-milling process. Since the Li2O loss was observed to increase with the growing total surface of the particles, the influence of ball-milling parameters on its quantity has also been studied.

Keywords: high-energy ball-milling, lithium niobate, mechanochemical reaction, nanocrystals

Procedia PDF Downloads 117

Authors: Rasmila Kawan, Sanjay Juvekar, Sandeep Salvi, Gufran Beig, Rainer Sauerborn

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Background: Indoor air pollution especially from the use of biomass fuels, remains a potentially large global health threat. The inefficient use of such fuels in poorly ventilated conditions results in high levels of indoor air pollution, most seriously affecting women and young children. Objectives: The main aim of this study was to measure and compare the lung function of the women exposed in the biomass fuels and LPG fuels and relate it to the indoor emission measured using a structured questionnaire, spirometer and filter based low volume samplers respectively. Methodology: This cross-sectional comparative study was conducted among the women (aged > 18 years) living in rural villages of Pune district who were not diagnosed of chronic pulmonary diseases or any other respiratory diseases and using biomass fuels or LPG for cooking for a minimum period of 5 years or more. Data collection was done from April to June 2017 in dry season. Spirometer was performed using the portable, battery-operated ultrasound Easy One spirometer (Spiro bank II, NDD Medical Technologies, Zurich, Switzerland) to determine the lung function over Forced expiratory volume. The primary outcome variable was forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1). Secondary outcome was chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (post bronchodilator FEV1/ Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) < 70%) as defined by the Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease. Potential confounders such as age, height, weight, smoking history, occupation, educational status were considered. Results: Preliminary results showed that the lung function of the women using Biomass fuels (FEV1/FVC = 85% ± 5.13) had comparatively reduced lung function than the LPG users (FEV1/FVC = 86.40% ± 5.32). The mean PM 2.5 mass concentration in the biomass user’s kitchen was 274.34 ± 314.90 and 85.04 ± 97.82 in the LPG user’s kitchen. Black carbon amount was found higher in the biomass users (black carbon = 46.71 ± 46.59 µg/m³) than LPG users (black carbon=11.08 ± 22.97 µg/m³). Most of the houses used separate kitchen. Almost all the houses that used the clean fuel like LPG had minimum amount of the particulate matter 2.5 which might be due to the background pollution and cross ventilation from the houses using biomass fuels. Conclusions: Therefore, there is an urgent need to adopt various strategies to improve indoor air quality. There is a lacking of current state of climate active pollutants emission from different stove designs and identify major deficiencies that need to be tackled. Moreover, the advancement in research tools, measuring technique in particular, is critical for researchers in developing countries to improve their capability to study the emissions for addressing the growing climate change and public health concerns.

Keywords: black carbon, biomass fuels, indoor air pollution, lung function, particulate matter

Procedia PDF Downloads 160

Authors: Raj Chandran, Saul Datwyler, Jaime Marino, Daniel West, Karla Grasso, Adam Buss, Hina Syed, Zina Al Sahouri, Jennifer Yen, Krista Caudle, Beth McQuiston

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The Alinity i TBI test is Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) registered and is a panel of in vitro diagnostic chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassays for the measurement of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1) in plasma and serum. The Alinity i TBI performance was evaluated in a multi-center pivotal study to demonstrate the capability to assist in determining the need for a CT scan of the head in adult subjects (age 18+) presenting with suspected mild TBI (traumatic brain injury) with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of 13 to 15. TBI has been recognized as an important cause of death and disability and is a growing public health problem. An estimated 69 million people globally experience a TBI annually1. Blood-based biomarkers such as glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1) have shown utility to predict acute traumatic intracranial injury on head CT scans after TBI. A pivotal study using prospectively collected archived (frozen) plasma specimens was conducted to establish the clinical performance of the TBI test on the Alinity i system. The specimens were originally collected in a prospective, multi-center clinical study. Testing of the specimens was performed at three clinical sites in the United States. Performance characteristics such as detection limits, imprecision, linearity, measuring interval, expected values, and interferences were established following Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidance. Of the 1899 mild TBI subjects, 120 had positive head CT scan results; 116 of the 120 specimens had a positive TBI interpretation (Sensitivity 96.7%; 95% CI: 91.7%, 98.7%). Of the 1779 subjects with negative CT scan results, 713 had a negative TBI interpretation (Specificity 40.1%; 95% CI: 37.8, 42.4). The negative predictive value (NPV) of the test was 99.4% (713/717, 95% CI: 98.6%, 99.8%). The analytical measuring interval (AMI) extends from the limit of quantitation (LoQ) to the upper LoQ and is determined by the range that demonstrates acceptable performance for linearity, imprecision, and bias. The AMI is 6.1 to 42,000 pg/mL for GFAP and 26.3 to 25,000 pg/mL for UCH-L1. Overall, within-laboratory imprecision (20 day) ranged from 3.7 to 5.9% CV for GFAP and 3.0 to 6.0% CV for UCH-L1, when including lot and instrument variances. The Alinity i TBI clinical performance results demonstrated high sensitivity and high NPV, supporting the utility to assist in determining the need for a head CT scan in subjects presenting to the emergency department with suspected mild TBI. The GFAP and UCH-L1 assays show robust analytical performance across a broad concentration range of GFAP and UCH-L1 and may serve as a valuable tool to help evaluate TBI patients across the spectrum of mild to severe injury.

Keywords: biomarker, diagnostic, neurology, TBI

Procedia PDF Downloads 53

Authors: Emma Castiglioni, Nigel Scrutton, Derren Heyes, Alistair Fielding

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By using light as trigger, it is possible to study many biological processes, such as the activity of genes, proteins, and other molecules, with precise spatiotemporal control. Caged compounds, where biologically active molecules are generated from an inert precursor upon laser photolysis, offer the potential to initiate such biological reactions with high temporal resolution. As light acts as the trigger for cleaving the protecting group, the ‘caging’ technique provides a number of advantages as it can be intracellular, rapid and controlled in a quantitative manner. We are developing caging strategies to study the catalytic cycle of a number of enzyme systems, such as nitric oxide synthase and ethanolamine ammonia lyase. These include the use of caged substrates, caged electrons and the possibility of caging the enzyme itself. In addition, we are developing a novel freeze-quench instrument to study these reactions, which combines rapid mixing and flashing capabilities. Reaction intermediates will be trapped at low temperatures and will be analysed by using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to identify the involvement of any radical species during catalysis. EPR techniques typically require relatively long measurement times and very often, low temperatures to fully characterise these short-lived species. Therefore, common rapid mixing techniques, such as stopped-flow or quench-flow are not directly suitable. However, the combination of rapid freeze-quench (RFQ) followed by EPR analysis provides the ideal approach to kinetically trap and spectroscopically characterise these transient radical species. In a typical RFQ experiment, two reagent solutions are delivered to the mixer via two syringes driven by a pneumatic actuator or stepper motor. The new mixed solution is then sprayed into a cryogenic liquid or surface, and the frozen sample is then collected and packed into an EPR tube for analysis. The earliest RFQ instrument consisted of a hydraulic ram unit as a drive unit with direct spraying of the sample into a cryogenic liquid (nitrogen, isopentane or petroleum). Improvements to the RFQ technique have arisen from the design of new mixers in order to reduce both the volume and the mixing time. In addition, the cryogenic isopentane bath has been coupled to a filtering system or replaced by spraying the solution onto a surface that is frozen via thermal conductivity with a cryogenic liquid. In our work, we are developing a novel RFQ instrument which combines the freeze-quench technology with flashing capabilities to enable the studies of both thermally-activated and light-activated biological reactions. This instrument also uses a new rotating plate design based on magnetic couplings and removes the need for mechanical motorised rotation, which can otherwise be problematic at cryogenic temperatures.

Keywords: caged compounds, freeze-quench apparatus, photolysis, radicals

Procedia PDF Downloads 194

Authors: Lamia Bouzgarrou, Amira Omrane, Leila Mrabet, Taoufik Khalfallah

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Background and aims: School accidents are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among pupils and students. Indeed, they may induce an elevated number of lost school days, heavy emotional and physical disabilities, and financial costs on the victims and their families. This study aims to evaluate the annual incidence of school accidents in the central Tunisian governorate of Mahdia and to identify the epidemiological profile of victims and risk factors of these accidents. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted over the period of 5 school years, focusing on school accidents that occurred in public educational institutions (primary, basic, secondary and university) in the governorate of Mahdia (area = 2 966 km² and number of inhabitants in 2014 = 410 812). All accidents declared near the only official insurance of this type of injuries (MASU: Mutual School and University Accidents), and initially taken in charge at the University Hospital of Mahdia were included. Data was collected from the MASU reporting forms and the medical records of emergency and other specialized hospital departments. Results: With 3248 identified victims, the annual incidence of school accidents was equal to 0.69 per 100 pupils and students per year. The average age of victims was 14.51 ± 0.059 years and the sex ratio was 1.58. Pupils aged between 12 and 15 years, were concerned by 46.7% of the identified accidents. The practice of sports was the most relevant circumstances of these accidents (76.2 %). In 56.58 % of cases, falls were the leading mechanism. Bruises and fractures were the most frequent lesions (32.43 % and 30.51 %). Serious school accidents were noted in 28% of cases with hospitalization in 2.27 % of them. The average lost school days, was 12.23±1.73 days. Accidents occurring during sports or leisure activities were significantly more serious (p= 0.021). Furthermore, the frequency of hospitalization was significantly higher among boys (2.81% vs. 1.43%; p= 0.035), students ≤11 years (p= 0.008), and following crush trauma (p= 0.000). In addition, the surgical interventions were statistically more frequent among male victims (p=0.00), accidents occurring during physical education sessions (p=0.000); those associated to falls (p=0.000) and to crushes mechanisms (p=0.002), and injuries affecting lower limbs (p=0.000). Following this Multi-varied analysis concluded that the severity of school accident is correlated to the activity practiced during the trauma and the geographical location of the school. Conclusion: Children and adolescents are one of the most vulnerable groups against incidents with the risk of permanent disability, mainly related to the perturbation of the growth process and physiological limitations. Our five-year study, objectified a real elevate incidence of school accident among children and adolescents, with a considerable rate of severe injuries. In any community, the promotion of adolescents and children’s health is an important indicator of the public health level. Thus, it’s important to develop a multidisciplinary prevention strategy of school accident, based on safety and security rules and adapted to the specificity of our context.

Keywords: children and adolescents, children health, injuries and disability, school accident

Procedia PDF Downloads 100

Authors: Nirit Gavish, Rotem Halutz, Liad Neta

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Nowadays, chatbots are gaining more and more attention due to the advent of large language models. One of the important considerations in chatbot design is how to create an interface to achieve high user satisfaction, trust, and acceptance. Since WhatsApp conversations sometimes substitute for face-to-face communication, we studied whether WhatsAppization of the chatbot -making the conversation resemble a WhatsApp conversation more- will improve user satisfaction, trust, and acceptance, or whether the opposite will occur due to the Uncanny Valley (UV) effect. The task was a drive-sharing task, in which participants communicated with a textual chatbot via WhatsApp and could decide whether to participate in a ride to college with a driver suggested by the chatbot. WhatsAppization of the chatbot was done in two ways: By a dialog-style conversation (Dialog versus No Dialog), and by adding WhatsApp indicators – “Last Seen”, “Connected”, “Read Receipts”, and “Typing…” (Indicators versus No Indicators). Our 120 participants were randomly assigned to one of the four 2 by 2 design groups, with 30 participants in each. They interacted with the WhatsApp chatbot and then filled out a questionnaire. The results demonstrated that, as expected from the manipulation, the interaction with the chatbot was longer for the dialog condition compared to the no dialog. This extra interaction, however, did not lead to higher acceptance -quite the opposite, since participants in the dialog condition were less willing to implement the decision made at the end of the conversation with the chatbot and continue the interaction with the driver they chose. The results are even more striking when considering the Indicators condition. Both for the satisfaction measures and the trust measures, participants’ ratings were lower in the Indicators condition compared to the No Indicators. Participants in the Indicators condition felt that the ride search process was harder to operate, and slower (even though the actual interaction time was similar). They were less convinced that the chatbot suggested real trips and they trusted the person offering the ride and referred to them by the chatbot less. These effects were more evident for participants who preferred to share their rides using WhatsApp compared to participants who preferred chatbots for that purpose. Considering our findings, we can say that the WhatsAppization of the chatbot was detrimental. This is true for the both chatbot WhatsAppization methods – by making the conversation more a dialog and adding WhatsApp indicators. For the chosen drive-sharing task, the results were, in addition to lower satisfaction, less trust in the chatbot’s suggestion and even in the driver suggested by the chatbot, and lower willingness to actually undertake the suggested ride. In addition, it seems that the most problematic WhatsAppization method was using WhatsApp’s indicators during the interaction with the chatbot. The current study suggests that a conversation with an artificial agent should also not imitate a WhatsApp conversation very closely. With the proliferation of WhatsApp use, the emotional and social aspect of face-to face commination are moving to WhatsApp communication. Based on the current study’s findings, it is possible that the UV effect also occurs in WhatsAppization, and not only in humanization, of the chatbot, with a similar feeling of eeriness, and is more pronounced for people who prefer to use WhatsApp over chatbots. The current research can serve as a starting point to study the very interesting and important topic of chatbots WhatsAppization. More methods of WhatsAppization and other tasks could be the focus of further studies.

Keywords: chatbot, WhatsApp, humanization, Uncanny Valley, drive sharing

Procedia PDF Downloads 27

Authors: Innocent Atuhe, Babra Nalwadda, Grace Mulyowa Kitunzi, Annabella Haninka Ejiri

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Background: Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is one of the most prevalent and growing chronic inflammatory skin diseases in African prisons. AD care is limited in African due to lack of information about the disease amongst primary care workers, limited access to dermatologists, lack of proper training of healthcare workers, and shortage of appropriate treatments. We designed and implemented the Prisons Telederma project based on the recommendations of the International Society of Atopic Dermatitis. Our overall goal was to increase access to dermatologist-led care for prisoners with AD through teledermatology in Uganda. We aimed to; i) to increase awareness and understanding of teledermatology among prison health workers; and ii) to improve treatment outcomes of prisoners with atopic dermatitis through increased access to and utilization of consultant dermatologists through teledermatology in Uganda prisons: Approach: We used Store-and-forward Teledermatology (SAF-TD) to increase access to dermatologist-led care for prisoners and prisons staff with AD. We conducted a five days training for prison health workers using an adapted WHO training guide on recognizing neglected tropical diseases through changes on the skin together with an adapted American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) Childhood AD Basic Dermatology Curriculum designed to help trainees develop a clinical approach to the evaluation and initial management of patients with AD. This training was followed by blended e-learning, webinars facilitated by consultant Dermatologists with local knowledge of medication and local practices, apps adjusted for pigmented skin, WhatsApp group discussions, and sharing pigmented skin AD pictures and treatment via zoom meetings. We hired a team of Ugandan Senior Consultant dermatologists to draft an iconographic atlas of the main dermatoses in pigmented African skin and shared this atlas with prison health staff for use as a job aid. We had planned to use MySkinSelfie mobile phone application to take and share skin pictures of prisoners with AD with Consultant Dermatologists, who would review the pictures and prescribe appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, the National Health Service withdrew the app from the market due to technical issues. We monitored and evaluated treatment outcomes using the Patient Oriented Eczema Measure (POEM) tool. We held four advocacy meetings to persuade relevant stakeholders to increase supplies and availability of first-line AD treatments such as emollients in prison health facilities. Results: Draft iconographic atlas of the main dermatoses in pigmented African skin Increased proportion of prison health staff with adequate knowledge of AD and teledermatology from 20% to 80% Increased proportion of prisoners with AD reporting improvement in disease severity (POEM scores) from 25% to 35% in one year. Increased proportion of prisoners with AD seen by consultant dermatologist through teledermatology from 0% to 20% in one year. Increased the availability of AD recommended treatments in prisons health facilities from 5% to 10% in one year

Keywords: teledermatology, prisoners, reaching, un-reachable

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Authors: T. Lakshmi Priya

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With the widening definition of heritage, the challenges of heritage management has become more complex . Today heritage not only includes significant monuments but comprises historic areas / sites, historic cities, cultural landscapes, and living heritage sites. There is a need for a comprehensive understanding of the values associated with these heritage resources, which will enable their protection and management. These diverse cultural resources are managed by multiple agencies having their own way of operating in the heritage sites. An Integrated approach to management of these cultural resources ensures its sustainability for the future generation. This paper outlines the importance of an integrated approach for the management and protection of complex heritage sites in India by examining four case studies. The methodology for this study is based on secondary research and primary surveys conducted during the preparation of the conservation management plansfor the various sites. The primary survey included basic documentation, inventorying, and community surveys. Red Fort located in the city of Delhi is one of the most significant forts built in 1639 by the Mughal Emperor Shahjahan. This fort is a national icon and stands testimony to the various historical events . It is on the ramparts of Red Fort that the national flag was unfurled on 15th August 1947, when India became independent, which continues even today. Management of this complex fort necessitated the need for an integrated approach, where in the needs of the official and non official stakeholders were addressed. The understanding of the inherent values and significance of this site was arrived through a systematic methodology of inventorying and mapping of information. Hampi, located in southern part of India, is a living heritage site inscribed in the World Heritage list in 1986. The site comprises of settlements, built heritage structures, traditional water systems, forest, agricultural fields and the remains of the metropolis of the 16th century Vijayanagar empire. As Hampi is a living heritage site having traditional systems of management and practices, the aim has been to include these practices in the current management so that there is continuity in belief, thought and practice. The existing national, regional and local planning instruments have been examined and the local concerns have been addressed.A comprehensive understanding of the site, achieved through an integrated model, is being translated to an action plan which safeguards the inherent values of the site. This paper also examines the case of the 20th century heritage building of National Archives of India, Delhi and protection of a 12th century Tomb of Sultan Ghari located in south Delhi. A comprehensive understanding of the site, lead to the delineation of the Archaeological Park of Sultan Ghari, in the current Master Plan for Delhi, for the protection of the tomb and the settlement around it. Through this study it is concluded that the approach of Integrated Conservation has enabled decision making that sustains the values of these complex heritage sites in Indian context.

Keywords: conservation, integrated, management, approach

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Authors: Megan Glyde, Louise Dye, David Keane, Ed Sutherland

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Background: Typically patient education is provided either verbally, in the form of written material, or with a multimedia-based tool such as videos, CD-ROMs, DVDs, or via the internet. By providing patients with effective educational tools, this can help to meet their information needs and subsequently empower these patients and allow them to participate within medical-decision making. Video education may have some distinct advantages compared to other modalities. For instance, whilst eHealth is emerging as a promising modality of patient education, an individual’s ability to access, read, and navigate through websites or online modules varies dramatically in relation to health literacy levels. Literacy levels may also limit patients’ ability to understand written education, whereas video education can be watched passively by patients and does not require high literacy skills. Other benefits of video education include that the same information is provided consistently to each patient, it can be a cost-effective method after the initial cost of producing the video, patients can choose to watch the videos by themselves or in the presence of others, and they can pause and re-watch videos to suit their needs. Health information videos are not only viewed by patients in formal educational sessions, but are increasingly being viewed on websites such as YouTube. Whilst there is a lot of anecdotal and sometimes misleading information on YouTube, videos from government organisations and professional associations contain trustworthy and high-quality information and could enable YouTube to become a powerful information dissemination platform for patients and carers. This systematic review will examine the efficacy of video education to improve treatment or illness-related knowledge in patients with various long-term conditions, in comparison to other modalities of education. Methods: Only studies which match the following criteria will be included: participants will have a long-term physical health condition, video education will aim to improve treatment or illness related knowledge and will be tested in isolation, and the study must be a randomised controlled trial. Knowledge will be the primary outcome measure, with modality preference, anxiety, and behaviour change as secondary measures. The searches have been conducted in the following databases: OVID Medline, OVID PsycInfo, OVID Embase, CENTRAL and ProQuest, and hand searching for relevant published and unpublished studies has also been carried out. Screening and data extraction will be conducted independently by 2 researchers. Included studies will be assessed for their risk of bias in accordance with Cochrane guidelines, and heterogeneity will also be assessed before deciding whether a meta-analysis is appropriate or not. Results and Conclusions: Appropriate synthesis of the studies in relation to each outcome measure will be reported, along with the conclusions and implications.

Keywords: long-term condition, patient education, systematic review, video

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Authors: Elena Chernyak, Ryan Ceresola

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Intimate partner violence is a serious social problem that affects a million women worldwide and impacts their health and wellbeing. Some risk factors for intimate partner violence against women (e.g., disobeying or arguing with a partner, women’s age, education, and employment) are similar in many countries, both developed and developing. However, one of the principal and most significant contributors to women’s vulnerability to violence perpetrated by their intimate partners is the witnessing of interparental aggression in the family of origin. Witnessing interparental violence may lead to acceptance of intimate partner violence as a normal way to resolve conflicts. Thus, utilization of violence becomes the behavioral model: men who witnessed the parental violence are more likely to employ physical violence against their female partners whereas women who observed their fathers beating their mothers learn to tolerate aggressive behavior and become victims of domestic violence themselves. Taking into consideration the importance of this subject matter, the association between witnessing intimate partner violence in family-of-origin and experience of intimate partner violence in adulthood requires further attention. The objective of this research is to analyze and compare the prevalence of intimate partner violence in ten developing countries in different regions, namely: Mali, Haiti, Jordan, Peru, the Philippines, Pakistan, Cambodia, Egypt, the Dominican Republic and Nigeria. Specifically, this research asks whether witnessing interparental violence in a family of origin is associated with the woman’s experience of intimate partner violence during adulthood and to what extent this factor varies among the countries under investigation. This study contributes to the literature on domestic violence against women, prevalence and experience of intimate partner violence against women in developing countries, and the risk factors, using recently collected, nationally representative population-based data from above-mentioned countries. The data used in this research are derived from the demographic and health surveys conducted in the ten mentioned above countries from 2013-2016. These surveys are cross-sectional, nationally representative surveys of ever-married or cohabitating women of reproductive age and the good source of high quality and comprehensive information about women, their children, partners, and households. To complete this analysis, multivariate logistic regression was run for each of the countries, and the results are presented with odds ratios, in order to highlight the effect of witnessing intimate partner violence controlling for other factors. The results of this study indicated that having witnessed partner violence in a family of origin significantly (by 50-500%) increases the likelihood of experiencing later abuse for respondents in all countries. This finding provides robust support for the intergenerational transmission of violence theory that explains the link between interparental aggression and intimate partner violence in subsequent relationships in adulthood as a result of a learned model of behavior observed in childhood. Furthermore, it was found that some of the control variables (e.g., education, number of children, and wealth) are associated with intimate partner violence in some countries under investigation while are not associated with male partner’s abusive behavior in some other, which may be explained by specific cultural and economic factors.

Keywords: intimate partner violence, domestic violence against women, developing countries, demographic and health surveys, risk factors

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Authors: Valeria Cotza

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School drop-out is a multifactorial phenomenon that in Italy concerns all those underage students who, at different school stages (up to 16 years old) or training (up to 18 years old), manifest educational difficulties from dropping out of compulsory education without obtaining a qualification to repetition rates and absenteeism. From the 1980s to the 2000s, there was a progressive attenuation of the economic and social model towards a multifactorial reading of the phenomenon, and the European Commission noted the importance of learning about the phenomenon through approaches able to integrate large-scale quantitative surveys with qualitative analyses. It is not a matter of identifying the contextual factors affecting the phenomenon but problematising them by means of systemic and comprehensive in-depth analysis. So, a privileged point of observation and field of intervention are those schools that propose alternative models of teaching and learning to the traditional ones, such as popular and second-chance schools. Alternative schools and interventions grew in these years in Europe as well as in the US and Latin America, working in the direction of greater equity to create the conditions (often absent in conventional schools) for everyone to achieve educational goals. Against extensive Anglo-Saxon and US literature on this topic, there is yet no unambiguous definition of alternative education, especially in Europe, where second-chance education has been most studied. There is little literature on a second chance in Italy and almost none on alternative education (with the exception of method schools, to which in Italy the concept of “alternative” is linked). This research aims to fill the gap by systematically surveying the alternative interventions in the area and beginning to explore some models of popular and second-chance schools and experiences through a mixed methods approach. So, the main research objectives concern the spread of alternative education in the Lombardy region, the main characteristics of these schools and interventions, and their effectiveness in terms of students’ well-being and school results. This paper seeks to answer the first point by presenting the preliminary results of the first phase of the project dedicated to mapping. Through the Google Forms platform, a questionnaire is being distributed to all schools in Lombardy and some schools in the rest of Italy to map the presence of alternative schools and interventions and their main characteristics. The distribution is also taking place thanks to the support of the Milan Territorial and Lombardy Regional School Offices. Moreover, other social realities outside the school system (such as cooperatives and cultural associations) can be questioned. The schools and other realities to be questioned outside Lombardy will also be identified with the support of INDIRE (Istituto Nazionale per Documentazione, Innovazione e Ricerca Educativa, “National Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research”) and based on existing literature and the indicators of “Futura” Plan of the PNRR (Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza, “National Recovery and Resilience Plan”). Mapping will be crucial and functional for the subsequent qualitative and quantitative phase, which will make use of statistical analysis and constructivist grounded theory.

Keywords: school drop-out, alternative education, popular and second-chance schools, map

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Authors: Shosh Shahrabani, Sharon Teitler-Regev, Helena Desivilya Syna, Fotini Voulgaris, Evangelos Tsoukatos, Vitor Ambrosio, Sandra M. Correia Loureiro

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International crises that affect tourism, such as terror attacks, political unrest, and economic crises have become more frequent, and their influence has become broader. The influence of such extreme events depends on their salience in the tourists' awareness. Hence, it is important to understand the mechanisms underlying tourists' selection of travel destinations, especially their perceptions of crisis-related events and the impact of the sociopolitical and economic context in their countries of origin. The current study examined how the socio-political and economic context in the home countries of potential young tourists affected their selection of travel destinations. The objective was to elucidate how the salience of various crises (economic and political) in the tourists' perceptions, due to their experiences at home, color their construal of destinations affected by similar hazards and influence their travel intentions. The study focused on student tourists from Israel, Greece, and Portugal. Today about a fifth of international tourism is based on young people, especially students. These countries were chosen since Greece and Portugal are in the midst of economic crises. In addition, Greece and Portugal have experienced political instability, while Israel has security-related problems (including terrorist incidents). In 2013, a total of 648 students, responded to a questionnaire that included questions concerning attitudes and risk perceptions regarding travel to destinations with various risk hazards as well as socio-demographic details. The results indicate that over half of the Israelis intend to visit Greece or Portugal. The majority of the Portuguese intend to visit Greece, while less than a third of them intend to visit Israel. About half of the Greeks intend to visit Portugal, and most of them do not intend to visit Israel. The results indicate that greater perceived importance of economic crises mitigates the intention to travel to destinations with economic crises for tourists from origin countries that are also marked by economic crises, such as Greece and Portugal. However, for tourists from Israel, a country with a relatively stable economy, issues related to the economy barely affect their intention to travel to the other two countries. The findings also suggest that Greeks and Portuguese who are highly concerned about political unrest are unlikely to select Israel as a tourist destination. In addition, strong apprehension regarding terrorism impedes the intention to travel to destinations marked by terrorist incidents, such as Israel. The current research contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the impact of travelers' personal previous experience with crisis on their risk perceptions and in turn on their intentions to travel to countries with similar risks. Therefore, in a world where such incidents are on the rise, understanding tourists' risk perceptions and behavior and the factors influencing their destination-related decisions are crucial for countries that wish to increase the numbers of incoming tourists.

Keywords: economic crises, political instability, risk perception, young tourists

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