Search results for: lack of support

Authors: Paul Lam, Chi Him Chan, Alan Tse

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Language laboratories have been widely used in language learning, starting in the middle of the last century as one of the earliest forms of educational technology. They are designed to assist students’ language learning with technological innovations. Traditional language laboratories provide individual workstations that allow students to access multimedia language resources. In this type of facility, students can train their listening and speaking abilities, and teachers can also assess the performance of an individual student. Although such a setting promotes a student-centered pedagogy by encouraging students to work at their own pace and according to their own needs, it still favours a traditional, behaviourist language learning pedagogy which focuses on repetitive drilling. The change of pedagogies poses challenges to both the teachers and the facilities. The peer-learning pedagogy advocates that language learning should focus on the social aspect, which emphasizes the importance of everyday communication in language learning. The self-access, individual workstation language laboratories may not be able to provide the flexibility for interaction in the new pedagogies. Modern advancement in technology is another factor that drove our language laboratory renovation. In particular, mobile and wireless technology enabled the use of smaller and more flexible devices, making possible much clever use of space. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) renovated nine existing language laboratories to provide lighter and more advanced equipment, movable tables, and round desks. These facilities allow more flexibility and encourage students’ interaction. It is believed that the renovated language laboratories can serve different peer learning activities and thus support peer-learning pedagogies in language teaching and learning. A survey has been conducted to collect comments from the teachers who have used the renovated language laboratories and received forty-four response. The teachers’ comments reveal that they experienced different challenges in using the renovated language laboratories, and there is a need to provide guidance to teachers during the technological and pedagogical transition. For example, teachers need instruction on using the newly installed devices such as touch-monitor and visualizer. They also need advice on planning new teaching and learning activities. Nevertheless, teachers appreciated that the renovated language laboratories are flexible and provide more spaces for different learning activities.

Keywords: language laboratories, language learning, peer-learning, student interaction

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Authors: Aisha Maroof

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Introduction: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading rapidly around the world with devastating consequences on patients, health care workers and health systems. Severe 2019 novel coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) with pneumonia is associated with high rates of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and they are at high risk to obtain the hospital acquire bloodstream infection (HAIs) such as central line associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI), catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) and laboratory confirm bloodstream infection (LCBSI). The chances of infection transmission increase when healthcare worker’s (HCWs) practice is inappropriate. Risk related to hand hygiene (HH) and personal protective equipment (PPE) as regards multidrug-resistant organism transmission: use of multiple gloving instead of HH and incorrect use of PPE can lead to a significant increase of device-related infections. As it reaches low- and middle-income countries, its effects could be even more, because it will be difficult for them to react aggressively to the pandemic. HAIs are one of the biggest medical concerns, resulting in increased mortality rates. Objective: To assess the effect of intervention on compliance of hand hygiene and PPE among HCWs reduce the rate of HAI in COVID-19 patients. Method: An interventional study was done between July to December, 2020. CLABSI, CAUTI and LCBSI data were collected from the medical record and direct observation. There were total of 50 Nurses, 18 doctors and all patients with laboratory-confirmed severe COVID-19 admitted to the hospital were included in this research study. Respiratory tract specimens were obtained after the first 48 h of ICU admission. Practices were observed after and before intervention. Education was provided based on WHO guidelines. Results: During the six months of study July to December, the rate of CLABSI, CAUTI and LCBSI pre and post intervention was reported. CLABSI rate decreasedd from 22.7 to 0, CAUTI rate was decreased from 1.6 to 0, LCBSI declined from 3.3 to 0 after implementation of intervention. Conclusion: HAIs are an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Most of the device related infections occurs due to lack of correct use of PPE and hand hygiene compliance. Hand hygiene and PPE is the most important measure to protect patients, through education it can be improved the correct use of PPE and hand hygiene compliance and can reduce the bacterial infection in COVID-19 patients.

Keywords: hospital acquire infection, healthcare workers, hand hygiene, personal protective equipment

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Authors: Bougema Theodore Ntenkeh, Chi-bikom Barbara Kyien

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The reduction of poverty and hunger sits at the heart of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and are the first two of the Sustainable Development Goals. The World Food Day celebrated on the 16th of October every year, highlights the need for people to have physical and economic access at all times to enough nutritious and safe food to live a healthy and active life; while the world poverty day celebrated on the 17th of October is an opportunity to acknowledge the struggle of people living in poverty, a chance for them to make their concerns heard, and for the community to recognize and support poor people in their fight against poverty. The association between household food security and poverty reduction is not only sparse in Cameroon but mostly qualitative. The paper therefore investigates the effect of household food security on poverty reduction in Cameroon quantitatively using data from the Cameroon Household Consumption Survey collected by the Government Statistics Office. The methodology employed five indicators of household food security using the Multiple Correspondence Analysis and poverty is captured as a dummy variable. Using a control function technique, with pre and post estimation test for robustness, the study postulates that household food security has a positive and significant effect on poverty reduction in Cameroon. A unit increase in the food security score reduces the probability of the household being poor by 31.8%, and this effect is statistically significant at 1%. The result further illustrates that the age of the household head and household size increases household poverty while households residing in urban areas are significantly less poor. The paper therefore recommends that households should diversify their food intake to enhance an effective supply of labour in the job market as a strategy to reduce household poverty. Furthermore, family planning methods should be encouraged as a strategy to reduce birth rate for an equitable distribution of household resources including food while the government of Cameroon should also develop the rural areas given that trend in urbanization are associated with the concentration of productive economic activities, leading to increase household income, increased household food security and poverty reduction.

Keywords: food security, poverty reduction, SDGs, Cameroon

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Authors: Insiya Bhalloo

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It is quite common in the Muslim faith for non-Arabic speakers to be able to convert written Arabic, especially Quranic Arabic, into a phonological code without significant semantic or syntactic knowledge. This is due to prior experience learning to read the Quran (a religious text written in Classical Arabic), from a very young age such as via enrolment in Quranic Arabic classes. As compared to native speakers of Arabic, these Arabic readers do not have a comprehensive morpho-syntactic knowledge of the Arabic language, nor can understand, or engage in Arabic conversation. The study seeks to investigate whether mere phonological experience (as indicated by the Arabic readers’ experience with Arabic phonology and the sound-system) is sufficient to cause phonological-interference during word recognition of previously-heard words, despite the participants’ non-native status. Both native speakers of Arabic and non-native speakers of Arabic, i.e., those individuals that learned to read the Quran from a young age, will be recruited. Each experimental session will include two phases: An exposure phase and a test phase. During the exposure phase, participants will be presented with Arabic words (n=40) on a computer screen. Half of these words will be common words found in the Quran while the other half will be words commonly found in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) but either non-existent or prevalent at a significantly lower frequency within the Quran. During the test phase, participants will then be presented with both familiar (n = 20; i.e., those words presented during the exposure phase) and novel Arabic words (n = 20; i.e., words not presented during the exposure phase. ½ of these presented words will be common Quranic Arabic words and the other ½ will be common MSA words but not Quranic words. Moreover, ½ the Quranic Arabic and MSA words presented will be comprised of nouns, while ½ the Quranic Arabic and MSA will be comprised of verbs, thereby eliminating word-processing issues affected by lexical category. Participants will then determine if they had seen that word during the exposure phase. This study seeks to investigate whether long-term phonological memory, such as via childhood exposure to Quranic Arabic orthography, has a differential effect on the word-recognition capacities of native Arabic speakers and Arabic readers; we seek to compare the effects of long-term phonological memory in comparison to short-term phonological exposure (as indicated by the presentation of familiar words from the exposure phase). The researcher’s hypothesis is that, despite the lack of lexical knowledge, early experience with converting written Quranic Arabic text into a phonological code will help participants recall the familiar Quranic words that appeared during the exposure phase more accurately than those that were not presented during the exposure phase. Moreover, it is anticipated that the non-native Arabic readers will also report more false alarms to the unfamiliar Quranic words, due to early childhood phonological exposure to Quranic Arabic script - thereby causing false phonological facilitatory effects.

Keywords: modern standard arabic, phonological facilitation, phonological memory, Quranic arabic, word recognition

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Authors: Chunhua Liao, Jinfei Wang, Bo Shan, Yang Song, Yongjun He, Taifeng Dong

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Winter wheat is one of the main crops in Canada. Forecasting of within-field variability of yield in winter wheat at the early stages is essential for precision farming. However, the crop yield modelling based on high spatial resolution satellite data is generally affected by the lack of continuous satellite observations, resulting in reducing the generalization ability of the models and increasing the difficulty of crop yield forecasting at the early stages. In this study, the correlations between Sentinel-2 data (vegetation indices and reflectance) and yield data collected by combine harvester were investigated and a generalized multivariate linear regression (MLR) model was built and tested with data acquired in different years. It was found that the four-band reflectance (blue, green, red, near-infrared) performed better than their vegetation indices (NDVI, EVI, WDRVI and OSAVI) in wheat yield prediction. The optimum phenological stage for wheat yield prediction with highest accuracy was at the growing stages from the end of the flowering to the beginning of the filling stage. The best MLR model was therefore built to predict wheat yield before harvest using Sentinel-2 data acquired at the end of the flowering stage. Further, to improve the ability of the yield prediction at the early stages, three simple unsupervised domain adaptation (DA) methods were adopted to transform the reflectance data at the early stages to the optimum phenological stage. The winter wheat yield prediction using multiple vegetation indices showed higher accuracy than using single vegetation index. The optimum stage for winter wheat yield forecasting varied with different fields when using vegetation indices, while it was consistent when using multispectral reflectance and the optimum stage for winter wheat yield prediction was at the end of flowering stage. The average testing RMSE of the MLR model at the end of the flowering stage was 604.48 kg/ha. Near the booting stage, the average testing RMSE of yield prediction using the best MLR was reduced to 799.18 kg/ha when applying the mean matching domain adaptation approach to transform the data to the target domain (at the end of the flowering) compared to that using the original data based on the models developed at the booting stage directly (“MLR at the early stage”) (RMSE =1140.64 kg/ha). This study demonstrated that the simple mean matching (MM) performed better than other DA methods and it was found that “DA then MLR at the optimum stage” performed better than “MLR directly at the early stages” for winter wheat yield forecasting at the early stages. The results indicated that the DA had a great potential in near real-time crop yield forecasting at the early stages. This study indicated that the simple domain adaptation methods had a great potential in crop yield prediction at the early stages using remote sensing data.

Keywords: wheat yield prediction, domain adaptation, Sentinel-2, within-field scale

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Authors: Rajkumar Ghosh

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Fly ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, has become a prevalent environmental concern due to its potential impact on both groundwater quality and local climate change. This study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the various mechanisms through which fly ash contaminates groundwater, as well as the possible consequences of this contamination on local climate change. The presence of fly ash in groundwater not only poses a risk to human health but also has the potential to influence local climate change through complex interactions. Although fly ash has various applications in construction and other industries, improper disposal and lack of containment measures have led to its infiltration into groundwater systems. Through a comprehensive review of existing literature and case studies, the interactions between fly ash and groundwater systems, assess the effects on hydrology, and discuss the implications for the broader climate. This section reviews the pathways through which fly ash enters groundwater, including leaching from disposal sites, infiltration through soil, and migration from surface water bodies. The physical and chemical characteristics of fly ash that contribute to its mobility and persistence in groundwater. The introduction of fly ash into groundwater can alter its chemical composition, leading to an increase in the concentration of heavy metals, metalloids, and other potentially toxic elements. The mechanisms of contaminant transport and highlight the potential risks to human health and ecosystems. Fly ash contamination in groundwater may influence the hydrological cycle through changes in groundwater recharge, discharge, and flow dynamics. This section examines the implications of altered hydrology on local water availability, aquatic habitats, and overall ecosystem health. The presence of fly ash in groundwater may have direct and indirect effects on local climate change. The role of fly ash as a potent greenhouse gas absorber and its contribution to radiative forcing. Additionally, investigation of the possible feedback mechanisms between groundwater contamination and climate change, such as altered vegetation patterns and changes in local temperature and precipitation patterns. In this section, potential mitigation and remediation techniques to minimize fly ash contamination in groundwater are analyzed. These may include improved waste management practices, engineered barriers, groundwater remediation technologies, and sustainable fly ash utilization. This paper highlights the critical link between fly ash contamination in groundwater and its potential contribution to local climate change. It emphasizes the importance of addressing this issue promptly through a combination of preventive measures, effective management strategies, and continuous monitoring. By understanding the interconnections between fly ash contamination, groundwater quality, and local climate, towards creating a more resilient and sustainable environment for future generations. The findings of this research can assist policymakers and environmental managers in formulating sustainable strategies to mitigate fly ash contamination and minimize its contribution to climate change.

Keywords: groundwater, climate, sustainable environment, fly ash contamination

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Authors: JungYeon Park, Jooyong Park

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Brainstorming and discussion are widely used around the world as formal techniques of collaborative creative problem solving. This study investigated whether a web-based peer review system would improve collaborative creative problem solving. In order to assess the efficiency of using web-based peer review system before brainstorming and discussion, we conducted a between-group design study for two conditions (a web-based peer review system vs. face-to-face brainstorming only) using two different scenarios. One hundred and twenty participants were divided into teams of four and randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. The participants were given problems for them to solve. The participants in the experimental group first generated ideas independently for 20 minutes and wrote down their ideas. Afterwards, they reviewed the list of ideas of their peers and gave and received feedback for 10 minutes. These activities were performed on-line. The last activity was face-to-face brain-storming and discussion for 30 minutes. In contrast, the control group participated in brainstorming and discussion for 60 minutes. The quantity and the quality of ideas were measured as dependent variables of creative problem solving. Two evaluators rated the quantity and quality of the proposed ideas. Inter-rater agreement rate was good or strong. The results showed that both the average number of unique ideas and the average quality of ideas generated for the experimental condition were significantly higher than those for the control condition in both scenarios. The results of this study support the hypothesis that collaborative creative problem solving is enhanced when individuals write their thoughts individually and review ideas written by peers before face-to-face brainstorming and discussion. The present study provides preliminary evidence that a web-based peer review system can be instrumental in improving creative problem solving for teams. This system also offers an effective means to quantify the contribution of each member in collaborative team activity. We are planning to replicate these results in real-life situations.

Keywords: brainstorming, creative problem solving, peer-review, team efficiency

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Authors: Antoine Lauvray, Fabien Poulhaon, Pierre Michaud, Pierre Joyot, Emmanuel Duc

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Additive Friction Stir Manufacturing (AFSM) is a new industrial process that follows the emergence of friction-based processes. The AFSM process is a solid-state additive process using the energy produced by the friction at the interface between a rotating non-consumable tool and a substrate. Friction depends on various parameters like axial force, rotation speed or friction coefficient. The feeder material is a metallic rod that flows through a hole in the tool. Unlike in Friction Stir Welding (FSW) where abundant literature exists and addresses many aspects going from process implementation to characterization and modeling, there are still few research works focusing on AFSM. Therefore, there is still a lack of understanding of the physical phenomena taking place during the process. This research work aims at a better AFSM process understanding and implementation, thanks to numerical simulation and experimental validation performed on a prototype effector. Such an approach is considered a promising way for studying the influence of the process parameters and to finally identify a process window that seems relevant. The deposition of material through the AFSM process takes place in several phases. In chronological order these phases are the docking phase, the dwell time phase, the deposition phase, and the removal phase. The present work focuses on the dwell time phase that enables the temperature rise of the system composed of the tool, the filler material, and the substrate and due to pure friction. Analytic modeling of heat generation based on friction considers as main parameters the rotational speed and the contact pressure. Another parameter considered influential is the friction coefficient assumed to be variable due to the self-lubrication of the system with the rise in temperature or the materials in contact roughness smoothing over time. This study proposes, through numerical modeling followed by experimental validation, to question the influence of the various input parameters on the dwell time phase. Rotation speed, temperature, spindle torque, and axial force are the main monitored parameters during experimentations and serve as reference data for the calibration of the numerical model. This research shows that the geometry of the tool as well as fluctuations of the input parameters like axial force and rotational speed are very influential on the temperature reached and/or the time required to reach the targeted temperature. The main outcome is the prediction of a process window which is a key result for a more efficient process implementation.

Keywords: numerical model, additive manufacturing, friction, process

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Authors: Hoang Thi Quynh, Shima Kazuto

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Organic farming is gaining interest in Vietnam. However, organic fertilizer production is not sufficiently regulated, resulting in unknown quality. This study investigated characteristics of so-called organic fertilizers in the Vietnam’s market and their mineralization in soil-plant system. We collected 15 commercial products (11 domestic and 4 imported) which labelled 'organic fertilizer' in the market to analyze nutrients composition. A 20 day-incubation experiment was carried on with 80 g sandy-textured soil, amended with the fertilizer at a rate of 109.4 mgN.kg⁻¹soil in 150 mL glass bottle at 25℃. We categorized them according to nutrients content and mineralization rate, and then selected 8 samples for cultivation experiment. The experiment was conducted by growing Komatsuna (Brassica campestris) in sandy-textured soil using an automatic watering apparatus in a greenhouse. The fertilizers were applied to the top one-third of the soil stratum at a rate of 200 mgN.kg⁻¹ soil. Our study also analyzed material flow of coffee husk compost in Central Highland of Vietnam. Total N, P, K, Ca, Mg and C: N ratio varied greatly cross the domestic products, whereas they were quite similar among the imported materials. The proportion of inorganic-N to T-N of domestic products was higher than 25% in 8 of 11 samples. These indicate that N concentration increased dramatically in most domestic products compared with their raw materials. Additionally, most domestic products contained less P, and their proportions of Truog-P to T-P were greatly different. These imply that some manufactures were interested in adjusting P concentration, but some ones were not. Furthermore, the compost was made by mixing with chemical substances to increase nutrients content (N, P), and also added construction surplus soil to gain weight before packing product to sell in the market as 'organic fertilizer'. There was a negative correlation between C:N ratio and mineralization rate of the fertilizers. There was a significant difference in N efficiency among the fertilizer treatments. N efficiency of most domestic products was higher than chemical fertilizer and imported organic fertilizers. These results suggest regulations on organic fertilizers production needed to support organic farming that is based on internationally accepted standards in Vietnam.

Keywords: inorganic N, mineralization, N efficiency, so-called organic fertilizers, Vietnam’s market

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Authors: Jigg Pelayo, Ricardo Villar

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The Philippines is long considered as a valuable producer of high value crops globally. The country’s employment and economy have been dependent on agriculture, thus increasing its demand for the efficient agricultural mechanism. Remote sensing and geographic information technology have proven to effectively provide applications for precision agriculture through image-processing technique considering the development of the aerial scanning technology in the country. Accurate information concerning the spatial correlation within the field is very important for precision farming of high value crops, especially. The availability of height information and high spatial resolution images obtained from aerial scanning together with the development of new image analysis methods are offering relevant influence to precision agriculture techniques and applications. In this study, an algorithm was developed and implemented to detect and count high value crops simultaneously through adaptive scaling of support vector machine (SVM) algorithm subjected to object-oriented approach combining watershed transformation and local maxima filter in enhancing tree counting and detection. The methodology is compared to cutting-edge template matching algorithm procedures to demonstrate its effectiveness on a demanding tree is counting recognition and delineation problem. Since common data and image processing techniques are utilized, thus can be easily implemented in production processes to cover large agricultural areas. The algorithm is tested on high value crops like Palm, Mango and Coconut located in Misamis Oriental, Philippines - showing a good performance in particular for young adult and adult trees, significantly 90% above. The s inventories or database updating, allowing for the reduction of field work and manual interpretation tasks.

Keywords: high value crop, LiDAR, OBIA, precision agriculture

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Authors: Seyed Reza Naghibulsadat

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The nature of communication includes various forms of media productions, which include film and theater. In the current situation, since social networks have emerged, they have brought their own communication capabilities and have features that show speed, public access, lack of media organization and the production of extensive content, and the development of critical thinking; Also, they contain capabilities to develop access to all kinds of media productions, including movies and theater shows; Of course, this works differently in different conditions and communities. In terms of the scale of exploitation, the film has a more general audience, and the theater has a special audience. The film industry is more developed based on more modern technologies, but the theater, based on the older ways of communication, contains more intimate and emotional aspects. ; But in general, the main focus is the development of access to movies and theater shows, which is emphasized by those involved in this field due to the capabilities of social networks. In this research, we will look at these 2 areas and the relevant components for both areas through social networks and also the common points of both types of media production. The main goal of this research is to know the strengths and weaknesses of using social networks for the marketing of movies and theater shows and, at the same time are, also considered the opportunities and threats of this field. The attractions of these two types of media production, with the emergence of social networks, and the ability to change positions, can provide the opportunity to become a media with greater exploitation and higher profitability; But the main consideration is the opinions about these capabilities and the ability to use them for film and theater marketing. The main question of the research is, what are the marketing components for movies and theaters using social media capabilities? What are its strengths and weaknesses? And what opportunities and threats are facing this market? This research has been done with two methods SWOT and meta-analysis. Non-probability sampling has been used with purposeful technique. The results show that a recent approach is an approach based on eliminating threats and weaknesses and emphasizing strengths, and exploiting opportunities in the direction of developing film and theater marketing based on the capabilities of social networks within the framework of local cultural values and presenting achievements on an international scale or It is universal. This introduction leads to the introduction of authentic Iranian culture and foreign enthusiasts in the framework of movies and theater art. Therefore, for this issue, the model for using the capabilities of social networks for movie or theater marketing, according to the results obtained from Respondents, is a model based on SO strategies and, in other words, offensive strategies so that it can take advantage of the internal strengths and made maximum use of foreign situations and opportunities to develop the use of movies and theater performances.

Keywords: marketing, movies, theatrical show, social network potentials

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Authors: Sadeeq Launi

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NGOs, the world over, have been recognized as part of the institutions that complement government activities in providing services to the people, particularly in respect of human development. This study examined the role played by the NGOs in human development in Bauchi State, Nigeria, between 2004 and 2013. The emphasis was on reproductive health and access to education role of the selected NGOs. All the research questions, objectives and hypotheses were stated in line with these variables. The theoretical framework that guided the study was the participatory development approach. Being a survey research, data were generated from both primary and secondary sources with questionnaires and interviews as the instruments for generating the primary data. The population of the study was made up of the staff of the selected NGOs, beneficiaries, health staff and school teachers in Bauchi State. The sample drawn from these categories were 90, 107 and 148 units respectively. Stratified random and simple random sampling techniques were adopted for NGOs staff, and Health staff and school teachers data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively and hypotheses were tested using Pearson Chi-square test through SPSS computer statistical package. The study revealed that despite the challenges facing NGOs operations in the study area, NGOs rendered services in the areas of health and education This research recommends among others that, both government and people should be more cooperative to NGOs to enable them provide more efficient and effective services. Governments at all levels should be more dedicated to increasing accessibility and affordability of basic education and reproductive health care facilities and services in Bauchi state through committing more resources to the Health and Education sectors, this would support and facilitate the complementary role of NGOs in providing teaching facilities, drugs, and other reproductive health services in the States. More enlightenment campaigns should be carried out by governments to sensitize the public, particularly women on the need to embrace immunization programmes for their children and antenatal care services being provided by both the government and NGOs.

Keywords: access to education, human development, NGOs, reproductive health

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Authors: Vinay Kant Shankhdhar

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Purpose: Maxillary defects are three dimensional and require complex bone and soft tissue reconstruction. Maxillary reconstruction using fibula osteocutaneous flaps in situation requiring orbital floor, orbital wall, palatal defects, and external skin, all at the same time require special planning and multiple osteotomies. We tried to improvise our reconstruction using multiple osteotomies and skin paddle designs for fibula and Flexor Hallucis Longus Muscle. This study aims at discussing the planning and outcome in complex maxillary reconstructions using fibula flaps and soft tissue flaps with or without bone grafts. Material and Methods: From 2011 to 2017 a total of 129 Free fibula flaps were done, 67 required two or more struts, 164 Anterolateral Thigh Flaps, 11 Deep Inferior Epigastric Artery perforator flaps and 3 vertical rectus abdominis muscle flaps with iliac crest bone graft. The age range was 2 to 70 years. The reconstruction was evaluated based on the post-operative rehabilitation including orbital support (prevention of diplopia), oral diet, speech and cosmetic appearance. Results: The follow- up is from 5 years to 1 year. In this series, we observed that the common complications were the de-vascularisation of most distal segment of osteotomised fibula and native skin necrosis. Commonest area of breakdown is the medial canthal region. Plate exposure occurs most commonly at the pyriform sinus. There was extrusion of one non-vascularized bone graft. All these complications were noticed post-radiotherapy. Conclusions: The use of free fibula osteocutaneous flap gives very good results when only alveolar reconstruction is required. The reconstruction of orbital floor with extensive skin loss with post operative radiotherapy has maximum complication rate in long term follow up. A soft tissue flap with non vascularized bone graft may be the best option in such cases.

Keywords: maxilla reconstruction, fibula maxilla, post cancer maxillary reconstruction

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Authors: Lucas Barbosa Da Silva, Jun Okamoto Jr.

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Precision Agriculture has long being benefited from crop fields’ aerial imagery. This important tool has allowed identifying patterns in crop fields, generating useful information to the production management. Reflectance intensity data in different ranges from the electromagnetic spectrum may indicate presence or absence of nutrients in the soil of an area. Different relations between the different light bands may generate even more detailed information. The knowledge of the nutrients content in the soil or in the crop during its growth is a valuable asset to the farmer that seeks to optimize its yield. However, small farmers in Brazil often lack the resources to access this kind information, and, even when they do, it is not presented in a comprehensive and/or objective way. So, the challenges of implementing this technology ranges from the sampling of the imagery, using aerial platforms, building of a mosaic with the images to cover the entire crop field, extracting the reflectance information from it and analyzing its relationship with the parameters of interest, to the display of the results in a manner that the farmer may take the necessary decisions more objectively. In this work, it’s proposed an analysis of soil nutrient contents based on image processing of satellite imagery and comparing its outtakes with commercial laboratory’s chemical analysis. Also, sources of satellite imagery are compared, to assess the feasibility of using Google Earth data in this application, and the impacts of doing so, versus the application of imagery from satellites like Landsat-8 and Pleiades. Furthermore, an algorithm for building mosaics is implemented using Google Earth imagery and finally, the possibility of using unmanned aerial vehicles is analyzed. From the data obtained, some soil parameters are estimated, namely, the content of Potassium, Phosphorus, Boron, Manganese, among others. The suitability of Google Earth Imagery for this application is verified within a reasonable margin, when compared to Pleiades Satellite imagery and to the current commercial model. It is also verified that the mosaic construction method has little or no influence on the estimation results. Variability maps are created over the covered area and the impacts of the image resolution and sample time frame are discussed, allowing easy assessments of the results. The final results show that easy and cheaper remote sensing and analysis methods are possible and feasible alternatives for the small farmer, with little access to technological and/or financial resources, to make more accurate decisions about soil nutrient management.

Keywords: remote sensing, precision agriculture, mosaic, soil, nutrient content, satellite imagery, aerial imagery

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Authors: Anuradha Maharaj, Adrian Cashman

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The cross-cutting nature of water as a resource translates into the need for a better understanding of its movement, storage and loss at all points in the hydro-socioeconomic cycle. An integrated approach to addressing the issue of sustainability means quantitatively understanding: the linkages within this cycle, the role of water managers in resource allocation, and the critical factors influencing its scarcity. The Water Evaluation and Planning Tool (WEAP) is an integrative model that combines the catchment-scale hydrologic processes with a water management model, driven by environmental requirements and socioeconomic demands. The concept of demand priorities is included to represent the areas of greatest use within a given catchment. Located on Barbados’ West Coast, Speightstown and the surrounding areas encompass a well-developed tourist, residential and agricultural area. The main water resource for this area, and the rest of the island, is that of groundwater. The availability of groundwater in Barbados may be adversely affected by the projected changes in climate, such as reduced wet season rainfall. Economic development and changing sector priorities together with climate related changes have the potential to affect water resource abundance and by extension the allocation of resources for example in the Speightstown area. In order to investigate the potential impacts on the Speightstown area specifically, a WEAP Model of the study area was developed to estimate the present available water (baseline reference scenario 2000-2010). From this baseline scenario, it is envisioned that an exploration into projected changes in availability in the near term (2035-2045) and medium/long term (2065-2075) time frames will be undertaken. The generated estimations can assist water managers to better evaluate the status of and identify trends in water use and formulate adaptation measures to offset future deficits.

Keywords: water evaluation and planning system (WEAP), water availability, demand and supply, water allocation

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Authors: Foluke Abimbola

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The United Nations Convention on the rights of the child has been signed and ratified by several countries due to the concern about various abuses and crimes committed against children both locally and internationally. It is a shame that in view of the peculiar hardships being experienced by children today, the natural right to childhood has to be protected by a vast array of laws and international conventions. 194 countries have so far acceded to and ratified the convention on the Rights of a Child while some countries such as Nigeria have enacted the convention as a domestic law, yet child abuse is still rampant not only in Nigeria but all over the world. In Nigeria, the Child Rights Act was passed into law in 2003, with its provisions similar to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child. Despite the age of marriage provided in the Nigerian Child’s Rights Act 2003, many communities still practice child marriages to the detriment of the girl-child. Cases where these children have to withdraw from school as a result of these unripe marriages abound. Unfortunately, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 appears to indirectly support early marriages for girls in section 29 (4) where it states that a woman who is married is deemed to be of full age whereas ‘full age’ as a general term in the Constitution is from 18 years old and above. Section 29 (4) may thus be interpreted to mean that a girl of 12 years old, if married, is deemed to be of ‘full-age.’ In view of these discrepancies which continue to justify this unwholesome practice, this paper shall proffer solutions to this unlawful act and make recommendations to existing institutions, using a rights-based approach, on how to prevent and/or substantially reduce this practice. A comparative analysis with other African countries will be adopted in order to conduct a research for effective policies that may be implemented for the protection of these girls. Thus, this paper will further examine the issue of child marriage which is still quite rampant in African countries particularly in Nigeria which also affects the girl-child’s right to an education. Such children are in need of special protection and this paper will recommend ways in which state institutions, particularly in Nigeria, may be able to introduce policies to curb incidences of child marriage and child sexual abuse while proffering strategies for the prevention of these crimes.

Keywords: child abuse, child marriages, child rights, constitutions, child rights, the girl-child

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Authors: Duong Thuy Nguyen, Giulia Bencini

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The present study examined structural and prosodic factors on the computation of antecedent-reflexive relationships and sentence comprehension in native English (L1) and Vietnamese-English bilinguals (L2). Participants read sentences presented on the computer screen in one of three presentation formats aimed at manipulating prosodic parsing: word-by-word (RSVP), phrase-segment (self-paced), or whole-sentence (self-paced), then completed a grammaticality rating and a comprehension task (following Pratt & Fernandez, 2016). The design crossed three factors: syntactic structure (simple; complex), grammaticality (target-match; target-mismatch) and presentation format. An example item is provided in (1): (1) The actress that (Mary/John) interviewed at the awards ceremony (about two years ago/organized outside the theater) described (herself/himself) as an extreme workaholic). Results showed that overall, both L1 and L2 speakers made use of a good-enough processing strategy at the expense of more detailed syntactic analyses. L1 and L2 speakers’ comprehension and grammaticality judgements were negatively affected by the most prosodically disrupting condition (word-by-word). However, the two groups demonstrated differences in their performance in the other two reading conditions. For L1 speakers, the whole-sentence and the phrase-segment formats were both facilitative in the grammaticality rating and comprehension tasks; for L2, compared with the whole-sentence condition, the phrase-segment paradigm did not significantly improve accuracy or comprehension. These findings are consistent with the findings of Pratt & Fernandez (2016), who found a similar pattern of results in the processing of subject-verb agreement relations using the same experimental paradigm and prosodic manipulation with English L1 and L2 English-Spanish speakers. The results provide further support for a Good-Enough cue model of sentence processing that integrates cue-based retrieval and implicit prosodic parsing (Pratt & Fernandez, 2016) and highlights similarities and differences between L1 and L2 sentence processing and comprehension.

Keywords: anaphora resolution, bilingualism, implicit prosody, sentence processing

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Authors: Chew Zhao Hong

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Since the transition of power in 2018, the Malaysian political landscape has experienced substantial shifts and complexities. The decline of the longstanding ruling party, United Malays National Organization (UMNO), following the party rotation, has given rise to splinter parties such as the Indigenous Unity Party (Bersatu), along with the enduring presence of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) in the northern region of the Malay Peninsula. However, the "Sheraton Move" in 2020 led to the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government and the emergence of Perikatan Nasional, signifying the ascent of a third political force. The 2022 general elections marked Malaysia's entry into a hung parliament, culminating in an intricate negotiation that resulted in a coalition government formed by Pakatan Harapan, Barisan Nasional, and the Sarawak parties alliance (GPS), collectively governing the Malaysian federal administration. During the 2023 state elections, Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional formed an unprecedented alliance, yet the media framing benefited Perikatan Nasional, even securing substantial support from UMNO's traditional constituencies. In the era of converging new media, Malaysia’s democratization faces new challenges: first, political leaders leveraging media to cultivate unfiltered personas risk inducing populism; second, under the influence of agenda-setting and two-step flow theories, media contributes to polarization; lastly, Malaysia's multi-party system is no longer effectively moderate extreme ideologies into the political center. This study examines the role of media framing and its impact on the democratization process within Malaysia's consociational democracy under a multi-party system and analyzes media discourse before and after the 2023 Malaysian state elections to explore how different parties shape public opinion and political discourse, and how political messages may be amplified or distorted in the process.

Keywords: multi-party system, democratization, elections, political polarization, Malaysia, media framing

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Authors: Jephte Sompud, Emily A. Gilbert, Andy Russel Mojiol, Cynthia B. Sompud, Alim Biun

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Naturally regenerated acacia forest and secondary indigenous forest forms some of the urban forests in Sabah. Naturally regenerated acacia trees are usually seen along the road that exists as forest islands. Acacia tree is not an indigenous tree species in Sabah that was introduced in the 1960’s as fire breakers that eventually became one of the preferred trees for forest plantation for paper and pulp production. Due to its adaptability to survive even in impoverished soils and poor-irrigated land, this species has rapidly spread throughout Sabah through natural regeneration. Currently, there is a lack of study to investigate the bird population in the naturally regenerated acacia forest. This study is important because it shed some light on the role of naturally regenerated acacia forest on bird’s population, as bird is known to be a good bioindicator forest health. The aim of this study was to document the bird’s population in naturally regenerated acacia forest with that adjacent secondary indigenous forest. The study site for this study was at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) Campus. Two forest types in the campus were chosen as a study site, of which were naturally regenerated Acacia Forest and adjacent secondary indigenous forest, located at the UMS Hill. A total of 21 sampling days were conducted in each of the forest types. The method used during this study was solely mist nets with three pockets. Whenever a bird is caught, it is extracted from the net to be identified and measurements were recorded in a standard data sheet. Mist netting was conducted from 6 morning until 5 evening. This study was conducted between February to August 2014. Birds that were caught were ring banded to initiate a long-term study on the understory bird’s population in the Campus The data was analyzed using descriptive analysis, diversity indices, and t-test. The bird population diversity at naturally regenerated Acacia forest with those at the secondary indigenous forest was calculated using two common indices, of which were Shannon-Wiener and Simpson diversity index. There were 18 families with 33 species that were recorded from both sites. The number of species recorded at the naturally regenerated acacia forest was 26 species while at the secondary indigenous forest were 19 species. The Shannon diversity index for Naturally Regenerated Acacia Forest and secondary indigenous forests were 2.87 and 2.46. The results show that there was very significantly higher species diversity at the Naturally Regenerated Acacia Forest as opposed to the secondary indigenous forest (p<0.001). This suggests that Naturally Regenerated Acacia forest plays an important role in urban bird conservation. It is recommended that Naturally Regenerated Acacia Forests should be considered as an established urban forest conservation area as they do play a role in biodiversity conservation. More future studies in Naturally Regenerated Acacia Forest should be encouraged to determine the status and value of biodiversity conservation of this ecosystem.

Keywords: naturally regenerated acacia forest, bird population diversity, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, biodiversity conservation

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Authors: Dragos Dragomir-Stanciu, Leon Marsh

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Background As a response to the gaps identified in recent research in the provision of residential care to address co-occurring health needs, including mental health problems and complexities Gamble Aware has facilitated the possibility to provide a new service which would extend the NGTS provision of residential rehabilitation for gambling disorder with complex and co-morbid presentation. Gordon Moody, together with Adferiad have been successful in securing the tender for this service and this presentation aims to introduce FOLD, the resulting model of treatment developed for the delivery of the service. Setting As a partnership, we have come together to coproduce a model which allows us to share our clinical and industry knowledge and build on our reputations as trusted treatment providers. The presentation will outline our expertise share in development of a unified approach to recovery-oriented models of care, clinical governance, risk assessment and management and aftercare and continuous recovery. We will also introduce our innovative specialist referral portal which will offer referring partners the ability to include the service user in planning their own recovery journey. Outcomes Our collaboration has resulted in the development of the FOLD model which includes three agile and flexible treatment packages aimed at offering the most enhanced and comprehensive treatment in UK, to date, for those most affected by gambling harm. The paper will offer insight into each treatment package and all recovery model stages involved, as well as into the partnership work with NGST providers, local mental health and social care providers and lived experience organisation that will enable us to offer support to more 100 people a year who would otherwise get “lost in the system”. Conclusion FOLD offers a great opportunity to develop, implement and evaluate a new, much needed, whole-person and whole-system approach to counter gambling related harms.

Keywords: gambling treatment, partnership working, integrated care pathways, NGTS, complex needs

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Authors: Nisa Mohan

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Adverse drug event (ADE) related hospital admissions are common among older people. The first step in prevention is accurately estimating the prevalence of ADE admissions. Clinical coding is an efficient method to estimate the prevalence of ADE admissions. The objective of the study is to estimate the rate of under-coding of ADE admissions in older people in New Zealand and to explore how clinical coders decide whether or not to code an admission as an ADE. There has not been any research in New Zealand to explore these areas. This study is done using a mixed-methods approach. Two common and serious ADEs in older people, namely bleeding and hypoglycaemia were selected for the study. In study 1, eight hundred medical records of people aged 65 years and above who are admitted to hospital due to bleeding and hypoglycemia during the years 2015 – 2016 were selected for quantitative retrospective medical records review. This selection was made to estimate the proportion of ADE-related bleeding and hypoglycemia admissions that are not coded as ADEs. These files were reviewed and recorded as to whether the admission was caused by an ADE. The hospital discharge data were reviewed to check whether all the ADE admissions identified in the records review were coded as ADEs, and the proportion of under-coding of ADE admissions was estimated. In study 2, thirteen clinical coders were selected to conduct qualitative semi-structured interviews using a general inductive approach. Participants were selected purposively based on their experience in clinical coding. Interview questions were designed in a way to investigate the reasons for the under-coding of ADE admissions. The records review study showed that 35% (Cl 28% - 44%) of the ADE-related bleeding admissions and 22% of the ADE-related hypoglycemia admissions were not coded as ADEs. Although the quality of clinical coding is high across New Zealand, a substantial proportion of ADE admissions were under-coded. This shows that clinical coding might under-estimate the actual prevalence of ADE related hospital admissions in New Zealand. The interviews with the clinical coders added that lack of time for searching for information to confirm an ADE admission, inadequate communication with clinicians, along with coders’ belief that an ADE is a small thing might be the potential reasons for the under-coding of the ADE admissions. This study urges the coding policymakers, auditors, and trainers to engage with the unconscious cognitive biases and short-cuts of the clinical coders. These results highlight that further work is needed on interventions to improve the clinical coding of ADE admissions, such as providing education to coders about the importance of ADEs, education to clinicians about the importance of clear and confirmed medical records entries, availing pharmacist service to improve the detection and clear documentation of ADE admissions and including a mandatory field in the discharge summary about external causes of diseases.

Keywords: adverse drug events, bleeding, clinical coders, clinical coding, hypoglycemia

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Authors: A. T. Muruviwa

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Empirical studies of the current CSR agenda have been dominated by literature from the North at the expense of the nations from the South where most TNCs are located. Therefore, owing to the limitations of the current discourse that is dominated by Western ideas such as voluntarism, philanthropy, business case and economic gains, scholars have been calling for a new CSR agenda that is South-centred and addresses the needs of developing nations. The development theme has dominated in the recent literature as scholars concerned with the relationship between business and society have tried to understand its relationship with CSR. Despite a plethora of literature on the roles of corporations in local communities and the impact of CSR initiatives, there is lack of adequate empirical evidence to help us understand the nexus between CSR and development. For all the claims made about the positive and negative consequences of CSR, there is surprisingly little information about the outcomes it delivers. This study is a response to these claims made about the developmental aspect of CSR in developing countries. It offers some empirical bases for assessing the major CSR projects that have been fulfilled by a major mining company, Zimplats in Mhondoro-Ngezi Zimbabwe. The neo-liberal idea of capitalism and market dominations has empowered TNCs to stamp their authority in the developing countries. TNCs have made their mark in developing nations as they stamp their global private authority, rivalling or implicitly challenging the state in many functions. This dominance of corporate power raises great concerns over their tendencies of abuses in terms of environmental, social and human rights concerns as well as how to make them increasingly accountable. The hegemonic power of TNCs in the developing countries has had a tremendous impact on the overall CSR practices. While TNCs are key drivers of globalization they may be acting responsibly in their Global Northern home countries where there is a combination of legal mechanisms and the fear of civil society activism associated with corporate scandals. Using a triangulated approach in which both qualitative and quantitative methods were used the study found out that most CSR projects in Zimbabwe are dominated and directed by Zimplats because of the power it possesses. Most of the major CSR projects are beneficial to the mining company as they serve the business plans of the mining company. What was deduced from the study is that the infrastructural development initiatives by Zimplats confirm that CSR is a tool to advance business obligations. This shows that although proponents of CSR might claim that business has a mandate for social obligations to society, we need not to forget the dominant idea that the primary function of CSR is to enhance the firm’s profitability.

Keywords: hegemonic power, projects, reciprocity, stakeholders

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Authors: Cory B. Lord

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Falls among the elderly population has become an area of concern in healthcare today. The negative impacts of falls lead to increased morbidity, mortality, and financial burdens for both patients and healthcare systems. Falls in the United States is reported at an annual rate of 36 million in those aged 65 and older. Each year, one out of four people in this age group will suffer a fall, with 20% of these falls causing injury. The setting for this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project was a memory care unit in an assisted living community, as these facilities house cognitively impaired older adults. These communities lack fall prevention programs; therefore, the need exists to add to the body of knowledge to positively impact this population. The objective of this project was to reduce fall rates through the implementation of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) STEADI (stopping elderly accidents, deaths, and injuries) program. The DNP project performed was a quality improvement pilot study with a pre and post-test design. This program was implemented in the memory care setting over 12 weeks. The project included an educational session for staff and a fall risk assessment with appropriate resident referrals. The three aims of the DNP project were to reduce fall rates among the elderly aged 65 and older who reside in the memory care unit, increase staff knowledge of STEADI fall prevention measures after an educational session, and assess the willingness of memory care unit staff to adopt an evidence-based a fall prevention program. The Donabedian model was used as a guiding conceptual framework for this quality improvement pilot study. The fall rate data for 12 months before the intervention was evaluated and compared to post-intervention fall rates. The educational session comprised of a pre and post-test to assess staff knowledge of the fall prevention program and the willingness of staff to adopt the fall prevention program. The overarching goal was to reduce falls in the elderly population who live in memory care units. The results of the study showed, on average that the fall rate during the implementation period of STEADI (μ=6.79) was significantly lower when compared to the prior 12 months (μ= 9.50) (p=0.02, α = 0.05). The mean staff knowledge scores improved from pretest (μ=77.74%) to post-test (μ=87.42%) (p=0.00, α= 0.05) after the education session. The results of the willingness to adopt a fall prevention program were scored at 100%. In summation, implementing the STEADI fall prevention program can assist in reducing fall rates for residents aged 65 and older who reside in a memory care setting.

Keywords: dementia, elderly, falls, STEADI

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Authors: Remi Szauer

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Introductory, Background, and Importance of the Study: For many years, religiosity in Poland remained at a stable level of religious practice. When the symptoms of secularization and privatization processes appeared in Poland, it was not clearly felt but rather related to the decline in compulsory practices carried out in public, the growing distance of respondents to catholic ethic, and the lack of acceptance regarding the intervention of the Church in legislation and policy. The basic indicators observed over the years kept the picture: more religious women - less religious men. By carrying out own research in the field of religious and moral attitudes in 2019-2021, it was noticed that a reversal of the trend preserved over the years could be observed. The data showed that women under 40 are radically different in their responses than women older than them - especially those over 50: in terms of practices or ties with the Church and many more specific aspects. This became the basis for a careful examination of the responses in the under 40 age cohorts among women. This study is significant because it shows completely new perspectives of women's perception of religiosity and allows us to notice clearly the aspects of social changes mapped in the minds of the surveyed women. Research Methodology: The original survey was carried out using the quantitative method among 2,346 respondents in northern Poland, 1,349 of whom were women. The findings from these observations led to deepening the topic of beliefs of women under 40 compared to other age cohorts of women. Hence, studies were carried out on the general population of women in Poland, which constituted a comparative sample. These were panel studies. The selection of the sample among women was random, respecting the age amounts so that the two statistical groups could be compared. The designated research parameters included: declarations of religious faith, declarations of religious practice, bond with the Church, acceptance of Mariological dogmas, attitude towards the image of women in the Church, and acceptance of selected issues in Catholic ethics. Main Research Findings: Among women under 40, the decline in declarations not only concerning compulsory public practices but also private practices and declarations of religious faith is more pronounced. Not only is the range of indifferent religious attitudes increasing, but also attitudes directly declaring religious disbelief, for which there are important justifications. Women under 40 years of age strongly distance themselves from the institutions of the Church and from accepting Mariological dogmas. Moreover, they note that the image of a woman is marked by stereotyping, favoring the intensification of violence against women, as well as disregarding her potential and agency. Concluding Statement: By analyzing the answers of the female respondents and the data obtained in the research, it can be observed a reevaluation of women's beliefs, which opens the perspective of analyzing the role of religion and the Church in Poland as well as religious socialization.

Keywords: religiosity, morality, gender, feminism, social change

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Authors: Mohamed F. Othman

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Manchester, Britain has become the destination of immigrants from different parts of the world. As a result, it is currently home to over 150 different ethnic languages. The present study investigates minority language policy and planning at the micro-level of the city. In order to get an in-depth investigation of such a policy, it was decided to cover it from two angles: the first is the policy making process. This was aimed at getting insights on how decisions regarding the provision of government services in minority languages are taken and what criteria are employed. The second angle is the service provider; i.e. the different departments in Manchester City Council (MCC), the NHS, the courts, and police, etc., to obtain information on the actual provisions of services. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with different personnel representing different departments in MCC, solicitors, interpreters, etc.; through the internet, e.g. the websites of MCC, NHS, courts, and police, etc.; and via personal observation of provisions of community languages in government services. The results show that Manchester’s language policy is formulated around two concepts that work simultaneously: one is concerned with providing services in community languages in order to help minorities manage their life until they acquire English, and the other with helping the integration of minorities through encouraging them to learn English. In this regard, different government services are provided in community languages, though to varying degrees, depending on the numerical strength of each individual language. Thus, it is concluded that there is awareness in MCC and other government agencies working in Manchester of the linguistic diversity of the city and there are serious attempts to meet this diversity in their services. It is worth mentioning here that providing such services in minority languages are not meant to support linguistic diversity, but rather to maintain the legal right to equal opportunities among the residents of Manchester and to avoid any misunderstanding that may result due to the language barrier, especially in such areas as hospitals, courts, and police. There is actually no explicitly-mentioned language policy regarding minorities in Manchester; rather, there is an implied or covert policy resulting from factors that are not explicitly documented. That is, there are guidelines from the central government, which emphasize the principle of equal opportunities; then the implementation of such guidelines requires providing services in the different ethnic languages.

Keywords: community language, covert language policy, micro-language policy and planning, minority language

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Authors: Sabrina Servot, Annick St-Amand, Michel Rousseau, Valerie Simard, Evelyne Touchette

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Child maltreatment has a profound impact on children’s development. In its victims, internalizing and externalizing problems are highly prevalent, and sleep problems are common. Furthermore, the environment they live in is often disorganized, lacking routine and consistency. In non-maltreated children, several studies documented the important role of sleep regulation and sleep ecology. A poor sleep ecology (e.g., lack of sleep hygiene and bedtime routine, inappropriate sleeping location) may lead to sleep regulation problems (e.g., short sleep duration, nocturnal awakenings), and sleep regulation problems may increase the risk of behavior problems. Therefore, this scoping review aims to map evidence about sleep ecology and sleep regulation and the associations between sleep ecology, sleep regulation, and behavior problems in maltreated preschoolers. Literature from 1993 was searched in PsycInfo, Pubmed, Medline, Eric, and Proquest Dissertations and Theses. Articles and thesis were comprehensively reviewed based upon inclusion/exclusion criteria: 1) it concerns maltreated children aged 1-5 years, and 2) it addresses at least one of the following: sleep ecology, sleep regulation, and/or their associations with behavior problems in maltreated preschoolers. From the 650 studies screened, nine of them were included. Data were charted according to study characteristics, nature of variable documented, measures, analyses performed, and results of each study, then synthesized in a narrative summary. The main results show all included articles were quantitative. Foster children samples were used in four studies, children experienced different types of maltreatment in six studies, while one was specifically about sexually abused children. Regarding sleep ecology, only one study describing maltreated preschoolers’ sleep ecology was found, while seven studies documented sleep regulation. Among these seven studies, 17 different sleep variables (e.g., parasomnia, dyssomnia, total 24-h sleep duration) were used, each study documenting from one to nine of them. Actigraphic measures were employed in three studies, the others used parent-reported questionnaires or sleep diaries. Maltreated children’s sleep was described and/or compared to non-maltreated children’s sleep, or an intervention group, showing mild differences. As for associations between sleep regulation and behavior problems, five studies investigated it and performed correlational or linear regression analyses between sleep and behavior problems, revealing some significant associations. No study was found about associations between sleep ecology and sleep regulation, between sleep ecology and behavior problems, or between these three variables. In conclusion, literature about sleep ecology, sleep regulation, and their associations with behavior problems are far more scarce in maltreated preschoolers than in non-maltreated ones. At present, there is especially a paucity of research about sleep ecology and the association between sleep ecology and sleep regulation in maltreated preschoolers, while studies on non-maltreated children showed sleep ecology plays a major role in sleep regulation. In addition, as sleep regulation is measured in many different ways among the studies, it is difficult to compare their findings. Finally, it seems necessary that research fill these gaps, as recommendations could be made to clinicians working with maltreated preschoolers regarding the use of sleep ecology and sleep regulation as intervention tools.

Keywords: maltreated preschoolers, sleep ecology, sleep regulation, behavior problems

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Authors: Carmen Silvia Gabriel, Dsniele Bernardi da Costa, Andrea Bernardes, Sabrina Elias Mikael, Daniele da Silva Ramos

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The goal of this quantitative study is to investigate patient safety culture from the perspective of professional from the hospital nursing team.It was conducted in two Brazilian hospitals,.The sample included 282 nurses Data collection occurred in 2013, through the questionnaire Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture.Based on the assessment of the dimensions is stressed that, in the dimension teamwork across hospital units, 69.4% of professionals agree that when a lot of work needs to be done quickly, they work together as a team; about the dimension supervisor/ manager expectations and actions promoting safety, 70.2% agree that their supervisor overlooks patient safety problems.Related to organizational learning and continuous improvement, 56.5% agree that there is evaluation of the effectiveness of the changes after its implementation.On hospital management support for patient safety, 52.8% refer that the actions of hospital management show that patient safety is a top priority.On the overall perception of patient safety, 57.2% disagree that patient safety is never compromised due to higher amount of work to be completed.In what refers to feedback and communication about error, 57.7% refer that always and usually receive such information. Relative to communication openness, 42.9% said they never or rarely feel free to question the decisions / actions of their superiors.On frequency of event reporting, 64.7% said often and always notify events with no damages to patients..About teamwork across hospital units is noted similarity between the percentages of agreement and disagreement, as on the item there is a good cooperation among hospital units that need to work together, that indicates 41.4% and 40.5% respectively.Related to adequacy of professionals, 77.8 % disagree on the existence of sufficient amount of employees to do the job, 52.4% agree that shift changes are problematic for patients. On nonpunitive response to errors, 71.7% indicate that when an event is reported it seems that the focus is on the person.On the patient safety grade of the institution, 41.6 % classified it as very good. it is concluded that there are positive points in the safety culture, and some weaknesses as a punitive culture and impaired patient safety due to work overload .

Keywords: quality of health care, health services evaluation, safety culture, patient safety, nursing team

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Authors: Viktor Müller, Ulman Lindenberger

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Neurophysiological evidence suggests that the physiological states of the system are characterized by specific network structures and network topology dynamics, demonstrating a robust interplay between network topology and function. It is also evident that interpersonal action coordination or social interaction (e.g., playing music in duets or groups) requires strong intra- and interbrain synchronization resulting in a specific hyper brain network activity across two or more brains to support such coordination or interaction. Such complex hyper brain networks can be described as multiplex or multilayer networks that have a specific multidimensional or multilayer network organization characteristic for superordinate systems and their constituents. The aim of the study was to describe multilayer hyper brain networks and synchronization patterns of guitarists playing guitar in a quartet by using electroencephalography (EEG) hyper scanning (simultaneous EEG recording from multiple brains) and following time-frequency decomposition and multilayer network construction, where within-frequency coupling (WFC) represents communication within different layers, and cross-frequency coupling (CFC) depicts communication between these layers. Results indicate that communication or coupling dynamics, both within and between the layers across the brains of the guitarists, play an essential role in action coordination and are particularly enhanced during periods of high demands on musical coordination. Moreover, multilayer hyper brain network topology and dynamical structure of guitar sounds showed specific guitar-guitar, brain-brain, and guitar-brain causal associations, indicating multilevel dynamics with upward and downward causation, contributing to the superordinate system dynamics and hyper brain functioning. It is concluded that the neuronal dynamics during interpersonal interaction are brain-wide and frequency-specific with the fine-tuned balance between WFC and CFC and can best be described in terms of multilayer multi-brain networks with specific network topology and connectivity strengths. Further sophisticated research is needed to deepen our understanding of these highly interesting and complex phenomena.

Keywords: EEG hyper scanning, intra- and interbrain coupling, multilayer hyper brain networks, social interaction, within- and cross-frequency coupling

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Authors: Sachin, Shantanu Arya, Gunjan Mehta, Md. Shamim Ansari

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The cross-modal influence of visual information on speech perception can be illustrated by the McGurk effect which is an illusion of hearing of syllable /ta/ when a listener listens one syllable, e.g.: /pa/ while watching a synchronized video recording of syllable, /ka/. The McGurk effect is an excellent tool to investigate multisensory integration in speech perception in both normal hearing and hearing impaired populations. As the visual cue is unaffected by noise, individuals with hearing impairment rely more than normal listeners on the visual cues.However, when non congruent visual and auditory cues are processed together, audiovisual interaction seems to occur differently in normal and persons with hearing impairment. Therefore, this study aims to observe the audiovisual interaction in speech perception in Cochlear Implant users compares the same with normal hearing children. Auditory stimuli was routed through calibrated Clinical audiometer in sound field condition, and visual stimuli were presented on laptop screen placed at a distance of 1m at 0 degree azimuth. Out of 4 presentations, if 3 responses were a fusion, then McGurk effect was considered to be present. The congruent audiovisual stimuli /pa/ /pa/ and /ka/ /ka/ were perceived correctly as ‘‘pa’’ and ‘‘ka,’’ respectively by both the groups. For the non- congruent stimuli /da/ /pa/, 23 children out of 35 with normal hearing and 9 children out of 35 with cochlear implant had a fusion of sounds i.e. McGurk effect was present. For the non-congruent stimulus /pa/ /ka/, 25 children out of 35 with normal hearing and 8 children out of 35 with cochlear implant had fusion of sounds.The children who used cochlear implants for less than three years did not exhibit fusion of sound i.e. McGurk effect was absent in this group of children. To conclude, the results demonstrate that consistent fusion of visual with auditory information for speech perception is shaped by experience with bimodal spoken language during early life. When auditory experience with speech is mediated by cochlear implant, the likelihood of acquiring bimodal fusion is increased and it greatly depends on the age of implantation. All the above results strongly support the need for screening children for hearing capabilities and providing cochlear implants and aural rehabilitation as early as possible.

Keywords: cochlear implant, congruent stimuli, mcgurk effect, non-congruent stimuli

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Authors: Seon-Ho Yoon, Jin-Young Choi, Dong-Jun Won

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This paper presents hierarchical operation strategies which are minimizing operation error between day ahead operation plan and real time operation. Operating power systems between centralized and decentralized approaches can be represented as hierarchical control scheme, featured as primary control, secondary control and tertiary control. Primary control is known as local control, featuring fast response. Secondary control is referred to as microgrid Energy Management System (EMS). Tertiary control is responsible of coordinating the operations of multi-microgrids. In this paper, we formulated 3 stage microgrid operation strategies which are similar to hierarchical control scheme. First stage is to set a day ahead scheduled output power of Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) which is only controllable source in microgrid and it is optimized to minimize cost of exchanged power with main grid using Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method. Second stage is to control the active and reactive power of BESS to be operated in day ahead scheduled plan in case that State of Charge (SOC) error occurs between real time and scheduled plan. The third is rescheduling the system when the predicted error is over the limited value. The first stage can be compared with the secondary control in that it adjusts the active power. The second stage is comparable to the primary control in that it controls the error in local manner. The third stage is compared with the secondary control in that it manages power balancing. The proposed strategies will be applied to one of the buildings in Electronics and Telecommunication Research Institute (ETRI). The building microgrid is composed of Photovoltaic (PV) generation, BESS and load and it will be interconnected with the main grid. Main purpose of that is minimizing operation cost and to be operated in scheduled plan. Simulation results support validation of proposed strategies.

Keywords: Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), Energy Management System (EMS), Microgrid (MG), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO)

Procedia PDF Downloads 240