Child labour and educational success in Portugal

child labour; education; child development; Portugal;

The decline in primary school enrolment in Kenya

school attendance;Kenya;economics of education;educational policy;primary education

Alliance between risk factors and grievousness of mucormycosis in patients suffering from COVID-19

Background: Mucormycosis is a black fungal mold showing a sudden surge in covid era and left as a trail of COVID-19. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that both mucormycosis and COVID-19 prey on the immunocompromised by colonizing the nose-sinuses-orbit-eye-brain.Methods: 30 patients of suspected ROCM were included which presented a gamut of red flags ranging from numbness and pain over the cheek to diminution of vision (DOV) and diplopia. Mucormycosis was confirmed by KOH mount and gadolinium-enhanced MRI. Ophthalmic assessment included visual acuity, IOP measurement, colour vision, extraocular movements, anterior and posterior segment evaluation using slit lamp and fundoscopy.Results: Risk factors being diabetes mellitus (73.3%), history of oxygen supply during hospital stay (53.3%) and hypertension (53.3%). 16/30 (53.3%) had good vision: <6/6 but >6/12. 11/30 (36.7%) had impaired vision: <6/12 but >6/60. 3/30 (10%) had poor vision: <6/60. Finding being DOV: 14 (46.7%) >chemosis: 10(33.3%) >restricted EOM: 5 (16.7%) >periorbital cellulitis: 4 (13.3%) >congestion: 4 (13.3%) >proptosis: 4 (13.3%).Conclusions: Thus, as there is a myriad of ocular manifestations, we have tried to portray the whole spectrum here. Patients with the above-mentioned risk factors must be eyed with suspicion since delay in diagnosis and appropriate management can have calamitous implications on patient survival. However, the intervention time varies depending on the various factors like availability of the resources, awareness of the patient and expertise available for diagnosis and treatment. As this disease requires a multidisciplinary approach, ophthalmic intervention should be followed by debridement of sinuses as and when required

Can a Course on Sexuality Counseling Increase Empathy when Working with Sex- and Gender-Minoritized Individuals?

This study examined whether a sexuality counseling course could increase self-perceived empathy for working with Sex and Gender minoritized (SGM)individuals. Forty-two students enrolled in a sexuality counseling course completed empathy assessments prior to starting the course and after completing it. Statistically significant increases in empathy towards gay/lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals were found (moderate to a large effect sizes). Results indicate that, at least under some circumstances, empathy levels for SGM individuals in counselors-in-training (CITs) could be increased through coursework. Increases in practitioner empathy for SGM individuals can translate into lower uniliteral termination rates and better counseling and psychotherapy outcomes

Design Fatigue Lives of Polypropylene Fibre Reinforced Polymer Concrete Composites

Flexural fatigue behavior of Poly-propylene fibre reinforced polymer concrete composites (PFRPCC) has been investigated at various stress levels and the statistical analysis of the data thus obtained has been carried out. Polymer Concrete Composite (PCC) samples without addition of any type of fibres were also tested for flexural fatigue.  Forty specimens of PCC and One hundred and Forty One specimens of PFRPCC containing 0.5%, 1.0% and 2.0% polypropylene fibres were tested in fatigue using a MTS servo controlled test system. Fatigue life distributions of PCC as well as PFRPCC are observed to approximately follow a two parameter Weibull distribution with correlation coefficient exceeding 0.9. The parameters of the Weibull distribution have been obtained by various methods. Failure probability, which is an important parameter in the fatigue design of materials, has been used to obtain the design fatigue lives for the material. Comparison of design fatigue life of PCC and PFRPCC has been carried out and it is observed that addition of fibres enhances the design fatigue life of PCC

Asynchronous and Parallel Distributed Pose Graph Optimization

We present Asynchronous Stochastic Parallel Pose Graph Optimization (ASAPP), the first asynchronous algorithm for distributed pose graph optimization (PGO) in multi-robot simultaneous localization and mapping. By enabling robots to optimize their local trajectory estimates without synchronization, ASAPP offers resiliency against communication delays and alleviates the need to wait for stragglers in the network. Furthermore, ASAPP can be applied on the rank-restricted relaxations of PGO, a crucial class of non-convex Riemannian optimization problems that underlies recent breakthroughs on globally optimal PGO. Under bounded delay, we establish the global first-order convergence of ASAPP using a sufficiently small stepsize. The derived stepsize depends on the worst-case delay and inherent problem sparsity, and furthermore matches known result for synchronous algorithms when there is no delay. Numerical evaluations on simulated and real-world datasets demonstrate favorable performance compared to state-of-the-art synchronous approach, and show ASAPP's resilience against a wide range of delays in practice.Comment: full paper with appendice

Enrollment in community based health insurance schemes in rural Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India

This paper assesses insurance uptake in three community based health insurance (CBHI) schemes located in rural parts of two of India’s poorest states and offered through women’s self-help groups (SHGs). We examine what drives uptake, the degree of inclusive practices of the schemes, and the influence of health status on enrollment. The most important finding is that a household’s socio-economic status does not appear to substantially inhibit uptake. In some cases Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) households are more likely to enroll. Second, households with greater financial liabilities find insurance more attractive. Third, access to the hospital insurance scheme (RSBY) does not dampen CBHI uptake, suggesting that the potential for greater development of insurance markets and products beyond existing ones would respond to a need. Fourth, recent episodes of illness and selfassessed health status do not influence uptake. Fifth, insurance coverage is prioritized within households, with the household head, the spouse of the household head and both male and female children of the household head, more likely to be insured as compared to other relatives. Sixth, offering insurance through women’s SHGs appears to mitigate concerns about the inclusiveness and sustainability of CBHI schemes. Given the pan-Indian spread of SHGs, offering insurance through such groups offers the potential to scale-up CBHI