3-D Oropharyngeal Airway Analysis of Different Antero-Posterior and Vertical Craniofacial Skeletal Patterns in Children and Adolescents

Sleep apnea disorder has recently emerged as a significant public health issue. While the prevalence of obesity is on the rise among children, it is one of the main risk factors associated with apnea. Upper airway dimensions and morphology seem to be major components of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and can be affected by different craniofacial patterns. The purpose of this retrospective, cross-sectional pilot study is to correlate gender, Body Mass Index, risk for OSA, neck circumference, and 3-D oropharyngeal airway dimensions in children and adolescents with different antero-posterior (AP) and vertical craniofacial skeletal patterns. A total of 86 pre-orthodontic treatment records in the age group of 8-16 years were analyzed. 3-D volumetric skeletal tracing and oropharyngeal airway measurements were completed for each scan. Each subject was classified into AP Classes I, II, and III groups; vertical Normodivergent, Hypodivergent, and Hyperdivergent groups; and combined AP-vertical subgroups. Oropharyngeal airway measurements included the total oropharyngeal airway volume, minimum cross-section area, depth, width, and perimeter. Mean, standard deviation, and Pearson\u27s correlation coefficient were performed to evaluate the relationships among variables. There were one or more correlations, but not all, between gender, Body Mass Index, risk for OSA, neck circumference, and 3-D oropharyngeal airway dimensions in children and adolescents among the AP groups, vertical groups, and nine craniofacial subgroups (P \u3c 0.05 and P \u3c 0.01). This investigation aimed to determine whether patients with certain skeletal deficiencies are predisposed to upper airway obstruction. Early identification and management of airway problems in children and adolescents may prevent or minimize the sequelae and adverse dental implications of obstructive sleep apnea. Our small, young groups of sample were mainly in the healthy weight category with normal size neck circumference. Therefore, this limited our overall findings. Currently, sleep disorders are not well researched and understood. Long-term goal of our study is to further investigate this study in larger sample size taken into considerations predisposing factors (i.e. abnormal neural regulation and intrinsic muscle weakness) and pathologic conditions (allergies, polyps, and tumors). The physiology of the airway, influenced by these confounding factors, has an essential role in determining whether patients with certain skeletal deficiencies are predisposed to upper airway obstruction. Sleep apnea is a complex phenomenon that warrants further research regarding the physiology and anatomy of the airway and craniofacial structures

Improving the tensile strength of carbon nanotube spun yarns using a modified spinning process

A modified process for the dry spinning of carbon nanotube (CNT) yarn is reported. The approach gives an improved structure of CNT bundles in the web drawn from the CNT forest and in the yarn produced from the twisted web leading to improved mechanical properties of the yarn. The process enables many different mechanical and physical treatments to be applied to the individual stages of the pure CNT spinning system, and may allow potential for the development of complex spinning processes such as polymer–CNT-based composite yarns. The tensile strength and yarn/web structure of yarn spun using this approach have been investigated and evaluated using standard tensile testing methods along with scanning electron microscopy. The experimental results show that the tensile properties were significantly improved. The effect of heat treatments and other yarn constructions on the tensile properties are also reported

TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD BLENDED TEACHING APPLIED IN EFL CLASSROOM

Blended teaching has recently attracted a lot of attention from educators and researchers worldwide. In Vietnam, blended teaching has been applied at various universities in different forms. However, few studies have been conducted to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions of the use of blended teaching in Vietnam. The current study used a questionnaire to explore the perceptions of thirty EFL teachers from a large university in Vietnam. Findings reveal that EFL teachers gain various benefits and encounter different challenges when applying blended teaching in their classrooms.  Article visualizations

EFL UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD BLENDED TEACHING

While blended teaching is increasingly becoming popular in higher education all over the world, the concept has recently been paid attention to in Vietnam’s context. However, under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic online teaching and blended teaching suddenly become a popular trend in Vietnamese higher education. Few studies have been conducted to explore topics related to blended learning in Vietnam and the current study was conducted to fill such a gap. This study focuses on exploring English-majored students’ perceptions toward the benefits and challenges of blended leaching in EFL classes. Participants included 440 English-majored students ranging from 18 to 22 years old coming from three study majors namely English Teacher Education, English Language Studies and English Interpretation and Translation in a multi-disciplinary university of 56 years old in Vietnam. Findings reveal that students perceived that blended learning offers them various benefits as well as some challenges. Suggestions are proposed to enhance blended learning for English-majored students in Vietnam and elsewhere.  Article visualizations

SUGGESTIONS FOR PROMOTING STUDENTS’ PARTICIPATION IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSES: STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS

EFL high school students’ low level of participation is reported as a problem commonly found in English speaking classes. This study aims to investigate high school students’ perceptions of suggestions for promoting students’ participation in English speaking classes. Questionnaires and interviews were employed as data collection instruments of the study. 206 EFL high school students from three grades in a high school in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam responded to the questionnaire and then 6 of them participated in the semi-structured interview sessions. The results strongly endorsed that “promote students’ self-confidence”, “make learning tasks stimulating and the way teachers present tasks”, “establish a supportive and caring relationship”, and “create a pleasant classroom climate” were significant strategies promoting students’ participation. The results of the study are expected to contribute to the comprehension of teachers’ strategies to enhance students’ participation in English speaking classes. Article visualizations

Strategy For Academic-Community Collaboration: Enabled And Supported By The Development Of An Open-Source Web Service

To cope with the challenges of economic turbulence in many small communities in U.S. and other parts of the world, this paper aims to propose an academic-community collaboration strategy to improve education, enhance workforce development, foster social community development, and facilitate economic development in a community. Based on the Design Science framework, the proposed academic-community collaboration strategy is presented based on the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach and value-chain analysis, and supported by our proposed open-source IT infrastructure, including a showcase of web service called Community Development Collaboration Service (CDCS). This web service functions as a central portal that identifies available services and resources, disseminate areas of needs, and then match the resources and the needs appropriately and efficiently within a community, with the support and promotion from local universities that the community can trust. Our preliminary survey findings suggest that most of the potential users find the overall content quality and perceived usefulness of the CDCS good or excellent. Implications, limitations and future improvement of the CDCS are presented in the paper

An evaluation of paediatric medicines reconciliation at hospital discharge into the community

OBJECTIVE: A UK national survey of primary care physicians has indicated that the medication information on hospital discharge summary was incomplete or inaccurate most of the time. Internationally, studies have shown that hospital pharmacist's interventions reduce these discrepancies in the adult population. There have been no published studies on the incidence and severity of the discrepancies of the medication prescribed for children specifically at discharge to date. The objectives of this study were to investigate the incidence, nature and potential clinical severity of medication discrepancies at the point of hospital discharge in a paediatric setting. METHODS: Five weeks prospective review of hospital discharge letters was carried out. Medication discrepancies between the initial doctor's discharge letter and finalised drug chart were identified, pharmacist changes were recorded and their severity was assessed. The setting of the review was at a London, UK paediatric hospital providing local secondary and specialist tertiary care. The outcome measures were: - incidence and the potential clinical severity of medication discrepancies identified by the hospital pharmacist at discharge. KEY FINDINGS: 142 patients (64 female and 78 males, age range 1 month - 18 years) were discharged on 501 medications. The majority of patients were under the care of general surgery and general paediatric teams. One in three discharge letters contained at least one medication discrepancy and required pharmacist interventions to rectify prior to completion. Of these, 1 in 10 had the potential for patient harm if undetected. CONCLUSIONS: Medicines reconciliation by pharmacist at discharge may be a good intervention in preventing medication discrepancies which have the potential to cause moderate harm in paediatric patients

BIOSTIMULATION METHOD IN SHORELINE CLEAN-UP-AN APPROACH OF COASTAL ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT IN RESPONSE TO OIL-SPILL HAZARD-CASE STUDY GANH RAI GULF-VIET NAM

Joint Research on Environmental Science and Technology for the Eart