Management of fever in children under 5 years of age within paediatric emergency department

Background Fever is one of the commonest reasons for presentation to healthcare services. It is often a cause of concern for parents and can be diagnostically challenging for healthcare professionals. Abiding by established guidelines on fever management is therefore of utmost importance to ensure proper use of antipyretics within the community. Objectives This audit aimed to assess the management of children aged up to 5 years presenting with fever to the Paediatric Emergency Department at Mater Dei Hospital, including assessing awareness of NICE guidelines on fever management amongst paediatric doctors and nurses. Method Data was collected from Paediatric Emergency Department Assessment Sheets for January 2017. An online questionnaire based on the NICE guidelines for fever management in children under 5 years was distributed to staff working within the Department of Child and Adolescent Health. Results 255 children aged up to 5 years presented with fever at the Paediatric Emergency Department in January 2017. 22.7% of children were aged between 24 months up to 3 years. The average time for first medical contact was 51 minutes. 23.9% presented with fever of 1 day duration. Respiratory rate was not recorded in 62% of cases whilst blood pressure was only recorded in 19.1% where applicable. Antipyretics were given in 73.8% of febrile cases despite distress only being documented in 6.8%. Conclusion More education is required on proper antipyretic use and pre-discharge advice. Routine measurement and documentation of all parameters should be encouraged both on initial assessment and pre-discharge.peer-reviewe

The Pragmatics of Person and Imperatives in Sign Language of the Netherlands

We present new evidence against a grammatical distinction between second and third person in Sign Language of The Netherlands (NGT). More precisely, we show how pushing this distinction into the domain of pragmatics helps account for an otherwise puzzling fact about the NGT imperative: not only is it used to command your addressee, it can also express ‘non-addressee-oriented commands’

Predicting mechanical properties of enhanced performance concrete using compressive strength

Mechanical properties of concrete are usually evaluated from compressive strength test results. Extensive literature, codes and regulations recommend the prediction of mechanical properties such as splitting and flexural tensile strength using the compressive strength of cylindrical specimens. These expressions are not related with the type of concrete and, generally, are only a function of the cylindrical compressive strength. It is the objective of this research work to investigate the validity of the existing relationships for enhanced performance concrete, obtained by replacing cement with fly ash for up to 60% in weight. The experimental program investigated the effect of replacing cement with fly ash on the mechanical properties, i.e. compressive strength, splitting-tensile strength and flexural-tensile behaviour. Results obtained show that, in most cases, a good linear correlation exists between the evaluated mechanical properties, i.e. splitting-tensile strength, flexural-tensile strength and elasticity modulus in flexure, and the square root of compressive strength. This further indicates that an increase in the compressive strength produces a less pronounced increase of the tensile strength

Gestão de resíduos de construção e demolição

Esta comunicação apresenta um estudo de gestão dos resíduos de construção e demolição na Zona Norte de Portugal. Para além da recolha de dados em documentos existentes foram feitos inquéritos e visitas às entidades que produzem e lidam com os RC&D, de forma a serem definidos aspectos como quantidades, tipos de materiais, e destinos finais dos resíduos

On the use of on-cow accelerometers for the classification of behaviours in dairy barns

Analysing behaviours can provide insight into the health and overall well-being of dairy cows. Automatic monitoring systems using e.g., accelerometers are becoming increasingly important to accurately quantify cows' behaviours as the herd size increases. The aim of this study is to automatically classify cows' behaviours by comparing leg- and neck-mounted accelerometers, and to study the effect of the sampling rate and the number of accelerometer axes logged on the classification performances. Lying, standing, and feeding behaviours of 16 different lactating dairy cows were logged for 6 h with 3D-accelerometers. The behaviours were simultaneously recorded using visual observation and video recordings as a reference. Different features were extracted from the raw data and machine learning algorithms were used for the classification. The classification models using combined data of the neck- and the leg-mounted accelerometers have classified the three behaviours with high precision (80-99%) and sensitivity (87-99%). For the leg-mounted accelerometer, lying behaviour was classified with high precision (99%) and sensitivity (98%). Feeding was classified more accurately by the neck-mounted versus the leg-mounted accelerometer (precision 92% versus 80%; sensitivity 97% versus 88%). Standing was the most difficult behaviour to classify when only one accelerometer was used. In addition, the classification performances were not highly influenced when only X, X and Z, or Z and Y axes were used for the classification instead of three axes, especially for the neck-mounted accelerometer. Moreover, the accuracy of the models decreased with about 20% when the sampling rate was decreased from 1 Hz to 0.05 Hz

The application of compressive sampling to radio astronomy I: Deconvolution

Compressive sampling is a new paradigm for sampling, based on sparseness of signals or signal representations. It is much less restrictive than Nyquist-Shannon sampling theory and thus explains and systematises the widespread experience that methods such as the H\"ogbom CLEAN can violate the Nyquist-Shannon sampling requirements. In this paper, a CS-based deconvolution method for extended sources is introduced. This method can reconstruct both point sources and extended sources (using the isotropic undecimated wavelet transform as a basis function for the reconstruction step). We compare this CS-based deconvolution method with two CLEAN-based deconvolution methods: the H\"ogbom CLEAN and the multiscale CLEAN. This new method shows the best performance in deconvolving extended sources for both uniform and natural weighting of the sampled visibilities. Both visual and numerical results of the comparison are provided.Comment: Published by A&A, Matlab code can be found: http://code.google.com/p/csra/download

Viabilidade económica de uma central de tratamento de resíduos de construção e demolição

Comunicação apresentada no Encontro Novas Problemáticas para Gestão dos Resíduos, Beja, Dezembro de 2004.Nesta comunicação apresenta-se um estudo económico e de viabilidade duma central de reciclagem de resíduos de construção e demolição (RCD) a ser implantada na Zona Norte de Portugal. Começa-se por fazer a definição da central incluindo implantação e funcionamento interno para produção de agregados de reciclagem para utilização na construção civil. Depois, com base em vários cenários considerados, faz-se a avaliação económica e o estudo de viabilidade da central

The mechanical properties of braided reinforced composites for application in concrete structures

The current work is concerned with the development of braided reinforced composites for civil engineering applications. The research study aims at understanding the mechanical behaviour of core reinforced braided fabrics. Various samples have been produced using polyester fibres, for the production of the braided fabrics, and glass, carbon, polyethylene and sisal fibres, for the core reinforcement. The results of the tensile tests carried out in the various samples of reinforced braided fabrics obtained are presented and discussed. Moreover, the influence of the testing conditions and of the braiding angle are also studied. In order to produce braided reinforced composite rods to be used as concrete reinforcement, a special technique has been developed using a standard vertical braiding machine. The tensile and bending properties of braided reinforced composite rods have been evaluated and the results obtained are presented, discussed and compared with those of conventional materials, such as steel

Qualité des modèles : retours d'expériences

National audienceAvec la complexification des systèmes d'information (systèmes ubiquitaires, entreprises ouvertes etc.), de nombreux nouveaux langages de modélisation sont proposés. Face à ce développement de langages spécifiques, on peut s'interroger sur la qualité des modèles qui en sont issus. Cet article traite de ce problème en tirant les leçons de nos expériences passées. Elles mettent en évidence les besoins d'outillage automatisé pour l'évaluation de la qualité de modèles, la participation conjointe des différentes parties prenantes dans le processus d'évaluation, et la nécessité d'envisager une véritable ingénierie des langages et des modèles centrée sur l'humain