The HALO Trust Activities in Kuando Kubango, Angola

The HALO Trust employs over 900 national staff with eight expatriate managers in Angola. In 2008 HALO was responsible for 47 percent of the mined area cleared and 87 percent of the mines cleared in Angola. Its recent focus has been Kuando Kubango province—one of the most heavily mined areas of Angola and also one of the least economically developed provinces. This article begins with a case study to demonstrate the local mine problem, elaborates upon the full scope of HALO’s activities, analyzes HALO’s statistical achievements toward mine reduction, and concludes with HALO’s recent successes and future prospects

Proximal aortic stiffening in Turner patients may be present before dilation can be detected : a segmental functional MRI study

Background: To study segmental structural and functional aortic properties in Turner syndrome (TS) patients. Aortic abnormalities contribute to increased morbidity and mortality of women with Turner syndrome. Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) allows segmental study of aortic elastic properties. Method: We performed Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) and distensibility measurements using CMR of the thoracic and abdominal aorta in 55 TS-patients, aged 13-59y, and in a control population (n = 38; 12-58y). We investigated the contribution of TS on aortic stiffness in our entire cohort, in bicuspid (BAV) versus tricuspid (TAV) aortic valve-morphology subgroups, and in the younger and older subgroups. Results: Differences in aortic properties were only seen at the most proximal aortic level. BAV Turner patients had significantly higher PWV, compared to TAV Turner (p = 0.014), who in turn had significantly higher PWV compared to controls (p = 0.010). BAV Turner patients had significantly larger ascending aortic (AA) luminal area and lower AA distensibility compared to both controls (all p < 0.01) and TAV Turner patients. TAV Turner had similar AA luminal areas and AA distensibility compared to Controls. Functional changes are present in younger and older Turner subjects, whereas ascending aortic dilation is prominent in older Turner patients. Clinically relevant dilatation (TAV and BAV) was associated with reduced distensibility. Conclusion: Aortic stiffening and dilation in TS affects the proximal aorta, and is more pronounced, although not exclusively, in BAV TS patients. Functional abnormalities are present at an early age, suggesting an aortic wall disease inherent to the TS. Whether this increased stiffness at young age can predict later dilatation needs to be studied longitudinally

A Database of Full Body Virtual Interactions Annotated with Expressivity Scores

Abstract Recent technologies enable the exploitation of full body expressions in applications such as interactive arts but are still limited in terms of dyadic subtle interaction patterns. Our project aims at full body expressive interactions between a user and an autonomous virtual agent. The currently available databases do not contain full body expressivity and interaction patterns via avatars. In this paper, we describe a protocol defined to collect a database to study expressive full-body dyadic interactions. We detail the coding scheme for manually annotating the collected videos. Reliability measures for global annotations of expressivity and interaction are also provided

Defining elite athletes: Issues in the study of expert performance in sport psychology

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. Objectives: There has been considerable inconsistency and confusion in the definition of elite/expert athletes in sport psychology research, which has implications for studies conducted in this area and for the field as a whole. This study aimed to: (i) critically evaluate the ways in which recent research in sport psychology has defined elite/expert athletes; (ii) explore the rationale for using such athletes; and (iii) evaluate the conclusions that research in this field draws about the nature of expertise. Design: Conventional systematic review principles were employed to conduct a rigorous search and synthesise findings. Methods: A comprehensive literature search of SPORTDiscus, Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES was completed in September, 2013 which yielded 91 empirical studies published between 2010 and 2013. The primarily qualitative findings were analysed thematically. Results: Eight ways of defining elite/expert athletes were identified, ranging from Olympic champions to regional level competitors and those with as little as two years of experience in their sport. Three types of rationale were evident in these studies (i.e., "necessity", "exploratory" and "superior"); while findings also indicated that some elite athletes are psychologically idiosyncratic and perhaps even dysfunctional in their behaviour. Finally, only 19 of the 91 included studies provided conclusions about the nature of expertise in sport. Conclusions: This study suggests that the definitions of elite athletes vary on a continuum of validity, and the findings are translated into a taxonomy for classifying expert samples in sport psychology research in future. Recommendations are provided for researchers in this area

Influence of socioeconomic factors on pregnancy outcome in women with structural heart disease

OBJECTIVE: Cardiac disease is the leading cause of indirect maternal mortality. The aim of this study was to analyse to what extent socioeconomic factors influence the outcome of pregnancy in women with heart disease.  METHODS: The Registry of Pregnancy and Cardiac disease is a global prospective registry. For this analysis, countries that enrolled ≥10 patients were included. A combined cardiac endpoint included maternal cardiac death, arrhythmia requiring treatment, heart failure, thromboembolic event, aortic dissection, endocarditis, acute coronary syndrome, hospitalisation for cardiac reason or intervention. Associations between patient characteristics, country characteristics (income inequality expressed as Gini coefficient, health expenditure, schooling, gross domestic product, birth rate and hospital beds) and cardiac endpoints were checked in a three-level model (patient-centre-country).  RESULTS: A total of 30 countries enrolled 2924 patients from 89 centres. At least one endpoint occurred in 645 women (22.1%). Maternal age, New York Heart Association classification and modified WHO risk classification were associated with the combined endpoint and explained 37% of variance in outcome. Gini coefficient and country-specific birth rate explained an additional 4%. There were large differences between the individual countries, but the need for multilevel modelling to account for these differences disappeared after adjustment for patient characteristics, Gini and country-specific birth rate.  CONCLUSION: While there are definite interregional differences in pregnancy outcome in women with cardiac disease, these differences seem to be mainly driven by individual patient characteristics. Adjustment for country characteristics refined the results to a limited extent, but maternal condition seems to be the main determinant of outcome

Étude longitudinale du lien entre conscience phonologique et habiletés orthographiques selon la consistance orthographique

La littérature scientifique abonde d’études relatives à l’apprentissage du langage écrit, et notamment à l’acquisition de l’orthographe. Les chercheurs s’accordent sur l’importance de la conscience phonologique comme prédicteur des habiletés orthographiques dans les langues alphabétiques. Cependant, peu de données existent au sujet de l’influence de la consistance orthographique sur la relation entre la conscience phonologique et les habiletés orthographiques. Dans une perspective longitudinale, 28 élèves francophones ont été évalués à deux reprises, à un an d’intervalle. En troisième maternelle, les épreuves contrôles et la tâche de conscience phonologique ont été présentées. En première primaire, la conscience phonologique a de nouveau été évaluée. De plus, les élèves ont effectué une dictée de pseudo-mots et une dictée de mots de consistance orthographique variable (mots consistants, mots inconsistants dérivables et mots inconsistants non dérivables). Premièrement, les résultats confirment que les performances en orthographe lexicale dépendent de la consistance orthographique des mots à écrire. Les mots consistants sont mieux orthographiés que les mots inconsistants, suite à un recours quasi exclusif à la voie d’assemblage. Deuxièmement, comme attendu, les habiletés en conscience phonologique en troisième maternelle prédisent les résultats de la dictée en première année. Par contre, en première primaire, la conscience phonémique prédit le mieux les performances orthographiques. Troisièmement, la corrélation entre la conscience phonémique et l’orthographe varie selon la consistance orthographique des mots écrits. En effet, elle est plus élevée lorsqu’il s’agit de mots inconsistants dérivables que de mots consistants. Ces résultats ont permis de soulever l’existence d’un lien entre les habiletés phonologiques et la sensibilité morphologique. A la lumière des résultats, nous pouvons confirmer la corrélation entre les habiletés en conscience phonologique et la production écrite. Cependant, ce lien varie en fonction du niveau scolaire de l’enfant ainsi que de la consistance orthographique des mots écrits.Master [120] en logopédie, Université catholique de Louvain, 201